We shot a daytime party scene (“Grace” is a party-loving woman!) and I took some waiting- around- to- shoot pictures. You can tell there was a mellow vibe, right!? Bruce filmed much of it in one long hand held camera shot and those who saw it said it looked liked a real party. People were having fun. The sound man, Vince, would turn an Al Green song I chose up real high so we’d get into the groove and then turn it off just as we started to speak cause we don’t have the rights to use the song but I wanted us all to be movin and groovin to the right mellow tempo for when the film is actually scored. The weather was sweet so folks would be outside playing, talking, laughing, finding frogs….though the party was indoors.

Alex Wolff, Nat's brother, the second half of The Naked Brothers Band from the Nicholodeon show.

A game of badminton while waiting to shoot. That's Lizzie on the left

Nat and Alex

Alex and Nat's parents, actor Polly (just finished a role in "The Big C", Laura Linney's new Showtime series) and Michael Wolff. He is a famed jazz pianist

Costume designer, Johann Stegmier on the right, with Assistant costumer, Kate Jones

Is this an adorable chicken or what!!?? She stays this way, with down instead of feathers.

This is her mom. Check out the feathered bellbottoms

Polly, Michael and Maddie

Marissa finds a tiny frog

Terry plays "Jasper", my boyfriend of the moment, in the film

Maddie Corman Alexander as "Carol" and Poorna Jagannathan as "Mira" in the party scene

Marissa O'Donnell as "Tara" and Nat Wolff as "Jake"

Maddies, Rosanna (Arquette as "Darcy", Poorna and Terry McKenna as "Jasper" preparing to film the party

Lizzie Olsen as "Zoe"

He played a biker at the party and he is a biker for real.

Denis Burse as "Angel"

Joyce Van Patten as "Miriam"

I'm including this picture because I think it's a cool way to store your old vinyl records

Catherine Keener as "Diana", with Nat an Lizzie who play her kids, my grands.

Poorna, the resident chronicler of the scenes, photographing Denis and others

Bruce giving some scene advice to Marissa and Michael

That's gorgeous Lizzie on the stairs

Our wonderful, kind, thoughtful, smart producer, Claude Dal Farra, and Alinda, who actually works with Claude's Anthropedia Foundation but is assisting me during the shoot.

Maddie Corman Alexander as "Carol" and Poorna Jagannathan as "Mira"

Catherine Keener (photo by: Poorna Jagannathan)

Photo by: Poorna Jagannathan

Photo by: Poorna Jagannathan

I also found pictures from the other night—the night of the Moon Festival. Some people I deeply care about came to visit the set and I can’t not post those pictures, albeit belatedly.

Elizabeth Lesser is co-founder of the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck and author of a book I love, “Broken Open,” about how sometimes tragedies and traumas can cause us to become whole. Peter Buffett is a fine composer, musician and activist and Jennifer runs their foundation and is totally special. I’ve known and loved Pat Mitchell since the early 90’s when she ran Ted Turner’s documentary division at TBS, then was President/CEO of PBS, and now Prez and CEO of the Paley center which used to be the Museum of Radio and Television—a truly amazing, formidable, fun, loving woman . Scott Seydel is her husband, an environmental activist, using his knowledge as a chemical engineer to help big companies (and cities) figure out how to recycle and go green. Scott is also the father of Rutherford Seydel who is married to Laura Turner Seydel, my stepdaughter. So Pat and I share 3 grandchildren. Laura and her first born, son John R, are coming up to visit the 20-21st and I am so excited. They will be up in these parts looking at colleges for him…a fact of life I can hardly countenance!! I filmed his birth, for Pete’s sake!!

Whew! Aren’t modern families complicated?

Pat and Scott

Elizabeth Lesser, Peter Buffett, Jennifer Buffett in front, then Pat Mitchell, me, Scott Seydel, Pat’s husband, and Elizabeth’s husband Tom.

Just for the record, I am getting sick. We did 2 good scenes today. A lot of fun. I adore working with Bruce Beresford. But now I am home and will go to bed and pray I can sleep for 9 hours and kick this. I’ll work tomorrow regardless. Have 6:30 pick up and it’s another party scene—hey, “Grace” is a party animal—but I so hate the feeling of deep tiredness one gets when a cold has come on. Richard gave me some weird, intense potion that will probably knock this out. I wish he was here to minister to me.

