Op-ed: What the Camera Doesn’t Show

Although many people’s journey’s with BearCity 2: The Proposal ended once they departed Provincetown, the core cast along with the crew returned to New York City for our final six days of filming. And similar to our Massachusetts experience, we were met with kismet and conflict. While filming a foam party scene in a Brooklyn bar that doubled as Provincetown’s A House, a fire broke out next door and filled the Brooklyn block with dark smoke causing us to close all windows and doors. For those that have not been to a foam party, the foam is amonia based. After doing our best to shut out the impeding dark smoke,  people’s eyes began to tear up, other’s broke out in rashes and we lost yet another day of filming.

The universe also blessed us in unexpected ways. We were filming on one of our executive producers’ rooftop terrace overlooking NYC’s above-ground park, the High Line. In the scene, Tyler and I don’t quite see eye to eye on my proposal to him and our reasons to move forward with marriage, now that it is legal in the state of New York. In the background, a local mini-storage company had posted a gigantic billboard on the building towering in the distance. The massive billboard read, “If you don’t like gay marriage, don’t get get married.” How many syllables in serendipitous?

We wrapped principle photography and then engaged in 10 months of dire fundraising. Doug Langway, our writer/director, worked endlessly on editing the film and for whatever footage he didn’t have to make the edit work, re-shoots all over New York City as well as Provincetown occurred. I flew back and forth between coasts for these “pick up” shoots and was honored to film a short opening credits scene with my “real life” boyfriend on my “aging life’s” 45^th birthday: laying in the foreground is the red birthday rose my man had given me hours prior.