Friends!

I originally wrote this story the day after this incident took place. This was a small little indie film called "Suhani", and what happened one day on the set:

"Had to share this insane story. Not sure if everyone knows, but first time something I’ve written has gone into production by other filmmakers. So it’s been neat. It’s called “Suhani”.Yesterday they were filming at a set that was built at the State owned building. I went in there and WOW, full crew, catering, the full 9, great actors, good people, great times. Have a look at the first photo (first photo only!) look! Neat right? While you’re looking at that photo, please take a quick glance at the light over the actresses’s head in the back.

Filming keeps going. And I’m impressed with the quality of everything, the directing, the acting, this is going to be a really great looking flick. The second I said that to myself. That light you looked at in photo #1? Got a little hot. And when I say “a little hot” I mean “Holy Sh!t it set off the sprinklers!” Now I’ve never been on the receiving end of these sprinklers. It was a BLAST and it didn’t stop and it had chemicals in it and SO MUCH WATER. You know what, why am I even explaining? Have a look at photo #2 (lower left corner).

Chaos. Absolute chaos. The first move, was for everyone to get the equipment out there….but at that point there alarms were blasting and an automatic message blaring over the speakers “evacuate evacuate!” water was all over the place….so I run to get a screwdriver to get the camera out of its rig….go into a linoleum area and WHAM! Slip and slid a good 20 feet. To be honest, that was sort of fun. Know what wasn’t fun? The fire marshall screaming at all of us to get out of there. And I did. After I stopped to take pictures of the sprinkler-blast to show all of you. (Sharing is Caring)

So we get the cast and crew and equipment out of there, oh…. and by the way, we were on the 10th floor and the elevators shut down automatically. So I did some seriously running up and down some steps to make sure the cast and crew and equipment were all safe and then the fire trucks came and they ALL CAME (which is awesome that so much help came so quickly) have a look at pic #3 in lower right corner if you’d like.

Not looking good, looks like the set is completely washed out (actually I looked at the 6th and 8th floor too…looks like the whole building is washed out), there’s a deadline to finish filming and I’m pretty sure we’re banned from the City, even the basement flooded. So just imagine all of that water….going and flooding all 10 floors and the basement. (I oddly had a nice conversation with the lady who owned the office space and I said “So we can come back in and film right?” and she said “yes” but did it sort of in a funny jokey way, where you’re not sure if she’s serious or not?)

Everything is insured, but I was bummed we lost the movie shoot days….or did we? After I got home and got into dry clothes. I wrote the whole incident (and pending location change) into the movie, where it not only made sense, it really worked (especially since the movie began filming at Niagara Falls…I just tied them together). Looks like as of this morning…. the movie will go on.

Never a dull moment.

Bet Spike Lee never went through this."

So how did it all turn out after this?

The film gods smiled upon us. Where so many times in this business the film world can turn ugly, somehow the conjured spirits of (I don’t know, who are the film gods? Federico Fellini, Paul Newman and Sidney Lumet? THAT WORKS. They must have realized the cast and crew loved them and decided to smile down on us.) The state owned building cleaned itself up, turned out alright and wait for it….LET US BACK IN TO FINISH FILMING. Fortunately that new ending I’d written in (in wet socks, I know the original story had me wearing dry clothes, but I very distinctly remember tapping away on the script with my legs stretched out and feeling wet socks) wasn't needed and “Suhani” completed filming. Mauro Giuffrida and Jeff Bader finished post production and I’m really proud of it. They really kept the spirit and feeling I was trying to convey when I wrote this, I’m always proud of those guys anyway, but very distinctly proud of how they continued production through a really tough obstacle (which was big enough for anyone to justifiably say "lets cancel the rest of the shoot) and finished this sweet little film.

The film is awaiting it’s release but WAIT WHAT, it’s currently online? Password isn’t on it? Well then, until that changes, have a free look at SUHANI!

I’m pretty sure my socks are likely still soaked from this day. No dryer, no sunlight or physics could compete with drying those soaked things.

Enjoy the film! No one ever said it was easy.

Take care and be good, Tim

Suhani from Indie Frame Films on Vimeo.