Halloween Night

Last night we pretty much finished the hallway(short of the doorknobs). Another 7 hour day.

I got out of there just in time to get home. My wife wanted to go Cancun Cantina--she dressed up as the NCIS gothic lab chick. I had a half hour to shower and throw on my bounty hunter costume. Nothing like recycled costumes...

We went out, had a good time, got drunk. We got back and I threw on Trick R Treat, but the wife passed out fifteen minutes in.

Caught up on some sleep, as I slept in 'til 4pm.

So Halloween--got some work done and then I heard the wife was dressing the kid up to go trick or treating. His costume was this:



I took my camera out and got some video with him. First off, there was a fair share of 14+ year old kids trick or treating. They were WAY too old to still be trick or treating.

Anyway, we go to a house and my kid knocks on the door. An old lady says something through the glass door to him--I'm not sure if he hears her or just misunderstands but he says TRICK OR TREAT!

She repeats herself through the glass door and he again says TRICK OR TREAT! She gets a scowl on her face and grabs her dog out of the way, and again the kid says TRICK OR TREAT.

She opens the door and looks out at my wife and says, "Impatient bugger, isn't he?" She's some cranky old bitch who is clearly tired of life, and needs to go dump her pain meds into her gullet and end it all.

She's like "He kept banging on the door when I told him to hold on", which was a lie. He only knocked once, but yeah, he kept shouting. I'm thinking the wife is gonna tell the bitch that it's because the kid's autistic, but she apologized instead.

Then as Logan was walking down the sidewalk he stepped on her grass and she's like, "Walk on the sidewalk!"

Seriously. I'm gonna go fuckin' egg the bitch's house.

Irritating.

Then I get a call from Proctor--he may be back in the flick. Just as I was about to recast his part. We're literally a week away from filming and I got a major part not cast...fuck.

Back to the grind. Gotta get this shooting script done now that we have almost every location locked.

Man, does this suck

You know what I'd like to be doing right now? Watching Halloween movies and getting into the spirit.

Know what I did today?

Missed my wife's pumpkin party--she decorates the house, has some of our relatives and their kids over, and eats a bunch of fun stuff.

Instead, I got to drive back to Annapolis to do some more work on the hallway-of-never-ending-work, then came back to grab a slice of pizza before heading out to meet Jared(the D.P.) at the Timonium Scaregrounds. The FX people on that are doing the FX for my flick, and Jared shot the commercials for it.

We got free tickets to go through--it was cool but I think it could have been cooler. The FX and gags were cool, but I think it could have been set up better.

Then Jared and I went over his house to go over what he's got and doesn't have in equipment, and to go over the schedule.

Then I drove BACK to Annapolis at 12:30am to work some more on the hallway in the dead of night. I'm staining wood, cutting it, putting it up. ALONE.

My hands are all sticky and stained from this crap so I can't touch anything without getting IT sticky.

I was there until 3:30am and I had to leave 'cause I was making mistakes(cutting wood pieces too short, banging into walls). I'm tired.

The hallway now has lights and some trim. The lights flicker on one side and can be dimmed on each side individually.

Here's a quick video walkthrough.

It continues

So, here's what's happening.

Went to my sister's wedding last weekend. Videotaped it for her with a couple of different cameras, and will edit it eventually as their wedding gift. I'd just rather give her a couple hundred bucks--editing weddings is boring as shit.

After the wedding everybody went out to the Jetty bar. Got pretty hammered. Bought a few shots for people, had a few mixed drinks, and my bill was $111. Talk about ridiculous prices...you can get cheaper drinks at a strip club and at least you get to see titties.

The night ended with some of my sister's friends telling me my wife was gonna give me the greatest blowjob ever that night. I don't know where that came from. The friends were very flirty, and I got the feeling that if I wasn't married, I could have been nailing my sister's friends...probably better that I'm married.

At the hotel my wife decided to pass out, and let me just ask: It's not rape if they don't remember, right?

On the movie front:

Tom Proctor dropped out because he's gonna be in the new Nick Cassavetes movie. He told me it might happen, and if he was offered it he'd have to take it 'cause it's serious cash. Still, a bummer, 'cause Tom is awesome and the fun meter always goes to full when he's around.

Now I have to recast Oscar and I don't have a lot of great choices.

John Rutland had to drop out due to scheduling. He was big time bummed. Wanted me to move the schedule a little so he could still do it, but I don't have any wiggle room. He even sent me an artistic-nude picture of his girlfriend as an enticement--she'd be coming with him and could be a naked extra.

But we've paid for certain days at a castle, and I can't move those.

The hallway build continues. See?





My dad and my brother finished putting up the side walls without me(I was at a script read--we've done two now, and I finally got to meet Beau. He was cast as Geoffrey, and I think he's going to be very good.

