Diary of a young Horror PA, part 2

Here's the second installment of Michelle Fatale's diary as a horror PA on the set of the female-directed horror film PocaHauntus. Shooting in Northern California, PocaHauntus is directed by Veronica Craven, and sports a strong female crew and cast.

8-13-06

I on set at 8am, meeting at Gordon's cabin in Boulder Creek at the same time as Antoinette, makeup. We bullshitted for a bit, mostly about how badly we needed caffeine and how beautiful the cabin was. This place was in the heart of the Santa Cruz mountains, trees, greenery, and fresh air. Cats everywhere, a dog named Roxy that looked more like she could have been a he and named "Bear." Gorgeous, gorgeous place. Fifteen minutes or so later, Wild Bill (sound crew), DP Paul Grasso, director Veronica, AD Molly, and PA's Dan and Cara arrived. Then our main actress and Pocahauntus herself, Stephanie Basco arrived in her lavish Lexus convertible...

We discussed how we were about to caravan over to our first location ruling out Steph's vehicle almost instantly since we had to make it over some pretty rough dirt road.

The first scene of the day consisted of beer guzzling dirt bike riders; the opening scene in the film. We were on our way to a man made dirt track where we would document the beginning of the Pocahauntus opus. At first we were worried we were all going to be subject to car sickness, but it was a brief and slightly rocky ride which fortunately posed no upset to our stomachs. Gordon, friend of producer Barry Radcliff who was supplying not only the main location for the film, but also brought along a group of dirt bike riders who were very accustomed to that very track.

I spent most of my time with Stephanie. I made sure she had water, a blanket to keep warm, and of course awesome moral support only I could provide. In all seriousness, I mainly just tried to make sure Steph was on set when needed while keeping myself out of frame during cigarette breaks. The rest of the crew got the cool action shots of the riders. One of the guys had this awesome dog that would chase them and their motorcycles around on the track. I was clenching my jaw every time I saw this only because it looked like the dog was going to get run over. I trusted that they knew what they were doing though.

We took a break for lunch at Round Table. I was following someone, don't ask me who because I'm retarded when it comes to directions and noticing things. Whoever or whatever I was doing, I got lost and noticed there were two other cars following me in the process thinking I actually knew what I was doing. It was poor Stephanie Basco and Wild Bill, our sound guy. It was difficult to communicate but we eventually found the restaurant and had a nice lunch.

The last scene we shot for the day was at an abandoned store off the highway. We were shooting the scene guerilla style, but luckily didn't get kicked off. We had Gordon's daughter playing a small town girl and (Name?) as our 'old timer.' The scene went pretty smoothly despite some interruptions from the neighborhood pre-teens skipping across the street in their tube tops wondering what we were doing. Cars would drive by and slow down and just stare. For some reason when most people see cameras they loose all common sense. Even people see a news van it's like, 'Ooo, something's gonna be on TV, I gotta check this out!' It's very strange to me.

Stephanie was having some problems with the sun being in her eyes during her last shot so it was a bit difficult to capture. After we wrapped I stayed after to help out with some extra foresty shots with Pocahauntus. We got some creepy guy in a white van parked across the street. He was either lost or watching us, it was hard to tell. Some guys on dirt bikes stopped at the stop light and yelled, 'Hey, look at the little Indian girl!!' Aside from being ashamed that I'm part of the human race, it was another fun and entertaining day on set.

Keep a lookout for part 3, coming soon