Its 10 am, I’m sleeping on a strangers couch in a crowded living room surrounded by my film crew. Someone is knocking at the front door. I wake up in a daze. For a moment, I forget where I am. Than I remember, I just finished an all night shoot on an abandoned mushroom farm. I am in Santa Cruz in a house of surfer-skater girls who are friends with my director, Rob Witt. Right when I start to orient myself, the person starts to bang loudly.

I awkwardly crawl off my pull-out-bed-couch and stumble over my wardrobe and make up artist. I answered the door as the person rings the doorbell again and again. A stranger in a strange place, I had no idea who’s abode I was intruding. Stumbling in at 5 AM I had yet to meet the other roommates.

I had no idea what to expect. I answered in my PJs. Is it the cops? Someone locked out, hung over, or maybe I blocked someone’s driveway with my car. Clearly the person knocking was upset. I opened the door to see a little old man in a walker smiling at me. In a daze I tried to understand what and why he was talking to me. I interrupted him saying, “I’m sorry, but we’ve been on a film set till 4 am last night, so I’m kind of groggy.”

As you can probably tell, it’s been an adventurous shoot. First off, as I mentioned, it is located on an abandoned mushroom farm. Second it’s at a great house on the ocean in Santa Cruz. Rob is friends with UCSC surfer students who happen to live in such a wonderful strange place and they gave him permission to film there.

The guys, Joel Pincosy, Nick Howard, Rob Witt and Nikko Deluna got there a day early and spent the afternoon cleaning and building the set. It was a music video for the band “This time Next Year” and had an Alice in Wonderland theme. Saturday, we, the girls, came. Margaux was in charge of wardrobe, Toni Huff did the makeup. Together they dressed the bassist in a torn shirt, muddy jeans and dirty face (he was the caterpillar). The lead singer, of course was the Mad Hatter, and the drummer and guitarist were Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dumb, complete with green suspenders and bowler hats. The hanger the guys built, with hanging light bulbs on flicker, harsh lighting and black tarp, looked really great.

The band said they were really impressed by the set and our professionalism. “This is like a legit set,” one of them said. Another said he felt a little intimidated, which was not our intention, he said “this is the real deal.”

My job, for this shoot, was crafts. Sounds simple, but very important. I had to keep the crew in constant supply of coffee, snacks and baked cookies in the wee small hours of the night. I had to go back and forth between the farm and the house separated by a steep hill and wilderness. It was totally dark, spooky, and looked like a scene from a horror/zombie movie. It looked even more eerie as the fog and moon set in. With my sturdy flashlight I trekked back and forth with my goodies.

The band was great, they did a great performance. Their fans were really easy to mange to (we had a call for 30 extras for a performance scene). As the night went on, the band did really great at keeping their energy up.

At the end of the night, the guys went down to the surfers house, and us girls drove to a house near the Boardwalk to stay at a friend of Rob’s. The poor girl was sleeping on the couch waiting to let us in. Now we are enjoying our morning at Rob’s friend’s house waiting for the second shoot to begin tonight at 6pm.

Anyways, this old guy is talking to me, well, sleep-deprived me, something about the internet, the neighbor, a guy named Dan (?) it was all very confusing. I had to interrupt him again.

“This may sound really weird, but we don’t know the people who live here. They just let us sleep here. So I don’t feel comfortable letting you in.” Someone from the back of the house woke up and took over. The guy repeated everything he said to me. He thought we were a bunch of crazy college kids.

“Looks like you had quite a party last night,” he said. I laid back down on the couch grumpy and exhausted saying,

“Yeah, right, a party. No way man, this is work.” And I went back to sleep thinking how awesome that was.