Hambleton Mill – Menning Films

Today we are continuing on the behind the scenes of Gretchen’s Lock. In case you missed the other posts you can read them HERE and HERE.

Filming: Day 2

The second day of filming started out with beautiful sunshine. There was a bit of Autumn chill in the air but the sun was warm. The forecast was calling for rain in the night and a 100% chance the following day, which we’ll get into in the next post. The campsite was already set up but we had to unload the equipment and prep everything to film. After the first day we were able to consolidate some equipment and I also wanted to keep things moving quickly since we had a bunch to film.

We smoothly executed Scene 04 where the campers talked about investigating the lock further. We wrapped up around lunchtime and got the drone, vehicles, and jib ready to film the car sequence. The only thing we were missing was the 1923 Dodge Brothers Phaeton Convertible.

I looked at my watch and saw that it was an hour past when the car was supposed to arrive. I wasn’t really worried at this point because we were filming the other cars pulling into the parking lot from the road so we had some more time. We did a couple takes with the drone and jib filming the cars pulling into the parking lot off of Sprucevale Road across from Hambleton Mill.

We were finishing up and everyone started moving the equipment back to the camp. I stopped and looked down at my phone to see that I had a few texts. As I stated before, reception service is a bit spotty where we were filming. I scrolled through them and saw that Robert, the owner and driver of the 1923 Dodge, was having some issues with the car and the tire blew out. Now it was time to panic a little. I then saw that he sent the texts about two hours ago and I never responded because I just received them and he still wasn’t there. The panic level started to raise slightly. At this point everyone was back at camp and I was about to make my way down the drive and suddenly my phone rang…

To my delight it was Robert! I was at the perfect location to get a call and to my surprise he was minutes from the parking lot. How’s that for timing? My panic quickly faded and was overtaken by excitement and relief. I stayed on the phone as he turned into the parking lot. Whew! I happily greeted him and hopped in and he drove us to camp.

After everyone checked out the 1923 Dodge, Jacob (boom mic operator) and I climbed in the trunk of the Monte Carlo to get the scene of Dominic and Jason talking as they pulled into the parking lot by the campsite. There’s probably a picture out there of us snuggled in the back seat with our equipment but who knows where that is. At any rate, we got their dialogue in a couple of takes and moved on.

We began filming the parking lot scene and the clouds started rolling in and the wind picked up. There’s even a blooper of the $100 bill blowing away in the wind.

Here’s a cool still I shot of Tyler (Man in Suit) and the 1923 Dodge before Robert took it back to Cortland (This vehicle and others can be rented for events. Check out BMZ Classics for more info).

After we finished filming in the parking lot we went back camp, ate dinner, and began preparing for the night scenes. The wind was still blowing and it was sprinkling very lightly. We covered up all the gear we could with tarps to prevent it from getting wet.

This area of Beaver Creek is unique in the way the sun sets in October. It quickly goes behind the hills and sets early. Not to mention the clouds aided in the early sunset. Thanks to Pakob and Nick we had a roaring fire and began filming. I love how you can feel the warmth of the fire as the light from the flames danced on the characters faces. Also, the dark woods set the mood on how the rest of the night started to unfold in the film.

As the night continued, the sprinkles started turning into light rain and we each had an umbrella to cover some of the equipment we were using to film. The rain was absolutely perfect! Just as things started to pick up in the film the rain got heavier. It made the scenes in the woods much more creepier and I was extremely pumped to see the raindrops in the beams of the flashlights. A couple of times water droplets fell onto the lens and I left them there because they created a unique look to the footage.

Creepy, right?

We wrapped up the scenes and frantically began loading the equipment into the cars. The tarp coverage wasn’t ideal but we were lucky that none of the equipment got ruined. We were able to leave camp by 10:30 pm. On the ride home this time I couldn’t stop thinking about the weather for the next day. We contemplated a few things at dinner time about rescheduling the next days shoot but it wouldn’t have worked with everyone’s schedule. I arrived home and began to unload the equipment into the garage to dry it out. I checked the forecast that still said there was a 100% chance of rain all day. I looked around for a moment. The rain pounded hard on the roof as I stood there looking at the waterlogged equipment wondering what to do. I thought hard, prayed, and decided to wait until the next day before I made a decision…

Inception

Gretchen’s Lock was our first independent film. Both Danielle and I spent a lot of time visiting Beaver Creek State Park with family as we grew up not knowing each other. Five and a half years ago, before we got into photography and way before video, we went to explore Gretchen’s Lock for the first time together with our pug, Norris. It was an early Autumn day and there was a chill in there air. Of course, that was heightened as we approached the lock.

