I Love Assawoman

Well I'm back in the city after a weekend of shooting and then a week in the sun. I needed both badly. I find myself much more relaxed now, but the familiar headache and lack of appetite that accompanies my living here is already setting in.

The movie I shot in Delaware was amazing. I am so glad that I went through with it all. From Friday to Sunday, everything aligned perfectly. It was a very long weekend but it was well worth it, (I haven't seen the footage yet, but I have high hopes). It was a great learning experience for me to be on the other side of film making. Though, unfortunately I believe that my acting suffered since I was producing and co-directing on set, but I did the best I could in my present mindset.

On Saturday, after a breakfast of coffee, OJ, bagels, and donuts (my plan of waking up early and making the cast and crew a three course breakfast failed miserably), we piled into a couple vehicles and made our way over to the Assawoman Bay (yes, that's it's real name). There, we picked up the boat that I had reserved only to find that it was a much smaller version of the one that I had ordered. When I questioned this, I was told that since we only had 5 people they had to keep the larger boat for larger parties. Oh helllll no. This is where my living in New York came in handy. Three years ago, I probably would have smiled and said I understood and tried to make do with a boat that was too small. But when you live in a city where you have to fight to get by everyday, your "survival of the fittest" mentatility kicks in.

Me: We need the larger boat because as I said on the phone, we are making a film and have all of this film equipment that will simply not fit on the boat you are offering.

Boat Lady: Yeah, but the owner said we need to keep the larger boat in case a bigger party comes.

Me: (somewhat aggressive now) Well I wish someone would have told me this before because we would have taken our business elsewhere. (Monster begins to come out). We just can't use this boat at all and we have a film to make so we NEED the bigger boat NOW.

BL (who looks like a mere teenager) exchanges looks with Hot Boat Guy (who is probably way too young for me to be calling hot).

BL: Umm, can we switch around another party?

HBG: Umm . . . we can work it out. Let me take you to your boat Miss.

Whew, first crisis averted. And possibly only because everyone is so damn nice in Delaware that they didn't know what to do with the Crazed New Yorker in front of them.

The rest of the day in the bay went by smoothly, with the exception of a bit of a jellyfish issue (one of the actresses couldn't bear going in the water with so many jellyfish surrounding her, which is understandable), and the excessive sunburns that we are all enduring over a week later. My back is peeling so much that I look like I have a skin disease. And as I am typing this, a flake from my chest just fell on the computer. Yummy.

The biggest problem of all is that we caught an awesome amount of crabs (probably around 25) but they all died. The BF tells me I shouldn't tell anyone this little snippet because PETA will come after me, but they all died by accident and we were going to eat them anyway, so their fate was pretty much the same. This crisis was averted by going to a nearby market and buying a bushel of live crabs to steam. Which brought on another problem.

As I was finishing up a scene outside on a dock, I yelled into the beach house to ask one of the actresses to take the crabs off the steamer. Big mistake. 20 minutes later, I come inside to find her in tears with a second degree burn. It looked disgusting- I can only imagine how horrible it must have felt. But she carried on like a champ and made it through the rest of the shoot.

This entry is getting way to long so I'll just go on to say that Sunday went smoothly and I felt a huge wave of relief wash over me as soon as we wrapped.

Yes, it was an amazing experience. I'm already thinking of a plot for my next one . . . Maybe "Revenge of the Assawoman."