Return to home page
:: Updates
:: Film Forum
:: Link to Us

A film homage made possible by fans around the globe
Tomb Raider and Lara Croft are trademarks of Eidos Interactive / Core Design
This is an independent, non-profit, artistic expression created purely for fun.

Website by
Granted Wish Studios


Rated PG-13 for frank language // WARNING: MOVIE SPOILERS BELOW... //

Shooting Day 15

Stardate: Yesterday (hahahahaha ! Got ya !)
ACTUAL SHOOTING DATE: Friday, August 12th, 2005

This weekend is a huge one. In fact, we're about to go film Shooting Day 16 in 2 short hours. Right now I figure I would write the Directors Log for Day 15 while it's still fresh in my mind......

The night before Val went to her mom's about an hour out from Los Angeles to pick up a big, leaning ladder for the shoot this morning. Her friend loaded and strapped it down into a pickup truck and the ladder seems good to go. She calls me about 10:30pm, and the first words I hear out of her mouth were, "OH MY GOD the ladder just flew out the back of the truck onto the freeway, I'm gonna go get it !"

CLICK.

Oh crap ! What?!! What just happened?? Thoughts of my best friend playing chicken with on coming freeway traffic while trying to get a ladder into a truck raced through my mind. What happened was as she took the onramp to get on the freeway, she was calling me at that exact moment when the ladder fell out and onto the island/shoulder. So when she pulled over and put it back in she wasn't in the middle of the freeway.

I call till I get through and she says she got it but it started to fall out again. The second time the ladder started teetering and bouncing around toward the side. Luckily a trucker behind her saw this and stopped traffic with his Rig so she could pull over. Now she was on the side of the road, trying to figure out how to get home.

Eventually she was able to engineering it so it was held down tighter and drove extremely slow back home. We were thankful that one, the ladder didn't hit anyone or any car. And two, Val was safe and sound.

So this morning at 5 am, I arose to make the trek down to the park to film, Lara's Training Course.

Hell yeah !!

You hardcores know what I'm talking about. When you play the game you can train at Lara's Obstacle Course.

Val, being the genius that she is, found us a 3 story high (really freakin' high up for people who don't use the metric system) wooden wall - straight out of the game.

It had hand and footholds on it like Indoor Rock Climbing. We just needed a few seconds of her climbing up to add in the manor montage. (yes Bex, the one you are doing music for).

There are so many game references in this movie, it's crazy.

So Val and I set up the ladder to get up to this wall. Because you can't get to it any other way - it starts too high up.

Val started to climb the wall.

I swear, all I needed was a Playstation controller and I was playing the games again. We got some shots of her and then she came down.

Now time for the money shot. Standing southwest of this behemoth wall was a telephone pole thing, with rungs built into it, leading up to a small perch up top.

Val and I brought the ladder over to the pole so I could reach the rungs. I began to climb up, Camera and Camera bag in tow. I got up safely, but if I made the slightest move, that perch swayed a bit from my weight. I was that high.

Now Val got into Wonder Woman mode and dragged the heavy ass ladder over to the wall by herself, set it up again and climbed BACK up to the wall.

So there I am, really, really high up, balancing on a perch no bigger than a kitchen chair and there is Valerie, climbing a wall with NO SAFETY ROPES, or WIRES.

She got back down after a few shots and dragged the ladder back over to me, cause I couldn't get down without it.

Tired but relieved no one broke anything we grinned and loaded up the truck.

It looks freaking sweet. In Hollywood, this same set up would've taken all day and they would had the luxury of wires and crane shots and all that crap. We DON'T have that same luxury on this movie. We risk our well being and good health to get shots that are true to the game and character. Any haters on this movie from here on in can go fly a kite, off a cliff, into shark infested waters.

The day was far from being over. We had to go pick up the lights and second camera. We also booked over to Lacy St. to do some pre scouting for the shoot tomorrow. Val and I were stoked that we did, cause it gave us a good heads up for later.

Around 9-ish we were to meet up for the rest of the shoot. For the first time in my film "career' I was gonna work with blue screen.

Blue screen for those not in the know, is what they film actors in front of and you can digitally add any background later. Sin City was filmed entirely this way, so is probably every other flick in Hollywood.

I've never ever worked with it before but once we set it up and I lit it, I could see how cool it was gonna be. It was all close up shots of Val holstering guns and gearing up as game Lara.

Things were going well, until the condo security busted us for being in the recreation room so late at night. Now Jesse, the security guard was awesome. He let us get a few more shots and as many pictures as we could snap.

But we had to be done and clear in 15 minutes before the security cameras turned on and would get Jesse in trouble. What shoot would be complete without getting busted by the man !! YAY !!

Val and I were exhausted but very happy. I just wanted to say that when attempting your own films (you too Tony !) PLEASE be safe - safety before anything else.

We do everything we can to be safe here and so far, have been blessed. So please be careful when making your flicks.

Gotta go.

Gotta go film today.

Today will kick a**.

But I'm sure you will all get to read about it right here at this link.....