Eventually, we all did have to say “farewell” to Nags Head…but we returned home eager to begin the next phase in post-production!

(Alternate title for this post: Spenser Special III!)

Three weeks into production in the Outer Banks, and we had yet to film an ocean!  So we said ”good-bye” to Debo and  traded the dunes at Jockey’s Ridge for…the dunes at Hatteras National Seashore!  What we lost in tons of sand…we gained in wind.  (It’s just one thing after another with these islands!)  And it just so happened that Daylight Savings Time began that week, so our call time became 6 a.m. in order to be ready before the sun came up so that we didn’t waste any daylight.    Ahh…we did see some beautiful sunrises, though.

(Sunrise at Hatteras.)

(Micah had the right idea!)

(Lee)

(Chris tosses a sandbag.)

(Our main source of light and a huge budget-saver: mirror boards.)

(The camera team: Eric C., Nate, and Andrew)

(We may have had enough fun in the surf and sand after this trip…!)

(Mirror boards + bird)

(Eric B. and his new pet)

(A few member of our small mirror board army.)

(Another lovely sunrise…)

Photos by Tyler Capps

The third week of production meant big sets and a group of amazing extras.  Bob and Jinx drove up from ACME in Asheville at the end of week 2 to set up the Slip Gate and the space ship, and we went on a treasure hunt all around the island to find the newest competitors in Sol Invictus.  The sun even graced us with her presence!  Many thanks to ACME, the guys of First Flight High School, and Jake #2, who flew in from L.A. to help us out!  And now, without further ado, I give you…(drumroll)…more incredible photos from Tyler Capps.

(Jake, playing ”Lee,” and Co. arrive at the Slip Gate.)

(The Slip Gate)

(”Ira,” “Kit,” and “Adrian” at the Slip Gate.)

(The last set-up in week 3, one of the last scenes in the movie, and we’re the last ones in the park…)

(Jinx and Eric A. prepare for the wing-raising.)

(Yes, indeed that was a boat…)

(Ta-dah!  The wing is raised!  The entire crew helped pull this one off.)

(Then we had to tie and double-tie everything down so that the crashed space ship would stay crashed and not decide to take off.)

(Jinx secures a line.)

(Julie works her magic with the sand.)

(Julie was the last one on set so that the sand didn’t get messed up.)

(The crew double-checks the supports for the wing.)

(Julie used a leaf-blower to get smooth sand, ASAP.)

(Bob, the ship’s architect.)

(Action!)

(”Tyl,” “Eli,” “Kit,” “Hal” and “Lex” find the space ship.)

(New scene at the ship.)

We filmed several scenes with the extras on the summits of the big dunes at Jockey’s Ridge for some very grand wide shots, which also made for some epic pictures!

(The cast and crew have the dune to themselves.)

(Chris)

(Mel)

Photos by Tyler Capps

Spense  kidnapped my camera again during week 3 of production to show you our cool spaceship that the guys at ACME brought up from Asheville.  (You probably recognize pieces of it from photos during pre-production.)  The reason you don’t see many people hanging around that giant wing sticking up in the air is because, as you’ve probably heard us say before, the wind is vicious in the OBX, and that ship could have taken off in flight at any moment!  Wouldn’t that have been fun?!  I guess we could have saved some money on special FX if that had happened…

(Spenser really does make anything on set seem cool, doesn’t he?  Just ignore the goofy girl waving at the camera, please.)

Our actors got pretty creative in their free time, however limited it might have been…Take a look at the cool thing to do at Jockey’s Ridge!

Even the art team got in on the action!

(This may or may not make it into the final cut of Sol…)

Photos by Tyler Capps

Hello, everyone!  Here is the first of a few videos from production that never made  it up on the blog.  Our good man Sky, who plays Lex, spent a lovely afternoon with my camera to give you a little taste of life on set for our actors.  Thanks, Sky!

Hello, everyone!  It’s Sara.  Just wanted to let you all know that production wrapped this past weekend, and we have lived to tell the tale!  We have officially finished shooting on the OC’s first feature film!  Those from California and New York have had safe returns, and the rest of us are glad to be back at home in WNC.  We are settling back into our regular routine and preparing to begin the  editing process in a few days.  We will continue to add posts throughout the post-production process, but I still have a few videos left over from production, so watch out for those, too!  I’d like to send out a huge “thank you” to everyone who survived through production with us…We appreciate your help and cooperation, more than we can say.  Talk to you all again soon!

Well, we’ve managed to make it to the fourth and final week of production, which means that we must say “good-bye” to Jockey’s Ridge, and “hello” to Cape Hatteras!  We packed up all of our gear and set pieces tonight that we had hidden in various places around the park, and in true Jockey’s Ridge fashion, it was windy and rainy all day.  However, we are so appreciative of the park for letting us invade their big piles of sand for three weeks, and we can’t say “thank you” enough to the staff for being so patient for our crazy requests.  Even so, here are a few of the things we are most thankful for:

Thank you for letting us plug our batteries into your wall under the little table in the office.

Thank you for the light in the pavilion.

Thank you for the Polaris.

Thank you for your public restrooms.

Thank you for your sound-side parking lot.

Thank you for that truck-sized parking spot next to the pavilion. 

And for one last “hurrah,” I leave you with a little taste of what life was like in the dunes.  Basically, for one of our locations, we had to lug our gear over more than 1/2 mile of sand. It took about 10 minutes to walk the distance, and carrying our equipment is never easy, even in normal circumstances.  (For example…a large generator.)  And of course, no crew member ever walked the trail there and back only once a day.  The good news is…we all lived to tell the tale!  Happy trails, to you.