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Mass transit to the film set

small cutbacks to help take the edge off
The Bedells

I'm shooting a film down in Virginia Beach.  That's a daily commute of 50+ miles each way.  I'm living in a world that hasn't really been viable for most people for the last half-decade.  I continued driving that hellish hour that cost more then 30 dollars a day well ino this decade because I refuse to move out of my beautiful house and in order to keep myself in film work I need to be able to go where the work is.  Sometimes that means air travel to a location where I get put up in a room somewhere, but lately it has meant riding the train.

Yes, the train.  The new light rail system that runs from Richmond to Virginia Beach is rapidly becoming my favorite thing ever.  This morning I'm writing from  the train as it whooshes me along to start the last day of shooting on a little horror film about undead hordes sweeping in from the south and eating everyone adn everything in their wake (I know, obvious and heavyhanded, but even bad filmmakers pay cash and provide lunch and I need to feed my family, my garden plot helps, but we still need cash).

I'm so glad they thought to build this thing starting in 2009.  It was a little 7 mile stretch in Norfolk, but it rapidly extened to the beach and after they built the third crossing (the area is absolutely covered in rivers) with a dedicated light rail bridge it extended up to my area fairly rapidly.  Now you can ride over 100 miles in about 3 hours and spend almost no money and absolutely no gas doing it.

Most mornings that I'm working I ride my bike in to the train station, ride the rain and get my writing and reading done and I coordinate rides to the set from teh closest train station with the rest of the guys working on the show.  Its saved me literally thousands of dollars over the last few years and saved my sanity.  I hated that drive and now I can get between cities in the middle of the east coast without driving a mile. 

Oct 08
transit,commute


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