Fear of Clowns - The Log

Defending Your Movie

2011-08-30T21:34:00.000-07:00

This was a personal entry into my journal that I made as we were prepping on FOC2, but it's really about FOC. I think it's still pretty appropriate.

So...anyone seen the fun I've been having on the imdb message boards? Just search for FOC and then click on Message Board.

You see...how the internet works is, anyone who has an opinion is now a professional critic. They can click SEND and now they're published! On the internet.

And that's how we get a lot of know-it-alls posting about things they really don't know.

Don't get me wrong...my movies have PLENTY of problems. If you were to say on those boards, "I hate your movie because it was boring and the story didn't make much sense," I probably wouldn't say anything to you. It's your opinion. You're totally entitled to it. And I don't necessarily disagree with you.

But when you say stuff like "poorly-edited", "bad cinematography", "bad script"--then you need to explain how you're qualified to judge that.

Now most of the comments on that board are easy to figure out. They're people who would like to be where I am but don't want to put in the work and effort to do what I'm doing. So it's much easier to rag on a film than actually MAKE one.

And then there's the new guy who came in recently and basically quoted verbatim stuff that's in your film 101 textbooks. He tried to come off all high and mighty and act like he knows what he's doing and could do it all SO much better.

And then I find out who the guys is:

He's a guy who offered to work on my film for free. He's from California and had told my producer that if we flew him out here and had a place for him to stay, he'd work on the film for free.

See, he's just looking to get something behind him. Right now it's all BS and unproduced films. His resume was nice though, because he had some assistant director creds. An AD doesn't actually direct--he's pretty much the guy who works the shooting schedule, keeps people doing what they need to do. He's suppose to keep us on schedule.

So I could use one of those.

This guy was totally on board. Very excited. So excited that he asked if he can mention it to Fangoria in an interview online. I say, whatever. The interview shows up a week later and yep, there's the mention of him working on FOC2.

Then we don't hear from him anymore. Nothing. Not a "Hey, I'm not interested anymore" or anything. Just...silence. Very professional way of doing things.

And now he's on the board saying that after he saw the film and the "final pay quote" he decided not to be a part of it. Final pay quote? It was always ZERO dollars. That's what cracks me up. That's why there's the confusion.

There's only one guy who was offered money to work on the film who is NOT working on the film. Everyone else is on board.

But this guy...like I said...a wannabe filmmaker. He shot a movie like 2 years ago, so I'm very anxious to see the movie so I can post my very own comment on HIS film's message board.

Guess I have to wait until he actually GETS distribution though

Really. I mean...I'm not famous but I can certainly see why most of the filmmakers today avoid any kind of interaction online. You simply can't win.

So I'm probably just going to leave my posts up there long enough for that assfish to read them, then take them all down and stop posting.

Some archive footage, exclusively here!

2011-03-15T19:13:00.000-07:00

I know, been a while, right? Well, I've been doing some backing up and came across a bunch of videos of old "Fear of Clowns" audition and rehearsal video. Here it is, unedited.

Check it out! We were all so young...

I will be making a "Fear of Clowns" youtube playlist where I'll try to keep this stuff sorted. Unlisted for now, so you guys are the first to set eyes on them! I'll upload a few more next week.

Rick Ganz Clowns Around During Rehearsal

Jacky & Rick Rehearse FOC

Frank Lama at the FOC audition

The Links You Might Check

2011-01-08T19:59:00.000-08:00

If you want to see what I've been updating:

FOC2 LOG

Hunting Humans Saga

Garden of Hedon Blog

Kangas Kahn Facebook Site - Like it!

There ya go!

March 1st, 2007: Shivers The Gay Icon

2010-10-03T22:46:00.000-07:00

Found out Shivers is a bit of a gay icon. This was the first time I heard about it, but certainly not the last. A lot of gay guys shoot us emails telling us they fear Shivers, but they wouldn't mind being raped by him either.

This pic was drawn by a talented comic artist named Patrick Fillion who owns a company that publishes gay-themed comics. You can check him out at http://www.patrickfillion.com but be warned they are XXX and the content is highly adult.

We Interrupt This Blog

2010-09-02T00:20:00.000-07:00

To bring you this--we're trying to raise the last 25% of our budget on the new flick through crowd-sourcing via Indiegogo. So we're asking everybody's help!

But don't worry--there's some cool incentives to be had with your donation! Check out the link below to see the teaser and more info!

http://www.indiegogo.com/GOH

December 4th, 2006

2010-08-07T21:14:00.000-07:00

Well, I can always put up some of the crazy emails we get sometimes. Here's one. I have not edited it in any way.

I have only added a picture of what I think this person looks like.

Dear, Fear Clown i want tell you something i done watch you in movie and you can't scare me ha ha and know why that i am not scare because i alway watch scare movie so i am not not scare of you and i am 11 year old to not scare of you Fear loser clown OPP BYE LOSER

Video from FOC1 Premiere

2010-06-22T01:54:00.001-07:00

This has never been up before. I just found it. I shot a little bit of video footage in the limo on the way to the premiere of "Fear of Clowns", and then handed the camera off to someone who taped random shit.

But it's neat to see everybody, and very hard to believe this was like 8 years ago...

Not Much Updating, I Know

2010-05-20T21:29:00.001-07:00

At least, here...but over on the FOC2 board, there's lots! With pictures!

Check 'em out! You should be following that one. We're about to launch into the actual production logs...

http://fearofclowns2.blogspot.com/

June 13th, 2006 - A Million Bucks

2010-04-23T01:58:00.000-07:00

Wow, not a lot of FOC articles left, you know? During this period I was keeping a lot of notes on the making of FOC2, which we had just wrapped up shooting.

June 13th

Ok, I'm gonna give ya a little inside information. And before you go thinking I'm buying a Ferrari and moving to the coast, understand that I don't necessarily see any of this money.

What you see above you is a tracking chart on how FOC has done from its release on Feb 28th up to June 6th. Yep, as you can see, it's made over a million dollars in rentals. Not too shabby for a film that cost under 50K and had NO none actors whatsoever.

What's interesting to me though is what's going on in the past two weeks. There's actually an UPSWING in viewers--I would assume a movie comes out and then decreases until it's no longer doing any business.

Sure, you could say a one-week upturn is just an anomaly. But FOC increased one week by 6% and then the following week by 29%--and there's been no press that I know of to spark the sudden re-interest.

But hey--my picture has made over a million dollars in RENTALS ALONE. Sure would love to get my hands on the sales figures though...

March 10th, 2006: Fuuuuuuuuck

2010-04-15T23:38:00.000-07:00

This should be a wake-up call for those indy filmmakers dreaming of a real distributor giving them a bunch of money to distribute their movie.

Because, check out how my movie did for Lionsgate. I'm the highest LGF movie of the week in sales other than The Ultimate Avengers, a Marvel Comics movie. FOC outperformed a LOT of movies, not just this week, but in the next month.

And when LGF got the chance to acquire the sequel, they weren't prepared to even match the offer we got on the first film. Even though we had already proven that our movie was very lucrative for them. There was no reason to think the sequel wouldn't perform as well as the original--and since it's actually a better movie, I figure it might do better in the end.

So if you think a distributor is going to pay you a lot of money for your film in today's market, it's just not going to happen.

Pardon the language. I ain't happy.

Here's the thing: I've been watching the top 10 direct-2-dvd charts for months now. The rentals have been fairly non-impressive, so I had high hopes that FOC could crack the top 10.

Well, I just got the top 10 and FOC ain't there. You know why? Because every effin' sequel in the world(including some Disneys) came out in the past month and who can compete with that?

Stuart Little 3. Bambi 2(are you kidding me? Who needs a sequel to that?) The Prince and Me 2. American Pie Presents Band Camp. (essentially American Pie 3.5) Dungeons & Dragons 2.

I had assumed there would be a couple on the list, but not that many. I shouldn't be TOO unhappy. FOC was number 11, so it only JUST missed the list. But still.

March 2nd, 2006 FOC on imdb rankings

2010-04-12T04:22:00.000-07:00

While imdb rankings are certainly no indication of quality, it was certainly very cool to see the level of interest in my flick rivaled some big movies.

March 2nd

I mentioned that FOC hit 192 on the imdbpro list--that may not sound impressive. I mean, 192 isn't exactly #1 now is it?

So I checked to see what else is on the list near my flick. If you want to see if for yourself, click on the picture above.

I'll give you the highlights though.

FOC is higher on the list than Rumor Has It(a $43 million dollar picture) and Derailed(a $36 million dollar picture starring Clive Owen and Jennifer Aniston). Within 15 places of FOC is Steven Spielberg's War of The Worlds, starring the little-known Tom Cruise. The Fog and A History Of Violence(the film my buddy is nominated for an Oscar for) are all near FOC.

