Hell Breaks Loose on the Set of The Damned

Okay,

So we had an early film shoot at Solder's Hollow in Heber which is basically on the side of a railroad track in the middle of an icy desert. (Not really a desert, but it seemed barren enough). It was supposed to begin at 6:30am. After 2 and a half hours of sleep I climbed out of bed and got ready to head out to our meeting location for carpooling up to Heber City. We are behind, of course, and don't make it there until 7:00am.

The reason we had planned to go so early was because our actress could only film before noon. Well, when we arrived- she was nowhere to be found. We got out of our cars at just before sunrise. That didn't last long because we were all convulsing in the extreme cold. We sat in our cars with the heat on while we waited for the actress.

Then we get a call that she has been pulled over by a cop- wonderful. We watch what really was a beautiful sunrise over the mountains and icy lake, except our angry thoughts about why we were up so early and in this freezing wasteland were clouding any good feelings about the situation.

When she finally arrives we hike out to a location up a hill and down the train tracks like a quarter mile. It takes everyone FOREVER to join us (the camera crew and the director) and to get going. We manage to shoot two shots. Then we moved the camera to get our action shot of the day. In this shot, our two actors we supposed to be tumbling down a hill after jumping from the train.

This was where the ultimate bad thing happened. Due to lack of sleep, apparently nobody was thinking straight. The actor's hands were supposed to be tied around his back, so we did. The snow was not soft, it was pretty dang hard. So hard that you could put all your weight on it and most the time it wouldn't give to make a footprint. Well, when you tumble down terrain like that with your hands behind your back, you have nothing to break your fall.

Our actor leaped off the hill (not what we were expecting) and when they were both at the bottom, it was obvious that he was in pain. We don't know what it is. He thought it was his shoulder so we speculated that it was dislocated. We try to sit him up, but the pain is just too much for him. We said a prayer and gave a blessing and he was able to sit up and stand... but this was after 20 minutes of everyone trying to find out what we should do. We were 1/4 mile off any roads next to train tracks. Well we walk with him slowly back to the cars and get him to the local hospital.

He broke his collar bone. Wonderful. Not only did we all feel so horrible for him (he was in tears it was so painful), but he is the main character in the movie. So we got 3 shots. He had been "shot" in the film, so he was wearing a vest with a bullet hole and blood which gave the hospital staff a jolt. Luckily the doctor managed to get his costume off without having to cut it off.

So now, with 3 more days of production left, our main guy is in a sling (he's the one on the right of the last picture I posted in my last post). The snow is melting fast and it is needed for the film. Not only that, but when we loaded everything back up we found that the tripod had broke. We should have all stayed in bed.