Reflections from The Cutting Room Floor (Part IV: Haunted)

Haunted

So, two movies down, two to go.  At this point, we finished Tagged, and it was about mid-November. I remember, because it was freezing when we shot the alley scene in Tagged and I was still sick from parading around Halloween night dressed as a ballerina. (in hindsight, not the best idea.)

We took a little break over the winter, and then reconvened in January to film... Murder Party.  -But wait- isn't this blog about Haunted?  Why yes, yes it is.  But at that point, Haunted was a very different story.  

Haunted was the last thing we filmed, primarily because up until about a month before we shot it, it was a completely different script and story.  The original story was about a young girl that grew up in a haunted house.  The hauntings weren't malevolent or anything, and the girl almost saw them as a reassurance, or security blanket that had followed her over her entire life.  As a young adult, she now lives in the house, alone, but the occasional flickering of lights or creak of the door reminds her that she's always got this "presence" with her.  Eventually, she meets a guy, and upon bringing him back to her house, the ghostly activity gets more severe.  The guy gets injured in an incident involving breaking glass, and he storms off.  For the first time, she fears the supernatural presence that she had always came to rely on growing up, and under the insistence of her new boyfriend, they ask a pastor to bless the house.  The pastor shows up, and we have this increasingly, out of nowhere-intense sequence where the house freaks out at we go into some wild poltergeist activity.  Eventually, the house is cleansed, and the pastor leaves, shaken.  The girl and boy continue their romance, but she can't help but feel like she betrayed whatever presence has been with her her entire life.  Things get out of hand when the boyfriend increases his sexual advances and she has to fight him off, sobbing as he walks out of her life.  She then lies in bed, watching the door, waiting for the reassuring creak shut that it used to do, but it never happens.

So, that was the original idea in a nutshell. I like it, and I feel like it might make a better short story than a movie, so I'm filing it away for later.  The problem is, this story isn't very cinematic.  Not in a negative way, but this was supposed to be very low-key, without much spectacle.  It was a haunted house story but I didn't want to ever show any ghosts, or spell out what exactly was causing the haunting.  It was supposed to be a more emotional haunted house flick, and I feel like we couldn't have pulled it off at the time, so we switched gears completely, and went with a vampire flick.

However, I didn't want to just do a straight forward vampire flick either. I had the idea that a girl would meet this strange gentleman on the town and he'd essentially turn her into a vampire like himself, then use her to lure other unsuspecting guys as prey. On the flip side, the guys she lures, are onto her, believing her to be responsible for their friend's death, and are setting their own trap.  And to make it even more twisty-turny, we have the timeline broken up so it doesn't play in chronological order.  As I wrote this, I was really excited, because the story structure was so different, taking a page out of  the Christopher Nolan or Tarantino playbook.  The viewer never gets the whole story until the end, and it's not clear who the protagonists are, or what the plan was until the last few minutes. 

I think this movie definitely holds up more on the second viewing.  The strange story structure might've turned some people off, but it's intended to make the viewer work a little and question where it is going.  Haunted isn't as straightforward as Tagged, and isn't as entertaining as Murder Party, but I feel like it is the perfect "middle movie" of the anthology.  It's a little slower, more experimental, and focuses a little more on emotion.  

There are a couple flaws with this one though, and if I could go back and change anything, the first would be to fix the damn audio in the cafe.  It kills me that the ice-maker was running intermittently as we filmed, so it drowns out a lot of the audio.  Paul did a terrific job with the cinematography during their coffee date, but the botched audio kill the mood.  We even went back there the night before we were set to premiere the movie and attempted to redub the lines.  After about five minutes we decided that was absolutely not feasible, and had to settle with what we had.  It's not terrible, but it hurts the opening.  And the ghost story Sarah tells about her family home was a bit of a nod to the original story idea.  It also brings up the title, "Haunted."  Why keep the same title?  It's funny; when we switched to the vampire story, I was going to call it "Hunted," which wasn't a huge change, and made sense in the context, but I really liked the title "Haunted," and I felt it still fit the movie, and also gave it a more ambiguous title, much like the tone of the entire short.