So it's amazing that FOC is near movies of that caliber(and when I say caliber, I mean, movies that cost roughly 1000 times the cost of FOC).

A little FYI.

March 1st, 2006 My Thoughts on FOC's release

2010-04-09T02:57:00.000-07:00

March 1s, 2006

Please take note that any complaints I make here are totally overshadowed by the fact that my movie was released by Lionsgate.

$22.99 for a dvd at Best Buy that doesn't have recognizable stars is a bit much.

For that matter it appears that all of the Best Buys WAY underordered(about 3 copies per store)

The menus on the disc kind of blow, and there's a TON of extras they didn't include. But the movie is VERY high quality, and so are the extras they included. The "Making Of" is every bit as sharp as the film itself.

Blockbuster also apparently didn't go as heavy as I expected. Most of the ones in this area are carrying between 6-10 copies. My wife informed me of this when I woke up--she'd gone EVERYWHERE looking to see how many each store had.

In the cool news department, Hollywood Video seems to be the best outlet for FOC. The two stores near me had 32 copies and 20 copies. Yeah, you read that right. 32 FREAKIN' COPIES of my movie!

Very sweet. I'm holding my breath that the flick makes it on the top 10 direct-2-dvd movies of the week. If it does, you can bet I'll post it here.

February 26th, 2006: Imdb rankings

2010-04-06T00:47:00.000-07:00

Quick update. There's a side of imdb(Internet Movie Database) called imdbpro, which has lots more details about films and people. It also rates people according to a Starmeter and movies by a Moviemeter--gauging their ranks on how often people search for their names/movies(including being linked from search engines)

The highest I ever saw my first movie "Hunting Humans" get was around 2000, and that was the week of its release.

FOC has been hanging around 14,000--yes, there are a lot of movies out there.

I just checked five minutes ago and it's 192.

Sweet! And if you've seen the movie, go rate it! If you haven't seen the movie, go rate it a 10!

It was like a 7 earlier in the week, and all of a sudden some bastards have been slamming me with a 1. I think they probably mean it's the best movie they've ever seen(hence, #1) and are just confused by the numbered system.

Yeah, that's it.

January 27th, 2006: Ad roundup

2010-04-04T18:54:00.000-07:00

Just goes to show you...a lot of people tell me the FOC commentary is great. I didn't remember it that way but maybe I'll have to go listen to it...

Jan. 27

Well, at last count LG has had 1 TWO-PAGE SPREAD, 5 FULL PAGE ads, 1 half page ad, and 3 miniature ads in Video Business Weekly.

So I figured the ads would be trickling off. This week's VB just came out and there's another 2 page spread. It's crazy, the amount of money they're throwing behind this.

And they're now listing the extras--the "Making Of" and the Out-takes are definitely on there. My commentary is not mentioned, so I don't know if they scrapped it or not. Honestly, I wouldn't be that surprised since it wasn't all that great.

I have to think that the deleted scenes and the original ending are not on there, which is gonna be a bummer for the actors whose scenes were cut. The whole thing leads me to believe LG is using a single layer disc(which would hold about 4 hours of video, even less with the low compression they will probably have the movie playing at).

I wish they'd taken their advertising money and spent it on the dual layer, which would have held 9 hours and ALL of the extras. I mean, I spent a LOT of time on those extras, and to know they've blown them off...sucky sucky.

(but this just shows that perfectionist mentality I'm cursed with--it's like: Gee, your no-budget movie was picked up by one of the biggest horror distributors in the world and they're pushing the hell out of it; it's going to be in every dvd store in the country; and all I can do is complain)

Poor me. :)

January 24th, 2006

2010-03-29T13:50:00.000-07:00

It's funny, a guy I didn't know very well back then sent me this picture he'd rigged up with Photoshop.

That guy is Robert Long, whose web site is http://smashortrashindiefilmmaking.com/ but back then he was just a guy from California who was talking about moving out this way. (and he has)

January 24th, 2006

Got a pretty cool postcard the other day. It's a picture of(from right to left) me, Mark L. and Rick G. It was taken the night we finished the martini shot on FOC(the "martini" is the final shot of a movie)--we went out to Jillian's and they kicked us out, so we went over to TGI Friday's until they closed.

Anyway, we were NOT painted up. That was done courtesy of a guy named Rob via Photoshop. But it's so good my wife actually asked me when that was taken because she didn't remember me getting painted up.

Pretty cool, huh?

Quality Control(The QC)

2010-03-18T00:59:00.000-07:00

Some people don't know what a QC is. It stands for Quality Control, and any real film contract will stipulate that your film must pass the QC--or you will pay to have it fixed until it does.

This is to ensure the quality of the master that the distributor will use to distribute the flick. Now, each lab is different.

I figured I'd use Fotokem for my QC since they developed and transferred the film for my first movie, "Hunting Humans", and they were the guys Lionsgate used.

Well, it just so happens that Fotokem is one of the tougher QC labs. They catch EVERYTHING. I mean, if you have a blip that only dogs can hear on your audio track, they will catch it. If your boom mic is in a shot for 1 frame(actually IMPOSSIBLE to see with the naked eye), they will catch it.

And with FOC...they did.

Here's the first 4 of 8 pages of problems with my master of "Fear of Clowns". So the curious can get a gander at what a QC actually looks like.

Eventually I sent it to another lab and paid $1100 to have them fix the major problems.

Did I mention the FOC2 Log is now up?

2010-03-12T04:00:00.000-08:00

In case you missed it. The timeline between FOC1 and 2 overlaps a little, but FOC2 is mostly new stuff dealing only with FOC2.

Check it out below:

The FOC2 LOG

December 19, 2005

2010-03-12T03:52:00.000-08:00

Just checked. The ad is still there if you'd like to take a look, even though they don't publish the mag anymore--which is a shame. It was a great marketing tool for filmmakers, even though that wasn't its intention.

It's page 4 if you'd like to see it.

Monday, December 19, 2005

New edition of VB Weekly came out today. Instead of the 2-page spread, they've got a 1 page ad for FOC in this week's--with the correct running time of 106 minutes.

For those who would like to see it, click here:

VB WEEKLY ONLINE EDITION

Click on the magazine and it will take you to the online edition where you can flip pages until you see the ad. Pretty handy format.

A Word About Netflix & Victory Multimedia

2010-03-07T03:31:00.000-08:00

I'd like to take a moment to express my OPINION on something here. Everything I say below is my opinion regarding this event.

SO...

I submitted FOC2 myself to Netflix myself. I figured it's a no-brainer that they'd be interested because 1)The first film performed extremely well(a fact they can check for themselves) and 2) I've seen some of the ridiculous stuff they carry.

I mentioned in my letter that I could either provide them with whatever limited edition FOC2s I have left or, if they need more, I could print up a whole new batch that would be Netflix exclusive with never-before-seen stuff.

Three months later I get a letter from them. It's a form letter that says:
Thank you for your recent submission. We have received and reviewed your materials. Regretfully, we are passing on your submission.

However, If you are looking for distribution:

Victory Multimedia works with many independent film producers and small distributors.

If you wish to establish a distribution agreement with Victory Multimedia, please contact Randy Freeman at Victory Multimedia at your earliest convenience.

This is weird. An outright pass would be pretty weird, frankly, but passing me on to someone?

I don't contact anyone. I try to find some info on this Victory Multimedia. I find nothing other than one blog post that mentions in passing that Randy from Victory is "an a$$hole".

This is one of the reasons I'm doing this blog; the more people who spread this info, the better.

Two days later I get an email from a "David Solomon" of Victory Multimedia and he CCs Randy Freeman. Let me reiterate: I did not contact anyone, nor did I give permission to Netflix to pass my contact info on to anyone.

Included with David Solomon's email is a contract for distribution. That's right. Not a request for a screener. Not a basic agreement with terms. A full out contract for distribution.

Say what?

And in my opinion, this contract is one gigantic, piece of shit rip-off. Why? Let me tell you.

What it wants me to do is this: Sign the contract. They will then request I provide them with a certain number of units of my film. Yep. I have to get the discs printed and finished, and then ship them to Victory.

I can set the retail price. Super. Victory will give me 40% of the retail price for each unit. (a shitty split right there considering I'm doing ALL the upfront work)

THEN: I also have to pay them 10% upfront of what they order. This is to go toward "Program and Development Funds". So if they order $10,000(an arbitrary number for ease of use) worth of retail from you, they would pay you $4000(40%) minus $1000(10%)...you'd get $3000 for what you send them.

But there's more. Later, whatever they don't sell they ship back to you and you owe them whatever they gave you. So if they don't sell $4000 worth of product, you're getting that product back and you're going to be in debt, because the $1000 is gone either way.(got space to warehouse that stuff they sent back?)

