Geek Woman: It sounds to me like you and Chris were both pregnant at the same time. Now a year has passed and all the "babies" have arrived. What was it like having a film made in your own home?

Rose Folino: For me, it was exciting, interesting, stressful, and frustrating all rolled into one. I guess I need to explain the situation. When I gave Chris my support to do his film, I had two requests: 1) that it would be done way before the twins were due and 2) the nursery would be complete before filming. I figured that this way, he could focus on the film without having to be distracted with unfinished projects at home. We worked the dates out and figured that the last week in July of 2005 was perfect and he said that it would be a two week project maximum. I was due to give birth in mid October so even if the twins were born a little early, at least the film would be done. Chris needed to find a set for the film but because it is an indie film, funds were completely limited. I remember telling him that if I wasn’t pregnant, our house would have been perfect but given my situation, I wanted our home to be nice and calm during my pregnancy and he understood.

Unfortunately, all the avenues he explored for a set didn’t work out and one day, he took me to a restaurant he knew I'd love and just talked about the movie and sadly mentioned how they had no place to shoot. I guess I felt sorry for him and got so wrapped up in all the excitement and the fact that my pregnancy was going so perfectly that I told him that if he needed the house for two weekends, he could have it BUT he needed to have a Plan B in the event that my health required it. So for the next several weeks, things were quickly rolling into place in terms of filming at our house. I even had a scrapbooking project that he asked me to do which I was so excited about because the pages I designed were going to be seen during the movie, complete with moving parts. It never got completed, though. Unfortunately, one week before curtain call, my doctor put me on mandatory bed rest because my blood pressure had shot up and he was noticing some new symptoms that had never existed before. That afternoon, I asked Chris about possibly preparing for Plan B but because it was so close to filming, all the filming permits had already been done for our home. It was too late to change. A few hours later, I was progressively feeling more and more awful and eventually was taken to the hospital where they admitted me due to unstoppable contractions.

It was July 29th, the first day of filming! I was told I was going to give birth right then. All I could think of was that Chris was at a horse stable filming his first scene with John Heard. How could I reach him? For that moment in time I felt like I had nobody. Thank goodness for my awesome Obstetrician. During this mad rush, I was prepped for an emergency c-section which I was terrified of and just as they laid me down to do the incision, Chris came running in with his gown, all scrubbed up, saying, “I’m here! I’m here!"

Dominic and Jeremy were born. It was such a surreal experience and I was so relieved that Chris made it. When I was wheeled into Recovery, both the doctor and I kept convincing him that it was okay to leave. I know that it tore him apart, especially since the babies were on life support and we barely had a chance to see them. But he did leave and returned to our house for the rest of the filming. He was met by Beverly D’Angelo and John Heard in our boiling garage!!!! I can't imagine how he was able to separate himself from what just happened and move forward with business. He had no choice. There was too much at stake.

The next few days after in the hospital were extremely rough for me. I had no family locally, I couldn’t reach Chris on his cell phone because it broke during production, and our house phone switched to fax mode during all the craziness so I was on my own island. I felt like I had hit my high and low point at the same time. I was so happy that my family was now complete with three beautiful kids but there I was in the hospital, unable to converse with my husband or get his help, unable to account for my daughter in terms of who was taking care of her and how she was dealing with this overload of different things, and having twin baby boys down the hallway who I could not hold or barely touch. I became a stronger person because of it all.

In terms of filming at the house, the crew did their best to treat the house respectfully. It really wasn’t all that bad but considering that I had just had twins who arrived 2 ½ months early and healing from surgery, all I wanted was to do was go home to my haven where I could find comfort. Unfortunately, it’s not what I found. Part of my reason for offering our house for filming was because Chris said that the camera was handheld, that he could realistically see about 15 people in our house at a time, and that because of the filming style of the movie, nothing in our house would be changed or moved. It would be as-is. WRONG! Everything was touched, moved, or removed, every corner of the house utilized, and from what I heard from the neighbors, there were tons of people in our house and many of our personal belongings were out on the sidewalk during the filming!

But again, despite all of that, the house wasn’t that bad considering what it could have been like. I wasn't happy about it, I admit, and I'm sure that there will be those who will look at the situation and think that it's all petty for me to say this. All I can say to that is that those people lack the understanding of what the last several days were like. A mess is simple. It can be cleaned up. I had prepared it [the house] for the babies. It just didn’t happen that way. On the cool side, it was great to see the house on film. It looked even prettier.

I loved observing the few rehearsals they had at the house. I think that they did an absolutely awesome job of casting for this movie. Everyone, and I mean everyone was so friendly and it was so obvious that their chemistry was perfect. Even during actual filming days (they filmed at the house again 2 days after I returned home) the production crew was awesome. I also loved seeing Chris direct. He was truly in his element. My daughter and I were like freakish groupies as we were snapping our cameras trying to get good shots of Chris in action.

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