Manalive Sneak Preview

Joey Odendahl, our director, sends along this sneak preview of Manalive. It's the whole scene of which the trailer was just a taste. Kevin O'Brien, our intrepid crew and yr obdt. svt. shot this about two or three days before we wrapped in late March 2009 (it took two days to shoot). It's a pivotal moment in the formation of Innocent Smith's oddly dangerous-and-harmless childlikeness (the childlikeness is more evident in the rest of the story). We showed this scene at the 2010 Chesterton Conference and it seemed to play well. Hope you like it. Now I'm curious to see the rest of the film.  Please be kind if my acting suckage quotient is too high. If you think of it, pray for the success of the project.



When I watch this scene, I think of three things: pizza (cuz that's what we munched together at lunch), hanging around and chatting with Kevin, and sand flies (because Kevin and I went out to the coast that evening with a friend and ate al fresco at a seafood restaurant that had lots of little sand flies buzzing around). 

Here's a couple of shots of us doing the hurry up and wait routine which, as I discovered, is what shooting a scene consists of, at least for actors (the crew works all the time):

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My abiding memory of this scene is of our photographer (the guy with the hat at the bottom) crouched on a handtruck and being wheeled backward away from me as I aimed the pistol right into his camera while delivering my lines. Also, Kevin's curious transition from Serious Pessimist Thinker to channelling Don Knotts still cracks me up.  The things we do for the love of Chesterton.