My Lead Actress Has A Loose Toothe!

Virtual Crew,

Life never goes the way you plan. Right?

For example, you think you’ll celebrate certain things. Like your daughter’s first loose tooth.

But when your daughter is the star of your film and you’re not done shooting?

HECK NO.

48 hours ago, Sandi announces Journey has two loose teeth.

You could hear my scream echo through the North Carolina mountains.

NO!!!!!

She can’t lose a tooth! Rose Lawson can’t suddenly have a gaping hole in her smile.

Instead of celebrations from Daddy, Journey received lectures.

“Do not wiggle them!”

And yesterday, last minute, we set out on a LONG shooting day to get two final scenes completed.

It all began with breakfast that included scene inspiration.

Then it was back to it.

One of the scenes was SCENE 50. The final duel betwen Ghost and Rose. To be honest…I’ve been avoiding this scene. It’s big. It’s tough.

But the loose teeth kicked me in gear.

The weather didn’t really care about RECKONING. We sat on the porch of an old farm house, waiting for the rain to stop.

It stops. I haul the gear back out. Rain starts. Return to porch.

Daddy Director became frustrated. Rose Lawson stayed happy.

Hey….at least there was a porch.

Then God granted us cloud cover without rain. Journey stepped into the role of Rose Lawson.

At this point in the story, her character has realized nobody is left to help her face Ghost. She’s gotta trust God and do this again.

Ghost is in for a surprise. Whups…that was a spoiler. I’m supposed to alert you ahead of time. But you’re crew! That’s part of it.

After the final duel it was was off to Rose’s cabin.

It was time to finish SCENE 8.

Here the audience is introduced to Rose’s shooting abilities as she pops apples off the fence with a six shooter.

Good story telling always, always, always includes setups and payoffs.

I can’t have seven year old Rose Lawson pull a gun at the end without showing her handle a gun earlier. The audience would cry “foul.”

But here’s the other part…You can’t just stick a setup in for the payoff.

Setups MUST work on their own as entertainment. The payoff is the bonus. If you remove the payoff, the setup should still stand.

In RECKONING we see Rose shoot apples off the fence. Jacob Miller shows up to compliment her skill. Jacob tells her “the Philistines kept coming back after David.”

Problems in life never go away with one punch. They regroup and come back after us. Sometimes worse than before.

Goliath was just Philistine fight number one for David.

The Philistines never gave up. And David had to continually trust God to beat them again. So does Rose. So do we.

So back to the setup…the apple scene works on its own as entertainment, but keeps the audience from having an issue with the end of the movie. And it also speaks to the theme of the entire story!

BTW…wanna know how the apples fly off the fence?

Fishing line tied to the stem.

I asked Journey if she’d like me to tie a bit to a loose tooth.

She said tooth fairies don’t leave a reward if you force the tooth out.

Wait…what? The rules have changed since I was a kid and my Dad yanked my tooth out with a string. Without me knowing it was about to happen btw.

So that’s the latest. THANK YOU for reading and being a part!

Kyler Boudreau