The Fear of Clowns 2 Log

April 2007 Various

2011-12-14T11:24:00.000-08:00

Jacky Reres at her place in L.A. that looked like the set of Melrose Place

April 3, 2007: Grindhouse With John Waters

Saw a preview of Grindhouse tonight--John Waters was there, which was funny. I figured he would have been able to catch an earlier preview, but I guess not.

The flick is like this: Rodriguez part was good, better than I expected, but does go way over the top at the end. The Tarantino part was horrible. A half-hour movie extended to 90 minutes. The first 40 minutes are excruciatingly slow.

It's like the guy's in love with his own dialogue, and it just goes on and on, and it's just some of the most drab and uninteresting conversation you will ever hear, absent of any of the clever Tarantino-ism's you've come to expect.

Maybe it was his joke, like "Hey--check out how bad the 70's movies' dialogue was!". If so, the joke goes on WAAAAAAY too long. I almost fell asleep.

There is a way cool car chase scene with shots of "How'd they do that?" moments with the stuntwoman hanging on to the car--shots that are wide enough you can see the cars are really ramming each other, and the stunt woman is sliding all over the place on the hood of the car.

So unless she was composited onto the hood(which would have been VERY well done) or they digitally took out the safety wires, I'm not sure how they did it.

The previews for coming attractions were great. But when did the whole "beheaded while getting a blowjob" shot come back into style? When I wrote one into FOC2 I hadn't seen one in a LOOOOONG time, and now in the span of three weeks have seen two(Grindhouse, BTM: Rise of Leslie Vernon).

When FOC2 comes out it's gonna look like I'm trying to ride the bandwagon. I'm glad I showed the scene at Fango, so some people will know I'm not.

Anyway, if you go see the flick, stay through the previews between, then I advise taking off. Watch Tarantino's half when it comes out on DVD.

April 6, 2007: Plans for L.A.

Well, I've been trying to get the lead actress in FOC2 back here to do her looping, but it's not working out.

My last resort is flying out there myself to supervise the looping, so that's what I'm going to do. I've never been to California, and frankly I would have liked to go simply as a vacation, but it looks like I'm finally gonna see the west coast for myself.

Hopefully the looping will only take the one day, and I'll have Sunday and Monday day to look around and meet up with some of my LA buds that I haven't seen in a while.

Unless the plane crashes. Then, all of my problems are solved.

April 27, 2007: Heading To L.A.

I'm leaving for L.A. today--will be there until Tuesday morning. Not sure what my blogging situation will be, but maybe I'll post some pics. If not, I'll do it when I get back.

Assuming the plane doesn't crash and solve all of my problems... (insert smiley emoticon)

More pics/details coming...

November 12th, 2006: Quick Hits

2011-08-30T21:21:00.000-07:00

New Note: I ended up putting together a pretty strong Making Of for FOC2, and a few other supplements. We actually did a couple of commentaries...details on those will be coming up.

FOC2(I will no longer ever refer to it in name--it will now be known as FOC2, which sort of sounds like Fuck You) is picture locked. An hour forty-two minutes is the final run time. The composer has it now--he'll be working on it while they're taking a break from "Lost".

I'm splitting my time between working on foley and working on the dvd supplements.

I've discovered that I don't have the...interest...that I used to have in doing them. I think a large part is how I recently discovered(see: FOC1) that the distributor doesn't give a shit about them. Sure, they WANT them--so they can show them on the back of the box.

But they don't actually give a shit about the quality of the supplements. Or how many you have. Really, they just want these: Making Of, Out-takes, and director's commentary. That's it. Deleted scenes are nice if they're short, but if not--they're gone.

For the first FOC I spent nearly as much time on the supplements as I did the movie. I had a Making Of, Out-takes, commentary, easter eggs, almost 45 minutes of deleted scenes with original ending, a 12 minute "Project Redlight" feature that was the best thing I gave them.

And they only used three of the ones I listed above.

So now I'm just trying to overcome my lack of enthusiasm by remembering: The supplements are for the fans. I'll try not to half-ass it too much.

October 1st, 2006: Fango Weekend of Horror Wrap Up

2011-06-12T21:23:00.000-07:00

Sunday was spent throwing up and then trying to recover from the hangover. Wow, to be young again...

We wandered around some more, but really there wasn't much more to see.

So we said later to Tom and Adam and Brandon, and bolted. Made it back in under 3.5 hours, counting the stop at my home-away-from-home Burger King.

Had a good time, all in all, but given that the big show Chiller Theatre takes place at the same hotel about a month later, I think I can see why the attendance wasn't as high as I expected.

Here's a couple of other links to people who were there!

Rob G - Icons of Fright

Bad Movies.org

Crowgrrrl's Perch

Saturday, September 30th 2006: Fango 2.5

2011-05-30T20:12:00.000-07:00

As a small aside, this is the show I met both Marcus Koch and Rob G. Marcus is a talented FX guy and also the director of 100 Tears(among others), a very cool clown horror movie with a much higher body count than FOC.

Rob G is the man behind the Icons Of Fright web site, a very cool site dedicated to horror. I got to meet him again at the Texas Frightmare where he introduced me to Tom Holland...

-------------

After the panel we wandered around a bit. Checked out the dealer's room. We went back to my hotel room and I had Adam loop his audio. Didn't take too long. It was only a few lines that I needed, and some of them you couldn't see his lips so it wasn't hard to match.

I found out that Adam's an early drinker. I did a shot with him, but really needed something to eat before I started drinking. We got a sub and ate it real quick. Hit the liquor store for some more vodka.

That night they were planning on broadcasting the Sirius satellite Fango show live from the ballroom, so we figured we'd attend. We started drinking first though. Fast forward to 10pm.

Show starts. It's interesting. John Saxon gets up and answers some questions, and my first thought is: Damn, he looks old. It makes me feel bad. This guy is an old-time badass. One of my first memories of him is as a barbarian in a really cheesy TV movie called "Prisoners of the Lost Universe"--I own it on VHS 'cause it ain't out on dvd.

Then he played a cop in stuff like Nightmare on Elm Street, Black Christmas, and about 100 others. But now he just looks old. He's got that old-man shuffle when he walks in the room. Time is truly a bitch.

Next up is Kane Hodder, Jason himself. He still looks good. Talks about the new movie Hatchet. Adam Green, the director, answers some questions later.

All of it's a bit blurry. I kept making runs up to the room to make vodka/cranberries or vodka lemonades, and somewhere in there they started catching up to me.

One of those times I came back and my crew has left with the exception of Ziegler. He's there, and there's a cute chick sitting next to him. In my seat.

So I sit on the other side of her. She's chatting with Ziegler, so I figure they know each other. Turns out they don't; she's one of the finalists in the Scream Queen contest, and is there to compete live on-air for the winner, who gets to be in some future movie for Fango.

She tells me she's from Maryland. I look at her a little incredulous. I say: You know, I've shot three movies in Maryland, and have never so much as received a headshot from her. She seems surprised to hear who I am, and is then impressed when we point out Shivers on the banner up behind Dee.

Anyway, the contest starts. Her name is Erin, and she's up against a girl who's method-acting as a zombie nurse, and another girl who's a little chunky. To me it seems a no-brainer.

She wins. Watch her winning audition here:
LINK HERE

She seems pretty good. Natural in front of the six cameras that were videotaping for the Fango television show.

After the show I'm walking out and some guy walks up to me: "Hey, you're {my name}, director of FOC right?". I say yeah. He gushes how much he liked it, and asks if I want to come up--him and some friends are watching a screener of "Feast"(the project greenlight movie). I've already seen it, but tell him maybe we'll stop by.

Later on we figure we'll swing by and see what's going on. About fifteen people are there in this guy's little hotel room watching it. One of them is Adam Green, the director of Hatchet. Pretty funny.

We head back to the room around 4am and crash.

Friday, Sept 29th, 2006: Fango Continued

2011-05-11T04:04:00.000-07:00

Got up crazy early(for me) at about noon. We went downstairs to look for the rest of the crew and ran into Adam and his manager Brandon. Adam plays Hot Rod in FOC2, and did a great job.

No word from Mark(the clown), Johnny or Tom. Hey, at least I know Tom's already there.

Then Mark calls--he's like a mile away. It then took him about 45 minutes to get to us. That's Jersey for you.

The guy up on stage before us has an okay crowd, but it's still pretty sparse by big-con standards. We're fifteen minutes away from our panel, and everybody's finally showed except Johnny. I call and leave him a message.

From left to right,

Adam Ciesielski, Mark Lassise, Tom Proctor, Pre-Starvation Kevin Kangas, and Rob Ziegler

The panel(and yes, the pic with the date has the wrong date...)

Finally it's our turn. They give us microphones and introduce us. I'm surprised to find that there's a good-sized crowd now. It also surprises me that once I get up there, I'm not nervous at all.

I'm a guy who used to literally shake when I had to get up in front of a classroom to do a report. I was one of those people who was more afraid of public speaking than going to the dentist.

But once I'm up in front of the people I relax. I introduce my cast and crew(minus Johnny) and then the lights go down, and they show the new trailer and clips I brought to debut.

And people cheer. People clapped during the brutal kills. It was very cool.

Then the lights came back up and I asked: "Any questions?"

In my mind I pictured nobody raising their hand. We'd all sit there for 25 minutes, crickets chirping in the background.

But people raised their hand. I answered some questions, let some of the cast answer some questions, let Tom blow some of the movie's surprise by telling everyone that his character dies--oops, blew it for you too, didn't I?

There ended up being more questions than time--they finally had to cut us off. They gave us pens to sign the banners, and led us around behind the stage where they had set up a table for us to sign stuff.

And then the biggest surprise: The line for us to sign stuff went out the door. We were signing for a solid twenty five minutes--and that was simply signing, not much talking to each person.

Ziegler thought it was funny to sign things "Shivers Has A Secret...Ask Him".

So people would ask Mark, and Mark would ask me.

As we were walking out, Tony Timpone(Fango head honcho) stopped me to congratulate me. Said "Wow, you guys were the hit of the show today."

That was very cool, and gratifying. I'll tell you about the rest of day 2 coming up...

Thursday, September 28th, 2006 Weekend At Fango Pt 1

2011-05-01T18:50:00.000-07:00

Sept 28th

Today(Thursday)--I'm going up early and meeting Tom Proctor, one of the actors. We're going to try to loop his dialogue in the hotel room. Should be interesting to see if it works.

Anyway, the panel is Friday at 2:00pm.

I fully expect a two-person audience. Crickets chirping in the background also. 2:00pm on the first day is not exactly a great time.

But hey, you know about beggars and choosers, right?

I'll get ya some pictures maybe. Something interesting hopefully.

---------------------

Ok, gonna give you the cliff notes version.

Set off to leave for Fango on Thursday afternoon. My car--which I have not had one single problem with since I bought it four years ago--doesn't start. Can't even jumpstart it.

I ignore the omen. Me and Zig(that's Ziegler) head to Enterprise and get a car, and bolt. We get to the hotel without incident. Then, as I'm turning around because I was at the wrong parking lot, I back into a metal pole set into the road. Yep, in my rental car. Scratch it up pretty nice.

Zig is amazed that the convention is being held in the exact same hotel as Chiller a few years back.

We get the room and I start setting up so I can loop my actors that are coming into town. A quick problem: The television is not set up to accept any input other than coaxial. My dvd player(that I need so I can play the video that my actors will loop to) won't work.

So we head out to Wal-mart. Only--in Jersey--that takes about an hour. The Wal-mart is about two miles away.

Adam Green(of Hatchet 1&2, Frozen)--

we ended up watching a flick in a hotel room with him that weekend...

Anyway, to make a long story short(too late)--we get a doodad(that's the scientific name) to make the dvd player work with the TV. We get Tom Proctor to loop his dialogue. (which is funny--he's screaming at the top of his lungs during the fight scene he's looping; it's like midnight; we're on what's been designated "The Quiet Floor"; I keep waiting for security to show up)

We then head down to see what the main auditorium looks like--it's big. And like I said--seeing Shivers on the banner, as one of the largest icons up there, was very cool.

Had some vodka, tried to get to sleep, but what really happened was I watched the remake of The Blob, then The Dead Zone, and fell asleep somewhere around 5am.

Adam Ciesielski, one of the actors from FOC2, who would also be on the panel

Day 2 to come.

Meanwhile, here's that highlight of the weekend: The banner they had on the showroom stage--that's right, Shivers is right below Bruce(the shark in Jaws). Very cool.

September 7th, 2006: Fango Invite

2011-04-19T14:03:00.000-07:00

Pics and report to follow in the next post...

Very cool! I've just been invited to be a guest at Fango's Weekend of Horrors at the end of the month. I guess my picture will be up there sometime next week.