The cast expanded a little from Tagged.  Sarah and Neil were the leads, and both did great. It gets a little "meta" here, because essentially, Neil is the same character from the zombie film, but playing an actor, playing a vampire.  Does that make sense?  No?  Let me spin it another way.  Neil's character in the zombie film, is an actor who plays a vampire in this.  So his character in the zombie film watches his own movie that he starred in as part of a local film festival.  Does that make sense?  No?  Then I'm sorry, I don't know how else to describe it.  It's also fitting that in Haunted, he takes Sarah to be his mate (or whatever), and in the zombie movie, it appears he has had a secret affinity for her, which he admits to her before finding out she has become a zombie and he has to lock her in the stairwell.  Layers upon layers, huh?

Also in the short: Myself, another part that I wasn't originally going to play, but ended up doing because of convenience. We're also joined by the two Scotts (Goedert and Reuber).  Goedert played the ticket booth zombie earlier and did a fantastic job, so we brought him back, and Reuber gave the most intense performance of the movie, as the friend distraught over the death of his buddy.  It was a conscious decision not to give any characters in this movie an official name, but man, it makes it tough to write about it afterwards.

This movie also featured some cool locals, beginning with Paul's family owned cafe and the ice machine of doom, and ending at Potter farm, home and breeding ground of the Potter family.  Haunted has some really nicely composed shots; it's just a shame it wasn't more consistent.  No one's fault really, we just had various things working against us on this one (time, daylight, and that damn ice machine.)  Overall, a good time to shoot, and we were able to expand on some of our film making techniques.

Join us tomorrow, because you've just been invited to... The MURDER PARTY!

Reflections from The Cutting Room Floor (Part II: The Zombie film)

 

 

The Zombie Film

 

    So, yesterday I took a look back at some of the earlier movies that we all had a hand in.  It was nice.  It even made me a bit nostalgic and prompted me to consider revisiting some of them, either in a DVD release, a wider web release, or even following them up with something new.  But, that'll be later, because right now, the focus is what I've been building up to... a look back at our most recent project "The Cutting Room Floor."

 

 

 

 

Ryan and I had made movies under our Monster Club Productions title, and Paul and I had done work under his PK Films production company, but everything we made always had that kind of "inside joke" vibe.  By that I mean, they were all movies that we found funny, and our close friends found funny, and sure even a couple random strangers on youtube found funny, but they were never really made with a wide audience in mind.  And that seemed like kind of a shame, because together, we had so much talent and prospect at our disposal.  So, I got the itch to make something that could appeal to a wider audience.  You know, people who might be asking, "Who the hell is Troy Potter?"  (if you're asking this as you're reading, shame on you.)

 

 

How did we settle on a horror film?  Well, it's simple.  Horror films are easier to make, and they have the luxury of even if you failed at it, you can still fail successfully.  Some of the greatest horror films of all time have that very cheesy, B-movie quality, yet they're still a blast.  If you make a horror movie and people laugh, it can still be enjoyable, whereas, if you make a comedy, and no one laughs, you've just subjected your audience to an hour and a half of torture.  It was also a logical movie because I'm a massive horror fan.  Seriously.  Quiz me. I know it all.  Paul is more of a sci-fi guy, but try making a sci-fi movie with no budget... (which, at some point we hope to, because I'm writing something as we speak for one...)

 

 

Okay; so horror film it is.  What will it be about?  Right off the bat, I wanted to make it an anthology piece.  Something of a throw-back to classics like Tales From the Crypt or Creepshow, where there's one unifying story with several short, unrelated stories sprinkled throughout.  This afforded us a chance to really experiment with different techniques, actors, and themes.  I'll get to the individual shorts later next week, but the first order of business was establishing what the central storyline to hold everything together would be.

