Shooting began a few weeks later. It's common for films of this sort to be shot at a breakneck pace. To stay within his budget, Donahue completed the principal photography in under 4 weeks with 50 or more setups (shots) a day. Compared to the lead, Debra Sweeney, I had it easy. My schedule only called for four long days on location while she needed to be there six days a week for nearly a month.
I was glad I had learned my lines, got plenty of sleep, and was in good health when I showed up on location the first chilly morning in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California.
By the time shooting finally started, the air was warming with the sun well overhead. This first scene was knocked out with rarely more then two takes required (or allowed) on each shot. We used the remaining daylight to grab takes out on the road. In bigger budget films, car interior scenes are often shot in mock-ups pulled by another vehicle, so that the actors don't have to worry about traffic, leaving their minds free to concentrate on lines. This wasn't the case here. Instead, the camera was anchored to the car, protruding about three feet outside the car-door window, while floodlights were mounted on the hood, glaring in through the windshield. Even an experienced former bus driver like myself found it a challenge maneuvering down a narrow country road in this manner. A few bushes may have gotten clipped but somehow I managed to avoid losing an expensive camera to an oncoming cars. I did end-up putting a small dent in the car during that day but it really didn't matter considering what was to come in the following days of the shoot. But then I'll tell you about that, next time.
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