The very cool thing is that my 2nd wife(I'm on my 1st right now) will be there--Charisma Carpenter(of "Buffy", "Angle", "Veronica Mars", and oh yeah, Playboy). So this will be my first chance to charm her.

But seriously. There will be a special FOC2 panel with some of the cast/crew including Mark Lassise, Tom Proctor, Adam Ciesielski and Robert Ziegler. I'll premiere footage from FOC2 with a slideshow of pictures, and I think we'll even give out an actual prop head used in the film.

It's in NJ, so if you're in the area...check it out!

August 19, 2006: Director's Concern

2011-03-04T20:17:00.000-08:00

Ok, I'll name drop. The friend noted in this post is Academy-Award nominated screenwriter Josh Olson("A History of Violence"). I've known him for something like fifteen years. That's a story in itself. (and there's a pic of us coming up in this log)

I typically send him my flicks to watch before anybody else. He gives me good feedback, which I then integrate before showing more people.

------------------------------------------------------

August 19, 2006

Let me state at the beginning that this is not meant to be a dig at my actors. (But because I'm stating this you can probably assume it's going to sound like it)

One of the things I'm mulling over as I consider my next project is how much emotion to instill in the story. You see, a story where not much happens between characters is unbearable to watch unless you've got great actors who can live and breathe your characters, so the audience can't help but identify with them.

One of the problems with my original cut of FOC was that it seemed boring. Yet, no one who read the script seemed to be bored. So after I sent the film to one of my buddies out in LA he said, "Dude, you gotta cut all this talking between the characters."

I said, "But it's character development."

He said, "Well...yeah, it would be if you had better actors. But what you got now is just boring dialogue."

So I considered what he said and maybe he's right. Again, I'm not blaming my actors--many of them are very talented. And the onus is 100% on them. Amateur directing can be unnoticeable if the actors on screen are great; the reverse is not true: Shoddy acting will be noticed regardless of how nice it's shot.

The project I'm considering is cheaper than my last couple of films--and with cheaper comes a deeper story. But the problem is, if I can't get an actor who can really sink his teeth into this main character then all I'm doing is wasting my(and my audience's) time.

Anyway, FOC2 cut is down to 1:54, but now I'm about to go through the tough-love cut. Where I trim the fat regardless of how much I like it. I expect the final cut of FOC2 to be about 1:40(100 minutes) with credits(front and end credits typically add about 6 minutes--that's right, you people with brains or calculators can figure out that the actual movie will run about 94 minutes)

August 7th, 2006

2011-02-06T11:00:00.000-08:00

August 7th

Three words for you.

Rough. Cut. Done.

July 20th--Missed Post

2011-01-22T19:03:00.000-08:00

Whoops, somehow skipped this one. Reading it now cracks me up, because actors and their forgetting-their-wardrobe is something that plagued me big time on my new flick "Garden of Hedon"...

July 20th
The Tuckahoe pickup. I grab some Slim Jims for Bullet, then Ziegler and Stull help me load up the car and the truck. We head to the eastern shore again.

It’s weird coming back. But I get that good memory feeling.

Frank forgets his shoes. All he has to bring is his outfit for the day. Me, I have to bring my script, all the equipment, various props for doing foley sounds, and more—no problem.

We shoot the pickup. It goes easy. We get some foley—still have that damn lumber mill making a racket but we added a line of dialogue rather than try to loop everyone’s dialogue during the day shots.

I take the guys to dinner while we wait for O’brocki to show up. Burger King. Oh yeah, craft services has nothing on me...

We go back. Frank leaves, and the rest of us go to the barn to get a couple pickup shots there. We toss O’brocki’s Pez head around for a while, then shoot a shot of him running into the barn. Only problem is that the corn, which was about 1 foot high when we shot it before is now about 6 feet high.

It’s not going to match too well. We’ll see what happens. It’s a pretty dark shot.

Then we go back to Tuckahoe and Ziegler and Stull help me do some foley. We can’t get it all done—we run out of time and the train car is locked.

But we get some good stuff. We shoot some guns which is always fun.

At this point I have 43 consecutive minutes of the film rough cut. Almost halfway there. There’s good stuff and there’s bad stuff. Will be interesting to take a look at it in the whole.

July 2006

2011-01-08T18:30:00.000-08:00

July 23rd, 2006

Not Much To Report...

...except that it's only been about 6 weeks since we finished principle photography on FOC2, and I have 49 minutes rough-edited together. That's right, you can sit and watch 49 consecutive minutes of FOC2 already.

My rough cut should come in around 2 hours long--I'll cut that to between 90-98 minutes long. So by that account I'm around halfway finished.

But the reality is that I've edited 95% of the tough scenes. There's only two big scenes left to edit--Attack at Lynn's House and the Finale.

Sound issues are going to be huge though. There are some big problems I'm working on right now.

But when I say I'm living at my editing machine, I'm not exaggerating...

July 9th, 2006

If you weren't on set during the shooting of FOC2 this won't make you laugh, but I think the rest of you will.

There was a scene in the film where one of the clowns, played by Clarence McNatt, shouts "WHYYYYY?"--and it became this running joke among everybody. Clarence shouts it so dramatically and his voice is so deep that it was like some booming Shakespearean query.

After that, a day or night didn't go by without someone in the cast or crew mimicking the shout of WHYYYYY--and everyone would start laughing.

Tonight I'm logging footage from the B-camera. The scene with Clarence comes on, so I'm typing the timecode and what's happening on screen. There's Clarence's face, and he suddenly yells "WHYYYYY?"

Behind me, my three year old(just turned it today) mimics in his mousy voice: "whyyyyy?"

I couldn't stop laughing--which made him do it a couple more times.

Casual Filmmaking

2010-12-12T17:31:00.000-08:00

The funny part is that I edited a little homage to my crappy crew. It used to be up on Revver, but that web hosting service doesn't seem to be up anymore or you could see it.

But I still stand by my words here. Amateur crew can kill you, and cost you many hours of work later.

-----------------

June 27th, 2006

Ok, I'm gonna have to go off a little here. If you're one of the cast/crew who this applies to, and you get offended...well, screw you. I don't care.

I guess I was in a haze during much of the filming--there's so much on my mind that I really kind of take things minute by minute. I have to be prepared to change the plan at a moment's notice so we don't lose any time, so I'm wrapped up in my own mind a lot.

So I guess I never really quite noticed, to the full degree, just how amateur a lot of my cast/crew was. I'm speaking particularly of their habit of chatting during takes.

Seriously. I'd say roll sound, the sound guy says "Speed". Typically, on a real movie set that's where people shut up. Then I call "Action!".

But I guess I never realized just how bad it got on FOC2 until now, when I'm going through the footage. On just about every take you can hear either myself or Mun(the DP) saying "Be quiet!" or "Shut up!"

Nevermind that you'd think it was obvious that once I call action, we're taping sound. So if you're talking--DUH!--I'm going to hear your fucking voice when I later listen to the takes.

And nevermind that there are actors attempting to concentrate and put themselves in a mental place where they can believably portray a character, and hearing people whispering or giggling in the background doesn't help them.

For Christ's sake--you're on a movie set. Mun actually asked members of the crew, during more than one take, "Have you ever been on a movie set?". Mun works on real movie sets for a living, and he couldn't believe the lack of professionalism displayed.

But now it's really starting to come across now that I'm hearing it in tons of takes. And it's really pissing me off.

It's going to cost me literally WEEKS of extra work, as I go out and record a lot of foley effects I wouldn't need to--my back-up mic had excellent audio of that car driving by, except for the fact that there are people chatting in the background.

As Mun said in exasperation a number of times, "Casual filmmaking at its finest." Well, I know a number of people who won't be returning to the set of my next film.

June 25th, 2006

2010-11-25T12:37:00.000-08:00

First attempt at "Giggles" paint on a friend of painter Stephanie Petagno.

June 25th

The first pickup. We head to some physical therapy place that’s doubling as the doctor’s office. The examination room is pretty close—only thing it doesn’t have is the paper on the tables. Oh well.

Ziegler, Luke, me, Pattee and Frank show up—Frank last. Neil Conway shows up as the doctor.

I get set up fast. We start shooting. I’m moving very fast—it’s nice when I’m getting exactly what I want.

Neil’s right on—the whole day I think he only screws up once—and he’s got the hardest dialogue I’ve ever written—it’s all medical jargon. Good actor.

Frank’s a little off, but close enough. We get done in like 2.5 hours. I cut the footage the next day and the scenes’s pretty good. Even Mun likes it.

Find out later the sound isn't great. Lotta hiss in the dialogue.

I don't know what's going on here right now. Make up your own caption.

June 11th, 2006: Aftermath

2010-10-26T21:30:00.000-07:00

D.P. Dave Mun hangs out on the roof of our set

June 11th

I wake up about 2pm. Mun comes by and his plane doesn’t leave until 7pm, so we take in a movie. X-men 3—sucked. We have dinner at Glory Days and chat about things in general.

Then I drop him off at the airport. I head home and begin backing up the tapes.

Still not feeling that deep sense of loss I had after principle photography on the first Fear of Clowns. I also don’t feel so bleak, but I’m not sure exactly when it came to me after the first movie.

I do see that I missed a scene at Tuckahoe, so we’re gonna have to pick that up. Another one! Jesus.

An early attempt at an FOC2 poster, minus Shivers, by Erik Ashley

June 10th, 2006: Wrap Party

2010-10-16T04:31:00.000-07:00

June 10th

The wrap party. My wife has left at 9am to decorate the place. She gets the keg, the food, the works.

I get over to the house and help set up stuff. People start arriving. I get thrown at the grill—-have to cook so I do. Hot dogs, burgers, chicken.

We all eat, then play volleyball. Eventually I show the teaser and a scene to mixed results. I don’t think some of the people understand that I only had 6 fucking hours to go through 31 tapes, import the footage, then edit it together, along with making new titles.

And that's 6 hours on a day we've been shooting...

Fuck ‘em. Next time I’ll just sleep and they’ll have nothing to watch.

Night falls and the real men head out to Fantasies strip club. That would be me, Mun, Stull, Mike and Al(my brother-in-law). We watch a fight, see Al get in trouble for fake fucking a waitress who bends over for him(and then demands a tip), and head home. Me and Mun keep drinking, trying to finish the keg, and I get home at 4am.

June 9th, 2006: Day 19

2010-10-03T22:00:00.000-07:00

June 9th

Carol(Leanna Chamish) plays Lynn(Jacky Reres)'s manager

After 2 hours of sleep I head over to the eastern shore.

Frank tells me we can’t shoot at the restaurant we were supposed to shoot in. So once again I can toss my shooting script in the trash.

We go over to the restaurant, but since it’s not the restaurant we were supposed to be in, the extras all showed up at the wrong location. Lucky for us the other restaurant sent them to us.

We got set up—the scene was written to be inside, but Frank makes it plain that the restaurant wants us to shoot on the outdoor patio. They also wanted us to shoot an hour earlier and be gone by noon.

So we start shooting. Things start okay—then the girl playing the waitress(Crystal) drops her tray of drinks on an extra. Whoops.

Then Frank begins missing lines. He gets flustered. Blowing lines in front of 30 extras is embarrassing.

Last but not least, Noah(a P.A.) comes over to tell me that the restaurant would like us out by 11:30am. I tell him that’s not going to happen. We’ll be out by noon.

We keep going, and sure enough, we finish by 11:40 and load up to move to the gallery for what will be the last scene shot during principle photography.

Leanna and Jacky, and D.P. Dave Mun in the middle

At the gallery some new extras show up. It’s hot, and the gallery has no air conditioner on. We decide to say screw the lighting. We’ll bounce whatever we need.

The woman playing the Lynn fan doesn’t show up, so I designate an extra to read the line.

We shoot. Not too many problems, other than audio ones because the door is open and the street is loud. Bells from the ice cream store are VERY loud.

The gallery peeps

Before you know it we’re done. The martini shot. Picture wrap. Congratulations all around.

We pack up, and some of us decide to meet up at Legal Spirits for dinner.

It’s just me, Mun, Jacky, Stull, Crystal, Jared, Mike, Noah and Ziegler. We eat, tell stories, crack ourselves up, and give Ziegler some food because he didn’t order anything.

Back at Frank’s afterward, we say our goodbyes, then I go search Frank’s house for anything I left. Turns out to be a lot. It takes me an hour to pack it all up by myself. Then I head home, struggling to keep my eyes open the entire way.

I get home and lay down from 9pm to midnight, then I get up to edit a quicky teaser for the next day’s wrap party. I go back to sleep from 6am to 2pm.

We Interrupt This Blog

2010-09-02T00:21:00.001-07:00

To bring you this--we're trying to raise the last 25% of our budget on the new flick through crowd-sourcing via Indiegogo. So we're asking everybody's help!

