Three weeks later – on the set.

The new film seemed jinxed from the start. One scene after another had to be redone. Weird things went wrong, were fixed and others went wrong. Some weren’t detected till they caused more work. Finally, nearly three weeks late and two million over budget they were back to a re-take of one four-minute segment for one of the lead scenes. The set wasn’t ready till yesterday because the carnival ride they were to use was damaged in an accident while being transported. The only replacement wasn’t available for months so they waited for it to be repaired. When it arrived on site it was set up to run. When they turned it on power created several problems. The specifications were wrong. A special line was run to the ride from the power line, it took over a week to get it installed and it was tested the night before. It seemed to fix the problems.

During the day they shot the scene eight times before the director was satisfied. There were wardrobe problems, some of the costumes for the early scenes were lost and had to be replaced. Everyone was so under pressure that nobody noticed the fill lighting had tripped a breaker. Without that fill the scene had annoying shadows. This was not noticed by the editing group until after the crew started dismantling the set. They were unable to get it back together for a retake late yesterday. Now they were back in costume and makeup and to re-shoot it today. Jan was tired. With a little luck they would do one or two shoots and this would be a short day. And this would be the last day of shooting till the next picture. She would have two weeks off.

Judd and Jan were shown on a carnival ride. They got into the seat of the ride at just after eight thirty. First the power supply for the camera system tripped. The electrician reset the breaker and they started again. It tripped again and was reset again. One by one other systems failed. They worked on the for over an hour. At ten fifteen the cast was taken off the ride. Finally at one ten they got in the ride again. It had been powered up since seven in the morning and it had been in locked positions most of the time. The ride was state of the art. Every moving part was powered by hydraulics. Electrically powered solenoids and stepping valves precisely controlled the flows to each push/pull cylinder or motor to provide some interesting movements. The hydraulic tank held over 500 gallons of oil. Four electric pumps, twenty-five horsepower each kept over 1800 pounds of pressure on lines all over the unit. A main two-inch line at the axis of the unit fed the various manifolds on the actual ride.