[Remember when I used to blog? Me too.]

The old Yankee Stadium is a crucial backdrop – nearly a character – in Keeper of the Pinstripes. So, we’d based much of our production plans around the demolition schedule we’d received from the Yankees’ management.

Turns out, there are actually four different crews working on the demolition, only one of which works for the Yankees. And the schedule we’d received was for the slowest, by far, of the crews. Stick to our original shooting plans, and by the time principal photography started, there wouldn’t be much stadium left.

So, very quickly, we’ve rejiggered our approach, throwing together a small four-day shoot to capture as much footage of the old stadium – during the day and at night, from the ground and from above, next to the new stadium and by itself – as possible.

That way, with the requisite footage in the can, no matter how those four teams’ schedules shift, we’ll be spared worrying about the ticking time bomb of stadium demolition as we shoot the rest of the film.

A week from Monday, then, our mini-shoot will be underway. We hope. So far, we’ve had to convince the City of New York (who now control access to the inside of the old stadium) that, though they denied similar permission to CBS and ABC, they should let our little crew in. We’ve had to convince agents that, though we’d already negotiated deals with department heads based on a specific number of pre-production and shooting weeks, they should let us tack on a few additional weeks at no further cost. And we’ve had to lock down decisions on things like lenses and film stock, set design and visual effects, that we’d otherwise have far, far longer to work our way through.

So, suffice it to say, we’ve been busy. And, frankly, I think it just goes downhill from here.