But don't worry--there's some cool incentives to be had with your donation! Check out the link below to see the teaser and more info!

http://www.indiegogo.com/GOH

June 8th, 2006: Day 18

2010-08-29T23:04:00.000-07:00

June 8th

A first. My wife wakes me at 10:20am and tells me I’m late. I’m blank. I ask, “For what?”

She tells me the movie and all of a sudden I’m back in the present.

I take a 60 second shower and race out. I get to the set—my parents’ house—at about 11am, so immediately we’re over an hour late.

The day gets worse from there. I should have stayed home.

We have the contact problem again. Mark can’t keep them in his eyes. They’re killing him. We get two scenes done. He takes them out and his eye becomes VERY bloodshot.

One punk doesn’t show—we have to call him. Turns out nobody called to give him his shoot time. Our bad.

But then he shows up but looks more like Jesus-meets-Cousin-It than a punk. His hair completely covering his face. We did a take like that and I'm wondering, "What is he thinking?" Don't actors like for the people to see their faces?

Clayton Myers, the actor who showed up looking like Cousin It. In the end it all worked out, and he was very good in the scene. FX guy Doug Ulrich behind him.

We do Jed Weaver’s scene first. He’s a pro—comes in, bangs it out, and he’s gone. My wife stops by and fixes some burgers my mom left before she and my dad went off to Tennessee. We all eat and I try not to think about how behind we are and how the fuck I’m gonna shoot a movie about a black-eyed clown when his eyes aren’t black.

Valerie Saunders makes Johnny's hair into the punk look seen below. She screams great as the punk girl who gets it from Ogre.

Jared, behind them, makes like he's Jamie, and watches.

We get later and later. We shoot the punk scene but end around 10pm. I order pizzas. We’re supposed to do two more scenes and then head out to do two pickups we missed because of Johnny earlier in the week.

Mark CANNOT put the lenses back in so we shoot everything reverse of him and he says he, Johnny and Clarence will come back in a couple of weeks to finish it.

Everyone says bye—the clown and crew won’t be back for the last day, and many won’t be returning for the wrap party.

This is the hair-do we're going for.

I’m in a bad mood. Two horrible days, and now I have a buttload of pickups to do. Fuck.

Spoiler alert. A lot of people die in this movie.

Monstermania 08-2010 Interlude

2010-08-24T01:16:00.000-07:00

Taking a brief break from the log, I present to you my Monstermania day. Me and Zig headed out to NJ around 9am.

We got there around noon. The parking lot was jammed full. The road was jammed full. We parked about a quarter mile away and walked.

First thing we saw was a line out the door and around the hotel. Turned out to be for John Carpenter. The Batmobile was out front.

We headed inside where I dropped off some stuff for Rob Dimension of Late Night At The Horror Hotel. That's him and me in the pic below.

Then I followed Zig around and snapped some pics of him and some celebs. This is Zig.

This is Zig with Herschell Gordon Lewis. Tell you the truth, I've heard the name, but didn't know who he was.
Added by Zig: H.G. Lewis directed 2000 MANIACS, BLOOD FEAST, GORE GORE GIRLS, THE WIZARD OF GORE and many others. First gore-hound.

I don't know who this is, but Zig got her autograph. He'll tell me later who she was.
Added by Zig: TIFFANY HELM (robot-dancing new wave girl from FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V)

This is Betsy Russell(Private School, the Saw movies). She has no business still being this hot. I mean, we saw her walking across the room before we knew who she was in this skin-tight dress, and she is SMOKING.

We figured we'd hit the regular rooms and then wait in line for Carpenter. I took some random pics. This is some zombie statue that was pretty cool. Then there were these dolls--very cool, but they were like $195 apiece...

The place was pretty packed. Isn't it funny, though, how all these cons look the same?

I'm not sure who this is, but I called her Boobs McGee. No reason.

I don't know who this is below. Zig will tell me.
Added by Zig: BILL RANDOLPH (the stabbed with a spear while having sex in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2)

Amy Steel(Friday the 13th Pt 1 &2)

Barbara Steele of Dark Shadows.

Denise Crosby(Pet Sematary, STNG)

Julian Sands(Warlock, Arachnophobia) had nobody at his table. I felt a little sorry for him.

Kelly Jo Minter(Summer School, Nightmare on Elm Street: Dream Child) with something scary

We stopped by Lloyd Kaufman's Troma Booth so Zig could talk to him. Zig's movie "Blood Oath" just got picked up by Troma! btw: Lloyd was mobbed every time you went by him even though they stuck him in a dark corner.

This is Andy from Child's Play 1&2. I can't remember his real name. He'll always be Andy to me.

These are chicks. Sometimes I take pictures of them. It's a hormone thing.

A cool Krueger bust.

Ok, this isn't the chick thing. I used to work at a restaurant, so I respect waitresses. That's all.
And no, the neck would not be a deal breaker, if you know what I mean.

So anyway, we were gonna bite the bullet and wait outside in the line for Carpenter, but someone special mentioned there might be a way around that. We gave it a shot--and I kid you not--ten minutes later we had out signed picture of Carpenter.

I don't want to say much. Maybe he was having a bad day or something. But my impression of Carpenter wasn't a great one. Leave it at that.

But I got this:

Anyway, it was a decent time. Honestly, with Carpenter being the only big guest I was a little surprised at how many people were there.

Back to the FOC2 log soon!

(Hey, look! Bonus video of Monstermania!)

June 7th, 2006: Day Off

2010-08-17T21:02:00.000-07:00

June 7th, 2006

A day off. I wake at 5:30pm to my wife telling me she brought me Chick-fil-a if I wanted to get up. She read my mind. I eat, watch the Lost Season finale, and then go downstairs to take a look at my stuff.

I start editing stuff and making the graphic for the cake. I work until 2:30am, and do a rough cut of a scene.

June 6th, 2006: Day 17

2010-08-06T20:54:00.000-07:00

The irony of this entry is that actually, once Chad's score was in, this scene turned out pretty well. You can see the scene almost entirely at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC8TXjBOEuA

And the fun stuff to watch is when Jacky locks the door--you hear a lock, but there's no lock there. I was gonna attach one and just didn't get around to it. The angle makes it hard to tell, so I just said fuck it.

But she sells it, right? That's why we pay her the big bucks.

Stephanie painting Mark up

June 6th

A disaster. We start, and here we go late again. I don’t know how it happens but the time start flying by. It takes us most of the night to do the first scene. We break a window, which looks decent, but a lot of other stuff starts going wrong.

We have a gore scene with spurting blood and we have to put plastic everywhere so that there's no way we'll get any on the wood floors. We have to figure a way to get the dummy figure to stand on its own so Mark can swing an axe into it. We finally put it on a C-stand, and after a couple of tries we get it to work.

We can’t make the new basement door fit right, no matter what we try. I personally spend an hour cutting, sanding, and fitting the door. If you pull up hard it will shut, but there’s no handle to keep it shut.(I do all this carpentry when I get there while the crew is futzing around; don't ask me why)

We get done the first two scenes and it’s around 4am. We were set to finish them at 1am. We now have an hour and a half of nighttime to finish.

We get a shot where Steve Carson gets thrown through the front screen door. He tells Clarence--six foot eight ex-wrestler to throw him through hard, don’t worry about hurting him.

Clarence does. Steve goes flying like a mannequin. It looks great, but Steve doesn’t respond the first two times I call his name. I’m worried. Then he looks up like, no problem. I’m thinking he was out for a second or two. He denies it.

We start rushing. Half-ass time, folks. A lot of ugly shots. The light starts coming up. We visqueen(I think that's what Mun called it) the windows to stop the sunlight. We shoot toward the doors first, and even fire a few live rounds at 4:30am. Here’s your wake up call, neighbors.

Then we do the door chop. We have to do it right away because of the angle we’re shooting, but now that we broke the door we can’t shoot that direction without seeing a giant hole in the door.

Phil, ready to get into his costume.

We half ass our way through some more shots. It’s gonna be an ugly scene, I can tell you that. Exhausted, I let Mun have my room at the hotel and then I drive home with Ziegler and Carson. I get there at 8:30am and go to sleep.

June 5th, 2006: Day 16

2010-07-28T20:28:00.000-07:00

June 5th

Wow. Lotta shit today.

I waited for Ziegler since I was gonna drive him over to the eastern shore. He’s late—I had figured I’d stop and get lunch but now we might not be able to. I’m just pulling out of my road when I get a call from Steve Carson, one of today’s actors.

His car’s back windshield is broken and he says he can’t make it over to Frank’s. The cops stopped him, he says, and won’t let him drive. So I tell him to meet me nearby and we’ll give him a ride.

New detour—as we wait for him. He takes his time. Lunch is definitely out.

We get to Frank’s house 15 minutes late. We need two police cars—we had one real one that was gonna show up and I was going to rig up Brandon’s car for the other. But the real guy says he can’t come til later. So we make up my car into a cop car also.

We put police lights on both and I figure that in order to sell it we’re going to have to have the lights on as they drive around the corner.

The crew is a little lazy again—really starting to slack off. I run around trying to get things organized, and I find my $800 telephoto adapter in a prop box without its case—it’s dirty and maybe scratched. I wig out and go inside and yell at the crew. I’m getting pissed at how shoddy my equipment is being treated. The shit cost me a lot.

Meanwhile, Johnny Alonso hasn’t shown up. Someone calls him and he says he thought his call time was 8pm, not 3pm. He says he’s on his way.

We need tape to put the police stripes and police lettering on the side of the car. The crew asks Frank if he has any and apparently he says “That’s not my department. That’s grip and electric.”

I don’t know what he’s thinking. What he should be thinking is that we're all in this together.

I don't think he realizes that people have been getting irritated with him. He takes a smoke break every five minutes, often doesn’t know his lines, and is very cranky most of the time.

After we get tape and fix the cars, we’re ready to shoot--almost two hours late. We have Steve and Stull pull the cars around the corner and then drive them into the scene. We do it three times. There’s a funeral or something where firemen and whatnot are coming out and we have our cars cutting through that.

Then we move to shoot a scene down the street with the van and mark. We have one pinhead crewmember who’s walking around with the axe, Frank has his badge and gun on, and all of a sudden a cop pulls up.

He’s pissed. He asks where our permit is. I refer him to Frank. Frank comes down and tells the guy we have no permit. Meanwhile I tell Mun to keep rolling ‘cause I don’t know if we’re getting shut down or not. The guy says he has to call it in—we may get fined for not having a permit. He says we can’t take weapons or badges or anything off Frank’s property. He also tells us there’s an ordinance against anyone in the city wearing a costume or a mask who’s older than 12 years old.

I’m thinking---uh what?

The guy leaves—says the administration will look at it tomorrow and decide if we get fined or not. He leaves, so we move onto Frank’s property and shoot some interior stuff with Johnny and Mark.

Then the tough stuff. We set up for the shoot out front. The stuff we technically are not allowed to shoot, now that the cop has shut us down.

We start shooting, but stop everytime a car comes down the street—Frank hides his gun and badge and we wait. Also, we have a crewmember across the street turning off the light every time he gets the signal that there’s a car coming. It’s very slow work, and we all feel like 16 year olds sneaking out to look at the Playboy hidden in the tree house .

We get the shots though. But we fall behind.

The last scene of the night is Jacky and Frank busting out of the basement. Me and Ziegler accompany them downstairs. After the last shot I run full speed out of the basement and RAM my head into the low ceiling so hard I see a flash of white. My head begins bleeding shortly later.

After we’re done we take off to get breakfast and I hear some unsettling stories about Frank. He appears to be coming apart at the seams. I don’t know how to hold him together.

We only have three more days to go, but Jesus, he’s killing me. I know he’s got a massive amount of shit on his plate, but without him playing a convincing Peters this movie will be dogshit. So I need him to hold it together.

We have no room at his house for everyone so I leave and get a room at the econolodge again. Home away from home. Same room even.

June 4th: Day 15

2010-07-17T23:59:00.000-07:00

June 4th
Got six hours of sleep. I get into a tie and slacks because I’m doing my cameo as a detective today. We set up pretty fast—Ron, John and Luke are also detectives.

Ron, Luke, and John. One of them actually brought his own real gun.

Believe it or not we get done on time—our only snafu is that Jared forgot to start a new scene on the audio recorder so he apparently taped over last nights audio.

Holy shit, does that suck. I may have to get Jay back from new york to loop his audio. He played one of the cops who has dialogue at the end of the movie.

We move to Annapolis, stopping by Fuddruckers for a great burger. John Bailey meets us at Luke’s work, which is doubling for a doctor’s office. We get through that scene pretty close to on time.