And this is the company that Netflix not only recommended but seems to endorse by passing on my information(and perhaps screener) without my consent?

To me, it appears that Netflix has some sort of backdoor deal with Victory--they turn down flicks, wait until Victory picks them up, then they get them cheap from Victory. If the title doesn't rent well at Netflix, Netflix can have Victory ship back whatever they didn't open at the filmmaker's expense.

The fact that you can't find anything online about "Victory Multimedia" is suspicious enough. Real companies have real web sites.

Well, I'm hoping to spread some information about this deal, which in my opinion is a giant scam. I thought Netflix was a better company that that, but it appears that they are not.

December 15, 2005

2010-03-04T01:37:00.000-08:00

Turns out the ads were wrong. They didn't cut the movie at all, or the Making Of.

December 15, 2005

Lions Gate Becomes Lionsgate

Yeah, so they changed their name. I've read the reasons, but it all sounds kinda goofy to me. Whatever. Doesn't really affect me.

But I was informed by someone who took a closer look at the ad that it says FOC is 88 minutes. I'm hoping this is a typo or mis-information.

The cut I delivered to them is 106 minutes. However, if you want to sign a deal with Lionsgate you sign away final cut right and title right. So if they want to cut your movie or change the title, they can legally.

I knew the title was safe: A rep told me over the phone how much they liked it and couldn't believe it hadn't been used before.

But the cut...I tried to make it as hard as possible for them to cut anything. There are some tricks in delivery you can do to make it difficult for them, but it's far from impossible for them to do it.

So now I'm wondering if they cut 18 minutes out of the film, and if so...what they hell they cut. Should be interesting to see. I know the ad was bought and paid for months ago, so it may just be they were taking a guess when they created the ad.

And for those interested in FOC2--check the message boards for the exclusive first look at the casting notice. It won't go out to Backstage or any of the other casting places until January.

Press Kits

2010-02-26T02:47:00.000-08:00

You know, I try to stay away from truly helpful information, 'cause like I need more competition from you effers. Right?

:)

Anyway, a long time ago I remember I had no idea what a press kit actually looked like. My first producer's rep, in a rare move that actually benefitted me, sent me a stack of press kits to get an idea of what they looked like.

My press kits have gotten a little better than what they used to be. I now have them online, which saves money from printing them up each time you have to send a screener out. I just sent a glossy of the poster, the screener, and either a letter directing them online or I throw the whole press kit on a self-booting CD.

Long story short, if you want to know what one looks like, check the link below. Don't copy me exactly, eh? Have some pride. :)

FOC Press Kit

P.S. Please don't pass on that link. If you want to direct filmmakers here, go ahead, but this was never really information I was going to pass on to the general public.

Some pics I found

2010-02-22T22:08:00.001-08:00

Found a disc with some pics I never put up. Here's some of them.

This first one was the sign on the "Happy Clown"'s minivan. I added the last line in honor of our Jewish Executive Producer. I thought it might make him laugh, 'cause who the fuck wants a clown for their bah mitzvah?
(side note: I believe my buddy Rich Henn designed and printed this up for me)

Here you see our still photographer taking pics for the press kit. Yes, that's me.

Here you see, from left to right, Dave Mun, Jed Duvall on the ground as "Happy Clown", J.P. Barry as the cop, and Steve Carson, our first A.C.(which, on my set, means you may have to be boom operator also)

Why does my brother Paul look so guilty? I'm not sure. Maybe he knows we're behind schedule and he shouldn't be posing for behind-the-scenes pics.
Just guessing.

November 14-15th, 2005

2010-02-12T02:03:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm starting to have entries regarding FOC2, so I may have to start that blog soon...
EDIT: Link here with new posts soon.

Also, the line in question is when Detective Peters--played by Frank Lama--says, "I'm killing that fucking clown if it's the last thing I do."

And sure enough, people did cheer at the premiere at that line.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

I was just informed by the company that's putting the dvd together that there's no way they can include the "Making Of" I created for the dvd. It's 67 minutes long and pretty comprehensive, but given how many other extras there are and the quality of compression that LG requires of the film, it just won't fit.

They want me to cut it down to 25 minutes. Youch.

So, some lucky people I won't name could be the only people to ever see it in its full form.

Dunno. Maybe I'll put it online someday. That's a lotta bandwidth though...

November 14, 2005

It's 9:51am(I haven't gone to sleep yet) and I just finished another pass on FOC2's script. And I wrote the line. It gave me chills to write it. I can see it clearly. If Frank(who may be reading this so--hey Frank) nails this line, people in the audience will cheer out loud.

Also, a character named Hot Rod may steal the whole show. He seems to have taken on a life of his own.

November 13th 2005

2010-02-08T02:48:00.000-08:00

So I remember going to the Annapolis Film Festival--very local. The first night was an opening night thing, and I didn't take a camera. Went with my wife.

I just remember how loud the bar was--where everyone was trying to network. It was a bit comical. I also am notoriously uninterested in networking. It's an anti-social thing.

----------

Local actor Ken Arnold(who I believe helped organize the fest) and local celebrity/news personality Wendy Reiger, who announced the awards

November 13th, 2005
Yeah, been busy attending the Annapolis Film Festival this week(end), so haven't done anything with the blog.

I'll do a blog on the fest when I get back from the "Champagne Awards Ceremony" tonight. And no, I don't expect to win anything.

But getting my ass kissed by all the filmmakers who don't have a distribution deal is kind of an award all by itself, isn't it?

Annapolis Film Festival

So, Friday night my wife and I went to the fest and watched the opening night movie, "Alchemy". It starred the lead actor from that television show "Ed", plus the lead girl from that television show "Scrubs". I could look their names up for you but what fun would that be?

The film was okay. A little slow--and the sound mix was all messed up--but it had some entertaining parts.

After the show we went to the party. Pretty packed, and I'm not sure why they do it but they hire a band that plays incredibly loud. So all these people who want to network and chat end up screaming to be heard over the music.

This pic below is from the awards-show thingee, not the party
(where I didn't have a camera)

To my surprise, the festival director brought the director of "Alchemy" over to meet me, and we chatted for five or ten minutes. He got real interested when I mentioned that Lion's Gate picked up the film.

We left early--didn't feel the need to be there.

Saturday we arrived for the showing of "FOC"--met that goofball Stewie out front and gave him one of my free tickets. When we got to the place they were to show FOC, everybody was leaving--some other movie had just ended.

For five minutes there I thought no one would be at my showing. For once, I didn't really mind. Then people started showing up. All told, about forty of them came.

The flick started and I watched where the audience couldn't see me watching THEM. After a couple of minutes I went upstairs to see how many people were watching the movie that had been put in the main auditorium.

Seven. Niiiiice. But I'm glad we weren't there--my film would have blown the speakers out of the water there.

The crowd was weird. Not laughing in places that normally got a laugh, and laughing at other times I'd never heard one. Of course, there's still one line in the film that always gets the big laugh, and it didn't fail here either.

They'll probably inscribe it on my headstone. (Note: Line in question: "That's the biggest fucking clown I've ever seen.")

The movie ended and I got up to answer questions. This New Yorker says "I got 2 questions for you: First, is the rumor true that Lion's Gate picked up your film, and question 2: How do you justify the way you cheated the audience with the fake ending and then the other ending?"

Nice, easy opening question. It was nice to be able to start: "Yes, Lion's Gate picked it up". I think I was pretty gracious with the second part of the answer.

Anyway, got a bunch more questions which I answered in a more or less intelligent fashion. A lot of the questions were easy because I've gotten them in interviews I've already done.

The New Yorker turns out to be the guy who made the only other movie at the festival that I wanted to see. He wouldn't stop asking me questions and talking to me, even though other people wanted to chat and have me sign posters.

Sunday I got up early(for me) and went to see New Yorker's film with my dad(who digs the Creature From The Black Lagoon also). The film was playing at 2:30 in the big auditorium, and New Yorker was terrified no one would show. He got about 30 people in his showing, which honestly isn't bad considering football's on television and the weather was really nice.

His film was pretty interesting too, though it bogged down about an hour in.

I jetted home and got ready to go back for the awards reception. For once they had some nice food. I skipped the champagne and had a water, then took some pics as they gave the awards to movies I've never heard of, and ones you'll probably never hear of.

Someone asked me if it bothered me that I didn't win. I said I'd rather have the money than the awards.

It reminded me of a cartoon I saw shortly after Spielberg once again wasn't nominated for an Academy Award(before he won one). It had ET walking away from the Oscar statue holding two big bags of money. My feeling exactly.

But I'm serious in saying that every filmmaker who heard I had a deal with Lion's Gate was all over me. They wouldn't leave me alone, asking me questions, saying we should get together and do a project.

