DRY BONES Days 11 and 12
Back to our regular “full” Saturday and Sunday schedule. This weekend was unusual for a few different reasons. First, we had a different cast: Kevin VanHentenryck, star of Frank Henenlotter’s Basket Case trilogy, came to Buffalo to play the brutish Bart; Kim Piazza played his abused wife Linda; Mark Goodfellow, son of my friends David and Trudi Goodfellow, played Andy, who grows up to be the main character, Drew (Michael O’Hear); and my daughter Kaelin portrayed Becky, Andy’s sister, who grows up to be Rebecca (Kathy Murphy). This “mini-cast within the cast” is not unlike what the one feaytured in the Slime City Massacre flashbacks.
Kevin and I are obviously from the same 80s era, and worked together briefly during his memorable cameo in Brain Damage. It was great to have him around, he’s friendly and easy going and really made Bart breathe…and bellow…and scream. People will cheer his confrontation with the succubus. Not only were we working with different actors, but two of them were kids, and Kim did a great job bonding with Kaelin and Mark as their “mother” (Bart isn’t so likeable…). Both kids fared well, and I’m a proud papa. Kim was something of a revelation; a theatre friend of Michael’s, and one of his casting choices, she really impressed me - I’m glad her character has two more significant scenes besides this prologue, because I know she’ll make an impact in the film.
Friday actually felt like the day before the first day of production (on any production), with countless last minute details to take care of, including shopping for props and art direction needs, and following up on communications, and more often than not, non-communications – a 13 hour prep day. I sat in Kaelin’s room with the script and figured out my coverage, wondering how I could make the prologue distinctive from the rest of the film (since the main bedroom still looks like a kid’s room 35 years later). It occurred to me to stick a lava lamp in the scene and use that as a primary light source. I wanted to do this in Naked Fear back in 1995 but it didn’t work out then. I posted on Facebook that morning that I needed a lava lamp, and by afternoon I had one (thank you, Scotty Lebracht!).
Saturday started with a flurry of activity as Shannon Kramp costume fitted our new thespians and made alterations where necessary. It was strange shooting an entire day without Michael as Drew on; he’s on screen for 75% of the film, and on days when we shoot other people he usually still winds up with one bit, as on Sunday. With the exception of that scene, everything we filmed over the weekend was either part of the film’s prologue, set in 1979 (as evidenced by Mark perusing my copy of FANGORIA #1); a flashback to 1979; or a spin on those 1979 scenes.
None of our usual gaffers - Chris Rados, Scotty Franklin, Kash Costner – were available, so Chris Santucci, my DP on Slime City Massacre, did me a solid and came in for a day, and it was great working with him again. The lava lamp lighting scheme looked really cool. Throughout the film, the succubus pulls people under Andy/Drew’s bed to dispose of them. For Amelie McKendry’s and Paul McGinnis’s scenes, two of us squeezed between the wall and the bed and pulled on their wrists/ankles. For Kevin, we used a tow line, which worked great – he flew under that bed and liked it.
I’m happy to report that Arick Szymecki’s silicone succubus gloves were finally ready and looked great. Tamar has doubled for the succubus (which will be one of Debbie Rochon’s three parts in the film) since shooting began, and she finally got to wear the real deal. These gloves were worth the wait. I wanted to show more of the succubus’s arms than just the hands, so Rod Durick summoned a stocking which he and Arick pulled over the end of the glove and Tamar’s arm and stippled it, which worked well.
We shot at least eight pages’ worth of the screenplay and I was pleased with everything we got. Mark’s father is a photo journalist for FANGO, so we also got some really nice stills. It was nice having the family Goodfellow around for the weekend, and David is shooting a faux “YouTube” clip for the film next weekend with actor Jason Tannis, who appeared in Blood for Irina, directed by Chris Alexander (and which David produced), and a short film which we screened at Buffalo Screams its first year.
Sunday was an easy day because we got so much done on Saturday. On Sundays we have a 9:00 am set call instead of 8:00 am as we do on Saturdays. I wanted to get everyone out by 3:00 pm to enjoy Mother’s Day. Chris Rados was our gaffer, fresh off wrapping The Romans, and we finally got to use his slider for the camera! We shot a small portion of the climax, in which Michael is as bloody as Bruce Campbell in The Evil Dead, with excellent make-up by Arick. Somehow I got movie blood drops on the crotch of my shorts…
We also shot a monologue Kim delivers to Mark, and another bit with Kim comprising a small portion of what I believe will be the best sequence in the film…and wrapped around 1:15. Picture wraps for Kevin, Kim, and Mark (Kaelin wrapped on Saturday). My friend Ted Haynes swung by and donated an excellent lunch to the production, which should also keep my family eating for several days. Rod, Kash and Renna all swung by. A great weekend, I have to say – very productive (we shot 10% of the film in a day and a half) and laid back, the way I like it. It’s a little hard to believe we’re two thirds finished with this production: we have one more “regular” weekend, then a five day stretch with Debbie Rochon, and then we’re done. Special props to our tight little crew, among them Paul McGinnis and Sam Qualiana.