Frank’s forgetting all his lines and he falls asleep on the couch when we’re shooting John—then he proceeds to snore through the scene. Nice.

Off to Luke’s house—Frank says he got lost, and is getting nasty phone calls from his soon to be ex-wife. Frank takes an hour to get to us—we’re like 5 minutes away. We think he fell asleep outside in the car.

So we set up and get through the night—some okay stuff but I’m worried that Frank is falling apart.The strain seems to be getting to him.

Done by 2:00am, so I stop by the store to see what’s come out and write a rent check. Then home to do this diary. In bed by 4am.

Postnote: In the end, yes, I had to get Jay back for his dialogue as well as Vin. So if you see the last scene of FOC, EVERYTHING is looped. The firetruck, the talking, the ambient...I think it came out okay though.

June 3rd, 2006: Day 14

2010-07-10T18:23:00.000-07:00

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.

Slackers Mike Baldwin, Mark Lassise and Jared Noe

June 2nd, 2006: Day 13

2010-07-05T20:48:00.000-07:00

How they look at the beginning of a day's shoot...

June 2

The 76b pickup is on the menu again, after the scenes we have to shoot. I get the early snafu report: Johnny Alonso had a death in the family. He has to go to a memorial service so he’ll have to leave early. We won’t finish his scenes, because some of them are night scenes.

So we hustle up and go to the phone booth between the Pizza Hut and the Wendy’s. It’s hot as balls, but we get the shots, then head off to find a secluded road. (yeah, I didn't pre-scout this...I mean, we're on the eastern shore, so I figured it would be easy to find. Not as easy as I thought)

We shoot a quick scene between Alonso and Lassise, and head back. Luke and Noah go to grab some pizzas.We eat and prepare to shoot 76b.

A storm hits—pouring the rain down on us and muddying the ground. Fuuuuuuuck. Will not work for the scene, as it doesn't rain anywhere in the span of the film, and the film doesn't take place in the tropics.

I do a quick look at the schedule. We have no covered set to go to. We can shoot the Lynn’s basement scene that we’d be shooting tomorrow morning—it will let us start a little later.

We grab all the equipment and go to Frank’s. His wife is there but he gets her to leave before we arrive. Perhaps I didn't mention that Frank is actually now in the middle of a divorce. Try being the star of a movie while producing it as you simultaneously move out of your house, and oh yeah, getting divorced from your wife while you keep your day job.

This no-budget moviemaking thing is EASY, right?

We shoot the scene in Frank’s basement without a hitch—Mun says it’s the first scene he’s really liked. Very comforting, since we've shot a TON of scenes and THIS is the first one he's really liked?

We finish at about midnight. Everyone’s excited to finish early, but I know it’s a false comfort—we owe 76b STILL and I don’t know when they’re gonna kick us out of Tuckahoe. The rest of the cast says they're gonna go find a bar, which sounds great to me but I can't be hungover tomorrow(or any day I'm shooting).

How they look toward the end...

I head back to the hotel and pop Psycho 2 into the dvd player. Man, still such an under-rated movie. Nobody has been able to follow Hitchcock but Holland. Even if that guy had nothing to do with Child's Play and Fright Night, he'd always have that.

Can’t sleep. I surf the internet some more. Finally around 5:30am I fall asleep.

Random Pics from the set

2010-06-30T01:05:00.000-07:00

Random Pics, compliments of a disc that Rob Long sent me a long time ago(and I just re-found!). Check out his cool site at: http://smashortrashindiefilmmaking.com/

Zig, Jamie, Jacky and Mun--probably waiting for me to tell them what to do.

Breasty McGee(that's the name she does porn under)

Frank being Action Hero Guy

Clarence McNatt and Lars Stevens

Tom probably telling me to go fuck myself.

And when Tom tells you something, you do it.

Frank, striking a pose

June 1st, 2006: Day 12

2010-06-27T22:08:00.000-07:00

June 1

Late day again. Got a few hours sleep, then got to Tuckahoe early to back up my pics and try to organize the pickup for 76b—the final scene of the film that features Peters versus Shivers. We shot a wide master the night before, but my shooting script is all fucked up so I tried to clean it up.

Plus, we don't have the bigger lights that we shot the master with--had to return them today.

We decided to push back the motel scene to another night to finish the 76b—we’re not sure how much longer we’ll be able to shoot at Tuckahoe. The owners are giving us shit.

So first Stull got a trailer to tow the car around in so we could shoot the Jacky/Frank chat in the car. Mun rigged it up, and then I got bad news. A storm was coming—the wind was picking up and a dark cloud was coming. We double timed it, but we couldn’t shoot until night fell since that's when the scene takes place.

We started filming, with Mun riding the front of the car, the camera suction cup mounted to the front. I was inside the car in the back seat making sure the line readings were okay. With the windows up(for good audio) it was hot as shit in there. Turns out that they didn’t even hit record on the first take(which ran about ten minutes)—I was pretty pissed about that.

It started raining during that scene. So much for 76b pickup.

We finished what we could there, but the next scene was at a public payphone. Not in the rain. So I figure we’ll go shoot the motel scene while we can, then go to try to pickup the payphone scene if it stops raining.

We take a skeleton crew to my hotel room and set up. We get the scene and it should look decent—hopefully. Took a while. The other crew get drunk at Tuckahoe, which makes things dicey when it turns out we forgot some equipment and wanted one of them to run it up.

Only 1 picture for this post, but it's a good one.

I’m sure anyone walking by the room, seeing six guys with a camera, and one woman in a towel—well, you figure out what we looked like we were doing. (rhymes with TORN)

It was still raining, but not too bad so we headed out to a payphone. Set up one very unmotivated light source(we had no power, so we had to use the inverter) We forgot we needed Peters car—Frank had to go get it. Meanwhile it started pouring.

Frank got back and we shot it real fast. Just said fuck it to my shooting script and shot what we had. Sound is horseshit, so it's gonna need to be looped.

Then we went out to get some other shots that take place in the next scene so the rain shots would match. Peters’ car driving down the deserted road. Set up the camera, wait until no other cars are on the road, and have Frank haul ass toward us.

Then over to Denny’s. An early finish—5:15am. Time to go to sleep.

A little video treat

2010-06-22T01:52:00.001-07:00

Here's a brief clip from the "Making Of" FOC2. Enjoy.

May 31st, 2006: Day 11

2010-06-21T01:00:00.000-07:00

You know, it's funny to read what I wrote back then. When you're exhausted and the only thing you want to do is go to bed, it makes for surprisingly candid writing.

The eyes, and then the paint...

May 31

Another day of night shoots. Train shots.

Lot of lighting. Lot of compromise due to the fact that the train is so close to the camp—we had to cheat it all like it’s out in the middle of nowhere. The crew has been slacking the past couple of days. Jaimie doesn’t do much; Mike’s decent if you keep on him. Jared’s the only clear winner—he knows what he’s doing and is assertive.

Luke and Jamie almost get in a fistfight. Jamie says Luke threw a rock at him. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind seeing them both punch each other for a while.

Jared Noe, almost worth a shit

The train stuff runs late because we have to mount the crane on the back of Rob Stull’s pickup truck to get it high enough that it can go in the train’s window. Then a lot of lighting and coordinating.

Then the woods stuff runs late. Getting power out to all these woods locations takes a ton of time, then we have to run through the blocking. It’s the scene where Jacky runs full speed and falls. We used a large sofa cushion for her to fall into, and it looked great. I just have to digitally take the cushion out later.

We get to the final Peters scene late and barely get 10 shots before it’s light.

We go to Bob Evans for breakfast—back at the hotel at 8am.

Slackers...

May 30th, 2006: Day 10

2010-06-18T22:57:00.000-07:00

Clarence McNatt as Sunglasses The Clown

May 30

Caught up on some stuff—did Johnny alonso scenes at Frank’s, but the scene takes place in the van—hot as balls out. First real day scene, so we had to have the actors run inside in between takes—the clowns would sweat their makeup off.

Said by to Adam and Tom. Adam’s coming back for the wrap party.

We high tailed it to the field to do the cornfield shots—it’s a totally different location that Frank and I scouted a month earlier.

When we scouted the place it was deserted. A back road with no traffic. Today, it's busy. Figures. We have Rob Stull put on his reflective-striping County jacket and help block traffic. I'm hoping no cops stop by, because it's the wrong county.

Things are going smoother, then Mark reaches for his axe and cuts his index finger. Bad. He bends his finger and the whole slash widens like a mouth. We have no first aid gear. To top things off, some guy pulls up and asks if we have permission to shoot there. I say no. He says he knows the guy who owns the field and he’s called him; the guy’s on his way.

Meanwhile, we’re in his field trying to get a crane shot.

The guy does arrive and I go talk to him. He asks what we’re doing. I say just shooting some video. I say most of it’s from the road—looks very scenic. I tell him we just had one shot from in the field and he asks, “You’re not messing with my corn stalks?” I said no.

Even though Mark walked over about 10 on the crane shot.

Didja notice how Mun always looked bored/tired when I'm talking to him?

The guy leaves. Light is falling. Disaster strikes. Stephanie didn’t bring the rope heads. We have Frank race them up to us. But Stephanie also didn’t bring blood. The stumps of the heads should be bloody. She puts vaseline on them to make them look wet, and we just have to go with it.

We finish just in time. Johnny’s happy to have made a day of shooting.

I take the crew to Burger King as a treat(I know, big spender, right?), then we head back to Tuckahoe to finish last night’s scene where Frank gets hit with the axe.

It came out okay, but the blood effect didn’t quite work. It didn’t spurt so much as leak out onto his shirt.
We wrapped at 4:30am, so I made the trip home. It was fast, no traffic, and I went to sleep for 6 hours.

When I got up I made a dvd of dailies, backed up the files, and came back...

Make-Up Artist and FX assistant Stephanie Petagno and

Production Manager/BTS videographer Robert Ziegler.

May 29th, 2006: Day 9

2010-06-15T23:41:00.000-07:00

Shivers does to Luke what many people wanted to do to Luke

May 29

Memorial day. Had a cookout, and it was supposed to be a day off but it turned out we had 2 pickups to do.

My wife and Luke’s wife came by and cooked burgers and dogs, while the rest of us shot the shit and threw a football around.

After the food we sat around and just chatted. Something we just haven’t had time for lately.

We can’t stop laughing about the Johnny firebar thing. We showed the videotape to everyone and they just laugh and laugh.

We hustled over to the fire area to finish the Shivers/Ogre fight. It went okay, but Doug took some of the fx we needed for the Clarence head decapitation. Still, it wasn’t too bad and only took an hour longer than I thought.

We packed up and moved to the small house for the ogre gunfight. Took a little while to set up but we rocked it out pretty quick. Clarence had a good time firing the gun, and then we did the reverse and shot zircs and dust hits at Frank, Tom and Adam.

I shot the ones at Frank and Tom, and Tom kept telling me to shoot right at him. He even got pissed when I said I wouldn’t, so finally I said I would. I even did.

Looked cool.

Adam Ciesielski, Johnny Alonso and Tom Proctor

This is the three amigos’ last night. Said bye to Tom and Adam, they said they’d stop by and say hey before they left to catch their plane.

They’re good guys. Lars took off early, but he’ll be back for tomorrow’s pickup.

I booked myself into a hotel room with my wife. Yee-haw.

May 28th, 2006: Day 7

2010-06-13T22:51:00.000-07:00

May 28
Car fire day. This is gonna be rushed. We can’t afford to run over.

Yeah, did not know how bad this was gonna go. Johnny Firebar as I called him showed up late. Was supposed to set up at 7:30pm so we were ready at 9:00 to shoot. He arrived around 8:00 and said his car broke down and he had to leave his propane stuff behind, and only brought his gas rig. Ohhhhh-kay.

Then he sets up. Takes forever. We’re supposed to be done our first scene by 10ish and he just finished setting up by then.

Then we get the safety lecture from him. We already had fire department guys there—very nice guys. So Johnny Firebar lectures us on the safety. The car is filled with gasoline and fire bars. The windows are halfway down.

And Johnny Firebar marches out with a wooden shovel handle, wrapped in a now-flaming towel. He walks out to the car, inserts the flaming towel end, and the fucking side of the car explodes. I shit you not.

Glass explodes, sending pieces everywhere. The door panel actually hits Johnny Firebar.

The car burns waaaay too fast. Too hot. Doesn’t fit the scene. We shoot masters, two of them, and I ask if they can put it out and relight it in a couple of minutes. I’m told sure.

The fire guys put it out. Then Johnny fire bar tries to relight it. No go. Can’t make it light very much. He gets frustrated and tosses a plastic can of gasoline in the car. Very professional.

The rest of the night is spent trying to cover it—Mun cheating a fire bar held on a C-stand in front of camera. We get way behind and don’t get the section where Shivers and Ogre fight. We have a 2nd camera—it’s interesting.

