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After "Fight Or Fly", Jon got together with Kate, spent six months living in Sydney, and had his first novel published. In late 1997, in the midst of writing his second novel, with their wedding approaching, he suddenly decided that this was the perfect time to do another Doctor Who video, presumably because there just wasn't enough going on in his life.
"The Bridge" was a 25-minute script, designed to be shot over four days. The four speaking parts went to Jon and Itzy Friedman (returning as the Master), Itzy's wife Carolyn, and Jon's college friend Rachel Jacobs as Alison (the companion-figure). Cary Gordon got a promotion to Director of Photography; his job at a local cable station meant that the crew now had access to S-VHS and Hi-8 equipment, plus wireless microphones. Cary was also dragged in for another on-camera cameo, along with Marsha Twitty (not playing General Kramer for once), Sadron Lampert, and Jon's parents as extras. Sadron and Greg McElhatton doubled as crew.
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By about day six of the four-day shoot, it was clear things had not gone quite according to plan. The story had been scripted around locations at the Rockville Civic Center; however, when the center was booked for weddings and functions on the planned days, the shoot had to be moved to Strathmore Hall in Bethesda. Then, various actors' availability problems, technical hitches, and general not-moving-fast-enough-ness meant that additional days had to be scheduled -- and Strathmore Hall wasn't available after the first four days, so the garden and river scenes were transplanted back to the Civic Center.
The sixth day of shooting took place in the last possible slot, just a few weeks before Jon was scheduled to get married and move to Sydney -- and on the day, Itzy was called away for an emergency. Jon shot around Itzy's absence and promptly fled the country, leaving Cary, Greg, Sadron, and Rachel to pick up the remaining shots with Itzy, a good eight months later. Jon left the Doctor's costume behind, so Sadron could stand in as the Doctor in the remaining shots. (After this final day of filming, they put photos of the shoot up on the web -- Kate saw a shot of Sadron and commented on how hunky Jon looked in the costume, causing much disturbance...)
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The footage remained with Cary Gordon, but between Jon's lack of enthusiasm and Cary's lack of editing facilities (after leaving the cable station), the project has languished since then. For a while, Jon was content to leave it there -- while the story wasn't a disaster, it didn't sparkle enough for his new high-falutin' published novelist standards.
But when the Lemmings started getting together again in 2000, discussions began about resurrecting "The Bridge". Since completing "Fight Or Fly" in early 2002, Cary has been dubbing the footage to DV and starting work on an edit. It won't exactly be a lost masterpiece, but it may well be fun once it sees the light of day...
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