Hit in the Taillights

This morning starts Day 1 of shooting for the “Believe Me” film by Riot Studios. The morning has started early and the entire studio is a buzz with energy and craziness. But as it is still early I will wait till rolling stops for the day to tell you more.

As for the past few days a lot of things have been going on both at Riot and in my personal life.

To back track some, my Day 4 was pretty laid back. I did the usual; updating crew and cast lists, running errands, and I even was able to get off work early (aka a normal time at 5). It definitely was not a boring day, but it was normal in it’s activities so there is nothing much to report.

Friday, Day 5 however was full of activity from actors traveling in, coordinating pick ups, to running errands.

It was the errands for me that led to the most activity. While going to pick up a receipt that I forgot to get/was not given by the sushi place we ordered from, things went haywire. Everything was going fine despite the fact that traffic was backed up on IH 35, as it almost always is, until traffic started hitting the brakes fast and the guy behind me was too close and didn’t hit the brakes fast enough. I felt a hard jolt from behind looked in my rearview mirror and saw the crumpled up front end of a Toyota Camry. After, the sigh and mental thought of “crap this is not what I needed today” I pulled over and went into action. I tried calling 911, but was disconnected thanks to a lousy service. So, then I told the guy who hit me to try calling. Then I called my mom from my dying phone to tell her that what happened ask her to get a hold of our insurance agent to check on what I needed to do. Called my bosses to let them know what was going on and that I was going to be even later than expected. Then, I started getting information for the guy. The usual: name, phone number, insurance information, license number, license plate, etc.

Then the police arrived and checked in with us making sure we were okay. They then worked on figuring out if we could get our vehicles off the IH 35 upper deck by driving. It was soon determined that for a short period the car that hit me could be driven, so the officer made the call for traffic to be stopped. Yep, I stop traffic.

Needless to say I and the other guy were probably not the most popular people at that moment. Once we got off the highway we headed to a parking lot. We then went through the process of getting information again and the officers took our statements. All in all it was a smooth process that took about and hour to complete and then on my way I went to complete my task with my bent bumper truck and sticking driver door.

Later that evening I called the insurance agency of the guy that hit me to make a claim. Another surprisingly smooth process that I completed within 30 minutes. However, there seem to be some complications with the timeliness of getting my truck in for a check up. So, we shall see what happens.

After the day I had I was so excited to be able to get out and have a good time. So, it was a good thing that I had a fun night already planned. When I got home I showered and dressed in 45 minutes and headed out with my friend Sarah for the night. It was fun to get to go out and enjoy Austin at night. I highly recommend doing it if you ever get the chance. There is a plethora of things to do, I promise you will not be board for a second.

I may have been hit in the taillights, but I had fun in the Austin lights.