DRY BONES Day15: How to Make a Monster

The final five days of shooting on Dry Bones is when we separate the men from the boys. Up until now, we’ve been somewhat spoiled: because special effects weren’t ready in some cases and weren't needed otherwise, we’ve had the luxury of shooting straight or comedic content, which has been a snap; we’ve also had the luxury of shooting 10 or 12 hour Saturdays and five hour Sundays – the equivalent of one real production day on an indie horror film. Now we’re in the home stretch, and the pressure is on.  We've usually had two of three lighting guys on at a time too, but now it's all on Chris Rados.

Debbie Rochon arrived on Thursday, and we used Friday for prep: first she met with Shannon Kramp to discuss costumes, including the costume for the succubus (Debbie essentially plays the female lead, the succubus, and one other character), then she rehearsed her scenes with Michael O'Hear.  I'm sure Michael was nervous - he's the leading man in this film, and carries it on his shoulders, and now he had to bring his A gane - and I'm sure Debbie made it easy on him.  For me, Friday was like the day before a whole new shoot, with all the running around and last minute problem that entails.  In fact, the entire week was like that.  I made two trips to the effects lab to make sure Rod and Arick were okay, and Stacey Book was helping them out.

Friday morning we started with the scene in which Michelle makes Drew's dreams come true - a seduction scene followed by a soft love scene.   There's no nudity in this film - no human nudity - and these scenes were about Drew's awkwardness.  We got off to a slow start, but the actors and crew did their part; I had a little trouble staging the lead up to the bed, but just kept things moving.  I left it to Debbie to set the parameters of the bedroom action, so that was actually the easiest and quickest part.  My new right hand man Paul McGinnis was unavailable today, so cinematographer Sam Qualiana called in Andrew Elias, one of the stars of Snow Shark, to pinch hit as our boom operator.  Sam forgot that Andrew is allergic to cats.  Thanks for toughing it out, Andrew!

Next we moved downstairs for the preamble to scene 102, in which Drew confronts the succubus in his living room and "the succubus takes many forms."  For me, this scene at the two thirds mark of the film is the biggest scene we have, and we've been shooting it piece meal since our first weekend.  Today we finally got to shoot the spine of the scene, and Drew's reactions to the craziness going on around him.  Once Debbie had shot her portion of the scene, I ran her over to the SFX lab, which I call the House of Pain.  The sign on the stairway now says "Morgue," and on Slime City Massacre the effects crew called it "Cluster Fuck Central."  I guess you could call it a Choose Your Own Adventure.

It's a five minute ride to the lab from my house and I stayed there for five minutes, so I was gone all of 15 minutes, but back at the ranch cinematographer Sam Qualiana and co-director O'Hear elected to try to shoot the climax to scene 102 - involving O'Hear, John Renna, and Kathy Murphy - without me to keep things moving.  I walked in on their master and pushed Michael and John to really make the scene what it needed to be; Kathy had the fun role, and she was dead on.  She was an extra on SCM and had a key role in Snow Shark and has appeared in some other local productions, but I believe that Dry Bones will be her best work.  We finished the scene - other than one shot we need to get with  a big special effect in a month (this is the Scene That Will Never Die) - and it was a picture wrap on John Renna.  John is always great, and I wrote the role of Carl the cop for him, so I'm not surprised at how good he is in the film.  I am surprised at the level of sympathy and intimacy he brought to the part between making dick jokes.  Well done.

Because we brought Debbie in for a compressed production schedule, we were unable to test Rod Durick's makeup appliance on her.  We had her face cast from SCM and Rod sculpted a great appliance, but he and Arick have been working on the film during their off hours from their full time jobs, so a lot was left to the last minute.  The succubus make-up consists of a facial appliance, silicone gloves, latex wing stems, and venereal disease sours all over the body.  Shannon's succubus costume has to work hand in hand with the effects because it has to support the wing stems, which might flop around otherwise.  When an effects man on an indie film tells me it will take two hours to do a complicated job, I give him three and expect it to take four; that's just the way it goes.  Our guys experienced a series of unfortunate events the night before and the morning of the succubus's  big debut.  No one bothered to tell me, and I actually got Debbie to them two hours later than planned, so when I asked Arick if we held them up and he just smiled I had a pretty good idea what we were in store for.  Four and a half hours later I had Michael call to find out if Debbie was ready to come back, and the message relayed to me was that they were almost ready.  If I had a 1st AD on this film (that was originlly my title) I'd have had him on the guys all day, but it was probably for the best that they didn't have to deal with that.  Five hours after dropping Debbie off, I sent Renna to bring Debbie back.  Sending an effects man to an SFX lab is like sending one kid after another in a candy store.  Half an hour later I made the trip myself.  Debbie looked monstrous but not quite convincing; there was still work to be done.  We were scheduled to shoot Lilum's shots for scene 102 in my living room, then move upstairs for two succubus sex scenes.  I made the call to shoot only the shots for 102, and then some publicity stills of Debbie in full make-up and costume for posters, box art, etc., which should have relieved the pressure the guys no doubt felt.

We relocated to my house, got Debbie into most of her costume, popped in some colored contact lenses, and the guys got to work on detailing her appliance.  "A few minutes" turned into an hour.  By then, Arick and Rod had been working on this stuff for 25 hours straight without sleep - after working shifts at their jobs.  Arick was so tired he actually looked rested instead of jittery; Rod looked one shade healthier than death, and his back was bothering him.  Shannon worked furiously to make the final alterations to the succubus costume.  Our scheduled wrap time passed.  The crew waited patiently, or at least quietly; Sam tried to nap, but John made sure that didn't happen.  I felt bad for Sam and Chris having to sit around doing nothing but wait, but I also knew how hard Arick and Rod had been working. There was too much chatter where the work was happening, so Debbie politely made sure that everything that needed to be done was being taken care of (because this could have gone on for another four hours). One of the things I love about working with Debbie is that she is committed 100% to whatever she does; she'll endure a lot for the good of a film, and always puts the ambition for the finished film first.  After seven hours, the make-up looked pretty amazing: a first rate job.  Yes, it was worth the wait.  Arick's silicone gloves looked great.  Next the jacket went on.  Shannon's complete costume also looked great: long skirt, corset, aged chains, bracers with reptilian texture.  Then Rod's wing stems went in and we had our monster. Everything gelled.  If we'd gone through all of this and the end result had been disappointing, it would have been frustrating as hell.

It only took us 20 minutes to shoot our scene.  Debbie was great.  Rod did an excellent job shooting the publicity stills.  We wrapped and I took Debbie back to the lab; hopefully they got her out of make-up quickly, but with those sores all over her body I doubt it.

How do you make a monster?  Very carefully...and very slowly.

Thanks to the entire team for all their hard work!  Today we're back on easy street, tomorrow is our BIG effects day. :)

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A funny aside: my daughter has now been on my set long enough that when things slow down she says my mantra: "Let's make a movie!"