Saturday and Sunday nights were really fun even though Saturday it was uncomfortably cold and we all wished we had down parkas. Still, we danced round the bonfire in a Full Moon ritual. It is something my character, Grace, does with her women friends every full moon. I had my friend, Cristina Biaggi, come and teach us a “Luna” chant. As I have said in an earlier blog, she went to Vassar and, while there, would do the same sort of ritual honoring the full moon and we were all rather in awe of what we viewed as her exoticism. The other women present for the scene were fascinated by Cristina’s explanations of Goddess worship in Neolithic times, pre-patriarchy. She has written a number of books about the Goddess. (She is also a well known sculptor) Later in the evening, we all drink tequila and play Truth or Lies in the scene. Both nights we worked till 5:30-6am!!! But it was worth it and we had a blast!

These other photos are of different moments over the previous week, taken by Annie Miller, our indomitable prop “master,” who has become a skilled chicken wrangler.

I couldn’t post these various photos sooner cause I just got them. My camera battery was dead and I didn’t find my recharger till just now.

Left to right: Cristina Biaggi, Denise Burse and moi

"Grace" is also an artist. In this scene I am painting the landscape

Our prop "master", the amazing Annie, who, among all the other things she seems to manage, also wrangles "Grace's" chickens, which wander in and out of my house. That's my "Grandson", Nat Wolffe, in the background.

Catherine Keener with chicken

"Grace" with chicken

"Grace" and Annie with chickens

Time seems to be speeding by. It never went this fast when I was a young girl. Wow. It’s a challenge to hone in on things slow it all down which is what happens when we’re young and everything is new.

We had some really good days filming this week. Here are some pictures of it. Good scenes. Working with Catherine Keener is very special for me. She is such an interesting woman it makes me want to get inside her and see the world through her eyes. I sense it would look rather different. Does this happen to you sometimes, this desire to, even for a minute, see what the world looks and feels like through someone else’s eyes—someone interesting?

Also, most unusual: there are 3 young ones who are making their first film. Nat Wolff (The Naked Brothers Band), Elizabeth Olsen (Youngest sister of the Olsen twins) and Marissa O’Donnell (starred in the Broadway play “Annie”). They are all so talented you know it will be the first of many films but it is exciting to see them experience this. That’s one reason this week was so fun…I got a chance to work with 2 of them, Lizzie and Nat. And Catherine and I had a meaningful scene that felt really good.

Barbara O’Brian, Levon’s manager, told me he and his band will be performing in San Francisco soon and the Greek Theatre in L.A. August 15th. It has been 20 years or more since he’s been out there so this is historic.
Barbara, by the way, is a genuine mensch. This weekend we do night shooting…a Moon festival/ritual that will involve chanting and drumming and a game of Truth or Dare. It will be a wild time. The actor and filmmaker and friend of both mine and Catherine, Rosanna Arquette, is coming to be in it and my fiend Cristina Biaggi, who was at Vassar College when I was and got kicked out for howling naked at the moon is also coming and being a consultant as well as participant. Stay tuned though I may not get to posting about this till Tuesday.

Catherine Keener (my daughter) and Nat Wolffe (my grandson) playing straight faced for the camera. In real life both of them are usually beaming!

View from "Grace's" house

The redhead is the wonderful Barbara O'Brian who manages Levon helm. She visited the set yesterday with her niece from Florida...just behind her is her niece from Florida, then Benjamin Beresford, Wynne and Chuck who own the house we're filming in and a friend of Barbara's niece from Florida

Watching the scene we just shot on the video play back

Vince, our brit sound man, getting me wired for sound.

Tom on the stairs of "Grace's" home

"Grace's" living room

"Grace's" dining room

We're getting ready to shoot in "Grace's" kitchen

The creator of the magic buses is Kat O’Sullivan,  and the fire dancer who is standing next to us in the photo from yesterday’s blog is Ahnika Delirium. I regret that I lost their names. Kat wrote me as a blog comment and told me their names. Kat is also the one who makes the amazing sweaters and coats and stuff. Truly gifted. Her web site is at katwise.com in case anyone wants to get a bus or a sweater.

This bus is the one that lived in Atlanta for awhile, in front of Ted Turner’s Captain Planet Foundation. That’s why you see a Cartoon Network sticker on the window. I figure it was fated to end up here at Grace’s (my character) house in Woodstock. Isn’t life amazing?