The New York guys want me to swing by their place if I get to New York. Interesting factoid: They know Keith David very well(he was the producer of and also narrator of their movie), and being a massive John Carpenter fan, I'd love to put him in one of my flicks. If you don't know, he's the black guy in "The Thing", the guy Rowdy Roddy Piper fights over sunglasses in "They Live" and he was one of the guys in "Prince of Darkness".

So, an interesting festival but I'm glad I'm done with them for this movie. On to the rest.

Wow, look at how fat I was!
(Posing with "New Yorker" Sam Borowski and Matthew Crick)

Sept. 2nd, 2005

2010-01-30T20:16:00.000-08:00

Wow, how deceptive this was. We got an offer directly from Gargoyle Video in Italy, and it was a great offer(paid almost half the budget of the film).

I figured--man, we're gonna score some foreign sales. It was the only foreign sale we ever did.

My rep doesn't deal with foreign(but they helped broker this deal after it was brought to them), and the foreign market has just collapsed as far as American films go...

Sept. 2nd, 2005

La Paura Di Pagliacci

We just got a great offer from an Italian production company for FOC. The offer was five times what we got for the Italian rights to HH. My producer's rep made a counteroffer, which they approved so we're getting six times what we got for HH.

We get 30% at signing and the rest by February of next year.

Sweet! This also bodes well for FOC2--we can presell rights and get money up front. Apparently clowns are big in Italy.

I dunno. I just love their Italian Ice.

FOC2 Goes Amazon VOD

2010-01-23T00:49:00.001-08:00

Not FOC1 related, but as you can tell from the links to the right, FOC2 has gone Amazon VOD live. It took them roughly 2 months to set the title up.

Upside--doesn't cost you anything and you can tell them to stop selling/renting your flick and it will happen within a week.

Downside--they take 55%, they set the rental price and purchase price(though you can suggest a purchase price, and in my case they listened).

So I don't know how many people use Amazon VOD, but I guess we'll find out.

And for those wondering, this is the final version of FOC2--the shorter, different-ending version than the limited edition FOC2 dvd.

Scrapbook Post

2010-01-20T21:59:00.000-08:00

For the writer-folk. When I start a screenplay I like to write a couple of pages about each character from the first-person so I have an idea of who they are. I sometimes give them to the actor before we shoot, the way I gave this to Frank Lama before FOC2...(mildly spoilerish if you haven't seen FOC2)

-------------

My name is Dan Wickerman(pronounced Wih-KER-Min) Peters. I’m a grade one police detective in Maryland.

I grew up in Dallas, Texas. I was an only child. I had a happy childhood, or maybe it just seems that way when I look back through eyes warped by nostalgia.

My dad was a postal worker, but he was a big guy. Played college football so he was pretty imposing. Mom was the homemaker. Keep the house clean, do the laundry, and fix dinner. Old fashioned.

I was eleven the night we were mugged. We were in the city shopping but it got late fast. On our way back to the car some guy—he seemed old to me, but anyone over twenty is ancient to a kid—stuck a gun in our face and demanded our money.

My dad cursed at the guy. It was the first and only time I ever heard him curse. He said, and I remember it like he’s in front of me saying it right now: “You get the fuck away from us.”

The guy got agitated, starting waving the gun around. My dad tried to grab it. The guy clubbed him in the head. The sound of the metal barrel thunking dully into my dad’s skull was sickening.
My dad went down and didn’t move. I thought he was dead. The guy must have thought the same thing. He panicked, grabbed my mom’s purse, and ran off.

My dad was never the same after that. The gun cracked his skull so he needed eighteen stitches and two surgeries. But worse than that, it broke his will. I don’t know exactly what it was. The feeling of being helpless, of not being able to protect his family. Maybe of realizing you’re not as strong or unstoppable as you think you are.

Either way he was a beaten man after that. Mom and me, we tried to get him back to himself. We thought time would heal him, like it does everything else, but it never did. We did activities he could win, we encouraged him to enter contests, to play sports.

It was almost like he lost the will to live. The doctors said it was nothing physical. They recommended taking him to a psychiatrist. He recommended they shove it. One thing the mugger didn’t take away from him was his bull-headedness.

He remained oddly detached from us until he died of a heart attack when he was sixty-two.

I’ve always been interested in puzzles and mysteries. I read Agatha Christie novels incessantly in high school, always trying to figure out before the end who the killer was. I excelled in math—every problem was a mystery for me to solve.

I don’t know if losing myself in the mysteries was my way of dealing with my father’s detachment. Who can understand how a child’s mind works? I only know that when I think fondly of my childhood it’s because I remember all those stories and puzzles and mysteries I spent so much time solving.

When I was older I had thoughts of entering the FBI, but instead I entered the police academy right after college. I put my time in on the street, and the second I could I went for my shield. I made detective fast, and I’m one of the best in the division.

My clearance rate is an unheard-of seventy four percent. I live the job, which is one of the reasons I do so well. Even when I’m off I’m still thinking about the cases, moving the pieces of the puzzle around in my head until they start to fit.

I figured eventually I’d have a life, like a regular one. Find a wife, make a family, live happily ever after.

My doctor tells me I have less than a year to live now. And suddenly it seems like eventually isn’t going to happen. All that time I thought I’d have—gone in the time it took to get the test results back.

I can’t stop the regret. I try to push it back because it angers me, and anger clouds the mind. I’ve got nothing to regret really. I have the highest case clearance rate in the history of the state. I have more money than I’ll ever need.

But I can’t help thinking that I just never stopped playing cops and robbers. I never grew up. Always thought I had time—

And to make it worse…the year I have to live isn’t going to be a good year. My mind is going to begin to…deteriorate. The doctor made it sound a lot like Alzheimer’s. Least that’s what it sounded like to me.

My mind is what I’m most proud of. It sounds strange, I know. But I’ve worked very hard to become as intelligent as I could. I’m like a body builder who has spent years and years in the gym to perfect his physique, only in my case it’s my mind.

And now some bullshit arbitrary disease is going to take that away from me? Slowly and painfully I’m going to lose who I am, lose what I can do, and I’m not even going to realize it’s happening.

Not if I can help it.

Her name is Lynn Blodgett, and I felt something the first time I saw her. She was living in someone else’s house when a murder was committed two doors up. It turned out to be linked to her and a big nutcase named Doug Richardson, who liked to dress up like a clown and axe people.

I caught him and he was put away in a mental institution. He’s been there now for over two years. He tried to escape twice. The doctor reports say he’s still obsessed with Lynn. It appears her ex-husband convinced Doug that if he killed Lynn then all his mental problems would go away.

I can’t blame him, really. Would I kill to stop this disease from taking my intelligence? Who you got in mind?

Really, though. I had thoughts of asking Lynn out a long time ago, but she was in a relationship then, and so it all passed. Now it’s too late. Much too late.

But there’s something I can do. My last hurrah, so to speak. I can put that psycho in the ground where he’ll never bother Lynn again. I just have to figure out how to do it when he’s locked up in an asylum and I’m out here in the real world.

August 25th, 2005

2010-01-17T22:37:00.000-08:00

Interesting to note that we did indeed hit the chart, but missed the top 10 because of direct-2-dvd sequels. I mean, Stuart Little 3? Bambi 2? American Pie Band Camp?

Damn you, sequels. Damn you to hell...

August 25, 2005

While I'm still waiting to hear the big YES from LG I figured I'd mention why I chose them. You see, we also had an offer from Sony.

I was told by my Producer's Rep that Sony typically sells more units. This is the list of "Top Specialized Renters" from Video Business Weekly:

Title(Label/Distributions) Revenue($ in Millions)
1. 7 Seconds(Sony) $0.51
2. Redneck Comedy Roundoup(LG) $0.47
3. Urban Legends: Bloody Mary(Sony) $0.42
4. Blast(First Look) $0.38
5. Vampire Assassins(LG) $0.26
6. Elvis Has Left The Building(LG) $0.25
7. Zodiac Killer(LG) $0.24
8. Tarzan II(BV) $0.23

I've watched the list for a couple of months, and sure enough, Sony does often have the top spot.

But LG pretty much specializes in horror. They are THE horror distributor in the US. So that's a family I want to join. If FOC does well there and I let them pick up the sequel(and THAT does well), then I'm hoping I can maybe pitch a film to them that they'll fund for something more than the peanuts I've been working with.

So that's my rationale. We'll see how it works out.

And, oh yeah, I want to see FOC on that list.

Guest Post #2 - Mark Lassise

2010-01-12T22:00:00.000-08:00

Finally the clown speaks! Mark Lassise himself sent in his thoughts regarding his first memories of the project. Here they are, straight from Brazil(where Mark lives now).

