Weekend Update

Well, first let me say that I don't know if all the planets aligned, or if God was smiling on me, but the date did not happen. I asked Josh if his wife, Carrie, had still planned for us all to go out Sunday night. He said that she hadn't mentioned it since last Sunday. So I didn't bring it up. Carrie had to work Sunday evening. And it was never brought up again. But somehow I don't think I got out of it that easily -- problems like that don't just go away that simply.
What else? Well, without a date to worry about Josh and I were able to work on our film. Josh and I accomplished a lot Sunday, filmwise. His brother, Jordan, and Jordan’s wife, Hannah, offered to help us, so we got together Sunday around 2PM and headed to our first location to film a few exterior shots for our short comedy. These shots had to take place in a parking lot, outside of a bookstore. So we drove to the Summit and parked at the far end of the parking lot; we were considerate of the fact that there were many folks coming and going and with this being the holiday season, there would be a lot more folks than usual out shopping.
So there we were, trying to work around other people. Most folks were good humored, and so things went well -- it was like the perfect set -- buildings, cars, extras.
It was overcast and somewhat windy, but that was okay because we planned to film the rest at night, inside Josh’s car. So with the sun quickly disappearing, we didn’t worry too much. Josh did worry about whether or not security would run us out. See, we were filming "guerrilla style" -- meaning we had not asked anyone if we could actually film in the parking lot. I figured that as long as we did it quickly and stayed out of folks’ way, we would be okay, but Josh wasn’t sure. I don’t know if I was just pumped up that we were actually working on something new or what, but I felt uncharacteristically bold. I was like, "Forget it, who cares? What is the worst they can do? Tell us to leave? Then we will leave. But till they do let’s film as much as we can." Jordan and Hannah agreed and we got all the shots we needed.
Then I added, "Just remember, if anyone asks, we are shooting a student film." That was always our excuse, because for some reason if you say you are a student working on a student film, people find that neat and fascinating and leave you alone. It’s almost like a golden ticket to do what you want. Most of the time anyway.
Josh then wanted to film a few shots of me and him getting into his car, but the light was slowly fading and so we decided to move to another part of the Summit parking area, under one of the light poles, which were on and beginning to illuminate the lot. So we pulled into a spot where there were few cars around (amazingly) and set up to get our last shots before we headed back to Josh’s apartment to film the interior shots of his car.
As we are about to get our last shot, a bike cop cruises up to us. "Anything wrong?"
Still being in the bold frame of mind that I was, I piped up our pre-prepared statement: "No, we are just shooting a film for school, a student film."
"Oh, cool. Well, sometimes people have accidents here and film it for insurance purposes."
"No, no", we laughed. "Nothing like that."
"So", he continued, "what’s it about?" Josh gave an explanation as he continued setting up.
"Where do you go to school?" he asked us. Okay, we had never been asked that one before. We hadn’t prepared for this little white lie to go to this level.Everyone else just stood there.
Uh...The bike cop seemed really cool, and he was. Very friendly, young guy. His easy-goingdemeanor gave me an extra shot of confidence. There was certainly no turning back now!So I start to answer, somewhat sheepishly, "Jeff State." But at the exact same moment, Josh says, "UAB."I almost fainted. It was almost like something out of a sit com.
Josh simply turned back to his camera. Jordan and Hannah continued to stand there and say nothing, leaving me, Mr. Bold, to hang by a thread. But, as Jordan later commented, I bounced back and recovered quite nicely.
"Well", I tried to laugh casually, "He (meaning Josh) goes to UAB. I go to Jeff State. We’re working on it together." The bike cop seemed to buy it, and then the conversation (thankfully) turned to his job and shoppers and all that. I was ready to crawl in a hole. We had pressed our luck. Let’s get this shot and get out!But the cop was very friendly and wanted to talk about his family too. And life in the military, which Josh was keen to explore. Which was okay, as long as we didn’t have to lie anymore. But we were losing precious time and I really didn’t want to carry on this discussion anymore. So we tried to wrap it up with a sort of, "Well, guess we better get this done." Sort of thing.
Then he asked me what I was majoring in. "Art", I said very confidently. Which was only a half lie cause at UAB I did take two semesters of Art.
He asked Jordan what he was taking in school. Jordan answered, without missing a beat,"Biology." (Which was so not true. I don't think he is even in school.)
"Oh", asked the bike cop, "what do you plan to do with it?"Jordan seemed at a loss for words. This guy must have been onto us. He was asking way too many questions. If he had asked us for student ID we would have been screwed. But thankfully he didn't. As I said, he was really nice and talkative. I almost wished he would have just told us we needed to leave.
Before Jordan could stammer, I jumped in quickly with a joking reply. "Oh, Jordan is a bum, he doesn't do anything." We all laughed, secretly breathed a sigh of relief, and begged God to make this guy go away. We were not planning on this long string of white lies. We weren't hurting anyone. We just wanted to get one more shot and we would go.
Well, we did want one more shot up at the coffee shop. And this guy was so nice and we were getting away with this string of lies so well, that I said, "Well, we need to get this done. We do want one more up at the Joe Muggs over there, but that is all."
"Okay", he smiled, "but just be careful, the guy who patrols over there can be like Rambo sometimes." We laughed, he biked away, and we all stared at each other and started breathing again. We are all terrible liars. Which I guess is a good thing. Sometimes anyway!
"Okay", I announced, "from now on, we get our lies straight!"
Jordan swore the guy was onto us the whole time and was just being cool. I tend to think that he was so busy talking to us about his own life -- he seemed glad to have people around his own age to talk to for some reason -- that the little inconsistencies in our story probably didn't hit him until he got home that night. Either way, it was rather exciting.
We got our shots, we moved on, and back at Josh's apartment we got most of the filming finished. We have a few more shots to do next Sunday, editing, and any music we will need. Josh and I think it's funny. It was great to do something where he and I could act together. We cracked ourselves up. Don't know if anyone else will laugh. But we sure did.