Statement

9/08/2009

- Met with Keith and Angela for the first time to drop off the check for Wednesday and Thursday. Keith was very enthusiastic about the entire shoot, while Angela remained closed off to us. He talked with us as he looked through the storyboards Dan showed him about seeing this come to life in his space. He expressed to us that he was going to let us do our thing, and stay out of our way. We (Dan and I) made it clear that the schedule we gave him was the schedule that he had agreed to, and he OKed it.

9/09/2009

- We held a rehearsal at the location, at 6pm. Art had previously been allowed into the space to begin set up for the shoot on Friday. They did some of the set up, and were working when we arrived. When we arrived, Keith greeted us warmly and said that it was looking good in the space. He watched the rehearsals and was still very enthusiastic about things. When we left after our rehearsal, he asked if we were going to be at the location. I informed him that I would come in to assist with art until I had to leave for the off-set rehearsal at 6 that night. He knew that Maiko would be there as well, and he had the schedule, as stated before, for the entire production at that particular location. He was enthusiastic, as usual, and told us that he would see us tomorrow, and we were sent on our way with good tidings.

9/10/2009

- While running errands for the shoot, we received a phone call stating that we were unable to use the location for the day. I spoke with Brad about this, and he mentioned that we were told that because we left a "mess" (this, I was informed, was our art department stuff, which we had cleared with him about leaving.)

9/11/2009

- We were informed that the earliest ANYONE could get into the location this morning was 9am, even though they had kept art out of the location yesterday, in violation of the contract we had with them. We got there and began work as soon as we could, in order to not push production back too far. Nevertheless, we were pushed way behind schedule, and only accomplished half of our day, while the rush and delay cause heated tensions between a lot of the crew involved.
- Keith was very excited about the whole thing, and was showing us where we could put equipment (in his front room). His girl, who had been noticeably vacant to us became increasingly intrusive. She would slam doors and walk on set during takes. They started putting restrictions on us, such as where we could and could not move things, despite having told us in the beginning that we had free reign.
- They were smoking marijuana on site, much to the dismay of some of the crew, some of us who are allergic to it. I feel it is important to note this, because it was a huge concern of mine, for the safety of everyone involved. I have often said that I don't care what you do in your own free time, but when we are dealing with the security of our film set (cast, crew, etc.), there are certain liabilities that present themselves when illegal activities are taking place.
- Another risk that presented itself was the amount of people co
ming and going in and out of the house during the film set that were not involved in
the film. Some of them brought dogs, which when added to the dog that Keith
owned, created an even larger liability for the safety of the crew. We were told that
they would be staying out of our way and would be keeping the dog out of our way, but this was not the case.
- Keith came to me near the end of the day and told us we had to wrap by 9:30, and that everything needed to be back exactly where it was at the beginning of the day. This was a pain, but we agreed, and tried to wrap up what we were doing. We were informed that we were no longer able to leave our equipment in the main room as we were promised, and it was lucky that we were able to secure a storage facility in a location off site.
- When we wrapped, the crew worked hard to put everything back, and after we were done and ready to leave for the night, I made a point to ask Keith if everything was good to go in the location, and if he had any concerns about anything. He assured me that there were no concerns, no problems, and that he was impressed at how professional and considerate we were. He said he was really pleased with how we were able to make it seem like nothing had happened there at all that day. We left with the feeling that while the first day was rough, we would make up for it, and catch up the following morning.

9/12/2009

- The call time was pushed back to 10am this morning, because I knew that if we had to wait for art, we would end up in the same situation that we did before. Dan, Molly, Matt, and I still went to the location at Art's call time (9 am). When we arrived, Keith was sitting at the table on his porch and said that we were wearing him down emotionally, physically, and that we would have to be wrapped by 5 or 6. He explained to me that he wasn't able to take a shower or anything because we were in there. He told me to "find a way. cut shots. cut scenes. do whatever. but wrap by 5." I went inside as Jon was coming up the stairs, in order to make sure art was getting ready. Dan and I walked into the location and Angela was still asleep on the bed. It was after 9 at this point, and I went back out to find Brad. When I walked out, Jon was speaking to Keith, and Keith was, more forcibly, telling Jon the same thing he told me. I went down to find Brad. I explained the situation to him, and we both went back up to Keith. I let the three of them (Keith, Jon, and Brad) talk it out for a bit, and the next encounter I had with the situation was walking onto the porch where I heard something that sounded like a threat as Keith walked down the stairs to the courtyard. Brad and Jon were baffled and asked themselves if "he really just threatened [them]?" I talked with them, but that conversation will just be a rehash of what they provide in their statements, and since I had no first hand with Keith during that, I will not make any claims.
- When Keith returned from talking to Roy, he told us "the situation." He told us that we would have to be out by 5 today, and out by 5 tomorrow, but that he would rent us out another day. The conversation escalated when we informed him that a 7 hour shooting day was not going to be enough to get the film done, and that we were contracted for much longer. He told us that he would piss on the contract. When I told him that we were trying to be reasonable, he responded with the phrase "I'm not reasonable anymore." He then told us about how he was going to draw up a bill for his labor and various other things that didn't make a lot of sense to us, and told us that if we weren't out by 5, there would be forcible removal. We told him we wanted a few minutes to talk about it, and he told us that we had 5 minutes in the courtyard, not on his porch, and then he was going to call his boys to get us out.
- After a brief meeting between Brad, Jon, Molly, and myself, it was obvious that remaining in the location would be a huge security risk to everyone involved with the film, and there was no way that we could. We went back up, and informed him that we were packing up our stuff and taking off, but that we needed to get into the space in order to remove the last of our production design.
- After some time, Brad went up to talk to Keith, and things escalated, so Jon and I went up to be there if he needed our assistance with anything. Keith was going on about how we ere so unprofessional, and how he wanted to help us out, but we just didn't respect him. He said that if Brad kept saying things it was gonna get the shit slapped out of him. We got everything out, and into the storage room, so that we could get out of the location.
- Dutch, one of the guys from the crew that also stayed after the shoot Friday, went upstairs to smoke with Keith, as he had done the night before.
- After some time, we were told by Keith that we had to get out of the storage area, which he had no right to do at all. He claimed it was cause the door had to stay locked, but the reality is that he was trying to overstep his bounds.
- As we waited for the truck to arrive, Keith came out and was taking photographs. He claimed it was because he wanted to show the mess we were making and the fact that we were taking up "his alley." I questioned why he was taking pictures exactly, and why he was so concerned with us after we were already off of his property, but he slammed the door and locked it on me.

Outside of this, I have no further first hand knowledge of the situation.

I will say that while I have only known Keith since the 8th, I know way more about him now, and can attest that he is not the kind of person that I would do business with. I am upset that he was engaging in illegal activities while we were there, and that he continued to do so when the shoot was going on. We didn't and couldn't say anything, because we didn't want to escalate tensions more than they already were. Between the weed and the dogs (the security risks that we were exposed to)as well as the general unpleasantness and the lack of cooperation, the entire location was no conducive to a productive working environment, although we did do everything that we could in order to ensure that we were not imposing any more than what we informed him beforehand that we would be doing.