 

Well, everyone loves a good zombie flick.  Now more than ever (although some may argue that the zombie fad has worn out its welcome. Not me personally; I mean, we're living in a time when the number one show on television is a ultra-gory zombie drama... what a time to be alive!).  Anyway, we're all big zombie fans, and a zombie invasion is something everyone can relate to.  Who hasn't envisioned that post-apocalyptic scenario where you're hunkering down, fending off the undead and trying to survive from day to day?  Especially when you're really bored at work.  However, between all the zombie flicks I've seen, I didn't recall ever seeing one where the main character gets bit and is slowly becoming a zombie himself.  At least none that I recall.  So, for an original take on a familiar subject, we figured that was a pretty unique idea. 

 

We cast Neil Potter; brother of local legend Troy Potter, as the lead.  For one, he's a pretty entertaining guy, with lots of improve work. Two, he's skeletally thin and would look good in zombie make up.  With the lead cast, we needed a place for him to hide out, gradually transform, and still somehow be able to incorporate other stories.  We had always intended on premiering the finished film at Mindframe Theaters, so we decided, why not film it there too?  The owners obliged, and we had our location.  A creepy, nostalgic cinema.  Perfect place to hide out from the zombie invasion.

 

 

 

The script came together pretty quickly from there, and in August of 2011, we began preparations to shoot the first scenes of the movie.  I don't think we had all of the individual short films scripted at that point, but we had the gist of everything worked out.  Paul created a hastily thrown-together facebook group asking if any local Dubuque-ians (?) wanted to swing out and be a zombie extra in our movie.  That day, we got together early, preparing the shoot list, mixing fake blood, and helping Troy Potter (make-up effects maestro) assemble facial prosthetics.  Then, at about 11:30, we started arriving at the theater, and holy shit, were there a ton of people there ready to help out.

  

 

We were blown away by the turn out.  Close to 45 people arrived, half of them already dressed in full undead attire.  We set up a table and Troy got to work on prepping extras while Paul and I scrambled around trying to get our shots set up.  It was an experience.  All these people came out, excited to play a zombie in a little movie they had never heard anything about.  They entrusted us that we knew what we were doing, and quite frankly, that was a sobering realization.  At that moment, I told Paul, "Okay, we seriously, have to finish this film."  There was so much invested in it before we filmed the first shot.  But what a great way to start filming.  Our first real movie, and we were working with a full crew of extras, in an awesome location, with a gang of friends helping with production. 

 

We filmed well into the morning. I think we left the theater at about 5:30 am.  Even more amazing was most of the extras stayed with us until we told them there was nothing left we needed to film.  It was dedication.  There's no way we could have made the movie without everyone who lended a hand that night; it was amazing. 

 

 

The zombie portion of the film took three separate shoots.  The first night at Mindframe with all the extras.  Then a couple weeks later, we started at the crack of dawn to film the downtown scenes before traffic picked up on a Saturday morning.  Everyone met at my house and we headed down to the Port of Dubuque area to haunt the alleys of local business.  We were about an hour in when the police showed up. You know, right when two characters dressed in camo were holding fake guns.  Real looking fake guns. Thankfully, Paul had called the city the day before and alerted them that we'd be filming, and using fake guns.  The cop was cool with everything; even came over and chatted with us a bit (although I think he had to just double check that the guns were fake).  He said they had gotten like 4 calls from concerned citizens that a group of people were downtown with guns.  I can't imagine what would happen if we tried this today. 

Anyway, we knocked that scene out.  Some standout moments were Andy Rang (soldier #1)'s excruciatingly long death scene, where he screams and complains about his friend leaving him to die for about a minute and a half.  All while being eaten by zombies.  His fake intestines were constructed by the Potter family by filling sausage casings with died oatmeal.  Apparently they sat around the kitchen table and did it as a family the night before. I think even their grandma was there.  I hope a photo of this exists somewhere. 

