As you may know, we were in a feature film over the summer called '8 Days.' This film was based on a true story of a girl who was sold into human trafficking. The movie is her story, through her eyes. This film is a full length feature film. That means it is a full length movie. Most films of this length take more than 6 months to film. We filmed the entire thing in 15 days!! It was crazy busy!!
Jenny and I were blessed with the opportunity to be a part of this film. We were both cast, along with our youngest sister, as featured extras. We were also extras in a few other scenes. Along with being on cast, my mom was one of the amazing people in charge of catering, so we got to be on set with her, helping serve. Because of this, we were on set a lot!! It was such an amazing experience!! It was cool to see how everything on a set runs. We were there from day one, filming the second scene of the day and helping with the first scene, all the way to the last day, filming the last scene until 3am. Days started early and ended late, usually pretty close to the start of the next day. We got to see how they film in different places and what goes on, on set.
There were a lot of cool things that happened. One thing, that we find amazing, is one of the camera crew members got baptized on the last day of filming, at the last scene, at 3am. Everyone always says God works miracles at any given time. There is the perfect example! He was a Christian as a kid, but as he grew up, he grew apart from his faith. After being on set with us for 15 days, he saw just by the way everyone acted, what Christians really are. He knew in his heart that this was what he was supposed to be, so God lead him back to the right path. It was an amazing thing to witness.
So you may be interested in what we did while on set, so I will start from the beginning of filming.
Day 1: On the first day of filming, we got up early and headed out to the first location. We got there around 7:30am and already there were people everywhere, running around, getting things set up. We were new to this kind of thing so we found the head caterer, who my mom was to be working with, and asked where we could be of assistance. At the moment, they were filming an adult scene in the restaurant across the street, so we made ourselves busy by helping unload food and supplies. We helped pull out everything for lunch, because everyone would have to grab and go. Lunch was only about 20 minutes max. Once everything was set up, we went outside to see how everyone was doing. They were setting up for the next scene, which would be an outside scene. Jenny and I were in this scene, so we would have to go in later. But for now they were setting up. It was about 11am, and already the temperature was soaring to about 101 degrees Fahrenheit. It was only going to get hotter. Jenny and I, along with a few friends, grabbed a bunch of cold water bottles and passed them out to all the crew members, cast members, and extras. The crew, cast, and us grabbed lunch real quick and headed back outside to film. We started filming the scene at about 11:45am and didn't finish until about 4pm. They had to get about 3 shots from each angle, and about 6 different angles. Luckily, they got all the shots they needed within the first three tries on each angle. The extras were allowed to go home, and we moved on to the next location. Our youngest sister, Jessica, was to be in this next scene. They set everything up and got to filming. Jenny and I helped bring sunscreen and more water bottles to everyone. While they were filming, we weren't really needed for about an hour, so we went exploring in the nearby woods. It was a beautiful area, and I wish I had gotten more pictures. Sadly my phone and camera had died. By the time this scene was done shooting, it was already 8:30pm. We helped serve dinner, and then headed on home to get some rest. There was another scene shooting after we left and they stayed until about 1am. Late day, and it was only day one!!
Day 2-4: Our mom went to help serve food, but we were not needed on set.
Day 5: We helped serve food for about an hour in the evening time. The shoot was at a ginormous and beautiful house!! It had like it's own courtyard and everything!!
Day 5-12: We were not needed on set very much. Just a few days to help out here and there.
Day 13: Jenny and I were filming in a scene in the evening time and into the night. We got there about 6pm and went straight into hair and makeup until about 8pm. The makeup looked phenomenal!!! We then went outside and watched them film the scene before ours. It's crazy how many takes they have to shoot to get the perfect shot!! About 10:30 pm, everything was set up for our scene, and we got in our places. This scene had to be filmed a few times from different angles. It was a tough scene to film, because it was very emotional. Luckily the part we played required us to be emotional, so getting teary eyed wasn't a problem. After a long and tiring night of shooting (luckily looking tired was part of the scene), we wrapped up about 3:45am. We drove home, which was about an hour away, and dropped off Jenny. My mom and I had to be in Austin by 8am, so we drove straight there.
Day 14: Jenny was home this day and my mom and I were headed to Austin to take care of some family business that had unexpectantly popped up. We took care of everything and stayed the night.
Day 15: This was the final day of filming for everyone! My mom and I headed back home from Austin in the morning. We got home about 4pm and got ready for the evenings shoot. We left our house about 5pm and headed to the shoot location, about an hour and a half away. About halfway there, we hit a very bad lightning storm. This was not good, because we were filming an outside shot....in a pool..... yeah not a good mixture. We got there, and it was pouring down rain. Luckily, they were still shooting the scene before ours, which was an inside scene. The rain and lightning went away after about 30 minutes. The Lord had big plans for that shoot and nothing was stopping Him. We started filming and filmed all three scenes by 2:30am. At that moment, one of the crew members, which I told you about earlier, was baptized. It was the perfect way to wrap up a great 2 1/2 weeks of filming.
We had a great time on set. We learned so much!! It was such a great experience! Plus we made a bunch of new friends and got to see friends we hadn't in a while. But most of all, this was God's project, and through Him and this film, we hope to influence the lives of many others.
Thank you for reading and supporting!! We love you all!!(:
-Sarah(:
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