After exploring we made our way back to the parking lot. Jokingly we said, “Someone should make a movie about this place.” Like I said before, this is way before we even got into the industry and we didn’t remember that we talked about it until just before we started to film. Digging in the Facebook archives today we found this post that blew our mind! Seriously, this is CRAZY!!

Fast forward to last July, after photographing over 100 weddings and dabbling in a few promotional videos, I had the idea of making an independent film. I wanted to make a film about something local, something outdoors, and something relatively low budget. Beaver Creek came to mind because of its beauty and wonder. As I started to develop ideas, Gretchen’s Lock popped into my head. I began research and found out even more legends in the area that I’ve heard in passing but had never connected.

I began writing a screenplay in mid-July and finished the bulk of it sitting on the porch of a cabin in Amish country near Sugarcreek while we were on vacation in August. As soon as we returned home I quickly wanted to get things underway. I drove down to the park, hiked to Gretchen’s Lock, snapped a few photos of the lock and Hambleton’s Mill before I left and put a poster for a cast & crew call. Danielle and I joked in the evenings saying, “Who do you think we can pull into this production?” We thought maybe some family friends and perhaps a handful of people could be dragged in. After posting the cast and crew call poster our phone, email, and social media blew up with interest of people wanting to be a part of the production. I think my phone rang nonstop for 3 or 4 days! The reach of the poster was over 67,000 people! Yikes!

After sending out hundreds of emails and receiving information forms from those who were interested we narrowed down the crew members and the potential actors we’d be auditioning. We set up the auditions for September 20th, 2015 and got things moving at Beaver Creek by applying for a permit to film there and reserved the Group 3 campsite. We were blown away by some of the auditions and started to assemble the cast.

After reaching out to fill in a couple of the roles we had our team! I finished tweaking the script and we had one and only production meeting and table read. Due to the quick nature of wanting to film at the end of October, a good handful of cast and crew couldn’t make it to the meeting. Despite that fact, after the meeting I felt energized and ready to get more things rolling.

October is usually the busiest time of the year for our photography business. From weddings to family sessions to high school seniors our schedule was jam packed. What a great idea to schedule films dates in the busiest month of the year, NOT! Danielle sometimes looked at me like I was crazy. We were running around from all of the sessions, taking care of our 8 month old, and gathering equipment, supplies, and working around everyone’s schedule to come up with a solid film schedule for the three days we filmed in October. October was surely a whirlwind of chaos, but things started falling into place.

The week before filming we had photo sessions almost every evening, a wedding on Saturday, and another session on Sunday before we began filming on Monday, October 26th. That Friday, the 23rd, I got up at 3:30 am, went to Walmart to get supplies, went to a few hardware stores when they opened, hit up Hobby Lobby to get some other supplies, and then, of course, stopped at Chick-Fil-A for an early lunch.

I sped my way back home to begin working on things. As the day quickly faded away I realized there were some things that just weren’t going to get completed. We packed up and headed to our wedding the next day and then to our session Sunday evening (our session was in Bethany, WV so it took an hour and twenty minutes to get there). After arriving home late, we got everything we could together.

As the restless night ensued, I got up at the crack of dawn to load everything up for filming. I was quite tired, very anxious, and hoping everything would go as planned. Everything was loaded up, I headed down to the park, met up with Joe, and we began unloading. It was a beautiful Fall day. The leaves were so colorful, the sun was golden and warm, and there was an Autumn chill in the air. If there was any day to be representative of an ideal Fall day, this was it.

Butterflies were still fluttering away in my stomach as other crew and cast members arrived. When I saw most of the cast coming out of the shuttle, it hit me. This is actually going to happen.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be directing and filming a screenplay that I wrote and that there would be so many people willing to commit most of their time for three days to make it possible. After I met a few for the first time it was back to reality.

We began setting up the cameras and getting the audio equipment ready to go. The cast prepped for the day as the crew gathered equipment to hike to Gretchen’s Lock, which was about a 15 minute walk from the parking lot. I lead the pack with my camera on the glidecam attached to the stabilizing arm and vest still in disbelief that this was actually happening.

I wanted to show everyone Gretchen’s Lock before we began filming to set the tone. After a brief overview it was time….

Tag: Hambleton Mill

Gretchen’s Lock | From Inception to Grand Premiere | Part III

Gretchen’s Lock | From Inception to Grand Premiere | Part I

Inception