Either way, we had three cameras rolling on the explosion. Niiiice. And wait 'til you hear about what happened later that night to Johnny...

But we continue to fall farther and farther behind.

May 27th: Day Six

2010-06-12T00:14:00.000-07:00

Blocking out the scene where Bullet gets killed.

May 27th

Got some rest again. Well needed, but I still feel very tired when I get up. I shower and bolt over to Tuckahoe so I can back up my picture files—publicity stills are worth their weight in gold.

Hung out, finally got to take a decent crap. People started showing up. Things felt pretty relaxed even though we had to pick up a scene before our regularly scheduled shots.

We did the pickup of Shivers killing Old Man Horner. Came off nice, with some decent coverage so I can make it work either way.

Then over to the meeting hall. It’s our headquarters, so it was packed with food, drinks, equipment, props. Everything. So we had to hide all that stuff. In the story it’s a place that hasn’t been stepped in for years.

Again with the falling behind. Not terribly, but it gets worse and worse.

We got almost all of the inside shots, but Mun wanted to break for dinner, that minute. So we did. It was ham so I went out and had a dinner of iced animal crackers.

You will believe a clown can fly...

Back in to finish, then they set up the lighting outside. We filmed some more shots and really picked up speed.

Jackknifed when we had to do the stunt where Shivers drops off the roof of the building onto Hot Rod. We piled up the mattresses, but it still looked dangerous. Lars, the guy playing Stoltz, offered to drop down and test it. He did, no problem.

Hey, I don’t ask my actors to do anything I wouldn’t do, besides act, so I went up and dropped off. I landed awkwardly so my forearm hit my knee. It was painful, but I sucked it up and laughed like it was cool.

Mark jumped off the roof a couple of times--it was awkward timing the jump with the camera movement, and on one drop Mark rolled and kicked Jared in the face. It was pretty funny, unless you ask Jared.

Setting up the dolly for a shot

We only had about an hour of sunlight, so we tried to shoot some of the end scene but we really couldn’t do much before the sun came up.

Another problem with falling behind is that actors know when it’s happening, and they start rushing through their performance. They may not even realize they’re doing it—they’re trying to help you out. But you gotta slow them down, or their performance won’t sell.

So we missed a HUGE scene—a big pickup now. I come back to Frank’s and revise the schedule. We had a light day after Memorial day, but now I’ve thrown everything there but one missed scene. Gonna be tight.

Gonna try to go to sleep again. 7:17am. Hard to sleep in someone else’s house, especially during the day. Curtains are see through, it’s hot, and uncomfortable.

"Hot Rod"(Adam Ciesielski) is about to get a headache...

May 26th, 2006: Day Five

2010-06-09T02:29:00.000-07:00

Shivers wants to give you Lasik, Bullet.

May 26th

A little better on the sleep front. Shower and head over to Tuckahoe. Chris O’brocki is there already.

We’re going to do the Horner family slaughter. Only, Frank informs me there’s a “problem…but with a solution.” Problem being that the house we were going to shoot in is no longer available; solution being, drive 18 miles to shoot in another house, then drive back to shoot the barn sequence.

Did I mention it’s the Friday before Memorial Day, and the road to the other town is route 50? (a major artery to Ocean City)

I know it’s not gonna work. So we start trying to improv. Maybe we can make part of the meeting house look like a house. Or maybe they can get killed on the porch, or be eating on the porch, or what the fuck ever.

I look at Bullet’s house—he’s the actor playing Old Man Horner. It’s small—a mobile home, but it may work. Then I see inside. It’s messy. Like VERY messy. And small.

But in my mind I think we can make it work, and it’s right here on the grounds.

So, another shooting script goes out the window as this house is not layed out AT ALL like the one we were going to shoot in.

Checkin' out the trailer.

Anyway, we do it. Unfortunately, we get a downpour. We shoot everything but the shots where the door is open and Shivers jabs his axe in. Not bad.

We’re losing light and we need some shots of Ogre in near-dark, but not total dark. So we fly across to the farm to shoot those, trying not to pay attention to the guy on the porch who owns the land. Frank tells me he’s a little crazy. He sits on his porch and doesn’t move even when our shot faces that direction.

We book back to finish the Horner’s wife scene—She gets an axe to the skull. It goes well, we get a good blood spurt. Michelle Trout does great.

Then back to the barn with Savannah and the boys. First problem is that the barn has no power. It’s pitch black out, because by now it’s 11pm. The scene takes place in daylight. We rig long stingers(extension cords) across from the other barn(no loft there) and get a decent setup. Still a little dark to be daytime, but it’s all we have.

It’s a confusing shoot for a director, because there’s so much FX—three deaths, and I’m not sure exactly how Doug is planning to do them. So we end up moving through the entire scene shooting one side(we have to stop before the deaths though, because to shoot those would bloody up the clothes, of which we don’t have duplicates) and then we move the lights and shoot another side.

It all works pretty well though. We get some good stuff. Savannah is good and is just as natural naked as she is clothed. Very nice.

We bolt out, but this time it’s 7am when we leave. We unload at Tuckahoe and are back here for an 8:00am nap time.

Turns out Frank’s wife is having a yard sale, so there’s no where to park the van. I park it on Frank’s back lawn.

I know, this is a Jacky-less post, so let me give you a little early Christmas present.

I call this picture E-Jacky-lation.

May 25th, 2006: Day 4

2010-06-07T23:26:00.000-07:00

Yes, we got a lot of strange looks driving around.

Note the truck right behind has Shivers and Ogre in it.

May 25th

Not much sleep, but I’m so wired when I wake up that it doesn’t seem to matter. I hear people are meeting at a pub for lunch, so I head down with Stewie and meet Mun, his buddy, Jacky and Lars at the Washington Street Pub. Fish and chips, not bad.

We talk all sorts of shit. The blow up with Frank. How Mun dry-heaves at the sight of a public toilet(and when you watch him demonstrate it…hysterical).

I bug out of there and head over to Tuckahoe. I’m first one there. I start burning backups of the audio from the night before, while I copy audio from the backups to a separate hard drive. The audio is now backed up twice. Wish I could back up the video.

I also contemplate that if I do a Fangoria article for this flick like I did for “Hunting Humans” and “Fear of Clowns”, I will start it with the sentence: “Three days in and I still can’t take a crap.”

I decide that we can make up one of the scenes we missed from the night before—we have to cheat, but it’s an inside shot that we can make look like night so we do. We get it done and STILL start on time.

We setup the small house for the scene where Lynn is sketching when the large clown walks by.

Goofing off at the card came scene in the kitchen

We jump ahead and do a scene where Peters comes in to find Lynn gone. Then back to that scene. Lighting takes a while. I shoot some publicity stills. We have Rob Ziegler shooting behind the scenes stuff, which is very cool. Normally I shoot most of the behind the scenes stuff, so I’m never in it.

Steph has gone back to painting with the stuff Paul used and the clowns look good. She even did something Paul never did, which is to use a sealant—helps keep the makeup nice longer. Shivers looks badass again.

Wow, we fall behind again. Way behind. We forgot to get the prop belt of heads from Doug, our FX guy. I have to improvise.

Johnny Alonso shows up for his scene and we start two hours late. It’s his decapitation scene. We set up for all that and work on the fx. It involves a second head attached to his shoulders, which Mark actually hits off with the wooden axe.

In retrospect it’s probably pretty dangerous. "Johnny, run at Mark but keep your chin tucked to your chest. He's gonna swing the wooden axe at the dummy head as you get near him, and as long as he doesn't swing six inches lower than he should, he won't hit you in the face."

Take after take, Mark hits nothing but the fake head. He was probably a pretty good hitter in baseball.

The deal works pretty good. We get a lot of coverage.

Johnny fitted for his 2nd head by Stephanie as Zig rolls camera and Shivers watches

Then we set up for the zirc hits—they’re paintball balls filled with zirconium that spark when they hit stuff, like a bullet ricochet. It worked well. My first time. Tom Proctor shot them—he’s a pro. Hit the mark every time.
Looks awesome.

We try to turn around and finish the scenes, but we miss—it’s getting light. We wrap at 6am again. It’s 7am—another good night in the morning.

May 24th, 2006: Day 3

2010-06-06T22:47:00.000-07:00

Shivers approaches. Lock up your balloons.

----------------------------------

So this was "the fight". Frank and I got into it a bit, and it's a shame my behind-the-scenes guy wasn't there, because arguments always make the best stuff to watch, right?

It's no big deal now. Frank probably doesn't even remember it. Shit like this happens on low-budget shoots.

May 24

At the grip house in the afternoon Mun and I pick up stuff fast. My wife has ordered cast/crew T-shirts which she gives me to hand out, and we bolt across bridge.I also treat Mun to a snowball, which he doesn't seem to be familiar with.

We start on time, shooting Shivers approaching Tuckahoe from the direction of the farm next store(where, scriptwise, he has dispatched a family and their naked neighbor). Looks good. We do a number of takes plus the POV shot we owe of the field/barn, but I don’t think that it’s going to match the other side of the shot that we shot last night.

We move to the exterior of the kitchen house. It takes a while to set up but it looks very good. We start shooting but fall behind quickly. Lighting very nice takes time.

We shoot the Lynn/Peters conversation and man, Frank and Jacky are really pouring it on. I actually get a little lost watching them. It’s no longer actors saying my lines, they’re people talking about their past and their wants. It’s cool.

We then get some money shots of Shivers melting into the darkness of a barn and it reminds me of Alien when the aliens fade away into darkness. Mun knows his shit.

We get way behind. We miss dinner. Next thing I know it’s 2am and Mun wants a break—I don’ t blame him. We take a break, trying to get the scenes done. We miss a couple of shots and time flies by. We wrap at 6am—we missed a scene and owe a couple of shots from another. It’s a nightmare.

The reason you need to put your day job on hold while you shoot a movie

Then I hear from Frank that he has to drive back to the other side of the bridge to do auditions for his regular job in two hours. The regular job that he said would be completely on hold while we shot this movie. I mention that he’s not supposed to be doing that. He says it’s only this and “I’ll be fine”.

I'm thinking: He's already tired. He's gonna go do this, and come back and be worthless when we need him to remember his lines tonight. This is WHY I stressed that he would not be able to do his regular job during the filming.

We drive home and I find him there. I remind him again that he’s supposed to be on this exclusively. He blows me off—then we situate everyone’s sleeping arrangements. And Frank tells me there’s only one little hangup-we have to be out of the house by 3pm. The new owners of the house are coming over to paint.

Let me backtrack: This was Frank’s house that was the set for Lynn’s house in the film. I wrote a portion of the movie around it. But three weeks before we were to shoot, Frank tells me he sold the house. It’s okay, he said, because he made a deal so we could still shoot there and use the house as a basecamp on the eastern shore. He assured me many times there’d be no problems.

So that's why at that particular moment after coming back from filming that I blow up. I tell him that wasn’t the deal—we can’t work 12-14 hour days and come home to sleep for 5 hours. I can see the rest of the crew slinking away from the argument we’re having.

The argument doesn't last long but it’s pretty harsh.

It’s 7am--good night.

May 23rd: Day Two

2010-06-03T22:54:00.000-07:00

Yeah, this is how it looks the first week...but it's a different story by week 2.

May 23rd

Awake at 8am. I make the hour drive to the location.

First day at Tuckahoe. It’s a park that’s pretty much Camp Crystal Lake without the lake. Woods, some old buildings, a lone train car. It’s WAY out on the eastern shore.

First scene is where Peters takes Lynn to Tuckahoe—they pull up and chat. It starts with two shots, both dollying shots. But it takes a while to set up the dolly tracks and level them, so we only do a dolly on one side, and use the steadicam on the other. The dolly is obviously superior on slow moving shots.

It’s funny, but I haven’t seen Jacky in over a year. We did no rehearsal and I had just assumed she’d slip back into Lynn Blodgett with no problem.(she now lived in L.A., so there was no way to get her in early enough for rehearsal)

But she’s a little cold. Comes off kind of bitchy, so I pull her aside and tell her to warm it up. She’s not aware she was cold, but that’s just how she is. Ice queen.

I’m actually lying about the Ice Queen part, because I think she’s reading this and I like to make fun of her.

Jared Noe messing with sound, Jamie Bender shows his backside,

Luke Theriault looks clueless, and Dave Mun already looks bored.

The scene comes out okay but we’re running behind fast. Finally we bring Adam Ciesielski in and shoot that stuff. He drives in, skids the truck, and hops out. He’s been a stunt driver so it’s no problem for him.

The scene’s good except there’s a giant lumber mill behind the trees that’s fucking the sound to hell.

