She's crafty! How Becca kept the entire cast and crew fed on location

In another spotlight of the crew of The Ghost Trap film, I present to you Rebecca Myshrall, our Unit Production Manager/Craft Services Queen.

Photo by Kay Stephens

Becca, who is from Portland, had the unenviable task of navigating all of the restaurant/takeout businesses in the Midcoast. Because the weather and tides dictated so much of where the shoot was going to take place, she often less than 24 hours' notice on where we'd be the following day.

First day of shoot snacks. Photo by Kay Stephens

"Basically, I was catering and craft services, which is essentially two positions rolled into one," she said. "I didn't really know where to get meals for 28-30 people until I got here, plus we had to have vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free, dairy-free and soy options."

It's really unfortunate that the bill to incentivize movie productions in Maine was turned down by the Maine legislature this year, as I wrote about in a PenBay Pilot article because our production gave a serious economic boost to Midcoast AirBnbs, hotels, restaurants, grocery stores, etc.

Becca said she utilized a lot of Rockland restaurants including Rosalind Thai in Rockland, which was a big favorite among the crowd, along with Oceanside Deli. "They were fantastic," she said. "We loved their pizza.  "We also used Rock City Cafe and Home Kitchen Cafe." When we filmed in Northport, she used Dot's in Lincolnville and Stone Pizza in Northport. And in Camden, she said the crew really enjoyed BOWA (Best of What's Around) "They were great."

The cast and crew enjoy dinner together. Photo by Kay Stephens

Becca definitely ran into her share of challenges. One of our film mornings started insanely early--4:30 a.m. and happened to be Labor Day, September 5, so, literally nothing was going to be open at that hour. Except for Moody's Diner in Waldoboro, a 45-minute drive away. "Moody's has been quite wonderful--they start at 6 a.m. but they were able to make us breakfast sandwiches even earlier, which was really sweet," she said.

Dunkin Donuts in Camden was "the only reliable Dunkin' I found in the area," she said. Not everyone appreciated an order for 30 people so early in the morning. With staff shortages everywhere, and stressed restaurateurs/businesses trying to cater to the summer tourist traffic, it's totally understandable.

The night we had to race to Hannaford to get ingredients for a Ploughman's Lunch when the first plan fell through. Photo by Kay Stephens

Now, let's talk about the timing. According to film production rules, the craft services person is required to have meals ready to be served a half hour before the official break time. (Rules stipulate that cast and crew are fed at the beginning of the shoot and every six hours thereafter, on the dot. This meant driving sometimes an hour and a half round trip just to get the meals ready each day.)

"You also have to have snacks and drinks available throughout the entire day or night," said Becca. Then, on top of that, she tried to source different flavor profiles and types of food (Thai, Continental, Californian, etc.) so that the cast and crew would not get bored with the variety.

We already covered in an earlier blog post the night Becca's car was used for a driving scene, then promptly died an hour before she was supposed to get a BBQ going--oh--and in the pouring rain. So, we raced to Hannaford Supermarkets (also a place we sourced from a lot) in order to get the food to crew and cast on time.

"I'm going to miss this crew," she said, despite all of the challenges of her job. "We all just got along fantastically; usually there is a dynamic [on a film set] that presents a problem, sometimes people's egos, but with this crew, we hall had the same level of professionalism. I'm really going to miss the people and this makes me want to get more work in Maine and Massachusetts."

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