Muir Woods And the Beach Under the Moonlight

[Andrew McAvinchey]

Thomas, Dave and Andrew set off early yesterday on a little adventure in the woods. Dave wore his bearskin, Thomas skinned a boar, and Andrew wore his bare skin.

We shot some trees, they were very uncooperative, just standing there, being all inanimate and redwoody. Big deal, thousands of years old, huge and imposing wooden trees. We stood inside them and scared the tourists. Redwoods make you feel suitably small and insignificant, something we should all feel from time to time. We tried to capture our humble commune with nature on video by dancing around and acting like loons, but we may have fallen short.

We went to the Pelican Inn for lunch, and met the owner who used to be in the Merchant Marine. That's a civilian place people go to get away from their Moms and see the world. This is the second time I met an ex merchant marine this week, and both defied expectation. He's written a movie, and it sounds pretty good. The pints were great and I had bangers and mash.

Later last night we met up with Alan, Nisha and Cindy and brought them all to the beach. We lit three fires, got ready to shoot then were abrubtly shut down by 'The Man.' We're lucky not to be rotting in Alcatraz right now.

We bought more wood, moved up the beach, lit a big fire, then danced around wildly under the stars. All we needed was a chicken to sacrifice and the scene would have been complete.

Shooting in the dark is a new experiment Thomas is playing with. You shoot into the dark with a torch, and use your imagination. I'm not sure how its going to transfer to the silver screen, but it was still fun to choreograph a sword fight with a lamp and low visibility, between an Assassin Priest and Stephanie Twin, a Belly Dancer and A meditating crystal guy. They won by the way, the priest's bad, so he had to lose.