You know how when you’ve been traveling you sometimes wake up and it takes a minute or two to figure out where you are? That’s been my last three or four weeks. This morning I remembered I was home in my own bed, but then I had to figure out what day it was and what time it was!
For those of you who have jobs where you work the night shift, I have a lot of respect for you, I do not think I could do that consistently! As someone who generally doesn’t sleep that great to begin with, trying to go to bed between eight or nine in the morning and sleeping more than four or five hours was tough. All that to say, I have about a month’s worth of sleep to catch up on!
Filming wrapped early Saturday morning and we had a quick wrap party – well quick for me anyway. I ate a donut, said my goodbyes, left and went to bed for a few hours before I drove home. Other than church yesterday I’ve been mostly in a reclining position either on the couch or in bed and don’t see that changing for the next few days! On that note, anyone want to come do my laundry? There’s a lot of it!
Part of me feels weird writing about this whole experience here as it’s not exactly what most of you come here to read, but I’d also like to have some sort of diary of this weird little experience in my life, if only for my own memories so bear with me for a few movie-related posts. Let’s start with week 1.
Week 1 on The Vast of Night
My first week in Whitney, Texas was spent mostly organizing the piles and piles of clothing I had been collecting over the summer. Why so many clothes? The weekend of September 24 we would be filming a scene that involved hundreds of extras and since this movie was set in 1958, I had to make sure everyone that was visible in the scene looked like they belonged there!
The Whitney Church of Christ was kind enough to loan us their clothing racks and hangers (they have an annual clothing giveaway) and I hung and hung and hung some more. I organized items by category (women’s dresses, skirts, blouses, sweaters, jackets, etc.) and then by size so that it would be as easy as possible to find what I needed!
I also spent a lot of time this week ordering clothing for featured actors – mainly vintage dresses. This was certainly not the worst work in the world and I’m now a little bit in love with vintage dress shopping! We settled on these items for a few characters:
I might have slipped that blue and red number in my bag when I came home…don’t tell.
Once the two lead actors (Sierra McCormick and Jake Horowitz) arrived at the end of the week we did fittings and made decisions on their wardrobe. Fortunately for me the movie takes place over the course of one night which meant only one costume for each of them!
See that top she’s wearing? At purchase it was stark white, like bright white. Since that can be a little harsh on camera, I had to dye that top (and the other six identical ones) until it became a more antiqued white shade.
Also, that bow tied sweetly under her collar? This my reminder that should I ever do this again, keeping that ribbon tied and tied in the exact same way/length every night for 19 nights will drive me insane. I should have rigged one that had a permanent bow and that could snap together in the back, but hey, you learn! I’m pretty sure no one else will ever pay attention to that silly bow, but I know that when I see this movie for the first time that will be ALL I SEE.
I had to alter a dress or two, track down a bra style that would fit this time period, and made sure I had plenty of socks, safety pins, and Tide pens – definitely a life-saver!
This was the week where I was feeling pretty unsure about my abilities on this project but knew I’d still have plenty of downtime to work on JK Style, Splendry and even head in to Dallas occasionally to shop! Spoiler alert, NONE OF THAT HAPPENED. If I wasn’t sleeping, I was working!
I’ll highlight a little of the second week soon (the first week of filming!) so keep an eye out! Thanks for hanging in there with me during this project! It was a good experience overall, but I’m so very happy to be home!
Read more on our first week filming here.
