C R Y D E R P O I N T 6 MAY BrainDead: The Shoot By Jill Davis First, a pop quiz: The woman pictured jumping off the balcony on the cover of the paper is: a) A resident who just couldn’t come to terms with Waldbaum’s closing on 154th Street; b) A pool member who believed a vicious rumor that Cryder Point brunches would no longer be serving Utopia Bagels; or c) The stuntwoman from the new TV show, Brain- Dead. Monday, April 25: Filming began. Large sections 6 cryder point courier | MAY 2016 | WWW.QNS.COM of the neighborhood’s parking had been blocked off with orange cones for a few days. “No parking” signs dotted the area all the way down Powells Cove Blvd. to 154th Street and over to 10th Avenue and up 160th and 162nd Streets. The breadth of area was largely due to the first scene shot in the morning on 160th Street off of Powells Cove. The scene called for two cars to collide, and talk about an accident waiting to happen— or should I say, waiting for an accident to happen. Filming, I learned, is a lot of hurry-upand wait, and between setting up for a shot, takes and re-takes, things can drag on…and on… So it wasn’t until about 2pm that the crew descended on our property to shoot the dramatic scene of a woman leaping off a balcony. Spoiler alert: She jumps because her brain has been taken over by alien bugs and she’s losing her mind; rather than be captured, she decides to end it all. Hey, even I couldn’t make this stuff up. Some residents came down to the courtyard and others watched the action from their balconies. And so we waited and waited, but aside from needing a good dose of patience, one of the biggest challenges was finding a good spot to take some pictures. Trees, people, cranes…something was always in the way. I managed to position myself at what I thought was a great vantage point but was quickly shooed away by a production assistant. “You’re too close,” she instructed, and I begrudgingly slinked away. Fortunately there were folks who had some terrific sightlines from their balconies and took many of the pictures you see here. Kudos go to Sheila Vaughan and Maxine Schiller for some great shots. Finally, it was the big moment. The stuntwoman burst out of the balcony door, hopped onto a small table, jumped over the railing and executed a lovely swan dive onto the center of an inflated mega-mattress. All of us spectators immediately clapped and yelled, “Yay!” It turned out, however, that our applause was not appreciated by either the cast or crew. We didn’t know that the scene wasn’t over yet and our noise ruined the take, so they had to do the whole thing all over again. Oops. By now it was about 4:00 and things seemed to be wrapping up for the day. I was told that Tuesday’s filming would start in the morning with the blood-splattered corpse of the jumper lying in the driveway, followed by cop cars and flashing lights and the coroner’s van arriving to haul off the body of the dearly departed. I’m not into gore but this sounded like fun, so I went home to recharge my camera and get ready for the next day. Tuesday, April 26: Where’s the blood? I got downstairs shortly after 9am only to learn that the production team had made a last-minute switcheroo in the schedule and had filmed the bloody corpse scene the previous evening! Oh well, that’s show biz I guess (grumble, grumble). I will say it did look like a crime scene between the 01 and 21 Buildings—even Tony Sr., the concierge in the 01 Building, said so, and he ought to know since he’s a retired police detective. “Yep, this is what crime scenes look like, lots of people standing around,” he remarked. And that’s pretty much what it was. There were a couple of cop cars, the coroner’s van and yellow Early Monday morning: The shoot started down the block Later on, prep began between 01 and 21 for the big jump And folks wanted to see the action! Now we know what a Movie Bird is… It’s amazing how long one little car crash can take! And get their own shots of the scene
CP052016
To see the actual publication please follow the link above