Trailer Park #3--Second Day on Set

Saturday the 14^th was a day the production had been pointing to since planning began a year ago—the burning down of the trailer. When the production rented the trailers for the Trailer Park set, the dealer threw in a condemned trailer for them to burn, and it was delivered to the “burning ground” on the campus of Hocking College, in Nelsonville. They have a field there where firefighters receive their training in firefighting techniques—there is a 4 story building with a fire escape down one side, and every floor has burned out windows, where they practice tall rescues. The rest of the grounds have little shacks and piles of pallets and so forth.

 

And there was our trailer, sitting at the back of the property, backdropped by a copse of tall trees.

 

But, earlier in the day, we’d met at Kantner Hall on the OU campus to rehearse the scramble for the money box that we’ll be doing next weekend. Brian Evans, one of my cohorts from Escanaba, is a theatre prof and fight choreographer at OU (I suspect he was instrumental in my being on this project). We spent an hour blocking the scene, and tweaking it, and running it over and over until it was in the muscle memory. No doubt, some of it will lost by next weekend, but we’ll recapture it with a little rehearsal. Then, while others had a few scenes to film on the set at Lake Snowden, I had the afternoon off.

 

I drove around Athens a little bit, revisiting old haunts, and marveling how much the town has changed in recent years. A small college town changes its people rapidly, but not so much its look. I grew up there in the late 60s, and for years the town remained fairly unchanged. A few new buildings up, a few old ones down, but essentially the same. Now though, I’ve noticed a significant amount of change. Lots of student apartment buildings have replaced the some long- standing “landmarks” (landmarks to me anyway, with my 45 years of memory). Old local businesses are gone, replaced by chain stores. But even for all that, Athens is a unique little town, the one that most feels like home to me.

 

So anyway, after driving around for an hour, I headed back to the hotel, by way of Wal-Mart (talk about chain store invasion!) where I bought a bathing suit, as the Holiday Inn had a heated pool and spa. When I got back to my room, which was right across the hall from the pool, I could see it was filled with a large family, and for some reason I had no wish to share their company, so I chilled in my room for a while, watching a rerun of the Godfather for about the millionth time. I checked on the pool an hour later, found it deserted, and grabbing a book and a drink, I took it over. I swam a few laps in the pool, then settled into the spa with my book and drink, until some mom came in with her six year old son. She turned him loose on the room while she talked on her cell phone, and he took one look at me and decided we were best friends.

 

There followed a scene much the one in Jurassic Park, where the little boy latches onto Sam Neill’s character and refuses to be shaken off. This little boy decided to tell me his life story, while doing laps in the spa. I tried to get him to do laps in the pool, on the far end, but that wasn’t happening. He was happy with his new best friend. A few desperate looks from me to his mom went unnoticed. She was happy with her new babysitter while she yammered on the cell.

 

Finally, I gave up and drowned the little fuck.

 

No, no, I didn’t. But I’d be lying if I said the thought wasn’t bubbling there, like spa water.

 

So, evening comes, and its time for the shoot.  My driver—let me say that again—my driver—one more time—my…driiiivvvverrrr—picked me up at the hotel and took me to the OU campus. I dressed and made up at Kantner Hall, then was driven to Nelsonville, where the doomed trailer awaited us. Patrick Mulberger, the director for this sequence, told us we would be directed mainly by the cameramen and the DP, as he would be far back, looking at the monitors.

 

There was a 4 camera setup, and we blocked our sequences pretty tightly. By EPA rules, we only had a short time for the trailer to burn, then the firemen had to put it out. So the plan was to start off camera, and on “action” we run to our marks, go through all the preset stuff (the same as Friday night, though this time the camera is at our backs), then Patrick would yell “reset”, and we’d run back to the start, wait for “action” again, and repeat this as many times as we could before the time ran out on the burn. (I think it was 20 minutes for the burn).

 

So Patrick and Jonny Look, the other director, having secured permission ahead of time, entered the old trailer with a road flare each, and a couple of firemen following along. They scratched off the flares, dropped em on the straw-covered floor, and ran out, feeling mighty proud of themselves. Immediately, the three windows of the trailer began to light up from the flames. We got to our beginning places and waited. We’d been told by the firemen that these old trailers only take 15 minutes or so to become an inferno, so we were eager to see it. We waited. And waited. No change. Then the two end windows went dark. Instead of becoming engulfed in flames, it was putting itself out somehow. I made a joke about what a tactical error it was, hooking up the sprinkler system in the trailer. One of the set guys said, quite seriously, that the trailer had no sprinkler system, so that wouldn’t be it. I wanted to say, well what do you know! I assumed these swank double-wides came with all the fixins! But I just smiled and marked him for death later.

 

The firemen called for more pallets, and bunch of set boys began a pallet brigade, bringing them up to the trailer, and then the firemen (there were firewomen too, but “men” is easier to write) tossed them into the trailer through a hole in the back. Gradually smoke began to seep from under the eaves, and we knew it wasn’t going to be long till we had some action. Then, in rapid succession, the flames leapt up and consumed the prefab chandelier, then moved along the ceiling. You could see the outside of the trailer beginning to bubble, and the smoke blackening and growing thicker by the second. Then the center window exploded outward, and the flames shot up through the window and onto the gutters, and the director yelled “ACTION!!!!” and off we went. I don’t know how many times we did it, but it must have been more than a dozen, and all the while the asst. director, Jill, is counting down the minutes, then seconds, till shutdown. It reminded me of Apollo 13, when they had to do a burn for a specific amount of time.

 

Finally she yelled “TIME!”, and the director yelled “CUT” and “WRAP!” and the cheering began and we all began shaking hands, and clapping backs while the firefighting personnel put out the burning trailer.

 

And that was it for the night. After being on set till 2am the previous night, I was back in my hotel room by 10:30pm this time. I understand a lot of the young crew celebrated late into the morning. Ah youth!