Hitchhiking to Hóllyweird

For Alejandro’s opening scene, he is hitchhiking across the country on his way to fortune and fame in Hollywood. We of course couldn’t go anywhere too far out of LA to film on our budget, so we found a road that looked liked it could be somewhere else. It was a road near the Santa Susana Mountains. It was a long and windy road, and we had our classic convertible all tricked out with cameras and microphones, a sound guy hiding in the back, as our two actors drove and did their scene. Our personal cars ferried everyone else and their equipment to various points a long the road. We didn’t want our cars in the shots, so typically the producers drove out in front of the film car and then we’d park and wait for the convertible to drive past to know the shot was complete. We couldn’t get a feed from the cameras on the car or the sound, so we didn’t really know what was going on and had to trust it was going well. So on one of the first runs down the road, Jaime was in the lead, driving a beat up old truck she’d borrowed from her mom. She parked at the designated spot, and waited for everyone else to drive through. And she waited. And waited. And waited. And of course she had no cell service. So she just waited. And worried. And wondered. And waited some more. Eventually the film car came through. There was some trouble with shifting the classic car. But that was a long time sitting on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere… #classiccars #independentfilm #hollywooddreams