It’s like the monster from Lost—you can’t see it, but it’s this gigantic roar behind the trees. Not sure how I’m gonna fix it in post.

We moved to the Tuckahoe kitchen house and set up the interior. We get some nice shots of them playing cards, some exposition talk, and then we break for dinner, still running late.

The final scene of the night has us running to the field on the outskirts of Tuckahoe. Frank and Adam stare off with their binoculars in the distance.

Rigging up lights in the pitch black takes longer than expected. This is the country, man, so there is ZERO light. You can see every star in the sky. But you would not be able to see an albino if he was two inches away from you.

Mun comes up with a neat way to make the barn looks like it has a light hanging off of it, and it looks natural. I communicated a number of times(he tells me) that I don’t want crazy artificial lighting, so he lights it very dimly on the actors. It looks very realistic, but it’s not too pretty.

We both like it though. Now we just have to get a reverse of their pov at the other farm, but it’s pitch black. We may day4night it, but I’m not a big fan of day for night, so we’ll see what we can do.

We finish about 12:30am and mun and I decide to make the drive back across the bridge; we need to pick up some gear for the next day over there. We get there and my wife fixes us steak sandwiches at 2am(it’s over an hour drive).

I try to get some sleep but I get a migraine and my stomach freaks out. Not too great. We have a late start though, so that’s good.

May 22nd, 2006: DAY ONE

2010-06-01T02:22:00.000-07:00

Stephanie Petagno turns Phillip Levine into Giggles The Clown.

--------------------------

So here it is, the beginning of the actual FOC2 log. This was, hands down, the worst shooting day I have experienced in my years of shooting. I'm only glad it wasn't an omen...

And to qualify something--this is what I was typing at the time, so these are gut reactions. For instance, I kinda bash Stephanie Petagno, our Makeup Fx person and clown painter but we found out the lackluster performance of the paint was not her fault. We changed paints after the first day, and from then on it was great.

Clarence McNatt is Ogre The Clown

-------------------------------

May 22nd Day 1

Started rough—one of Mark’s contacts doesn’t fit right--the painter starts on Giggles first instead. We work on Mark’s contact, but it's a no go. I decide that we're gonna try to insert it on scene, then paint, then he'll take out the contact when we're done the scene, and we'll move on to the next scene.

This is the plan, at least.

We run very late—we're supposed to pick up Johnny Alonso at 12:30pm, but it ends up being 3pm—Johnny's very cool about it, but I'm already thinking this probably doesn't make us look very professional. This guy's worked on Dawson's Creek, One Tree Hill...you know, actual productions.

So I'm a little nervous as it is.

P.A. Noah Schaftel and Grips Jared Noe and Jamie Bender

Stephanie got lost on the way to Six Flags and cost us a half hour waiting for her to show up to put Mark’s contact in and paint his eye.

Anyway, we pull into a service road next to Six Flags amusement park.

See, we're not actually allowed to shoot there. We are going with my back-up plan, which is to sneak in and get the shots. I found a portion of the fence that was down when I scouted it a few weeks earlier.

So, at the service road--within 10 minutes there are 2 security trucks watching us from the other side of the gate. That will make it tough to sneak in. We wait them out even though time's a ticking. We shoot some stuff from the service road.

Mark’s one-eyed. He cannot keep the contact in without his eye watering. It's turning red. We didn't have this problem even ONCE on the first FOC. I have no idea what to do. We’re shooting everything behind him and from the profile.

Jamie Bender, Jared Noe, and James Baldwin

The security guys leave, so we sneak the 1/8th of a mile up the field, into the woods, and through the fence. Phillip has decided his character wouldn't wear shoes. Not a problem for me, but now he has to walk through the woods with no shoes...

We start shooting, but every time a truck or car drives by we all hit the deck. Johnny's a sport, but I feel like a douche. I'm pretty sure they don't have to do this on One-Tree Hill.

Mark's not tired: He just can't open his eyes without them watering due to the contact lenses...

Meanwhile actors have come in to airport, so my phone rings constantly-—I’m moving away letting Mun direct. My wife calls about actors--where should they take them? Tom Proctor and Adam Ciesielski have come in from the airport.

Frank calls for updates and I tell him we’re running late. I don't have time to talk. In the back of my mind I know everything we're shooting now is total shit.

On the way to the "projects"

We don’t leave six flags until 5:30pm—saw a buzzard in a tree on the way out. I have a feeling he's circling my career.

Bad traffic going back. We grab script supervisor Luke Theriault and producer Rob Stull on the way to my house.

We get to my house so we can get a car that's in the scene. Two of the actors are there—Tom and Adam—I can only say a quick hi as I literally rush past them, and back out the door. They’re whisked off to a hotel on the Eastern shore.

We head out to the projects. We're losing light fast. It's windy as shit—the clowns' paint is flaking—they don’t look good. The difference between Steph and Paul is apparent.

Shivers with Stephanie, Producer Rob Stull, actor Johnny Alonso, and Baldwin

Get to projects and we have two scenes to do in one hour—no way is it going to happen. We try it anyway.

A big crowd of gawkers comes out of their houses and gets in our shots. We ask them to move and they say okay if we give them autographs. Sure.

One woman cusses at a kid, the kid cusses back, and in five minutes a cop arrives. One cop drove by, saw our clowns, shook his head and drove off.

We totally half ass the shots—they’re not gonna cut together well. We don’t get Giggles’ shots done at all.

It’s clusterfuck city.

We head back and eat subs my wife got from Subway while I look at what we’ve done and try to reschedule pickups. Day 1 pickups are bullshit. Day 1 is supposed to be easy.

Everybody's inside so I go out on the porch and try to work while I eat. I'm pretty angry and a little scared of the rest of the schedule if this is what it's gonna be like. Demoralized.

We pack the van for the move to Easton, and we leave about 11:30pm. We were supposed to shoot a scene on the Eastern shore at like 9pm. Yeah right. Another pickup.

I get to Easton at 1am and about a mile away from Franks I’m pulled over by the police. 52 in a 35. For once I get a break—he gives me a warning. He even knows one of our local producers and wants me to tell the guy that Officer Tim stopped me.

At the house I look at the footage. I take some time to look over tomorrow's shots, type this up, and now I’m going to sleep. Total day: 8:30am – 2:55am. Good night.

May 19th, 2006: T Minus 3 Days

2010-05-26T00:49:00.000-07:00

The fake book cover made for the gallery signing in the beginning of FOC2.

Picture by my brother Paul C. Kangas, book design by Rich Henn.

-----------------------

Yeah, maybe I did. But how was I to know today was going to be such a fuckin spectacularly blogtastic day?

For those who don't know...in the credits at the end of my films I thank people who have been instrumental in helping me get the film done. That section starts with "The Director Wishes to Thank..."

But I also have a section that says "The Director Does NOT Wish to Thank..." and I list the nimrods who pissed me off during the creation.

Today, we have our second candidate for the listing in FOC2. Enter U-Haul.

See, we're going to burn my old car in the film. The car doesn't run at all, but it LOOKS sweet. It's a sports coupe. I still get people asking whether it's for sale since it's been sitting in my driveway for 2 years.

But I need to get it towed 50 miles to where we're filming. I haven't had too much luck, so I finally figured we'd tow the bitch ourselves with one of the crew's trucks.

Tuesday I stopped by U-Haul to ask about reserving a tow bar for the car. They told me they couldn't do anything. I had to call the main office which would give me the location and time I could pick it up.

So Wednesday I call the main office. They say they can't reserve it until the day before I want to tow. Call back tomorrow if I want it Friday.

So I call back Thursday. I wait another 10 minutes on hold and then tell the person I need to reserve a tow. The person says they don't have a lot of options open. I should have called earlier in the week to reserve it, because a lot of people reserve the tow bars for weekend towing.

I'm still pretty calm about it. I explain nicely what the other pinhead--I mean, representative--said about not being able to reserve it until today. This new rep sets me up and says okay, someone will call back before the end of the day to tell me where and when I can pick up the bar.

And oh yeah--this guy says I can't tow my specific car with the two-wheels-off-the- ground tow bar. My car is so low that it will drag the car's back end. I have to use the tow bar that picks up all 4 wheels. It's $10 more a day. I say, fine, whatever. They ask what I'm towing the car with and I tell them the truck we're using. Fine, fine.

No one calls me that day. Friday comes around and I call them when I wake up at 2pm(I went to sleep about 7am). After waiting--I kid you not--15 minutes for a rep, they tell me I can pick up the tow bar at the U-haul. In Baltimore.

Now...there are 3 effing U-Hauls closer than the one in Baltimore. Driving into Baltimore is also a nightmare. They're working on the main road into Baltimore right now, and it's closed down to 1 lane. So this not cool.

I tell the guy, in very clear and concise 4 letter words what I think of this. I explain that I've had nothing but problems with his shitty company, and this is one more pile of shit he's thrown in. He says Hold On, he'll transfer me to a supervisor.

Instead, he hangs up on me. Rather than call back and wait 20 minutes to try to talk to a rep I just call the Baltimore Office. I tell him I have a reservation for the tow bar and give him my name.

He tells me, very accusatory, "You were supposed to pick it up at noon." I say, and I quote: "If you fucking pinheads had called me yesterday like you were supposed to then maybe I could have done that." Then I gave him the short version of the crap I had put up with so far from his company.

His attitude turned fast. He said I could pick it up anytime up til 8pm. I said thanks.

And I thought it was all over. A done deal. Couldn't get any worse.

Then I get the call. The guy picking up the tow has been told he cannot take it because they say his truck doesn't have the proper hitch on it. He tells them he's pulled the largest truck U-Haul has to offer with that truck, but they won't budge. They will not let him take the tow.

So here I am--with 2 days to get this fucking car across 50 miles to the location, and I'm not sure how to do it. Two tow truck companies turned me down last week--they don't want to tow that far, especially across the Bay Bridge. That's why I was going with the U-Haul option.

Now I have to get up early and make a lot of calls to see just how expensive it's gonna get. I'm sure SOMEONE will do it--the question becomes a matter of price.

Man, I know I say it everytime, but this is the LAST MOVIE I'M SHOOTING...

May 17th, 2006: T Minus 5 Days

2010-05-20T21:40:00.000-07:00

The first Giggle's head cast that I test painted myself.

With my cheapo watercolor paint set. Yeah...that's talent.

This was some amateur photoshop to test out how the makeup would look on Clarence McNatt.

Obviously we tweaked it.

------------------------

May 17, 2006

Yeah, only 5 more days and back into the breach. It's rushing at me too fast.

We still have a lot of people we haven't rehearsed, a lot of props still to be prepared, and stupid crap to be done. (The car we're going to light on fire needs to be towed to the Eastern Shore--it doesn't drive by itself but it LOOKS pretty as hell)

My biggest whoops so far seems to be my props estimate in the budget. I had it budgeted for around $500--it was just a guess. I really had no idea how much stuff we'd need until I broke down the script.

It's actually at about $2000 now, so that's rough. I'm actually kind of wondering if I'm going to run out of money near the end of the shoot--that wouldn't be too cool. I'm known for ALWAYS paying what I say I'm going to pay WHEN I say I'm going to pay it. It's one of the things that seems to distinguish me from many of the other local filmmakers.

May 16th, 2006 T Minus 6 Days To Shoot

2010-05-17T06:39:00.000-07:00

Actor Clarence McNatt(on right) plays Ogre The Clown. To his left is some short guy named Mark Lassise. :)

May 16th

In other news, the shoot barrels at me full speed. We're having trouble figuring out where we're gonna put everybody for the night--we have more people staying than we thought. Some people I thought would head home in between their shooting days are planning on staying, and quite frankly, the hotels in the area are out of their mind.

We're trying to rent a house or something. Meanwhile I have to get this non-driving car to the eastern shore so we can burn it, pickup the van we're renting for gear, and prepare for David Mun(the Director of Photographer) to get into town on Saturday.

And oh yeah, prepare myself so I'm ready to direct the movie. It's the little things.

April 28th, 2006 - Kiss My Freakin' Ass

2010-05-14T01:28:00.000-07:00

You can see the three outfits we chose from for Giggles' costume. This is actor Phillip Levine staying in character for even these pics. Guys was phenomenal as Giggles.

--------------------------

April 28th, 2006

We were supposed to have permission to shoot at Six Flags. I was assured by a number of people that it was just about a done deal. Just give them that scene from the script and the date, and they'd get back to me.

They got back to me. Corporate denied us permission.

Now, this is the first day of shooting. I moved it to that date, because they needed us to shoot before Memorial Day(their first day open). Now I've moved it up, and NOW I have to find a replacement location.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

April 23rd, 2006 - Pez Head

2010-05-10T04:15:00.000-07:00

Saw some of the FX for FOC2 today as Doug did the full body cast for Savannah(and yes, she was nude for it).

