A crisp November afternoon in South Carolina. We wait on the lawn outside of Unusual Films for our actor. When he arrives, we pile into James Lee’s big red luxury van and trundle across the border into the North Carolina mountains. On the way, we swap stories of films and film projects we’ve worked on, typing at laptops, twiddling with ipods and just generally enjoying the fall landscape. As the we approach the mountains, highways become narrow winding roads and we begin to climb higher and higher, the flat landscape we came from unfolding below us through flashing orange and golden leaves. almost two hours in, we’re very high, leaning dangerously on the curves over steep wooded ravines. We pull up at a gravel road and hike the heavy equipment in, up a forested path of rocks. We reach an outcropping and a mass of giant boulders that we have to climb, passing the fragile film equipment up piece by piece. Over a little bridge that spans a narrow gap and out onto a huge rock, we’ve reached our destination, a mountain ridgeback, jutting out of the forested hills and affording a gorgeous view of red and yellow trees descending like streams into the purple plains and rivers below. The sky is pure blue, the air crisp and clean. We wait for the sun to lower, huddling under our hoodies from the growing chill. Then, when the sun is just right, when magic hour makes the distant landscape recedes into a glowing purple, we start into our shoot. It is a good day to be a film student.