Under the Overpass: The Walk-In Location Behind Gerald and Trixie's Spot

Some locations arrive with a parking lot, a basecamp and a trailer for hair and makeup. This one arrived with a sidewalk and a long walk.

A location you carry yourself into

On Day 3 of the shoot, the company worked beneath the overpass off North Pleasant Valley Road in East Austin. There was no room to bring the trucks in. So the crew parked at Rosewood Neighborhood Park, shouldered the gear, and walked it over, trip after trip, the way you move house when you have no car.

I keep thinking about how fitting that is. ODIE is a film about a man who crosses a city on foot because nothing else is available to him. On Day 3 the people making the film did the same, hauling cameras, lights and cables on their own backs to reach the place where two of its characters live.

Gerald and Trixie's spot

Under the concrete sits the camp that belongs to Gerald and Trixie, Odie's neighbors in the film's world. Kristen Prince plays Trixie. Mathew Mitchell was on his second day as Gerald. The spot itself was built and dressed by our art department, a designed set tucked into a real piece of Austin infrastructure. The overpass is real. The camp is the film's invention, made with care and with the people who know what such a place looks and feels like.

It was also the heaviest day of the first week: seven and five eighths script pages, the most of any day to that point. A page count like that means long stretches of dialogue, many setups, and very little room to waste a minute of light.

Why an overpass

Anyone who has driven through Austin knows the shape. Concrete overhead, traffic humming, shade that stays cool when the pavement outside is baking. It is shelter that was never designed as shelter, and the city has a lot of it. The film uses that space the way the city does, as a place people make their own because they have to.

What I love about the day is how little spectacle it asked for. No big move, no stunt, no tricks. Two characters, a handful of conversations, and a crew that had to be precise about every item they brought over the grass. You can feel that economy when you watch the footage. The camera stays patient, and so does the scene.

Thanks to the neighborhood around Rosewood Park for letting a film crew trudge through with road cases. We tried to leave the place exactly as we found it, and a little quieter than we arrived.

More from the road to the finished film soon. - Claudia Wingle, Blog & Web, ODIE