THE HORROR....

Until The Angels - Horror never more horrific™

It probably comes as no surprise that the story behind the story is the best story. True or not it's a good cliché and I'm running with it. If you'd like to know how to make a 'scary' movie from scratch in just 2 weeks, then read on...

First of all, why would you want to make a 'scary' movie from scratch in just 2 weeks? Sorry, it's an old Dov Simens trick. Hook the mark (that's you, gentle reader) with an impossible, or at the very least unwise premise and keep running til they stop following you. Using this simple principal (and by drinking the blood of would be filmmakers) Dov has eluded the authorities for over 200 years.

BUT I DIGRESS...

I entered a contest. The bottom line is that I thought I could 'catch-up' with my personal goal ghost by banging out a quickie movie. Also I am unable to perform without deadlines (and often I am unable to perform even with deadlines) so like any other idiot that I would usually criticize, I attempted to 'trick' myself into actually doing something. Fool!

1. The Rules.
NYC Midnight Movie Making Madness is a contest (and a mouthful) where the participants are given a genre (comedy, drama, sci-fi, musical) and a log line (that TV Guide style one sentence description of the story, ie - "B.A. loses his memory and thinks he's still back in Vietnam"). Then the participants (teams really, no one does it all by themselves) have 2 weeks to write, shoot edit and mail their submission back to New York City for consideration. It was almost 2 weeks ago that I got my notification, and the cursed log line.

HORROR - SOMEONE IS BEING WATCHED

Horror is right! I don't know horror, I don't do horror (although laundry day is pretty bad). So by assigning me this wretched genre, the organizers of the soiree did something they didn't expect. They challenged me.

I figured out that I could spend just under a week coming up with something cool, and yet do-able. I didn't want to cop out and go for gore, or schlock. I've never tried to scare anyone, and I decided I wanted to.

2. The Plan.
If you know me, then you know that I do not plan well. This was no exception. Apart from figuring out that I could use my friend's ample garage as a set/dungeon and relying on the kindness of friends for crew and actors (and the basis for the idea in the first place), I didn't have any of my sh1t together. Bear in mind, this is standard operating procedure for me, so I was not nervous. Fool!

3. The Catch(es).
Things went wrong. How could they not? I'm not naming names, I don't want to point fingers, suffice it to say that I was let down by a couple of people. I accept responsibility for that, I was relying on others to do things for me, and after all, it was ME who entered the stupid contest, my desperate need to 'catch-up' so as much as I would like to rant, I can't. After all, things went right too.

4. Things Go Right.
Brushing over the details, I had a cast and crew of exactly... one. Stand up Tony, I'm talking about you. originally I wanted Tony to only be concerned with his acting. The story rests entirely on his shoulders and I needed a lot from him. As my crack production team dwindled to zero, Tony stepped up to the plate. In case I forget to thank him again, thanks again Tony. The day we were supposed to shoot (Sunday) found us completely un-prepared, so we spent that day setting up the dungeon and working on making our limited resources work. Tony would know better than I the details, but we were under-equipped in the grip and electric department. We overcame adversity (kinda) and postponed the shoot until Monday. That night I did the work I was going to do on Monday, so technically I was ahead of the game.

I WANTED TO QUIT.

I had been pretty smart. Only a few people even knew I was supposed to be doing this anyway, I could call it off and who would know? I would be out $100 entry fee, but I would be able to sleep-in for a few days instead of sweat like a dog in a dungeon of my own construction. I even had an excuse when certain key members of my team dropped out, who could really blame me?

I DID NOT QUIT.

I'd like to think I was noble, but (as Guy quickly pointed out) quitting would require me to take and own a decision. Just slogging away like a condemned man is sometimes easier than quitting. Thank you Guy for stripping me of that conceit (and excuse) you bastard :)

It was like a sweat lodge in that garage. We banged out "Mean Tony"'s bits in little more than 2 hours. Basically the movie is overlapping dialogue from different personalities of a serial killer, and yes I know I didn't invent that!
We stopped for Tony to change, I was a bit nervous because "Friendly Tony" is supposed to appear calm and composed (and not too sweaty). However I didn't have the luxury of air-conditioning or time, so I was willing to accept that all Tony's personalities would have sweaty armpits. However, Tony was not. He explained that he was really drained from the heat, worse for him because he was in front of the lights, and really close. He told me that he didn't want to jump right back in there and try to pick it up.

WHY I HATE THE WHO (kinda).

Tony had tickets to see The Who play at the Hollywood Bowl that night. With their recent track record, it might be his last chance to see any of them alive again, so I knew better than to ask him to consider skipping the pinball wizards until another time. The new plan was this:

Go see The Who (have a nice time)
Come back afterwards (I know it'll be late)
SHOOT ALL NIGHT

This gave me a large break in the middle of the day, a large break that turned into almost 12 hours of downtime. Anyone who has ever been on a set, or a shoot will tell you that the loss of momentum (usually after lunch) is the killer. 12 hours equals big loss of momentum.

I tried to take a nap, or at least get some rest (no luck there). Guy called with the latest soap-opera goings on with "The Project", so my stomach was a little upset. Then Tony H called with some feedback on the revised Time-Warner scripts. The feedback proved to be not particularly helpful, but certainly upped the pH on the stomach acid jacuzzi in my belly. I ended up spending a lot of the afternoon and evening sitting in Kate & Andy's garage, which was by now a real dungeon.

GO HOME, STAY, GO HOME, STAY...

It took Tony a lot longer to get done at the concert than I had hoped. I had shot Kate's dialogue, and the abduction sequence (Tony was not required for those bits). I had started thinking about how the film might cut together with just one personality (short answer: it wouldn't) and as time dragged on, I began to think that there might not be a movie after all. In fact Tony's return was a mixture of relief tinged with disappointment, another excuse quashed.

We shot all night. It wasn't fun, it was work. We were tired, Tony was rough about the lines. I hadn't blocked everything fully and now I was running scared. It wasn't fair that I wanted Tony to do the lines as they were written while I was improvising all the direction. Life is not fair and Tony didn't complain at all. By 'at all' I mean not very much.

I got home around dawn, and in one of life's little ironic kicks to the crotch. I couldn't sleep.

5. The Battle After The Battle.
Since we had such a small crew (none) we certainly did not have the luxury of a slate (or clapperboard) and there was nobody doing the thankless task of the script-supervisor. The script-supervisor basically makes sure that the actors did the lines correctly and marks down which take the director likes best. They do some other things too, but that's the big stuff. I had shot almost 2 hours of footage for an 8 page script, and my movie can't be more than 10 minutes. There is a lot of chaff to separate from the wheat. That was what I did Tuesday, I captured the footage but had to look for what (and where) the good stuff was. It took all day to log and capture the footage. On Wednesday I began dropping the clips together and seeing what happens. It's Friday now and I'm still cutting things up. We have to shrink it from 12 minutes to under 10 and the audio (never my strong suit) had barely been touched. We have less than 24 hours, but barring anything horrendous (pun intended)...

IS IT A HORROR MOVIE? - Let me get back to you on that!

You tell me...