Hi everyone, I thought it was time for a quick update since the Thwackers front has been quiet for so long.

As far as Thwackers goes, we've got scripts written, the cast is eager to get back to it and I can't wait to get back to production.  The problem?  Money.

Rob is the one contact I brought to set.  A writer and producer himself, I thought it would be helpful to have him on set.  And to have an AD I know and trust would be helpful.  But I didn’t get Rob as my AD the whole time because he also got to be boom op and a handful of other things.  Rob also contributed one of the best time-saving ideas on set.

First let me say that Rob and I have been friends for years and we’ve always show each other our scripts.  I know Rob’s a good writer so I trust his opinions.  So when we were into our very daunting final day of shooting and still had a location change to do, Rob suggested a new way to do the scene that would allow us to use the same location.  It was brilliant!  He pointed out that we were going to have to do a ton of work for what amounted to 3 lines and a mediocre joke.  Solved!  And because of that we wrapped 20 minutes early.

Aside from that Rob was up for anything - whatever needed to be done and I can’t thank him enough.

Ruwan is a friend of Geoff’s and I had never met him before shooting began.  Now before he showed up to do our all important continuity, Geoff warned me that he hadn’t done it before and was a little nervous so he might need a crash course.  This made me nervous.  But I soon learned that I had nothing to worry about, we were in good hands.

Ruwan is so nice!  He showed up with a friendly smile and gave it everything he had.  I was probably a bit loose with the dialogue while we were shooting and if we ever strayed from the script he was right there with notes on who said what and how it was different.  For someone who’d never done this before he did a fantastic job.

And of course it didn’t just end with continuity.  I don’t even remember all the things we asked him to do throughout the shoot but whatever it was he was up for it.  And always with a smile on his face and a joke ready.  He was a pleasure to have on set and I certainly hope when we go back to shooting Ruwan joins us again.

Mike is another friend of Geoff’s and builds sets for a living.  So who better to ask for to build your set?  But of course, like all of our volunteers Mike took things to another level.  Our location was great - a lot of the props already existed but we still needed a few more things to fill it out.  We asked Mike if he had any ideas.

A couple days later I got a call - Geoff and Mike had just raided the set dec warehouse of a prominent CW show shooting in town (RIP – that show).  I shouldn’t say raided, Mike got permission of course, but they basically loaded up his truck with all the cool stuff they could find and that’s a huge part of the reason we have such a rich frame in Thwackers.  Everything from Jakob and Mikey’s chairs to those awesome purple barber chairs to in the back to the white screen that covered up the pink fireplace (yes, there’s a pink fireplace at the location).

We also had the challenge of making a house living room look like an apartment.  We asked Mike to take a look and see what we could do about building a false wall.  One look and he said “Oh yeah, no problem.  You want a door too?”  And with that he found us the perfect door, built it into a wall and put it all together.  And there I was having trouble installing the doorknob.

Anyway, Mike really came through for us in a big way.  Not only did he call in some much needed, amazing favors, he put in many hours of building, painting and hauling crap around.  And of course, he’s just a great guy.  We owe him a lot!