The Beach.

While we were at the cabin, it was discussed how exactly we were going to shoot the scenes of Zimbabwe and Noah at home (these scenes start the movie, we leave their home and go to the cabin where the story really starts). It was brought up that they should live at the beach since we had to shoot a beach scene anyway and we had the ability of acquiring a house in Los Osos, California. I thought this was a good idea.

Let me explain some history. The movie was written for the beach; Zimbabwe and Noah lived in Shafter, CA (doubling for the fictional New Granada, California) and they get a hold of a beach house to throw a New Years Party at. Eventually, we lost the beach house and I had to alter the script, so now they went to a cabin in the forest for their party, that's the way I shot it. After I shot that, the cabin became available again so we decided to shoot Zimbabwe and Noah living there instead of Shafter.

And that's what we shot this Wednesday to Friday.

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010.

At about noon, we shot "The First Date". This scene is a flashback showing Levi (Riley Martin) and Vivian's (Marleen Lindsey) first date while Zimbabwe (Andrew Folsom) pretends to be a hired French chef, complete with a faux accent.

Levi answering the door for his date, Vivian.

When they find out that they're both
lactose intolerant, they fall in love.

After, we shot the scene in which Zimbabwe learns that Levi will be attending their New Years party and since I didn't think of what Zimbabwe would be doing during this conversation, I freaked out but thought holding a #1 DAD mug while serving himself some tequila would be funny, and I was right.

Look how funny that is!

Thursday, August 12th, 2010.

When we woke up and we shot another flashback. An homage (I hate that fucking word) to my favorite Cow and Chicken episode: Alive! In this, Noah gets stuck on the roof for two weeks and considers suicide. It was frightening being on the tiny roof of the two story house for so long, but the shots were great.

Noah on the roof.

Next, we went to the beach in Morro Bay. It was freezing but everyone had to suck it up and do some actin'. This scene is the required romantic scene. Noah, the ladies man, tries flirting with two girls and ends up falling on his face and breaking his nose while Levi and Zimbabwe cut in and Levi meets Vivian, which leads to the movie's plot. I was scared we were going to get shit for shooting without permits or anything, nothing happened but it was so cold that if the camera wasn't on someone, they ran to get their sweaters.

The boys. Riley, Andrew and Matt
playing Levi, Zimbabwe and Noah.

From left to right: Devon Ford, John Meneses, Niki Nix,
Riley Martin, Andrew Folsom and Matt Wolfe.

The lovely ladies: Marleen and Niki as Vivian and Heather.

Then we got to shoot the scene that involved Niki Nix's second role in the movie: a stripper named Morticia. I finally got to use the matching red and blue beanies I bought for Zimbabwe and Noah a couple of months ago, and a silly American flag bandanna for Levi's face.

HIS NAME IS WONDERFUL: Jesus is Lord.

Next, it was a small scene set on the balcony of the house while the boys spied on a girl undressing.

I don't know why, but this shot is fucking hilarious.

Some friends from Bakersfield showed up and we decided that the next shot we do would be the last for the night. In the script, it's labeled "Seeing Blair Again", the title of a track by Thomas Newman that he did for the soundtrack for 1987 film "Less than Zero", because I was planning to use this track under the scene. Shooting it, I realized this would not probably happen because the scene ended up being funnier than I thought.

Noah hands Zimbabwe a Corona while
he watches Levi leave with Vivian.

Friday, August 13th, 2010.
At nine, I woke Matt up and we did a re-shoot of a scene in which Noah talks to himself in the mirror as himself picking up girls at a bar and as Kelly, a fictional female version of himself being courted by Noah. Eventually, there was five of us there and three of us were throwing out more lines for 'Kelly' to say. This scene took about two hours to do and one single take took 30 minutes.

After, Andrew and I sat in a bathroom for 30 minutes in a scene where Zimbabwe, high, gets freaked out.

This shot is super fucking cool. Good job, Omar.

Then, Andrew running around town in his underwear. I ended up doing this entire sequence in three shots. There wasn't a lot of passer by's laughing as I thought there was going to be.

On the coast.

After Andrew and I got back to the house (we were the only ones there shooting the running scenes), we started packing and getting ready to leave. After the cars were packed, and the house was locked up we shot the last scene: Noah attempting suicide.

The Cabin.

