But perhaps you like photos best...

I drove out to Lake Snowden (about 15 minutes away from Athens) last Friday night to visit the "Trailerpark" set and shot the photos featured in the slideshow above. (Hint: Turn on the captions to figure out what's going on in the photos.)

Coordinating producer Conor Hogan was right when he said that moving around on set is challenging when one is trying not to obstruct shots. From the minute I walked onto the set, I felt a bit unsure about where to position myself so that I could catch all the action without being in anyone's way. I stayed in the same position, simply staring at the crew thirty feet in front of me as scenes were set up and tape eventually rolled. No problem at all...until the actors started moving out of my line of vision, behind a massive trailer. I stayed in the same spot, just kind of staring at the spot where the actors had been seconds, then minutes, earlier. It was time to move around, despite my worries of somehow interrupting the serious tone of the set.

Here are twenty-some college kids clad in puffy winter coats, all completely professional about the scenes they must get through on this Friday night. They could be out amongst the belligerently drunk Court St. crowd, but instead they all talk in hushed tones -- as steam escapes from their frozen lips -- about second takes and reflection of lights on trailers. And there I was, afraid to move, while I just watched -- and did not hear a word they said, with the exception of assistant director Jillian Jacobs' voice screaming out, "TURN OFF YOUR CELL PHONES...ALL QUIET ON SET!" I couldn't stand the thought of interrupting their "flow" somehow by moving about, though I'm still not sure what exactly a filmmaker's artistic "flow" is (but the term is thrown about a lot, you know? -- must be important).

I eventually moved, making my way toward associate producer Jen Taylor, who set up the scene that was being filmed that night. She said the following in regards to the scene:

"This scene is at the end of the movie; it's really the closing shot, except for the short wrap-up at the very end. What's going on here is that we're faking a fire tonight, and we're actually burning down a trailer tomorrow. We have lights set up to fake the fire and the actors are running around to figure out where all their loved ones are, so it's sort of organized chaos."

The fire trucks that ended up on set that night to film the simulated fire scene were clearly marked Albany Fire Department, but there was confusion over which local fire department would provide the fire truck. "The problem actually wasn't worked out until 5 p.m. today," Taylor said.

Despite the problems, there was much excitement and buzz surrounding the trailer-burning scene. As I picked up the Monday issue of the Athens NEWS this week, the front page photo of a blazing trailer and headline of "It's not arson; it's filmmaking!" hit me like a speeding train. My first thought was, damn, that is cool. More photos of the trailer-burning can be viewed at the behind-the-scenes blog kept by "Trailerpark" set photographers.