The Fear of Clowns 2 Log: June 3rd, 2006: Day 14

Me, going over the shooting script, with Stewie doing a handful of nothing in the background.

June 3rd

Wake up to find it gray and rainy outside—the new weather forecast says scattered storms for the next 5 days. Wonderful.(I always hear Tom Atkins in “Night of the Creeps” when I say that)

We don’t start shooting until 1pm, but I had to check out of the hotel today because they’re booked for some Nascar event. So I sit outside the hotel using their internet for an hour and a half while I wait to show up on set.

Then I head to Frank's—it’s all interior stuff between him and Jacky. We’re gonna start shooting and Jared informs me that the mixer definitely doesn’t work. I’ve had this mixer since “Hunting Humans”—it’s great. Really cleans the audio.

So I panic a little—I’m not sure whether the sound will match. We start shooting anyway, and I make some calls. I find a store in Wheaton, so Luke calls his wife Nelly to see if she’ll go get it. She has to drive a half hour one direction, then an hour the other.

She does though, and we get the mixer. We redo the audio, then pack up to go to Tuckahoe.

The scene with real police lights, an ambulance, and a fire truck!

We get there and there’s a fire engine, a paramedic truck, and Mark has all the police light racks working—on top of cars they totally sell the scene. I try to organize the would-be cops while they park the cars in position for the final scene.

And I’m speechless when Jared tells me the mixer we just bought doesn’t power up. It’s just like the other mixer, and we’ve owned it for barely an hour.

I’m pissed, but we have to move—after this scene we have to pick up 76b, then head across the bridge to get some sleep—we’re to shoot at 8:30am.

Waitaminute, that guy looks familiar...(Mark Lassise doing double duty as a cop)

I get to the scene with all the cars and flashing lights and people, and it’s impressive. Looks like a real crime scene.

We shoot, but it takes us as long as I planned for. I was hoping to finish it faster, so we could start 76b but so much for that.

We say thanks to everyone and then try to get all the cars out of the way so we can set up for 76b. By the time we’re ready(Mark played an extra in the previous scene, and then he went to get something to eat, so now he was late getting made up) it’s like 1:30am.

It starts bad when I find out that my lead actor, who is supposed to kiss my lead actress in one of the final shots of the movie, has a cold sore. So there will be no kiss. I believe they call that an omen.

We move as fast as we can, but it’s dark with no HMI’s(we had to return them—we only had them for a limited time, and this scene was supposed to have been shot already).

Everyone is exhausted. Then a mini-disaster.

We’re doing a shot where the gun is in foreround and Frank points it at Shivers and fires. I’ve loaded it and handed it to Frank, but apparently he’s forgotten that you don’t pull the trigger until I say fire.

He clicks the hammer when Mun and me are hunched over the camera. Mun freaks out when the blank FIRES off; he’s closer than me, and my ears are ringing loudly. He cusses and stomps off, and I hear stuff being broken at the meeting hall.

A couple of people go over to talk to him, but I have no choice but to keep shooting with the B camera. Joe gets some shots, but I’m not sure if it will match. We’re shooting blind, and I'm not sure if he framed Jacky right or left, so I don't know which way to now shoot Mark so it matches.

(After note: I picked wrong--watch the movie at the end and you may be able to see, as I had to flip Jacky in post. Couldn't flip Mark because you'd notice his smile would be on the wrong side of his face)

Eventually Mun comes back; he’s okay, but you can tell his heart’s not in it. We finish the scene, though we’re missing shots, and we wrap at 5:00am—we start packing up and by the time I leave it’s 5:30am. If I get to my house by 6:30am then we’ll have two hours to sleep.

I decide to call off the first scene so we can have a little sleep. I drive home and fall into bed.