I received a call from Carlyn Davis, a casting agent in Northern Virginia. I had never been called by her before and didn't know she even had me on her radar. After talking with Kevin I realized she didn't. He had called her...
(Kevin note: In my opinion, her agency sucks--it has in my dealings with it)

On the journey to the out-of-the-way hotel being used as an audition location, I remember thinking, “This is it, the one that vaults me into the limelight, the upper echelon of actors, 100's of different characters, Entertainment Tonight, David Letterman and everything else that come with it. All I have to do is go in there and knock it out!"

I was able to jump the line after giving my name. When I entered, Kevin and Rick greeted me and Kevin said, “I hope you can act because you are exactly what I pictured when writing the clown.”

Well, I landed the gig and began crafting Shivers.

When the shoot date arrived I was very excited to jump into this BIG production. Little did I know my idea of BIG was a little BIGGER than reality. The first day started off what is now normal for a first day on a Kangas Production....very frustrating.

My make-up took twice as long, my eyes burnt all day from the contacts and I don't think we shot anything. I also realized our DP, David Munn only had four fingers, Jacky Reres was not afraid of clowns and that this was a total “guerrilla” shoot....
(Kevin Note: Frustrating, sure. But we never spent a day without shooting SOMETHING)

I distinctly remember Rick Ganz started to ruin the movie from day one as well. BUT! Leaving us only us only one way to go...UP!
(Kevin Note: He's kidding. I used to joke with Rick about how he was always ruining my movie)

Paul Kangas began to do my make-up at his house which kept us on schedule. It made driving to
different locations interesting. The two week shoot went as well as low low budget Independent will allow.
(Kevin Note: It was three weeks.)

Kevin was able to put together a decent B horror movie that Lionsgate found and knew they had
a product that would translate into big dollars just with the name and front cover.

I realized half way through that I was killing everyone during the day due to the fact we had very few lights. Strange, a killer clown can stalk through neighborhoods in broad daylight without trouble. In the Kangas world anything is possible and probable.
(Kevin Note: Uh...he only killed 1 person in the day, though he stalked Jacky/Rick once. I think Mark's delirious from the Brazillian heat)

Then came the theater...our best location. We would arrive after the box office closed and all the employees left except for James, Kevin's friend and projectionist. He allowed us access to the theater in exchange for Shivers killing him on screen. My second favorite killing after the decapitation, of course.

Chasing the always desirable Jacky Reres through a dark theater...good times!

The production ended and I moved to New York to continue my acting journey. Two years later Kevin sent me the script for FOC2... to be continued

Below is the picture that drew me to Mark originally, which he HATES. But that is the mental picture of Doug Richardson that was in my head LONG before I ever saw it...

July 2nd, 2005

2010-01-07T17:15:00.000-08:00

Jacky and Rick has this in common;

their favorite parts to act were when they were lying in bed.
----

So, the point of the last couple of posts is this:

When you're writing spec scripts, the sky's the limit.

When you're in low-budget land you have to write to the level you can afford to shoot. And as I just showed, we haven't even glanced at story considerations and we've already spent almost $25,000.

It's hard to write a great screenplay, as is demonstrated by countless films every week. It's even harder to write a great screenplay that you can afford to shoot.

Which is where I am now. I'm writing the sequel to my second film(that's about to get picked up--the company wants a sequel) and I'm scouting locations before I've written the scene in question. I need a place to set the final scene, so we went looking at places we can get access to. Places that are visually interesting and/or add to our production value by using them.

And I'd be lying if I didn't tell you it's a bitch. It's restrictive. It's more difficult than just following the story where it leads you.

But if you're a low-budget filmmaker then you do what you have to do to continue making films.

Really? No followers?

2010-01-04T14:39:00.000-08:00

I'm gearing up to get back to updating these blogs but it keeps showing me that these blogs have no followers...

Wouldn't you like to be notified when the blog gets updated? Start following! :)

July 1, 2005

2009-12-20T20:16:00.000-08:00

So, you've got yourself a DP, some actors, some grips, some equipment, and some food. You're already over $20,000 on the budget.

Who else you need?

You need a sound guy. This is another place you don't skimp. If your movie sounds like crap, you can have the best picture in the world and your movie will still scream "Amateur".

I'm gonna go low, but let's say you can get a guy for $500/week who's bringing his own equipment. Odds are you're not gonna find one for that, but we're fantasizing here. That's $1500 for the shoot.

You need someone to boom the mic. You could get one of the grips to do this, so let's assume that's what you're going to do. Make sure he knows how to do this--it's not as easy as you may expect, and it can get downright grueling holding that boom pole steady over someone's head for three straight minutes.

There are a ton of other things to consider that will add up, which I'll just touch on.

Do you have any FX in your film? Anyone dying or getting limbs cut off?

Will you have to rent locations? How much will that cost?

How far are these locations? You're going to have to gas up the car, gas up the grip truck--and did you tell any actors/actresses you'd give them a gas allowance?

You need to be taking publicity stills with a 35mm camera--these are essential for the press kit, and once you get a deal with a distributor they will be required in the contract. Add in some cash for the film and the developing.

You're gonna need props. Whether you buy them or have them made will cost you money.

We haven't even touched post-production.

You're gonna need to edit your movie--either buy or rent a system. That's money any way you look at it.

You need to hire a composer to score the finished film. And if you're thinking: "I can score it myself" then you need to rethink it. Unless you're a PROFESSIONAL musician then you can't. And if you are a PROFESSIONAL musician then what the hell are you doing trying to make movies?

You're going to need to get your film onto digibeta for delivery to the distributor. You'll need to rent a digibeta recorder(about $300/day) and buy some blank digibetas for the transfer(they're about $45 apiece for a 2 hour tape)

You'll need to get that digibeta QC'd(Quality Control Check) to make sure it's passable. This is not absolutely necessary, but if you sign the contract and then your master doesn't pass--you are at the mercy of the distributor. They can get it passed to their standard and bill you for it. And who knows how they'll pad that bill?

You'll probably need an attorney to look over that contract from the distributor. The only reason you might not need one is if you get a Producer's Rep who IS an attorney who has already looked it over. At some point you NEED a lawyer to look it over or you risk giving your movie away for free.

I know...this is all very long-winded. I'm taking the long way to get to my point. But I'll get there.

In the next entry.

The FOC Premiere

2009-12-13T15:12:00.001-08:00

Mark Lassise and Lauren Pellegrino(and me in background on left)

Lauren Pellegrino and Jacky Reres

I should mention that the FOC premiere took place on October 28th, 2004 at The Senator. You can see some public pics at:
http://www.kangaskahnfilms.com/foc/premiere.htm

Of course, you want some non-public pics. Here ya go.

And no, I have no idea what's with that hat...

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

2009-12-05T21:58:00.000-08:00

Editing:

Got back from "Land of the Dead" tonight. If you like the other Romero Dead movies you'll like this one. (and I liked it)

Saw "Boogeyman" the other night. Not as bad as they say, but it really falls apart at the end.

What do the two movies have in common, though, other than being horror movies? One was edited in a flashy, MTV manner. The other was edited very low-key.

Boogeyman was flashy, quick cuts, sped up frames with clipped frames here and there to give it a staggered look. Land was low-key.

And you know what? I'll bet if you asked the average viewer which movie had the best editing they'd say Boogeyman. Because...and this is key...they noticed the editing in Boogeyman.

And the irony is...the best editing is the editing you don't notice. When it steps out of the way and lets the story play out. Any editor worth his salt will tell you that.

But flashy seems to win in the hearts of today's viewers. I get it. I do. I used some flashy editing in my first film(and won an editing award for it), but it bothers me that a lot of movies nowadays seem to substitute cuts for story.

Let the scene play out. I feel like these guys are getting paid per cut, like "Hey, it's $20 a cut so if I can put in forty cuts per minute I can knockdown a hundred grand on this flick!"

What happens is that society is getting accustomed to that flashy, quick editing. People complain a movie is "slow" when it actually takes time to build a story, or flesh out characters. Take a look at some older classic movies and I can assure you that many would be thrashed by today's viewers.

Hitchcock is rolling in his grave.

June 24th, 2005

2009-12-03T18:28:00.000-08:00

This gets dicey. I don't want to offend anybody I've worked with, so if you're an actor I've worked with just assume you're one of the good ones.

And wow, now that I re-read this I see that this was actually the beginning of "Bounty"--didn't realize I was thinking about the idea this far back...

Pro Actors Vs. Amateur

Ok, since this is just for me, I'll feel free to feel free.

This is a problem I've encountered, having written and directed two low-budget films, and it's really the biggest problem I face doing them.

You know what the difference between a good actor and a bad actor is?

Confidence.

Confidence in themselves. Confidence that they know the character so well that the lines they're reciting don't sound like recitals--they're not lines, they are simpy what that character would say at that moment in time when given that set of circumstances.

Confidence that they ARE this character, so they don't have to picture how they should react to a certain line--they simply REACT as the character.

