A year had passed and so had all the hype and buzz regarding this cool new project Rob and Nic were doing. But the project had barely made progress. And our full crew of volunteers’ and truckloads of free equipment rentals were available no more. It was up to just Nic and I at this point so we went through the script one page at a time to find the easiest possible scene in the whole move. Elaborate sets were required for almost every scene but then we found the one scene that takes place in a basement. …We have a basement!  

 

                 Unlike the library scene, we were shooting on HD now. Not GOOD HD but HD non the less. HDV 1080i on a mini DV camcorder if you want to get technical. We shot three different segments that summer. All in Nic’s basement in N Portland. Two of these scenes can be seen in the final film. Both are flashbacks to Neil Stryker’s younger years which worked well for believability considering I was a younger person when we shot them and it shows.  

 

                 The segment that was later re-shot in 2010, ‘The birth of time travel’, was shot well enough but my vision for the scene had evolved and I always felt we cut too many corners on this bit on the first go around. This was one of the most important parts of the story to me and it required much more attention on our part. The first view of the time portal HAD to be breath taking. By the first public screening, I still didn’t have it quite right. I finally had it about a week after. There is no doubt in my mind that no other shot in the movie clocked in as many hours’ labor on the vfx. And I can still complain about it all day. Ya gotta know when to say “it’s good enough.” But, even more important, you gotta know when to keep fighting to get the shot up to your standards. I had to do this. And we can see why.