When we were in pre-production, I kept making this list of all the things that I could think of that could go wrong. It got to be a pretty long list, really. Given the number of outside scenes, inclement weather could have seriously compromised our ability to finish shooting. Our lack of permits to film outside could have gotten us shut down or even arrested. One of our locations could have backed out at the last minute.
But the remarkable thing was, while there were some definite hitches in the master plan, we were almost eerily fortunate. We were able to overcome our problems without missing a beat, which is something that most big-budget features can't claim. By the time we were close to finishing, I was starting to feel like we were home free.
Then the roof fell in. Seriously. Fell in. Crash.
The most shocking thing about this is that, with half our set destroyed and several shots remaining, everyone took five, shook it off and then came back to finish the day. And, yes, after the dust settled and the broken glass was swept away, we were able to shoot everything that we had planned.
It's a testimony to the kind of people who were involved in this project that the entire cast and crew stayed and pushed forward. What could have stopped the film dead in its tracks (and could have caused serious injury to the people on set) turned out to be nothing but a video anecdote on YouTube. That which does not kill the indie film apparently makes it stronger.