You can see the hesitation and uncertainty in amateur actors. Many of them appear to be waiting for their turn to say their line. Then they say the line but they don't sell it. It doesn't sound natural. It makes the screenwriter look like an idiot...how could that guy have written that line? (not to be confused with the opposite phenomena that has become known as The Lucas Factor--where the dialogue is so bad that IT makes good actors look bad--see any Episode for examples)

And it's hard to find good actors in this area. Between the two movies I've received over 2500 headshots and auditioned almost 500. Out of that bunch I have probably only seen twenty who are decent, maybe ten I think are good, but not many I think are EXCELLENT.

Rick Ganz was excellent in the part of Aric Blue, but he's not great at the "weak" emotions, like love, happy, friendly. He's great at pissed, evil, ominous.

Which is one of the reasons I'm not moving ahead with the film I was going to try to put together this summer. The entire movie will fall apart if the audience doesn't TRULY believe that they are watching a documentary, and for that you need VERY good actors. They need to inhabit those characters so tightly that they become the characters.

In a regular film the audience knows that these are all actors but they let themselves get invested in the characters anyway. In a documentary the audience won't give you that. The Blair Witch Project wouldn't have succeeded all that well if it hadn't fooled so many people into believing it was a real thing.

So I'm going to have to wait until I can get some EXCELLENT actors. Meantime I'm almost halfway done the first draft of FOC2. I'm gonna go out and look at some locations next week--can't exactly write the finale of the script without knowing what locations I have access to.

Fun fun fun.

June 30, 2005

2009-12-01T00:22:00.000-08:00

Shivers The Clown(Mark Lassise) finally catches Lynn(Jacky Reres)
-----------------

June 30, 2005

In a Perfect World...

You write a script. You're only limited by your imagination. The most intricate action scenes set in exotic locales, wonderful sets. You put them all in! This will be great!

Then it's up to Hollywood to bring your imagination to life. To find locations that will double as the places you've imagined.

They have FX technicians to figure out just how to make that gruesome death look realistic on screen. They have stuntmen to figure out how they can safely create that stunt and make it look awesome. They have seemingly limitless money to throw at any problem, any obstacle.

Too bad this ain't a perfect world.

You're a low-budget guy. And when I say low budget I'm not talking five million. With five million I could make you four movies and take a month-long vacation in the Bahamas.

No, I'm talking between $30,000-$80,000. To the layman who has never shot anything that may still seem like a lot of money. It's not.

Let me show you how fast that money goes. Assume you're not going to pay yourself anything to write/direct/edit the film. You hire your Director of Photography(D.P.). He's gonna cost you at least $4,500($1000/week for 3 weeks of shooting plus the $400 plane ticket to fly him out from LA plus his hotel while he stays here which will be about $1100 for the 3 weeks)

You can skimp. Pull some kid who's fresh out of college who thinks he knows what he's doing. Hell, he'll do it for free so he has something on his reel.

If you do that you risk making a piece of shit. I tell you, the Director of Photography is one of the most important people on your set. Do not half-ass this position. Half-ass your P.A.s, but not this position.

So then you need some all-purpose guys. We'll call them grips, but they're really gonna be grips/electricians. You can probably get some decent guys for $100/day. You're gonna need them 6 days a week for 3 weeks, so each of them is gonna cost $1800 for the shoot. 3 of them for the entire shoot is gonna cost $5,400.

You're gonna need some equipment--come on, whattaya gonna shoot on? What are you going to rent? Let's be nice and say we get a camera for $150/day--we got a break because we're renting it for 3 weeks. The total cost for the rental of the camera will be $2700.

We need lights. We can rent a light kit or two, but we really should kill two birds with one stone. Let's get a grip truck, which we'll make sure comes equipped with a light kit. It will also have C-stands, sand bags, reflectors, extension cords and most of the general stuff we'll need. We get a decent deal on that for $1000 a week. Total rental for 3 weeks is $3,000.

Hey, howsabout some actors? We can get actors for free, of course, but they're gonna suck. You get what you pay for. You can probably find decent actors for $100/day. Let's say we need five decent actors that we will pay. We don't need every one every day, but we figure out the cost for all five on the days we need them and it's $4,100. That's pretty conservative, just so you know. And we're going to assume they're all local so we don't have to fly them into town or house them at the end of the day.

You're going to need food. Forget about Craft Services, it's not happening on this budget. You're going to be getting your wife or someone to make cold sandwiches on some days, hot meals on others. Figure you're going to spend at least $600/week on food and drinks(between sodas/water/fruit juices you're gonna go broke). That's $1,800 for the 3 weeks.

The camera we got is a video camera, so depending on whether it's HD or mini-DV you're gonna need some tapes. The price is going to vary. How much footage you're going to shoot is going to vary. Let's make a low guess(especially if you're going HD) and say you're going to get 25 tapes at $6/apiece. $150

I record audio on DAT tape. Safer and cleaner than going right to the camera(plus, if you shoot with a steadicam you can't run an XLR cable into the camera while you're using it). You can get 25 DAT tapes for $5/apiece. That's $125

So what have we done so far? Gotten some of the main people together. It's a start. What has it cost us so far?

$21,775

And we haven't even scratched the surface yet. And we're also being very conservative. More to come.

May 26th, 2005

2009-11-19T23:04:00.000-08:00

An early promo shot from the first makeup test
-----------

Well, I guess everyone now knows which movie studio was interested in the flick, huh?

May 26th

Things are crazy right now. I'm trying to come up with all the deliverables for my second film because, between you and me, a big company is interested. I won't name them but it rhymes with Lion's Fate.

And if you don't know what deliverables are, and you're making a film...for God's sake...stop and find out.

Here's a start: Deliverables are:

1) All the paperwork. The releases from actors, writers, producers, DPs, location releases, music releases, every other release. You need them all. You need multiple copies(always keep your originals)

2) A master of your film on digibeta(some will still accept BetaSP) with music and effects on separate tracks, plus a full mix on another two tracks(in stereo)

3) The above sound elements on DA-88 or Magneto Optical Disc(though some will still accept DAT)

3) Photos and artwork. Make sure you get a lot of cool stills while you're shooting. Not behind-the-scenes stuff, though you can get some of that. I mean the cool shit pictures you see on the back of the dvd box, or in Fangoria magazine. You need at least 100 of these. They need to be good. If you're not a talented photographer, hire someone who is--money well spent.

4) Screening Cassettes

5) A master of the trailer and/or teaser for the film

6) Press kit if available, and it should be

7) Shooting script

8) Dialogue continuity/spotting list - this is gonna come as a surprise to you. You need a script that contains nothing but the dialogue from your film. Not too hard, you say! So you go through your script and take out all the action paragraphs. THEN you go through your movie and find out where your actors improv'd lines and change the script to exactly what they say. Then you're ready for the hard part. You need to mark down the timecode where every line is said. This is for the foreign guys who need to dub or subtitle lines--they need to make sure they're putting the right lines in the right place, and they may not actually understand English. You can pay someone to do this--I got a quote two years ago on my first film of $1200--so I did it myself.

9) Credit Information - A .word file with front end credits and back end credits. Make sure you get everyone's name spelled right or you'll get some nasty emails.

10) Music Cue Sheet - Timecode where every piece of score/music starts.

11) Chain of Title - This can get tricky, but mostly it's the copyright form for the screenplay of the movie and a separate copyright form for the actual movie. You'll also need a Title Search and accompanying legal opinion along with a Copyright Search. You'll need a lawyer to do this, but wait until you're about to sign the contract to do this. Sometimes the company you deal with can help you out with this, but also you'll need the searches to be dated within 60 days of delivery, so if you get them too early you may have to get them again. This will cost you between $500 and $2000 each time you do it.

12) Mortgage of Copyright and Security Agreement - the distributor will provide these to you, but make sure a lawyer looks them over before you sign.

13) Instrument of Transfer - Again, the distributor will provide

These are the basics--there are others. I'll tell you now, don't get so excited when a distributor provides you with a contract that you go ahead and sign off. One of the most important things to remember is this: The exhibit DS in the contract may look pretty standard, but DO NOT sign it unless you're sure you can deliver everything on the list. If you sign and can't provide something on there it will be the distributor's perogative to get/create it and BILL you for getting/creating it. You don't want that.

Wow, that's a lot of rules. I'll try to be more entertaining next blog--this is just tons of stuff I wish I knew before I did my first movie, and I haven't seen it talked about in depth anywhere.

2004 Summary

2009-11-16T04:46:00.000-08:00

So here's a rough recap of what happened in 2004 with "Fear of Clowns".

I went through all the footage and logged it all. I edited my first cut of the film and it was 3.5 hours long.

Yeah. A little long.

