My Kansas Weekend
11/6/2010 2:35 AM EST
So on Thursday. November 4 my friend Jenna who I met at the Chicago Supernatural Con suggested that I come with her to an antique auction in Milwaukee Wisconsin. This would mean her driving to get me 7 hours and then us driving up 5 hours and staying in a hotel Sat. night. We decide it's a go and start planning.
Friday she takes off 1 hour early from work and starts driving my way. When she's about 2 hours from my house she calls and we start talking. NOW Jenna lives in Kansas City, Kansas, about 5 minutes away from Lee's Summit where Richard Speight Jr is filming.
We start talking and we're both split half of us wants to go to Milwaukee but the other half wants to go back to Kansas and watch parts of an actual movie being filmed. Now one thing important to know is Jenna is involved in a radio show with Mike Walker called Black Sky Radio.
11/7/2010 12:50 AM CST
Jenna got to my house at 3 am EST and we stayed up till 4 am and chatted and finally went to bed. We had a quick power nap and left at 9 am to head towards Kansas. Our ride here was GREAT! Seriously we had a blast and I introduced Jenna to geocaching which she loves.
8 hours later after stopping a few times once at Nastalgia Ville USA and to do other stuff we go to Lee's Summit and then WEIRD odd things started happening. It started with the fact that thhere were six exits to Lee's Summit. Now 'I' have never been there and neither had Jenna. So I go 'lets go on this exit' and BOOM there's Richard's freaking hotel.
We geek out about it and forget that the car had dinged and needed gas. So we start to worry that we were going to die in the road. We ended up asking for diractions and they gave us BAD ones. So we're driving through town and we drive THROUGH Downtown Lee's Summit. So we stop and ask a girl with a dog for directions and she tells us 'Oh go down and turn right' so we get gas and there is a sonic next door. So we go to sonic and everyone says the movie was being filmed on 3rd street. We walk up and down 3rd a while and find some of the places Three Blind Saints was being filmed.
So we decided to try and google the church and we find it! Turns out it was TWO blocks from the sonic we ate lunch in! Weird weird things happening in Lee's Summit. So we then decided to head to Outback Steakhouse and we end up sitting next to some of the production crew for the movie!!
So while we didn't get to see anything being filmed we had an interesting day and a very large version of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. LOL We then headed 40 minutes to Jenna's house where we watched Firefly and Supernatural lol. Great GREAT Saturday.
Sunday
Sunday stated out stessful as Mr Speight had invited Jenna and Mike down to the set of Three Blind Saints on Tuesday or Thursday and Jenna was supposed to take me home Sunday. BUT as we were freaking out we were told 'Monday was great' and to bring me along too! With that off our shoulders we started our day.
We went antiquing first and I found the most AMAZING WWII jacket that I'm totally going to purchase when I visit Jenna in December. For those of you who don't know I own a WWII Royal Air Force great coat. So I totally want another WWII coat but this one US Army.
Then we headed to Joe's crab shack followed by an awesome night of geocaching. Here we were hunkered down in the park after dark with a flashlight trying to find teeeeeny tiny geocaches that were about the size of a pencil eraser.
After all that was done we headed back to her place to watch Supernatural. :)
Monday
OMG! How to recap Monday and do it justice?! We woke up pretty early. We were meeting Mike at the set at 9 am and wanted to give ourselves time for bad traffic. We got there at 8:30 and our guide Beth took us to watch a scene being filmed. It was AMAZING!! If you guys haven't heard of the movie Three Blind Saints go to facebook right now and look it up. It's a religious themed family comedy. Very child friendly. And it looks excellent from what we saw so far!
The interviews were just done as Beth could grab people and bring them down to us, so there was times when we just kind of wandered around or went up to watch a scene or two get done.
First we talked to Brad Wilson, the Producer. And that man is just so kind and warm! Anytime he saw us during the rest of the day he would wave and say hey. He was awesome and just a great man. He also has an AMAZING voice! It's so nice! Brad has a website here:
http://higherpurposefilms.com/ which you should all definitely check out.
Next up was Casey Lohman the Casting Director and she was a NEAT lady. She just was great. And it was so interesting to hear how they went about casting people for the movie. She went into detail about the casting process and it was pretty awesome. The simple insane amount of people she had to look at photos of for the part of Tiffany was mind boggling!! She did a superb job.
