Today we shot reenactments for the Smile project. The day started at The Hill restaurant in Grosse Pointe where we staged what will be the opening segment of the documentary.  Because we shot MOS (motion without sound), we have a stripped down technical crew. 

The day started out just fine until the director changed where the first camera setup would be. Never mind that I’m the director and me and the DP picked a spot three days ago, here I come with “wouldn’t the shot look better if we put it over there”.  Or never mind that me and the producer discussed this very spot and decided not to use it a month ago because of cost. I did it anyway. Never trust the director. 

It’s been a hard days, day and I been workin like a dog. It’s been a hard days, day I should be sleepin like a log. Hey, that’s kind of catchy. So you can see we were hard at work all day, sitting, wasting time, checking email and lining up work for the next job.

Today’s production problem started before I could get to the shoot. I’ve only been to Mack Avenue Records once, and I thought I remembered where it was, but I didn’t.

Today didn’t go like I wanted. The plan was to run to church and help, then come back home and work on questions for tomorrow’s shoot.

Today I got off a plane at 6:30AM, went home for a while and got ready to do a small shoot for the Braylon Edwards Foundation. It was a bad idea.

Kevin Eubanks, the former bandleader for the Tonight Show, arrived at the shoot almost an hour late but that was OK, we were running late too.

I interviewed Denny Stilwell, president of Mack Avenue Records, for the Smile project in Los Angeles today.

At the end of the day we headed to legendary vibraphonist Terry Gibbs’ house.

After our interview with Will Wakefield we set up for Gerald Wilson. Gerald Wilson is one of the great big bandleaders of all time.