 

We finished that shoot by wandering around the deserted downtown trying to avoid getting cars in the shot while Neil journeyed to Mindframe.  A couple of us doubled as various zombies over the course of the trek, and Paul had food poisoning all morning, so the shoot ended with him rushing to the Mall to shit his brains out.  Then we all got Pancheros.

 

The last zombie portion we filmed was some reshoots inside Mindframe. We had gotten all the zombie footage we needed.  More than enough actually.  There's seriously, like 3 hours of zombies wandering around the theater on Paul's computer.  However, we didn't have time to get all of Neil's lines as he sits in the projection booth and plays DJ to the crowd of undead patrons.  So, we went back and spend another night filming Neil inching his way through the script.  In his defense, my scripts can get pretty wordy.  As we edited this, Paul told me he had to turn the volume down because Neil's blaring voice was giving him a migraine.  The Potter brothers are a loud bunch.  And very excitable.  This was also a key moment in the grand scheme of things, because it was the night Neil and Sarah first hit it off.  She was new to the group; just some girl that showed up to the first zombie shoot, but she seemed cool, so we asked her to come back and we added another part for her as a chick Neil had a crush on.  Who would've guessed they would still be together?  (well, us, since that was the plan all along.  That's two Potter's I've had a hand in setting up.  Both over the course of making movies.  (I had introduced Troy to his fiance, Chelsea back in high school while filming a movie (but that's a story for a different day (holy shit, do I have four open parenthesis going? ))))

 

 

Soon enough, we got the zombie stuff done.  Which was good, because it was by far, the most taxing to shoot.  And it was the framework for the entire film, so it was nice to have that done and over with so we could concentrate on the other three movies.  Never would've guessed that this would be the biggest pain in the ass to edit either, but it sure was.  Most of the movie Paul and I edited together in his basement, and by that I mean, I sat over his shoulder and confused him by saying, "No, move that clip over there... no before that part..."  However, over the summer Paul hit the road to film the Colts documentary, so I borrowed a computer and pieced together the entire theater sequence in my basement.  I still feel like the beginning of the movie isn't our strongest work, but it was some of the first footage we shot, and we were on a pretty tight schedule, so it's understandable.  If I could go back, I'd change Neil's encounter with the soldiers, but oh well, what's done is done... it only gets better from there.

 

One last thing to mention; the music in the movie.  Since we wanted to show this and essentially make some money for our hard work, we made sure to avoid using any copyrighted music.  Which left us having to scower royalty free sites for scores and themes.  I'm actually really happy with everything we used, but it took some time.  I would search through sites at home, jotting down title tracks and where I thought they could be used in the movie, then I'd go to Paul's and we'd start fitting them in.  One standout, is the song "Fixing My Brain," by the Canadian artist, Brad Sucks.  Brad Sucks is a one-man band who has a bit of a following.  He's released 3 albums, all of which, rock.  Seriously, check him out.  He's also s huge supporter of independent artists, so I emailed him and asked if we could use a couple of his tracks in our movie.  He responded with "Yeah, no problem."  Awesome guy.  I feel like the song really sets the tone for the whole movie, and as soon as I heard it I knew I wanted it for the opening credits.  I was originally going to have it resume again at the end once Neil goes full-zombie, but we ended up going with a badass version of the classic funeral march, which I think was a better choice. 

 

Overall, what a project. And this was just part one of four.  We still had three full short films to shoot.  And edit.  Stay tuned, because next up, we're talking about the first short: Tagged.

 

 

Reflections from The Cutting Room Floor

PRELUDE

setting the stage

It's no secret that I'm a huge movie buff.  If you know me, this is no surprise.  If you don't know me, chances are, you're not reading this anyway, so why am I even typing this? (must remember to delete this later). 