See you next time. I have 2 days off and many lines to learn and things to think about.

The magical bus from Turner country

Joe Muszynski, co-author of our film with sisters Alinda on his right (who is assisting me on the film) and his other sister who just came in from Chicago where they all grew up

Wynne and Chuck Susswein who own the house we're filming in. They bought it 20 years ago and are enjoying seeing it transformed into an artistic, Woodstockian wonderland. Wynne is a Flamenco dancer. We've turned her dance studio into "Grace's" painting and sculpting studio

July 30-31st

Friday and Saturday we filmed a small music festival in Rosendale—a real one happened last week which we filmed and then, in these pictures, we recreated a portion for the closer shots and story telling scenes for “Peace, Love and Misunderstanding.”

Katherine McPhee, who attained fame on American Idol, sang a song and impressed us all with her voice.

Out of nowhere, a friend from Atlanta, Sue Lecraw, showed up. She now lives in Big Sur, but while she was in Atlanta, she owned one of the wildest, psychedelic buses that was parked for a long time in front of The Captain Planet Foundation offices. Captain Planet, an environmental children’s animated TV series, was developed decades ago by Ted Turner and Barbara Pyle. Ted’s daughter, Laura Turner Seydel, now runs the Captain Planet Foundation. Anyway, before Sue left Atlanta, she gave the bus to a woman up in Woodstock who creates these wild vehicles—see the photo. That bus of Sue’s is now parked in my character’s yard where we will film for the next 2 weeks. I will post photos of that one tomorrow. When Sue heard that her old bus would be in the film and that there was a music festival, she flew from Big Sur to participate in the goings on and became a colorful member of the band.

Friday afternoon, the Lansbury family showed up—George, Emily and one of their two daughters, Nathalie. We all became friends last year when we (along with 40 other friends) traveled to the Galapagos together for a fundraising cruise. Emily Lansbury, a film producer, is the sister of film producer Laura Bickford, and daughter of my dear friend, Jewelle Bickford, both of whom appear in numerous previous blogs of mine. Amazingly, Emily and Sue Lecraw went to college together and were astonished to see each other again at this filming in Rosendale. My daughter, Vanessa, her husband Paul and my grandchildren are all here visiting. The kids are close to the Lansbury’s daughters.

They were a colorful two days, with brightly dressed extras and hippie booths, and the bus. I am very impressed by the details the artist puts into her work.

Last night Richard, Catherine Keener, our producer, Claude Dal Farra and others, went to Levon Helm’s studio in Woodstock to hear his concert. He does these “Midnight Rambles” every Saturday when he’s in town and they are a blast. His 10-piece band, with a full horn section, was incredible. And Levon has lost not one speck of brilliance. As Richard said, “They smoked!! They rocked the house.” Levon was one of the two lead singers and drummer in The Band.

He played my husband in “The Dollmaker.” A film we did in the early 80s for ABC TV. We played hillbillies during the 2nd World War. I won an Emmy for my performance and Levon and I became friends. I had not seen him since, so this was a special reunion for me and his graciousness and hospitality was touching—we sat in his kitchen and talked before the show.

Phil Lesh, the bass player with the Grateful Dead, opened the concert with his band and they were terrific. Another irony is that in the scene we will shoot today, my character (Grace) does a rant to her grandchildren about the Grateful Dead’s Cal Expo concert in the summer of ‘91 and specifically mentions the song, “Box of Rain”, which Phil did vocals on.

Today we begin our filming in Grace’s house, where most of my important scenes take place. We’ll be there a couple of weeks and it will be fun. I’ve already posted photos of the house in an earlier blog.

See you soon.

On the left is Ahnika the fire dancer and on the right is Kat, the woman who painted the bus and designed the wild sweaters etc

...and that's Sue Lecraw on the right, in purple

I'm with George and Emily Lansbury and their daughter, Nathalie--holding Tulea

Me and Sue Lecraw

Details of the bus

Inside the bus

The big lights on a crane

extras in the audience

wild tatoo

Katherine McPhee

Katherine McPhee

Lori, the makeup artist

Phil Lesh, bass player with The Grateful Dead

That's Levon on the far right

The back of Levon while he plays his drums