Two days prior to the scheduled shoot date of what has become known as "The Nurse Short" due to an embarrassing lack of inspiration and an inadequate shooting script, I was asked by Danish immigration authorities to leave Denmark immediately, marking arguably the most outrageous possible ending to one of the more frustrating filmmaking campaigns I've ever experienced.
     In the three weeks prior to this, I called every office in every department of the Copenhagen Kommune, trying to find out who was responsible for the old, abandoned Amagervej Hospital and it was only after I'd camped out by the hospital for a morning and two afternoons and caught up with a couple of electricians leaving the building that I got a mobile phone number of someone who might know the person I should talk to if I want to use the hospital as a location for my film. I also learned from the electricians that the city was planning to refurbish this particular building as well as a few others in the area for use as a drop-in center for troubled youth.
     The number the electricians gave me was for a janitor who was responsible for the upkeep of the building and he spoke no English however I was able to translate a phone number he gave me of someone who did speak English and might be able to help me. The number he gave me was for a gentleman in a Kommune office whom I had miraculously never talked to in the three weeks I'd spent bouncing around the phone lines there.
     This Kommune employee was mostly full of the same information I'd found out through the electricians, this time citing the construction work as fair reason I could not shoot inside the hospital. I pleaded with him, explaining it would be a very small crew and we only needed a small section of the hospital and that we would only be a few hours. He told me he would call me later, with no explanation as to what he was going to do in between then and the next call nor what information he intended to give me. My suspicions were accurate when he called me back after three days and told me the exact same thing he'd said in the previous phone call. I responded by repeating back to him same stuff about the small crews and short shooting schedule and when that didn't work, I proceeded to grovel which was successful in all likelihood only because Danes aren't so comfortable with those types of displays. He explained he would call back and give me a date and time the hospital would be available for me to use. He also gave me the number of the janitor.
     The man did as he promised and the date was set for Friday, February 21. I had to call around to my actors and make sure everybody could make themselves available for that morning and afternoon. After waiting weeks and weeks for me to get my act together, my actress was quite shocked to get a call from me saying we were shooting at the end of the week. She complained she didn't have enough time, even though we'd been discussing the project for almost a month and a half. We'd even spent an entire afternoon and evening on an unsuccessful quest to find the proper dress for her to wear. She was suddenly extremely nervous and considered backing out. The actor I had found putting an ad on the bulletin board at the student house did back out, finally, after an afternoon of sending him frantic emails, informing him of the situation of the shoot and that I didn't have his current contact information, essentially begging him to contact me. He did and told me to find someone else. I quickly lined up this guy I'd met looking for an apartment, some guy named Teo who was a friend of a different guy I barely knew. Teo was a male stripper with an annoying dog who'd said he wanted to be in one of my movies.