Anyway, long story short, I've watched a lot of movies in my lifetime, and at a certain point in my life, I decided I'd make my own.  My best friend, Ryan Fleharty, and I made countless home movies with my parents' clunky RCA camera, honing our craft throughout our teens.  I remember spending hours just making nonsensical skits around the "mirror" feature on the camera, or having our minds blown when we discovered how to add titles and credits.  We even practiced the painstaking process of not only making, but re-making several short stop-motion animation movies with legos.  It was no Nightmare Before Christmas, but our heart was in it.  This is why I have nothing to say when people start talking about sports.



The first legitimate movie that I did was a full length horror-comedy called Flame Broiled. I wrote, directed, edited, and starred in this movie, and we produced it with the help of several friends during my freshman year in college. We produced it under the title: Monster Club Productions (a throwback to what Ryan and I called our club house, growing up as kids).  This was a pretty big deal for us all, because it was the first time we had a full script, tons of different locations, and a slew of different actors that we had never worked with before.  We even got to film chunks of it in a local grocery store that I worked in at the time, bringing new, more professional look to our work. I would love to re-release this on DVD (it's gotta be on its 5th or 6th year anniversary by now)

 The storyline centered around that creepy Burger King mascot from the commercials a couple years ago.  He was going around, doing the whole serial killer thing, and two investigators sought out the help of a grizzled Irish cop, just two days away from retirement. (To make the cliche even more obvious, his name was Potatoes O'Brien.)  Meanwhile, some neighborhood kids were filming a horror movie (see, I love that movie-within-a-movie thing), and they happen get catch some footage of the King on camera.  The two storylines converge at the climax, and there's plenty of humor and gore throughout. 

Looking back, I remember having a blast making it, even during some really strenuous shoots.  Each time I watch it, I'm always a little impressed too, because even though we've come a long way since then, I'm genuinely surprised how well parts of the movie work.  Directors like Tarantino will make something like Django Unchained, and then he'll say, "Okay, that was my Western, or Southern," as he'll call it."  I feel like I can look back at Flame Broiled and say, "Yep, that was my slasher flick."  And given the obvious no-budget restraints we faced, I feel like it holds up as a pretty decent movie. You know, if you squint.

After Flame Broiled (which took a full year), I wanted to do something drastically different.  Flame Broiled was originally planned to be a short, 15-minute comedy which I got carried away and turned into a hour and forty minute, semi-serious horror film.  So, next up, we decided to do a short web series that we could pretty much just come up with and shoot on the fly.  (By "we," I mean my buddy Ryan and I)  I came up with the title "An Incoherent Mess," which I've always liked and have tended to re-use off and on to this day... (Hmmm... where did I just see it again recently?).

An Incoherent Mess afforded us the opportunity to just do whatever the hell we wanted.  It centered around two dudes, Dave and Ryan, hanging out in Ryan's apartment and getting into shenanigans.  We'd have different friends drop in for guest spots (like the infamous Ryan Venhuizen, or the game-changing appearance that rocketed Troy Potter to Internet stardom.)  Overall though, it was very spur-of the moment.  I usually wrote them the night before, then we'd film it the next day, edit it that night, and have it online within an hour.  Definitely the fasted thing we've ever produced.  And the quality was actually pretty damn good.  None of that easy, first-person, shaky cam bullshit.  We filmed this like a legit TV show or something.  And every episode gave us a chance to try out something new. 

Check it out for yourself if you have some time to kill.  I'm giggling like an idiot just thinking back to some of them.  Ryan has them all up on his youtube account.  I feel bad that we never promoted these or anything, because there's some really funny stuff.  We've talked about releasing a DVD sometime, but for now, check them out here:  An Incoherent Mess

Unfortunately, all good things have to end, and after filming about 12 episodes, I moved to Dubuque.  However, this was where I met Paul Kurutsides, another like-minded soul who had a passion for film.  It took us a while to hit it off because Paul is a very quiet dude, but eventually we both realized we should be working together.  We kicked it off by filming the epic finale to the Troy Potter saga that we began in the Incoherent Mess series.  And holy shit was it ever epic.  Here's a couple hashtags for you to wet your whistle on: #troypottertimetravel #resurrectedjesus #machinegunshowdown.  Check this one out at http://vimeo.com/10197728.  But be forwarned, you should watch the stuff that came before it first.  Also, it's extremely offensive.  Didn't really realize that until I watched it with my parents. 