I was depressed. Big-time depressed. I could tell that a lot of what I had intended simply wasn't working.

I went through and tightened the film. It was like 2hrs and 40 minutes long, and man, was it boring.

I knew I had to do something drastic. I knew that the original ending was going to have to get cut out. But if I did that, a lot of things that happen earlier in the movie no longer made any sense.

Namely: The clown's entire motivation for stalking and trying to kill Lynn Blodgett.

See, in the original script, there's someone behind-the-scenes with their own motivation that wants Lynn stalked and eventually killed. He's the one who's calling that answering machine and talking to the clown.

And when I take all that out...well, why the hell is Shivers stalking Lynn?

It took me a couple of weeks and I finally decided to make Shivers super-nutso. I added the voices in his head. I beefed up the "Kill Lynn, get better" stuff.

But even when I finished the movie I was pretty depressed. I had spent a significant amount of money--not all of it mine--and fallen far short of my hopes.

My only consolation was that I knew it was still a highly-marketable flick.Distributor-bait.

I cut a teaser trailer and put it online, and we started getting a lot of hits. People were getting excited. Frankly, too excited. The teaser made the movie look so much better than the flick was.

So...here's where I started my log again...

Still waiting for The Clown

2009-11-13T17:45:00.001-08:00

Til then here's some pics from the investor video. They feature my (now) sister-in-law in a towel. Kind of weird in retrospect...

Doesn't she TOTALLY look scared? :)

And then one of Rick--I have a couple of stills like this that we shot for the promo video, so if I put up a double I apologize.

Coming Soon

2009-11-10T17:36:00.000-08:00

The clown himself, Mark Lassise, will recount his experience on the first "Fear of Clowns".

Until then, here's a the female equivalent of Shivers. Creepy, yet somehow sexy...I have no idea what it's from.

December 9th, 2003

2009-11-09T00:10:00.000-08:00

A video of us setting up a shot for the promo video--
see the Ganzster spraying fog around.
-----------------

When I say below that I took a week off and began logging the footage--it's confusing, I know. It' s just that the next and final entry into my FOC log was the last one.

I kept some other personal notes which I will try to reconstruct, and I also had a private blog that I will begin to repost in pieces to reconstruct how the whole Lionsgate deal happened.

Reading this I distinctly remember this time in my kid's life. To me I remember it as the pre-autism time. We didn't know he was autistic then. He just seemed like a happy baby.

December 9th

Took a week off and then began the tedious logging of footage. Thirty one hours of footage is a LOT. I mean, we had 5.5 hours of footage total for “Hunting Humans”, so put that in perspective.

Almost six times the amount of footage. Same amount of shooting days.

Began the editing process. I’ve done rough cuts up to scene 10.

Things are going slow now that I’m having to watch the newborn at night. My wife has gone back to work, and he’s a handful.

Editing is a lot like putting together a puzzle. Now imagine being interrupted every 15 minutes from your puzzle to have to take care of the kid, then you come back and try to figure out where you were. It’s very frustrating.

The scenes aren’t knocking me dead yet, I can tell you that. Some of the footage is just plain…okay. I’m getting pretty impatient to edit some clown footage. All I have so far is a lot of setup.

Rick came over and viewed some of the rough cuts. We had a good laugh at one cut where I cut away from his face to the back of his shoulder because he was sweating a lot(we had the AC off to get better sound) and he’s supposed to look like a cool, confident guy.

Guest Post #1 - Jacky Reres

2009-11-05T12:12:00.000-08:00

Jacky was nice enough to recount her experience during the original FOC, so you can get another point of view. So here's Lynn Blodgett herself:

FOC EXPERIENCE

When I first saw the audition notice for FOC, I was thoroughly disheartened. I had stumbled across it a month after it had been posted. I assumed the role of Lynn had been cast, but I submitted anyways.

To my surprise, I got a call from the Casting Director and she asked that I come audition for one of the producers, Rick Ganz and and the writer/director/god almighty, Kevin Kangas.

Oddly, the audition location was in the BASEMENT of someone's home. Even though the location creeped me out, I foolishly thought everything would be safe...and I was wrong...Kevin Kangas turned out to be as sociopathic as the people he writes about (of course I didn't figure this out until WELL until the production process):)

After the audition I was pretty unsure of how I did. I thought Rick (who played Tuck) and I had amazing chemistry, but Kevin was kind of indifferent. I walked away assuming I hadn't gotten the role...which by most auditioning standards IS the norm. Three weeks later, Kevin offered me the part and I was ecstatic beyond belief.

The first day of shooting was uneventful and I remember thinking to myself, "actors really do sit around a WHOLE lot during the filming process while everyone else is running around doing stuff." It's amazing actors get the big bucks!

Anyways, the thing that I loved most about the FOC experience is that it really was guerilla filmmaking at its best. We were working on such an insanely low budget and the hours were long and a lot of times we didn't even have appropriate location licenses but we shot places anyways...often under cover.

I can remember crawling through a wired gate to get to the old abandoned park that Lynn and Tuck go to.

Despite it all, it was the best film experience I've had to date (maybe with the exception of my reality tv experience). The people could not have been nicer. The crew, the cast, etc. When you're working on a low-budget film...the thing that can make or break the experience IS the people. When you're working an 18 hour day on next to no sleep, you want to actually ENJOY going to work. I enjoyed it immensely.

A lot of my initial shooting was sans Mark Lassise. It wasn't until(I believe) a week into shooting that I met him. I can recall the moment distinctly:

We were in the parking lot of the movie theatre and he walked up to me IN makeup with his black clown eyes in and I just ran away. He was terrifying, even with his "Mark-smile" on.

Later, when I saw him without his makeup, I had one thought: "DAMN HE'S HOT!"

Mark was a trooper and I think of all the actors on set, he had the hardest job and did it with such ease and such a positive attitude.

Although FOC has gotten a lot of criticism, I can't speak more highly of the experience or of Kevin. On a daily basis we were dealing with shit. Lots of problems. Flakey actors, location problems, noise problems coupled with a very difficult shooting schedule ...it would be entirely realistic to expect the very worst from the person running the show.

Kevin never lost his cool. Sure, he made snide remarks and he was his maniacal self, but I don't think many people could deal with what we dealt with and still not completely gone postal. I guess we lucked out. All of us were pretty go-with-the-flow.

Some of my more memorable experiences from FOC:

1). Shooting at Tuck's Mansion! Until I moved to LA, I didn't know people had that kind of money! I couldn't get over the view, the location, etc. I also really enjoyed that setting because it was the first of many that we did have control over. We also had a killer seafood dinner afterwards.

2). I loved working with pretty much an ALL male cast. It's always good to be the only girl around...it guarantees that you get attention...and what actress doesn't love a bit of male attention?

3). I absolutely LOVED every scene I shot with Carl (who played my husband). He was an amazing actor and a real pro.

4). When Dave said to me, "Um, are you acting or just hanging out?" When you're working with men...there is no "sugar-coating" and the bluntness on set was often laughable. I think one of the reasons why I am so brazen today was working with the guys on FOC.

5). Discovering that even though he wants people to think he's a jackass, Kevin Kangas really is a kind soul. The day that Lauren Pellegrino shot her nude scene, I half expected all the guys to be total animals...but Kevin was unbelievably professional (from what she told me). It was a closed set and they refrained from their sexist humor (which believe me, would be NO small feat for any of them).

6). My favorite shooting memory hit the cutting room floor. It was when I had to drive a stick shift car down a driveway at a fast speed. Mun had taken me out that afternoon and tried to teach me. I never got the hang of it and come shooting time, when I kept stalling out the car....Kevin made the HUGE sacrifice of having me sit on his lap while he manned the car for me. It was pretty ridiculous. Given that the scene didn't make the final cut of the movie, part of me wonders if he just "wrote that in" so I could sit on his lap..hmmmm?

My least favorite this:

Shooting in the movie theatre was a bit sucky. There were MICE running through the aisles because it was super late at night and they probably were used to the place being empty. It was almost as scary as Mark. It also was pretty depressing LEAVING set from the theatre because we'd get to the location at close to midnight and leave when the sun was already up. When the rest of the world was just starting their day, we were ending ours. It was like being a vampire for a time, and I prefer being awake during daylight hours.

I learned more in those three weeks on FOC, than I've learned in any experience here in Los Angeles. For most of us actors, it was our first film experience and I, personally, am thankful for the mistakes I made. They've made me a better actor.

I have absolutely nothing negative to say about FOC or my experience. Sure, there were days that were a pain in the ass...and there were some on-set dramas...but you'll have to wait for the E True Hollywood Story to come out before I'll talk about it.
:)

October 16th, 2003

2009-11-01T20:32:00.001-08:00

A blurry pic of Mark Lassise, Lauren Pellegrino and Jacky Reres
in the limo at the premiere(to come)
-------------
This was actually one of the last entries into my log--I only logged a few more after, and the next one isn't until December.

