Day 11 -- Wednesday July 2

• 6:35am. I awake in the cozy comfort of a luxurious Residence Inn bed in a sprawling two-bedroom suite in the far corner of the hotel. Paradise, baby. Back to sleep.
  

• 6:45am. I awake and breathe in my surroundings. A sweet, little womb of a room and me tucked into the placenta of a bed enjoying the warmth and eaze of the ol' Residence Inn. Sleep.
  
• 6:50am. Oh yeah, the ol' R.I. is the place to be. Everything a man could waaa..... Sleep.
  
• 6:55am. Awake...Bad. Sleep...Good.
  
• 7:00am. The ol' R.I. is my friend, just-- Whatever. Sleep.
  
• 7:03am. I pull myself out of bed and make the standard oatmeal breakfast. But it's R.I. oatmeal today and it just tastes better. Also accompanying me during breakfast is one Judy Ducey, feeling a little jet lag herself but anxious to be on the set today to witness the exciting movie-making.
  
• 7:15am. Hop in the shower. Get a good R.I. clean from head to toe. Dress up. Pack up my stuff and I'm ready to roll.
  
• 7:45am. Head downstairs for my pick-up to go to the set. That's ten extra R.I. minutes versus my still-on-the-call-sheet 10:35am Sun River pick-up. Baby, this is the good life. Load in with Rick and Groove and the bullies are off to the set.
  
• 8:00am. We reach the trailer. Back on the clock for another day of work from a real-live actor, getting paid to make movies. But for now, getting paid to nap. Zzzzz....
  
• 9:30am. I awake and poke my head outside my trailer. Whom should I see but Jim Ducey talking with Olivia, one of the drivers, trying to get directions to the set. Turns out we're about five minutes from heading there ourselves, so the folks will follow us.
  
• 9:45am. Arrive at the location, quite far from base camp, which had been set up near the afternoon's location. We are out on the front lawn of a childrens' home. All the morning shots involve vehicles in tow so we're just along the roadside until needed.
  "Until needed" turns out to be about three hours later. So in the meantime, Jim & Judy get to meet a wide array of colorful characters working on and in the movie, many of whom I have said merely "hello" and "how are you?" to up until today. But now we get the goods, the hometowns, the stories of Salt Lake. Note to self: Bring folks to the set earlier in the process next movie. Meet people faster.
  
• 12:40pm. The bullies load up the truck. Today is the "sheep/stiff" scene, goofy and inappropriate for "chase dialogue" and after one take in the truck, Rick knows it. He's not happy with it; it's not right; it's not natural. However you put it, he's right and I've been concerned about this scene since the beginning. But we ended up running it six times, three takes of two runs each. They printed the last two takes so there are four possibilities. Let's hope at least one of them is usable, because the fifth possibility (and the one I think is most likely) is that the scene is cut so that we're just talking about the chase, or even cut entirely. We won't know until 1998 sometime, of course.

with Big Judy Ducey in front of the trailers

1:15pm. Lunch. Jim, Jude, and I sit down with Nicole, the director, and chat with her and amongst ourselves. Jim enjoys the fish, Jude the salad, I, pasta bar per usual. Conversation includes more details about Nicole's life than I had learned in the previous ten days. The power of the parents. 2:00pm. After a couple more still photos of the truck and the trailer with the Ducey cameras, we head home for the day. And that's just about it for Rusty. One last day of shooting over a week from now. Just one more scene. Go on to Day 12

Day by Day | Zack & Reba | Ducey on Film