Thursday, April 20, 2006

Goin' Out To Cally - Part 5, The Kiss Of Friendship

The previous semester, I realized that my passions lied more in film than in theater. Unfortunately, the university did not have a film program at the time, so I had to manufacture my own filming opportunities. As a sophomore in college I scraped together a little money and, along with my brother Paul, my friend Mike and my girlfriend at the time, Sue, we shot a half-hour comedy short on Super 8 film called The Term Paper.

Mike and Pete on the
set of The Term Paper

As I worked my way toward a Fine Arts degree, I had been enveloped in theater, in words and in drama. Cinema is told in images, Theater is told in words. This focus on theater was made apparent when I wrote a short film called Homesick. It’s an overly-wordy and unsuccessful drama about an actor who returns home to face the family demons of his past. Upon his arrival home, he is surprised to find his high school buddies happily waiting to greet him. One of those people is an old flame, who ended up being played by Sunday.

Sunday (back to us), Pete, Jay, Leslie
and Mike on the set of Homesick.

In order to shoot this mini-film I asked all of my theater buds to act in the project. Sunday agreed to play the role of the ex-girlfriend, but a few days before the shoot she had to have her wisdom teeth removed. She showed up on set with swollen cheeks and heavily medicated. Forever the trooper, she mustered enough focus to fulfill her commitment to me and the project... part of which included an intense kissing scene. You can trust me when I tell you that kissing a woman with newly extracted teeth, swollen gums and on pain medication is about as unromantic as one can get. Add to that the aspect of having to do it on camera, worrying about lighting and blocking (where you move on a set) and acting... well, the kissing was our last priority. Trying to shoot a talk-heavy half-hour short in 36 straight hours did not lend itself to any sort of sexual enlightenment, just getting the shot and moving on to the next scene was our primary goal.

Sunday, in Homesick, poofy cheeks and all.

So, as Sunday and I discussed our friends and such, we did have a weird sort of intimate history, but a completely false and fabricated one. In the end, we spent most of the time talking about boyfriends/girlfriends, past and present. Sunday had mentioned how happy she was with Dave, how she was determined to be completely loyal to him and that she could see being with him for the rest of their lives. This was reassuring to me. I was happy to know that there wouldn't be any odd sexual tension between Sunday and me. Dave had been one of my best friends and betraying that friendship with him, or Sunday, was not even an option.

Our conversation slowly died off and we ended up taking naps, waiting forever to get out of the state of Florida. That’s one of the problems with Florida… there’s only one way to leave this dang place... go straight up.

In what seemed like an eternity, our first goal was finally achieved... there was a small celebration in the car as we crossed the state line and headed as quickly as we could toward Mississippi…

…and Aunt Patsy.
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