My dad and I finished putting up the ceiling, which was INCREDIBLY difficult. Holding it, trying to make it fit, when the hallway isn't a perfect rectangle...man, sucky sucky.

Then my dad left and I painted the hallway. Only problem is that we haven't installed the lighting yet in the hallway, so it's dark as crap in there now that the ceiling is on...



It is pretty creepy though. Can't wait to put up some weird shit on the walls, make the lights flicker and go out, and let loose the thing that will kill in GOH.

Am meeting Jared, the D.P., tonight at the Timonium Scaregrounds, where my FX people are doing the effects. I'm worried they won't have enough time to do the FX for my flick, they're so busy with this.

Jared and I are going to go over all the details. What we have versus what we need.

This is my current partial to-do list:
-Finish shooting script--can finally do this now that we have the locations locked.
-Design contracts regarding cast/crew(I have some, but have to update them)
-Locate and buy props--TONS!
-Figure out design of each room
-Locate location for host office, exterior of “House”, club
-Check out woods and block scene
-Create hallway-door backdrop out of poster/board

What did you do this weekend?

The warehouse we're building IT

Me, I'm almost single-handedly building a set.

We couldn't find a nice long hallway with multiple doors on either side, so we decided to build it. The total control we'd have appealed to me.

But now that me and my dad have had to buy/carry over like 60 2X4s and 28 sheets of drywall(among other stuff), and I have been left to build much of it myself...well, it's not seeming like the best idea in the world.

My body aches. I am clearly not cut out for this...what's it called...manual labor.

The frame is basically done. Now we have to connect the outer wall and then drywall the whole bitch. Then my dad will wire it for electricity.

Then we will make scary movies. And the sad news is that this will be taken down right after. A lot of work for not much, eh?

What it looks like 2 days later...

The U Tube

"So Youtube shoots me an email last week and tells me one of my videos qualifies for revenue sharing. I've been told this before, but when I applied(after they asked me to) I was informed the clip was family friendly. (It was the trailer for "Fear of Clowns")

This time it's for a different video, so I apply. They send me back a thing stating that I need to confirm that I own all necessary rights to the video.

I reply, telling them that I do. I shot it, it's mine.

They send me back ANOTHER reply that says:

"We haven't been able to confirm that you have the necessary rights,
including publicity rights, to commercially use all the video material and
music from the information you've given us, so we ask that you provide
written documentation substantiating your claim. Please email us this
information as an attachment along with an electronic signature.

You need to have a permission from the rights owner to use the footage
commercially."

So I'm pissed. I just told them I was the rights owner. I don't fucking care if they do it or not at this point, so I then reply:

What the hell are you talking about? Let me speak slowly so you can understand.

I

SHOT

THE

VIDEO

I

OWN

THE

VIDEO

WHAT KIND OF LETTER FROM ME TO MYSELF DO YOU NEED? IS ENGLISH YOUR FIRST LANGUAGE? JESUS CHRIST, I CANNOT BELIEVE I CAN MAKE IT ANY CLEARER.

KEVIN

The next day I get this email:

Thank you for confirming that you own the rights to commercially use all
video material and music in your video. Your video will be approved for
revenue sharing.

Shooting Script Almost Done

Man, it's been a long time going, and there are a few scenes missing(since we don't have the locations yet), but I'm on scene 95 of 97.

A little challenging since I don't think we're gonna have a zoom lens. We're shooting on the Red and have a set of 5 nice lenses, but they're all set focal lengths.

And we're less than a month away from shooting...man, there is a lot to do on the production side...

An Awesome Halloween Pumpkin

Saw this years ago and saved it, but in case I forgot I wanted to put it up. It's great.

GOH Updates

So the indiegogo experiment wasn't a total failure. We didn't reach our $5K goal, but we did a little over a grand. Every little bit will help, believe me. We're stretching our budget in ridiculous ways, and right now we're actually pursuing a pretty well-known horror guy to be in it.

We contacted his agent and she didn't say no right away like I figured. She wanted a script for him to read, so we shot it to them. We'll see. Probably won't pan it, but if it does it will be HUGE for us.

On the bad news front we were just informed that the museum we were to use for the exterior of the "House" in the movie won't let us film there at night. The entire movie takes place at night, so that fucks us a little. We're looking for an alternative now.

We still need a big empty warehouse, a club, and it would be nice if we could find someone who lived in front of a wooded area so we could use their house for lights while we shoot in the woods. It's gonna be cold as balls in November, I'm afraid. This is not gonna be a fun shoot for me, much less the actors who won't be wearing coats in the scenes...

Still working on the shooting script. Gonna take some chances on shots in this one.

We have to find an FX person, and I have to pull the trigger on these final castings.