Yes, part II ! Had another inertesting day of shooting...
This time, it was just Mike, Tom, myself and Kasey at work. We had twenty shots to do and unusual weather to say the least! The morning was filled with smoke form a nearby raging fire by the MS river. Bill Talbot (shack proprietor) said there was some uncertain drama behind it all. Basically, it was not a planned fire and they were unsure if it was set to cover somthing else up like...a body? He said there was a car involved and engulfed in flames and several people. You never know down here in the delta especially where arson runs rampant as does deperate measures.
The first and most important shot of the day was the "train shot". Mike had enlisted Reggie, a local locomotive engineer to drive his locomotive through Hopson, of which he usually does anyhow on certain days, but this time he stopped for the camera. At this point in the day it began to rain. Reggie's wife beagn to explain the dangers of hopping the train, and that I might lose my legs if I don't make it up in time. Well, I had a couple bad visions naturally before "action" was called. I wasn't scared to run next to the train and even reach out for it.. But i had a guitar case in hand, dumb shoes (an ongong problem for me it seems...) and rainy weather, so I was a little unnerved about having to hop the train with all the elements at work.
"Action!". I run along with the train, reaching out, running running....then I hurled the guitar case on board grabbed the rails and jumped up. Lo and behold I made it! The wind picked up and my hair blew with the train and rain and we rolled on through Hopson and finished the shot. Well, okay, we had to do it two more times. And I was still nervous each time about making the jump, but it worked out fine and I kept my legs in tact.
We had several other shots to do this day. Funny enough, the fire stopped for a while so we could breathe again and so did the rain. By the time we did the "mailbox" shots, it was sunny! "Sunblock anyone?" I asked. Us fair skinned people you know...
Mike says that he'lll never be able to shoot another blues video as he used up all the images. Let's see...we have sharecropper shacks, trains, train tracks, cotton, a burnt down movie theater on the "other side of the tracks", a commisary, tractor, plow, plantation, graveyard and indian mound all in the video. Yeah, I think that just about cover the subject!