Originally, when I wrote Zimbabwe and Noah back in February it was a stoner comedy that starred only my friends as the four leads, we were going to use a beach house (located in Los Osos, California) that was available to us. In the following five months, I ended up replacing two of the main actors. We found a cabin in Pine Flats, California that we would use instead of the beach house. And the stoner comedy aspect of the movie was downgraded to only a few scenes, leaving the relationship angle of the movie as the main shit.

And last week, when I shot the bulk of Zimbabwe and Noah, this is how it worked.
Monday, July 19th, 2010.

Matthew Wolfe, Raudel Gonzalez and I showed up at Marleen Lindsey's house to pick her up. She literally saved the movie after our previous actress dropped the movie two days before. Now, we were on the way to the cabin after we prayed with her mother.

In a building in California Hot Springs, I started freaking out because there was no reception within 30 miles. This meant the other car filled with people didn't know where we were. We parked the car on the edge of the street and waited for them to pass. About 30 minutes later, they did, and we were on the way to the cabin about 3 miles from there.

This was Friday. We watched what we shot.

At about 4:30, Riley Martin showed up. We did the first shot for both him and Marleen.
The scene is the most intimate in the movie, I think. Levi is consoling Vivian, asking her to get over Zimbabwe's hatred for her, convincing her that everything is cool while clutching her from behind.

Fun fact: Ryan Mann (lights) made a makeshift boom pole for us about 40 seconds before shooting. It was a lawn hoe and a paint brush.

We waited for the sun to go down and shot Marleen's last appearance in Zimbabwe and Noah.
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010.

At about 1:00 AM, Andrew Folsom showed up.

Andrew works, he's the only one of us with a job. This made things complicated, but do-able.

Andrew works from 7 PM to 11 PM. This meant, Andrew got off of work, drove to the cabin (about a 90 minute drive) and begun to shoot with us. He would leave at 2 PM, go back to Bakersfield and eventually, back to work and then back to the cabin. This would continue for the next 3 days.

It was the dinner scene, the height of uncomfortableness for the characters. This is where they stop hiding their feelings for each other. Andrew ate half of an old uncooked potato without me having to ask him to do it.

The dinner scene. Look at that grub.

At about 6 AM, I let Riley and Marleen go to sleep because we had to wait for the sun to come up to shoot the following scene.

For the next couple of hours, Andrew, Matt and I played Scrabble.

At 9AM, I woke up Riley and Marleen to shoot the "board game scene".

This lasted until noon, where I let everyone sleep.
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010.

At 1 AM, Andrew and John Meneses showed up.

We focused on the Y2K scene. This scene required a lot of broken glass. Vivian freaks out, smashes glasses to get attention. Zimbabwe, in a state of extreme paranoia brought on by learning about the apocalypse, rips the table cloth off of the dining table sending all the plates and cups to the ground. Everybody heads towards the basement, and Levi finds himself begging Vivian to stay with him, warning her that it's not safe out here.

When the sun came up, we shot the pot stuff.


Madhatter is a hybrid super-drug. Noah got a hold of it from his old dealer, Mordecai, four months before. He's been saving it until this moment, but Zimbabwe is not happy about that. He smashes him into the wall, screaming at him about keeping the Madhatter from him for so long.

During the day, into the night, I shot Matt running all around the cabin, holding dollar bills.

We watched James and the Giant Peach, The Kid, and Bring it On while we waited for the sun to go down. We went hiking and drank water from a stream.
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010.

There was two scenes that required re-shoots. The first was Vivian leaving the cabin, furious. Levi follows her and she refuses to stay unless Zimbabwe apologizes for how he's been treating her. It wasn't difficult but the first time I shot it, I was rushed and running on empty (all of us had been up for more than 24 hours by that point).

The second was everybody going to the basement, the acting was good the first time but I realized my original preference to shoot it hand-held was wrong, so I did it again in set-ups and without lighting. It was perfect and I think it's going to be one of my favorite scenes.

Zimbabwe, high, in the bathroom is the next thing we shot that morning (probably about 4Am).

I let everyone sleep about 4 hours. I stood outside and shot the sun coming up through the thick trees, thinking of a different ending.

We woke up at 8Am, in a rush to get Marleen done. There was a catch in casting her: she was only available for 3 days. She had to be home before 2PM, this day.