Helping us with this movie was quite possibly the biggest mistake Paul Kurutsides ever made, because now, Ryan and I had a third member of our team.  Someone who had all the camera equipment, the editing expertise, and for some reason, a multitude of fake guns and guard outfits.  Paul has yet to have a free moment since.

After that, we did little projects here and there... Paul had been previously working on a webseries parodying the Man Vs. Wild show on Discovery.  It was called Man Vs. Kinda' Wild, and starred Paul's friend JJ, who was like the Ryan, to my own Dave, if that makes any sense.  Paul even got us to appear in his series finale which he spent over a year producing, and has never seen the light of day. The whole gang appeared in this finale, but I don't think anyone has any idea what actually happens in it.  Paul likes to keep us in the dark.  And I'm not even sure he knows.  So, maybe that'll happen some time.  Here's the link to the series: http://www.wearepkp.com/mvkw.html

Paul and I also got together and filmed a short video called Ghost Hunter Dave, which was essentially just me doing a stupid, fake supernatural investigation in my apartment.  It became a pretty big hit (by our standards) and prompted us to sporadically film 3 more.  I'm always surprised when people say this is one of their favorite things we've done; it makes me want to say, "Really?  Have you seen Troy Potter Judgement Day? The movie we spent a year making?" Oh well, sometimes less is more.  Check them all out here on PK's site: http://www.wearepkp.com/ghd.html

After that, Paul and Ryan hooked up and created their own web series called On Patrol, which featured the misadventures of two small-town cops.  More hand-held, first person camera stuff, which isn't really my thing, but hey, I'm not the one who has to edit all these, so I can see the appeal from Paul's standpoint.  The show's funny though, and it's a good showcase of everyone's talents.  Ryan dropped in on Ghost Hunter Dave, and I drop in on this, which is always fun.  Here they are:  http://www.wearepkp.com/op.html

So, as if this wasn't enough, Paul also decided to throw together a monthly podcast to keep his loyal fans and viewers in the loop of all things PK.  We've gotten together, had some drinks, talked about geeky bullshit, and discussed future projects.  Paul also spent a summer filming a traveling documentary for the local Dubuque Fighting Colts Drum and Bugle core, and has been doing some side projects, on, well, the side.  All here: http://www.wearepkp.com/archive.html if you're so inclined. 

So, what is the point of this blog, other than an obvious advertisement for Paul Kurutsides and his production company http://www.wearepkp.com/ (that'll be $400, Paul.)...  well, I just wanted to set the stage for what I'm going to talk about next... our first, real movie.  And real, of course, is subjective.  When I made Flame Broiled, I called it my first real movie.  In a sense, it was, but looking back, it wasn't.  Just as I'm sure in a couple years when we make something better, I'll look back again and say this wasn't really a "real" movie.  But for the time being, it stands. 

What makes this a real movie?  I'll tell you.  We got together and decided we were going to create a serious full length horror film, utilizing all of our talents and resources, and we were going to make it available for distribution.  We happen to have an awesome independent cinema here in Dubuque, IA, called Mindframe Theaters.  This is the kind of local-owned theaters that can offer so much more than the traditional AMC and IMAX theaters.  Our goal was to make a movie, and then have a screening at Mindframe when it was finished.  It took a year and a half, but we did it. 

Check back this week as I recount our experience shooting The Cutting Room Floor, and everything we learned while doing it...