Here's one poor soul that Shivers essentially turns into a Pez dispenser. He's played by Chris O'Brocki.

April 18th, 2006: Five Hundred Pound Guerilla

2010-05-01T13:26:00.000-07:00

Well, crisis time again.

There was a point about two months ago where I almost called off FOC2--it looked like the main actress couldn't come back, and there was a question of whether Shivers was coming back. If we couldn't get both I was just going to call it off.

Crisis averted. But here we are, five weeks away from shooting, and the main location has balked at letting us shoot there. I thought the whole thing was taken care of. A done deal.

So Frank is still talking with them. He's confident he can get them to sign off.

But I got a back-up plan. It's called "guerilla". We go in and shoot anyway, without permission.

I'm no stranger to guerilla shooting. Those who remember HH should remember the scene in the grocery store. We just walked in, set up, and shot. No one said anything. The shoppers walking around in the background were just that: shoppers. Most of them were so intent on shopping that they didn't even notice us.

And the road we blocked off to shoot the scene where Aric thinks someone(me) in the truck next to him is the guy stalking him...total guerilla. That's B&A Blvd, and those who know that road probably realize it's pretty busy, even at midnight. Which is why cops at two different times stopped us to ask us what we were doing. I told them I was shooting something for class. They both left us alone.

But...the guerilla shooting game is a game for the young. When you're young you don't worry about little details like getting arrested. Also, you have the energy to run your ass off if things go wrong.

I guess I shouldn't worry. On the first FOC we shot some guerilla stuff--the footage in the Enchanted Forest was all guerilla. I even had to kick some people out of the park for trespassing while we were trespassing.

So I guess we're back on. Five weeks and counting, and there's a LOT still to be done.

More Scouting Pics Redux

2010-04-30T00:49:00.000-07:00

The stairwell in Frank's house where Peters and Lynn try to make their escape.

Yeah, Frank's trademark look. We never used the back of his house for anything other than parking a LOT of cars.

(and cheating the one scene the cops shut down our production out front one day)

You know what this sidewalk needs? A clown, and a severed head lying in front of him.

You know what the amazing thing about this photo is?

I missed a shot the day we shot here--a POV shot. Later on I just figured I was screwed.

Then I saw this pic. I clipped the murder van from another still, put it in this picture,

created a shadow, then added camera shake and VOILA!

I had a POV shot without renting a van and driving back out to

the eastern shore(like an hour away).

Yeah, nothing creepy about this place...

More Scouting Pics

2010-04-23T02:09:00.000-07:00

And you'll recognize these locations if you've seen FOC2, and if you haven't, what are you waiting for? :)

The barn where the naked girl(Savannah) is chopped in two!

Lynn Blodgett's house was actually Frank Lama's house at the time

Do you know how hard it is to find actual phone booths now? Man...

The basement of Frank's house has this exit, which I incorporated into the script

March 31st, 2006

2010-04-21T02:01:00.000-07:00

Some more location scouting at Tuckahoe with one of FOC2's lead actors, Frank Lama.

March 31

The weather's changing. I can smell the approaching summer.

It feels like moviemaking weather. I'm starting to get excited.

See, when you start putting a movie together it's a lot of worry. I have a hard time sleeping. The sheer of amount of work to be done is staggering. And it's all you can think about.

Then the pieces start falling into place(hopefully). You get what you want, or you change what you want to what you can get. You watch your movie in your mind 100 times to figure out the best way to shoot each scene for maximum impact.

And then, very soon, you shoot a movie.

Hurdles completed: Most of casting, located a new makeup artist(when your movie's about clowns and you have no one to paint the clowns...I was in a bad place for a while), have completed 3(of 5) headcasts

Hurdles to be completed(the short list): Figure out how to burn a car safely and--more importantly--controllably so that we can keep continuity okay--it wouldn't do to have the fire large in one scene, then small, then large again.

Also gotta get plane tickets for everybody. There's some equipment to be gotten, some lighting tests, have to get insurance so we can get clearance for some of the locations, then have to scout a few small locations.

Doing some of it today. Check the KKF forum for pics later if you care.

March 17th, 2006: Preparing For Shooting

2010-04-16T00:06:00.000-07:00

I'll start posting some of the location scouting pics I took--most of them of Tuckahoe, the place where we shot the last half of FOC2.

March 17th

..where do I start?

We're entering the MASSIVE part of preproduction where you pretty much plan for EVERYTHING. A lot of people don't realize it, but making a movie is 95% preproduction.

We're casting, we're nailing down locations, we're figuring out how to do everything I've written in the script(and the funny part is how many of the people read the script ask me "How you gonna do that?"--yeah, I'm aiming high again)

I was once told it's better to aim high and miss than aim low and hit. I don't know. The feeling of disappointment I got when I was done FOC and it wasn't as good as I had imagined...kinda sent me into a funk.

But here I go once again, and maybe this time I'll get closer to what I was going for. Already though I'm making compromises; there have been a couple of roles I simply couldn't find what I was looking for, so I had to either take a decent actor who looked nothing like the role, or an unknown quantity that has a good pedigree(meaning, they've been in some "name" movies and having their name in my picture can boost my visibility).

Pretty soon we'll have the casting announcements on the KKF message boards.

March 8th, 2006

2010-04-09T02:53:00.000-07:00

So it's weird to think back on this. What happened was that I was having a hard time casting the part of "Rego", the older mercenary who helps out Detective Peters.

And I had received interest from a guy who had a role in "Halloween 6". Since he was from Arizona I told him he could do an audition tape.

He sent me a dvd which, if I can find, maybe I'll post a piece. Just so you can see the difference in Tom Proctor then versus now.

My mindset at the time was--"Man, if he's good, I can't possibly afford him."

The dvd came in and he WAS pretty good. Heavier than I expected. Turns out he was a stuntman turned actor. He told me he had gained some weight as a result of a stunt gone wrong.

Apparently his foot had been all but blown off on a stunt. The doctor had thought he wouldn't run again. Well, Tom assured me he'd lose some weight before we shot the movie and that he'd run--maybe with a little limp.

There was a second I thought--I can't cast him. I can't possibly afford him. To offer him the meager salary I could would offend him.

So I thought "Just send him an email saying we didn't think he'd fit the part."

One of the best decisions I made was to NOT send that email. I called him. I figured, what the fuck?

I talked to him on the phone, apologized profusely for what I was about to offer him, and gave him my spiel. And at the end of it he said, "Listen man: I love making movies. You feed me two cheeseburges a day and find me a floor to sleep on, and I'm there."

Turned out to be a great decision. He's exactly the kind of guy you want on a low-budget movie where stuff gets done mostly out of sheer will and the desire to make a movie.

I ended up writing a script for him, which he starred in and helped me produce("Bounty").

And would work with him again in a second. If you want to see what he looks like today(he's lost a TON of weight):
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1479183872/nm0698354

March 08, 2006

In the news dept., it appears we're about to cast a pretty meaty role in the film with a guy who was actually IN a Halloween movie! (though it was Halloween 6--but still!)

And I'm not talking as an extra, though the role WAS small. He played a guy who gets killed by Michael Myers!(he has a couple of lines before old Mike does him in)

So that's where I'm at.

February 24th, 2006: Networking & Showing FOC Part 2

2010-04-06T00:44:00.000-07:00

I promise the next post will begin to go closer to FOC2 stuff.

Feb 24th

Okay, I'm back from a day of horrible open auditions. If you haven't read part 1, scroll down and read it, then come back. I'll wait.

So, the movie finally starts. The screen is too dark, I can tell pretty fast. There are slight roll bars also, so the picture isn't as near as good as it could be. The sound's nothing to write home about either.

I take a table in the far back so I can gauge audience reaction. Frank sits with me. We're alone there, which is the way I like it.

Then some big guy comes over, takes off his coat and sits right next to me.

Introduces himself. And I'm thinking: "You gotta be shitting me." He's invited himself to my table and he proceeds to try to talk to me during the whole flick. Trying to sell me on how he's also a writer/director/songwriter/composer/900 other thing--which means he's not good at ANY of them.

My wife shows up somewhere in there, and this dick has her seat. So she sits at the table behind me, and then I wait a couple minutes and get up and go sit next to her. I'm sure it must have seemed rude to the guy, and I'd just like to take this moment to tell the guy: "Too fuckin' bad."

Okay, so back to the movie. The lights from the tall buildings outside are casting shadows on the movie screen, further obscuring the image. And then I guess the John's Hopkins people showed up, 'cause all of a sudden you can hear music pounding from downstairs.

I just tried to ignore it all.

The movie ended. People clapped and came over and congratulated me. You can never tell who actually likes your movie and who just says they do because they're hoping you'll do something for them.

Later I did hear that at most of these dinner movies people pretty much talk non-stop and network, and that this was the first flick they had there where people stopped talking and started watching the movie.

So upstairs we all go--they have a bar and karaoke up there. Pretty funny to watch. But honestly, I'm tired and don't like to network. I want to leave. But since the club has said they're going to give us some money, I hang out. I talk with a hottie Asian chick who does casting(and may even appear in a small role in FOC2).

Fast forward to 1am. I'm REALLY ready to leave. Frank's trying to find the manager who's supposed to give us money. She's nowhere. I wait at the front door as Frank goes from floor to floor, getting the runaround.

I shit you not. Fast forward to 2am. I'm STILL waiting at the front door. I'm VERY irritated. Franks FINALLY found the manager lady who has sent him to someone else, and they're counting out the money.

It ends up being like $200. This may sound a bit arrogant, but $200 doesn't do much for me. If you asked me would I show up and show my movie, talk to people, then stand around for over an hour, all for $200--I would be walking the other way before you even finished talking.

When they first floated the idea to me they mentioned half the ticket price, and part of the bar because we were going to be keeping people there drinking(and if Coke's cost $3, what do you think actual drinks cost?)

I know--I'm getting verbose. I'll finish it quick.

I make my escape at about 2:30am--Frank and I are quickly hit up by a beggar(who Frank gives his change to. Frank: "Do not ENCOURAGE them!") I get to the parking garage and notice something frightening.

It's closed.

Yeah, it's 2:30am and I'm stuck in Baltimore. I call Frank real fast and beg him to turn around and come get me. Nice guy that he is, he does. He takes me home and crashes on my couch for the night.

I wait until 5:30am and call a cab, take it back to Baltimore, grab my car(though they didn't open at 6am like they said they did) and hightail it back to my house before Frank gets up.

Taxi: $19 Parking Garage: $15

So now my take is even smaller. There you have it. The lowlights of being a low-budget filmmaker. I can personally guarantee that's the last public showing of FOC for a LONG time.

February 24th, 2006: Networking & Showing FOC

2010-04-04T18:46:00.000-07:00

Not sure which blog to put this on, so I'm gonna stick this one here.

Feb 24th

Last night there was a showing of FOC at a local cinema-grille thing. The venue was very nice, a huge upscale place. They had asked me whether they could do it, and asked me to attend. Since they didn't ask me to promote it or do anything else, I said sure.

A couple of days beforehand I was hearing that they expected a lot of people. Great. They had mentioned they would give me half of all the ticket sales--even better.

They said it was also kind of a networking thing--people could drop off headshots and talk to other people about the projects they were trying to get off the ground. Less great. I'm not a big schmoozer or networker.

The odd paradox is that I'm really not a people person, though most people who don't know me well will tell you how nice and friendly I am.

So I get there. There's no parking so I park two VERY long blocks away in an all-night parking garage that looks to cost me $20 for the duration. I walk to the restaurant and go inside.

I'm fashionably late, and there really isn't anybody there. I'm already thinking: Waste of time. Frank Lama's there, his usual chipper self. He loves networking.

I meet the people putting on the show. They tell me the screening is going to take place on the second floor, but after the showing we need to take the party to the third floor because some other Johns Hopkins graduation party is coming in. Getting better and better.

Fast forward to we're-about-to-start. They have two okay-sized screens. I could probably get a free Coke, but I figure why bother the manager? What's a dollar? The little cup of Coke was $3. I only pay $3 for a Coke if women are taking off their clothes on stage.

They call me up to say a couple of words. I'm not prepared, so I just stutter a few words and back off. They start the flick. The picture stutters and shuts down after the opening credits. They can't make it work. Their dvd player is a piece of shit.

Lucky for them I'm prepared. I brought a dvd player just in case. So I walk the LONG two blocks back to the parking garage and get the player from my car. Then the long walk back. The movie is now going to start almost a half hour late.

There's maybe 50 or 60 people, tops. It gets better(and by better, I mean worse) after that. In part 2.

A "Fear of Clowns 2" review

2010-03-27T18:52:00.001-07:00

I have other reviews, but this one just got posted today so I figured it's apropos to put it up. The bonus is that it's mostly positive!