The scene seemed easy: Levi and Vivan are driving through the forest, to the cabin. I borrowed Ryan Mann's car for this scene (Toyota Camry's haven't really changed a lot since '99, especially the interior). They argue about the music choices and change the channel. Ryan was still asleep when I took his keys.

Noah, in an intoxicated state, stumbles out of the woods into the road and is hit by Levi who is too busy arguing to pay attention to the road.

The brutality of this shot ended up being much more vicious than I could have ever imagined. I won't talk about it, explain it, or show pictures, but it was good. Really good.

Riley and Marleen left that day, and then I only had to shoot with Andrew and Matt. Andrew left at 2.


For the first time, we weren't busy. We slept comfortably because there was no alarm.
Friday, July 23rd, 2010.

In the morning, we woke up and started cleaning the cabin. There was only one shot I needed: Matt stumbling through the forest, a set-up for him being hit by Levi.

We did this and once we figured out what to do about Ryan's car, we went home.

Cinco de Mayo!

So, it was a really funny shoot yesterday. I thew away what I wrote and I had everyone there throw out funny lines for Matt to say. In the end it took us about four hours to shoot one page but it's going to be a funny minute in the movie!

I'm not going to over explain the scene because I realize I'm giving away too much, instead I'll leave you with these pictures.

See what I mean? How do I explain this?

"It was this big."

This scene isn't in the movie. I just thought it was funny for some reason. I forgot why though. Those girls aren't involved in the production, I think they just came so I could yell at them for
being too loud.

Another day, another peso.

Ryan setting up lights for the shot. The worst thing about working with Ryan Mann is that he tries to light every single thing like the climax of "Coyote Ugly" because that's his favorite movie.

Matt stares at things to not feel uncomfortable. See what I mean about the "Coyote Ugly" inspired lighting? It took me this long to figure out exactly what Noah's style is and I finally found it with this fucking awesome shirt.

Fun fact: you can see me in this picture.

Funner fact: Andrew dresses like this normally.

I forgot what I was doing here but I was probably scolding him for doing something wrong.

Yesterday we shot some more for the movie! You may think that the entire movie is shot in a bathroom from the other post but that's not the case. I decided to re-shoot it because I didn't love how the Noah half of the scene came out (neither did Matt for that matter) and we're crippled in making movies in many ways but one thing we're not crippled in is time availability. If we have time, we're going to use it to do it over and over and over until it's right. It's the first time I ever felt tyrannical but it's okay because in the end it'll be worth it. It's also the first time I ever stopped someone mid-performance, something I always found rude, to have them do it differently. Third thing I did differently: I think this is the first time I changed my own dialogue in the middle of a take. Last time we did this scene we did it in about an hour. We took about four hours on it this time, and it shows. The shots were beautiful and so was the lighting and the performances were much much better.

 I can't wait to shoot the next scene.

Day 1.

The gods shined their light upon us today. After four months of bullshiz, shooting began and it was a damn good beginning too. First, we climbed into the bed of a truck to get some running shots of Andrew in his underwear (in the context of the movie, it will make sense). We shot some awesome Andrew sitting on the toilet stuff with Matt outside yelling at him about Gorgonites. Good day. Now, let's have 10 more of those to wrap it up.

Look at fun stuff we did!

Heres Andrew standing in boxers, and Matt standing next to Andrew standing in boxers.

Raudel loves reading about the Holocaust, but the Holocaust hates being read by Raudel.

"I'm sorry, sir. We did everything we could to save her."

A synopsis you say you want? Well, here you go!

Zimbabwe and Noah is a stoner comedy, set in 1999, about two friends traveling to the beach for their traditional New Year’s Eve party. Joining them is their old friend Levi and his girlfriend, Vivian, whom Zimbabwe and Noah are less than fond of. Tensions begin to run high as the battle for Levi’s affection grows more and more intense by the second. Matters are made worse when they discover that, on that night, the beginning of the new millennium will bring an end to the world. Now faced with an oncoming apocalypse, Zimbabwe and Noah must do all they can to win back Levi’s friendship and survive Y2K. Hilarity ensues.

Spring Break Starts.

The chairman of Spring Break valiantly walks around his house.

We celebrated the beginning of Spring Break with some auctions, some hookah and watching "Southland Tales."

What are you guys doing for Spring Break? Invite me.