Steve Gray was the writer of the script. He's also a Pastor. And he is a cool God man. Seriously. He's so great about what he wants the movie to say and at the same time isn't a shove it in your face Christian. He's not all 'it's MY way or NO way'. He's got a book out that I have yet to read but has EXCELLENT reviews on Amazon. It's called My Absurd Religion (By Which I make My Living) check it out you guys.
Next we met Elijah Rock who plays Jamal and this man is one of THE most Charistmatic guys ever!! Oh my word!! I could gush about him all day! He is one of those 'insta friends' that people pick up throughout their lives. He's so honest and open. He even sang to us a bit of Elijah Rock which is where his stage name came from! You can hear my personal favorite version of the song here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv6uxj7hQBs
Three Blind Saints is Elijah's first Feature Production :) I hope to see many many more from him in the future. He's wonderful.
Next up was Stelio Savante who plays Frankie and this man was GREAT. He would jokingly say things in such a dry tone you couldn't tell if he was joking or being 100% serious. It was great. He's a reserved but very sweet man, very kind.
Sharon Wright played Beverly Hills she was the girlfriend of the badguy in the movie. She is one of the local talents and she was awesome. Very great lady. She kept talking about how she had to dress all conservative and that is NOT her in real life. She plays a 'bad' guy, and it was awesome that the bad guys weren't all creepy. Sharon is very sweet
Audrey Matos plays the main lady Tiffany. And she is not only beautiful but super sweet and as she put it to us later, crazy. She did a LOT of Spanish tv out in LA and Three Blind Saints is her first Feature in English. She's very fiesty and awesome. Tiffany from the movie is a single mom with a young son. Audrey has a great sense of humor. Audrey's site is
http://audreymatos.com/ check her out :)
Barry Corbin played "Rusty" the villain and he was also awesome. Which seems to be my word of the day lol. He was in Northern Exposure and Lonesome Dove. He played a villian but this was a comical villian. He wasn't really threatening but he tried to. He was approached and asked to be Rusty in Three Blind Saints, so it wasn't something he sought out but he really enjoyed it.
The AMAZING Irma P Hall played Miss Louise and she is a God Send! That's all I can say about her. She talks to you and it's like an angel itself is focusing on you. She had so many wonderful stories too! She is so very grandmotherly. After the interview she looked RIGHT at me and goes 'I know you!' I told her there was no way I'd ever met her and she asked who I looked like and we told her Mia Farrow and she was delighted and swore I looked EXACTLY like Mia Farrow lol.
And finally! Richard Speight Jr. who plays Sam. He was up and down so we actually interviewed him in three different interviews and kept hitting pause to continue it on later. He is an amazing man. He's so friendly and personable!! Also our weekend would not have been possible WITHOUT Richard as he's the one who invited Black Sky Radio to the set on that Monday!
So after 12 hours on the set with all these AMAZING people we decided to head out. So we asked one of Jenna's old friends who was helping out with makeup about where to eat. And she told us there were tons of places along this one strip of road. Jenna told me I could pick the restaurant so we're staring at signs and I see Waffle House. So we decided to go to Waffle House, but when we get off at the exit we drive about 2-3 miles down this road and don't SEE it. So instead we went to Outback. We went in and THERE was Elijah Rock, Audrey, Richard and Tual! Elijah begs us to sit with them!
So we ended up at dinner with alot of members of cast and crew from Three Blind Saints and I end up sitting NEXT to Richard. So we hang out with them and chat for a few hours. Richard is very talkative and asks about my kids and asks Jenna about her hubs and what he does ext. He makes fun of Taul. Just was an awesome night!
When they found out Jenna was driving me back to Indiana (8 hour drive) that night they were quite concerned and were seriously worried about us. It was very sweet and touching that they cared and truly cared.
So after this awesome night, which we did have some photos taken with Audrey's camera and I'll share them when she gets them posted. We headed home. I got two hugs from Richard this past weekend with HIM initiating it and three from Elijah whom I adore.
Here's some photos from our day
And here's some photos from when Jenna got me back to Indiana
