All right, all right, all right... It's the night before our first big day on set. While I asked Carly Bondar to write an entry this evening, something tells me that a nice dinner and a couple of drinks at The Forge Steakhouse here in Morton may have caused it to slip her mind. Far be it from me to nag her to do it, so i decided to write my first entry. I'm sure that there will be more.
So, hi. I'm Candice "Candy" Cain, and I'm the writer/director of Baking Up Love. I'm also the founder and president of Gemelli Films, based out of New York. I never expected to film this movie in Morton, but once nelson (Smith-- My Director of Photography) and I came here to shoot B-roll, we realized that we would be missing out on an incredible opportunity if we didn't film here. We worked with mayor Kaufman and the local government to get all of the pieces together, and now here we are. It's pretty amazing.
I'm very blessed to have such an incredible team that came with me from NY (Nelson, Nick, Nicole, Lexi, Jennifer, Monika, Alessandro and Ketak), OH (Marisa) and PA (Amy), but am absolutely thrilled to meet new people in town that are working with us-- Especially the women Natalie, Kassidy and, of course, Brittany. (I haven't really gotten to know the new guys on crew.) On top of that, I'm not using my usual actors. The only ones I've worked with before are Alix Kermes, David Otunga and Kenney Myers.
This is an incredibly humbling experience. People have been stopping me on the street, approaching me in restaurants, coming up to me in stores and telling me how much they appreciate us focusing our story on Morton. They're very proud of their hometown, and I truly hope that this film can capture the charm, love and faith present here. It's such a great place with wonderful people.
That's not to say that Long Island or anywhere else I've filmed is bad. On the contrary, I've never had a location where I've been like, "I'm NEVER going back there." But, Morton is.... different. VERY different. I guess filming things on Long island is considered "old hat"-- People are used to it. Here, it's new. it's novel. They LOVE it.
So far.
Let's see how they feel once they wrap.
Selfie before being interviewed by a local news station. Hair by Brooke Salon. Makeup by Lexi Sherman.