Day 30: Sunday, August 8, 2010

The crew starts the last day of the whole shoot in high spirits at high elevation: Veteran stuntman Michael Hilow stands in for Joel on a highway overpass.  Next, Joel is delighted at the opportunity to climb onto a car in a staged jam and rant about the traffic. How many times have you wanted to do this?

Joel has had many close-ups in his lifetime, but the one at the King County Courthouse is his first ever inside a polar bear mask.

The last scene of the shoot is Jason looking up at an American flag at half-mast.  When the crew has finally finished covering the various angles on the last shot, Stephen leads a toast with a bottle of champagne – distributed sparingly so it could serve everyone – just outside the Courthouse, in plain public view.

Fitting that the last scene of the shoot involves the American flag, Stephen explains, since this movie is about not just America but also how “grassroots politics is really democracy.”

He grins and turns to Joel and Jason, “These two…” he says.  The audience echoes his laughter. But then he turns serious.

“All of you are in their faces,” he says, expressing his hope that the whole crew, especially the many Seattleites who worked on this film, will identify with the main characters in the film.  He implies that this hope also applies to future audience members seeing the film as a final product.  Let this set journal be a testament not only to the work behind that final product, but also to the grassroots spirit driving that work.