Deadly Doll's House Review of FOC2

February 17th, 2006

2010-03-26T02:50:00.000-07:00

It's funny reading stuff from the past. I guess that 98% chance was high--of course, if I let Lionsgate rape me then FOC2 would have been out from them two years ago.

It's probably a good thing I didn't hire this guy. He did have a lot of equipment, but technically HE is now a SHE. I'm a fairly open-minded guy, but I don't need that kind of drama on a set.
There's more than enough regular kind of drama.

February 17th, 2006

You know, when I cast "Fear of Clowns" it was a funny thing that wanna-be actors and actresses didn't want to come down from New York to audition. For a starring part in a feature film, they didn't want to make a three hour drive.

Now, I understand that at that point all we had under our belt was one feature film that had been distributed in every Blockbuster and Hollywood Video around the country. So maybe they were skeptical.

So I hope that every one of those pinheads, upon seeing the announcement that Lion's Gate had picked up FOC, I hope every one of them smacked themselves in the head.

Flash forward to now. We're doing the sequel to FOC. It's like a 98% chance that LGF will distribute that one too. And still we get some people who make excuses about sending in audition tapes.

And this:

There's this guy who owns a TON of equipment. He's shot a couple of low budget features(none of which got significant distribution or ANY critical response), so you'd figure this guy would want to get associated with a picture that gets out there.

We made him an offer. Come be our head griptrician, bring your two guys with you, and help us shoot the flick. For free? No, we offered them $6000 for 18 shooting days(and the head guy was actually only going to be there for 15 of them) AND I was going to make the guy an Associate Producer, just to get his name in the front-end credits.

And the guy says it's not enough money.

I'm thinking--what? Are you serious? It's $2000 a week plus a front end credit that many people actually PAY for, and you actually get to be associated with a movie that not only gets distributed but I can guarantee is gonna get some positive reactions(call me cocky, but I firmly believe this is gonna be the movie where I finally get to show some of my stuff).

And if you want perspective, that $6000 is 1/6 of the total budget of the film.

This guy is just dumb. What could he possibly be thinking? I think that kind of thinking is what determines who gets put in the history books and who doesn't.

I hope he'll be happy; I'm sure shooting wedding videos satisfies that creative urge in every artiste...

January 23rd, 2006

2010-03-22T17:28:00.000-07:00

Somewhere over 600 headshots and it doesn't appear to be stopping. Not bad for a week. Got some interesting ones, got some total losers, got some total losers who think they shouldn't have to audition to get a part.

While I'm going through the emails and headshots I've been jamming through some of my TV dvd sets. I finished Dream On: Season 1 and 2(and I'm kinda bummed that the other seasons aren't available).

Now I'm on Alien Nation: The Complete Series, which was one of my favorites way back when(1990 if you must know). I've gotten through about 7 episodes--it's still a great show, but the compression on some of the episodes is terrible.

I can't complain though--it's better than if I'd bought a bootleg set of the episodes(which I did for Quantum Leap before they started actually coming out)

Who knows, by the time I'm done casting I may have polished off Alien Nation and gotten through Nip/Tuck Season 1(which people keep telling me to watch).

January 12, 2006

2010-03-19T02:31:00.001-07:00

My favorite casting submission so far...

As I said, we're casting for FOC2 now and we've gotten a lot of submissions. This one cracked me up the most so far(name removed):

Hello,

I am coming from Slovenia (Europe).I was never acting before (some hot photos-one on newspaper cover) but than I stopped.But all friends are telling me (all the time) that I should be an actor, so now maybe I want to give a shot. I am working as Account manager now and dont have problems to convince people in something (to buy,people are "following" me, listen to me) I am successful in 95% to do it my way. Now I want to know-How does this work? Do I have a chance? What do an agency must know about me? Etc.

Thank you ,

Br,

Thursday, December 29, 2005

2010-03-12T03:58:00.000-08:00

December 29, 2005

After like 6 years of adding and deleting files, and finally organizing my hard drive I figured I should defragment my hard drive. It's something they say you should do every couple of months or so.

But Windows 2000 has no defragment. Windows help tells me to use cleanmgr. I do. The program opens, analyzes my hard drive, then asks me to check some boxes. One is to compress seldom-used files to save room.

When you check it it says: WILL NOT DELETE ANY FILES and is "completely safe".

So I hit OK. I go eat dinner and when I come back...there are now 5 items on my desktop. There used to be like 30. I check windows explorer to see how much room got freed up on my hard drive that only had about 1 gig free.

There are now 55 gigs free. I notice missing folders everwhere. Somehow this horrid program has deleted 54 gigs of stuff.

I have an article for Fangoria magazine that's due next week--it was four pages and Tony Timpone, the editor of Fango had called me up to make sure I could do it by the deadline. That article, and most of my other docs(including the new scene breakdowns and shooting schedule for FOC2) are GONE.

I rarely panic. But inside I was freaking out. All the digital photos I had taken in the past year were gone--including pics of my kid, of my brother-in-laws wedding, of EVERYTHING--gone.

Windows pops up an error telling me that crucial windows files are missing and please insert the windows install disk. Yes, that's right, this program has deleted necessary Windows files among its random deletions.

CUT TO:

Me at the store buying a search and recovery program to attempt to salvage what's still on the hard drive. It managed to find 169,000 files but it doesn't find any names--so I have to individually go through those 169,000 files to figure out which ones are good and which ones are bad.

So that's where I'm at now. I managed to find the Fango article and the FOC2 stuff, so that's good. Will be going through those for weeks.

Moral of the story: Don't run cleanmgr no matter how safe it says it is.

A Word About Netflix & Victory Multimedia

2010-03-07T03:32:00.001-08:00

I'd like to take a moment to express my OPINION on something here. Everything I say below is my opinion regarding this event.

SO...

I submitted FOC2 myself to Netflix myself. I figured it's a no-brainer that they'd be interested because 1)The first film performed extremely well(a fact they can check for themselves) and 2) I've seen some of the ridiculous stuff they carry.

I mentioned in my letter that I could either provide them with whatever limited edition FOC2s I have left or, if they need more, I could print up a whole new batch that would be Netflix exclusive with never-before-seen stuff.

Three months later I get a letter from them. It's a form letter that says:
Thank you for your recent submission. We have received and reviewed your materials. Regretfully, we are passing on your submission.

However, If you are looking for distribution:

Victory Multimedia works with many independent film producers and small distributors.

If you wish to establish a distribution agreement with Victory Multimedia, please contact Randy Freeman at Victory Multimedia at your earliest convenience.

This is weird. An outright pass would be pretty weird, frankly, but passing me on to someone?

I don't contact anyone. I try to find some info on this Victory Multimedia. I find nothing other than one blog post that mentions in passing that Randy from Victory is "an a$$hole".

This is one of the reasons I'm doing this blog; the more people who spread this info, the better.

Two days later I get an email from a "David Solomon" of Victory Multimedia and he CCs Randy Freeman. Let me reiterate: I did not contact anyone, nor did I give permission to Netflix to pass my contact info on to anyone.

Included with David Solomon's email is a contract for distribution. That's right. Not a request for a screener. Not a basic agreement with terms. A full out contract for distribution.

Say what?

And in my opinion, this contract is one gigantic, piece of shit rip-off. Why? Let me tell you.

What it wants me to do is this: Sign the contract. They will then request I provide them with a certain number of units of my film. Yep. I have to get the discs printed and finished, and then ship them to Victory.

I can set the retail price. Super. Victory will give me 40% of the retail price for each unit. (a shitty split right there considering I'm doing ALL the upfront work)

THEN: I also have to pay them 10% upfront of what they order. This is to go toward "Program and Development Funds". So if they order $10,000(an arbitrary number for ease of use) worth of retail from you, they would pay you $4000(40%) minus $1000(10%)...you'd get $3000 for what you send them.

But there's more. Later, whatever they don't sell they ship back to you and you owe them whatever they gave you. So if they don't sell $4000 worth of product, you're getting that product back and you're going to be in debt, because the $1000 is gone either way.(got space to warehouse that stuff they sent back?)

And this is the company that Netflix not only recommended but seems to endorse by passing on my information without my consent?

To me, it appears that Netflix has some sort of backdoor deal with Victory--they turn down flicks, wait until Victory picks them up, then they get them cheap from Victory. If the title doesn't rent well at Netflix, Netflix can have Victory ship back whatever they didn't open at the filmmaker's expense.

The fact that you can't find anything online about "Victory Multimedia" is suspicious enough. Real companies have real web sites.

Well, I'm hoping to spread some information about this deal, which in my opinion is a giant scam. I thought Netflix was a better company that that, but it appears that they are not.

December 29, 2005

2010-03-04T01:44:00.000-08:00

Yeah, so I vividly remember this. And given that I recently lost two hard drives to 1)hardware failure and 2) I did a stupid thing when I was incredibly stupid--well, I've been through this twice since the original loss.

December 29, 2005 After like 6 years of adding and deleting files, and finally organizing my hard drive I figured I should defragment my hard drive. It's something they say you should do every couple of months or so.

But Windows 2000 has no defragment. Windows help tells me to use cleanmgr. I do. The program opens, analyzes my hard drive, then asks me to check some boxes. One is to compress seldom-used files to save room.

When you check it it says: WILL NOT DELETE ANY FILES and is "completely safe".

So I hit OK. I go eat dinner and when I come back...there are now 5 items on my desktop. There used to be like 30. I check windows explorer to see how much room got freed up on my hard drive that only had about 1 gig free.

There are now 55 gigs free. I notice missing folders everwhere. Somehow this horrid program has deleted 54 gigs of stuff.

I have an article for Fangoria magazine that's due next week--it was four pages and Tony Timpone, the editor of Fango had called me up to make sure I could do it by the deadline. That article, and most of my other docs(including the new scene breakdowns and shooting schedule for FOC2) are GONE.

I rarely panic. But inside I was freaking out. All the digital photos I had taken in the past year were gone--including pics of my kid, of my brother-in-laws wedding, of EVERYTHING--gone.

Windows pops up an error telling me that crucial windows files are missing and please insert the windows install disk. Yes, that's right, this program has deleted necessary Windows files among its random deletions.

CUT TO:

Me at the store buying a search and recovery program to attempt to salvage what's still on the hard drive. It managed to find 169,000 files but it doesn't find any names--so I have to individually go through those 169,000 files to figure out which ones are good and which ones are bad.

So that's where I'm at now. I managed to find the Fango article and the FOC2 stuff, so that's good. Will be going through those for weeks.

Moral of the story: Don't run cleanmgr no matter how safe it says it is.

December 9th, 2005

2010-02-21T00:36:00.000-08:00

I realize I probably sound a bit douchey in these posts, and I don't mean to. I'm just trying to relate the weirdness of being considered a super-success as far as my peers go, when I consider myself anything but.

December 9th, 2005

I went to what amounted to a "networking party" last night. It was put on by the Women In Film and Video of Maryland. But one of the main members was a guy. How does that work?

I'm not a big networking guy. I'm the guy who hung out in the back of the classroom by himself. I'm still that guy--maybe just a tiny bit more outgoing.

The whole shindig reminded me of the Annapolis Film Fest. As small as I am I'm the biggest fish in the pond at these things. The people hear Lion's Gate and they fall over themselves to be the first to clap. Then there's pretty much a line of people who want to talk to me and ask the magic question: How did I do it?

And I can also see how dangerous it can be as a married man when attractive women think you can advance their career. See TOUCHY FEELY HOT ASIAN WANNABE CASTING DIRECTOR in the dictionary for more details.

But anyway, I'm getting more and more of those emails about "How did you do it"--averaging two or three a day. I'm gonna have to post a faq that I can just refer the emailers to. Typing the same answer really gets tiresome.

But it's becoming easy to see how frustrating it could be for someone in the big-time to have to deal with what I'm dealing with--on a scale a million times bigger--and how much self control it has to take them not to wig out.

So I think I'll cut them more slack when I see how fake that smile looks as they hear someone tell them for literally the millionth time that they LOVE their work.

November 14th, 2005

2010-02-14T02:05:00.001-08:00

Okay, the other blog was beginning to delve into FOC2, so this is where we start...

Also, the line in question is when Detective Peters--played by Frank Lama--says, "I'm killing that fucking clown if it's the last thing I do."

And sure enough, people did cheer at the premiere at that line.

November 14, 2005

It's 9:51am(I haven't gone to sleep yet) and I just finished another pass on FOC2's script. And I wrote the line. It gave me chills to write it. I can see it clearly. If Frank(who may be reading this so--hey Frank) nails this line, people in the audience will cheer out loud.

Also, a character named Hot Rod may steal the whole show. He seems to have taken on a life of his own.