So after the next couple I'll be working from other stuff to give you a bit of an idea of what happened next.

Oct 16th

Took mun to a quick lunch at Ruby Tuesday’s, then had to sort through equipment to find all the stuff I have to mail Mun. Watched some of the footage. Looks good. He really knows what he’s doing.

I’m not sure people realize that a large part of turning out a good product is by surrounding yourself with talented people. If you’re smart, you’ll do that.

Before he left, he said “quite an ambitious schedule you put together there” which was a nice way of saying are you out of your fucking mind?

October 15th, 2003

2009-10-27T22:36:00.000-07:00

Remember those magazines in the movie that
Tuck has been ~~masturbating to?~~ collecting?
Well, they had to be created.
My buddy Rich Henn came up with these after I sent him pictures.

----------
This seemed like a long day because we started early, but it really wasn't that long of a day.

I remember getting this really uncharacteristic feeling of sadness that the whole thing was over. I was going to miss most of the people I had spent all that time with.

October 15th

Last day of shooting. Feels weird. Had to get up early at 10am and head to Balitimore. Wind was whipping like a bitch. Can’t use the crane or steadicam, so there goes the shooting script.

I say screw it and shoot it static. Low budget hell. Move to another scene in Brooklyn Park that looks like the projects. We shoot there--it's confusing because it's doubling as the OUTSIDE of the basement.

We head to my parents’ house. My brother is there already. Sound like he’s pissed(again). We run behind, but have a nice setup for basement where clown stays. The lighting setup Dave does looks good. He's worried it's too "college film-class". I like it though.

We're running late. Get pizza, get ready to run to Pasadena. Wife calls--Andrew is already at my house. 40 minutes early. We’re running late. He doesn’t want to stay late--I'm getting irritated with him.

We rock to Ppasadena and crank the scene out. It's funny, it's my wife's uncle's house. He has knows we're coming over so he's lit all these tiki torches out on his porch. But the scene is a day scene even though we're shooting it at night, so we can't even see out the window or doors.

Also, his bedroom is very girly, and it's supposed to be the psychiatrist ex-husband's bedroom. But I think we get some okay shots, and his OFF-CAMERA death is supposed to be a bit of misdirection concerning the next OFF-CAMERA death where the guy isn't really killed.

Then to my house. We get Andrew's side of the scene finished pretty fast.

Then outside to get Mark in my back yard. The martini shot(final shot of the production, not counting pickups).

More meloncholy. We go out to Jillian’s for drinks. Had some laughs. Funny but sad. There’s a lot of work to be done.

October 14th, 2003

2009-10-26T18:54:00.000-07:00

The NEVER-before-seen picture of Andrew in clown makeup.
-------------

What I remember about this night is that NONE of it made it into the final movie.

When I was writing the script I distinctly remember thinking that the audience probably wasn't going to care who was BEHIND Shivers--that once he got caught, they would disconnect from the picture.

I should have pursued that line of thinking, because in the editing room it wasn't working. The scene was a mess, and even worse than that, I could tell no one would care. They'd caught the big clown. To have the movie go on for another 15 minutes would have been a disaster.

So I had to remove the ending of the movie--and when you set up a lot of clues that lead you to the ending...that's a lot of shit to also take out. But then other things don't make sense.

Hence, the mess that became the final version of FOC.

Oct 14th

Steve calls out sick. Great start to the day. He’s supposed to do the stunt work tonight as a double for Andrew.

Went over my parents’ house to do a pickup of Rick and Jacky in the Viper. It started raining, but Mun did some funky work on the camera and it looks like daylight.

Took a quick break, then we have the finale of the movie at my house. Praying for no rain.

The rain started pouring.

I said(to myself) fuck it, we’re shooting it anyway. We loaded in equipment in the torrent wearing rain-slicker ponchos my wife had bought.

Paul couldn’t get over to my house to paint Andrew until like 9pm so we tried to shoot all the cutaway stuff that we could. Nicky showed up late; Mun took him out and did his scenes in the car real quick while I set up the inside stuff. This is how you know I trust Mun--no way would I do this otherwise.

Andrew pitched a fit and yelled at Mun when Mun joked about his face paint. So then Mun was pissed. Word to actors: Don’t piss off the guy who can make you look bad on screen.

Running late. Go figure. Had to pick up the pace and then you run the risk of jumping shots or the line. We did both tonight. Not gonna be the most dramatic ending ever, I can tell you that.

Took the shoot outside. The rain had stopped. Didn’t make things too much easier. Andrew keeps saying he has to work in the morning so he needs to leave. This was an original shoot day so I’m not sure why he’s got to work early the next morning.

He comes over again and says, “Am I done?” I try to think. I think we got the shots. He goes to take off all the makeup.

Fifteen minutes later I think I missed two shots I needed. Fuck.

Then I put on his clothes to do a couple of stunt shots. I jump on the car in his clothes with a knife, the car pulls away and I fall, still holding the knife. Mun doesn’t want me to use the real knife but it’s all we got. I did get a little hurt(my elbow) but hopefully Mun got some okay cutaways.

But I managed to not impale myself on any of the takes, so there is that.

Ended about 3:30am. Packed up. Gotta be in Baltimore at 11am for the “final” day of shooting. Jacky took off. Kinda sad to see her go. You spend this kind of time with someone and get along well with them, it’s like you’re seeing a friend leave.

Hey, she’ll be back for the pickup and the wrap party. Hopefully everyone will come. They’re like my temporary extended family.

Weird. Not used to having a cast of this many people.

Oct 13th, 2003

2009-10-25T18:08:00.000-07:00

Jacky Reres and Steven Gleich in the mediation scene.
-----------

You know the great thing about this? As if the night wasn't tough enough, we had this reporter come out and interview me that night. She ended up being an extra. Was with us for like five hours.

And then the article came out in the newspaper and not only did she mis-spell a couple of my lead actors' names wrong--she got the name of the movie wrong.

Even though--in the picture SHE took and had printed next to the article--I am wearing a hat with the name of the movie. She called it "Fear The Clown".

I had to digitally correct the entire article for the press kit.

Oct 13th

Mediation scene. Goes fucking perfect, besides the maids right outside the door with their vacuum cleaners. They cleared out fast though. Actors/actresses were right on.

Easy shoot, finished on time. Darla Albornoz, who played Lynn Blodgett in the promo trailer we shot, Christopher Lee Phillips, Steve Gleich, and Jacky. Amazing how fast it goes when people don’t fuck up their lines.

Went to dinner, off to the gallery.

I expected about 50 extras. Got about 15. Isn’t gonna work right. Improvise to the second scene where we don’t need that many extras, then send Mark and my wife and her friend to the bar a couple of doors down to recruit some extras.

Also, a reporter from The Capital picks this night to come out and interview me. I make her an extra.

We get some extras from the bar, most drunk, but still not enough. Started shooting, everyone’s antsy, sound sucks with trucks and buses going by. I try to get some coverage, but we lose some extras. Also, they keep wanting to talk during the take even though I’ve chastised them(nicely) a number of times.

Soon we’re down to like 5 extras and the gallery is supposed to be packed. Yeah right.

This scene is gonna suck. We jumped the line, didn’t get a lot of coverage. Ugh. Bad night. Finished about 1:30am.

But we did screw Rick up by putting booze in his cup during one take. Pretty funny to see the look in his face, but he did the take without missing much of a beat.

btw: Wanna see creepy? Check out the screen cap of the first time my brother EVER airbrushed the Shivers makeup. He did it on HIMSELF! Then he emailed this to me after he digitally made his eyes black. Nice, huh?

Oct 12th, 2003

2009-10-24T20:50:00.000-07:00

One of the many paintings my brother did for display at the gallery. This one had real nails in the painting where you see nails. I call that dangerous. He calls it art.
---------------

This day was an absolute nightmare. Everything that could have went wrong did go wrong.

And a lot of these things are things that wouldn't go wrong if you had more money(which means more people) to help out. Your location guy would know that there was a parade going on so you wouldn't get screwed there.

Your camera assistant would be making sure you left with all the equipment you came with.

But these are luxuries when you're working the no-budget flick.

Oct 12th

Gallery day. Got there early(11am), but the street was blocked off. Turns out that they were going to have a Columbus Day parade that day.

No shit.

Couldn’t get the truck or my car with all the equipment and paintings to the street. Blocked off. Said fuck it and drove them both two blocks down a one way street, then backed our way onto the street we wanted.

We started shooting, and right on cue the parade started RIGHT ON THAT VERY FUCKING STREET WE WERE SHOOTING ON. We took a break, since we couldn’t record any sound.
After that things went okay, but we ran over time. Josie, the nice lady who was supervising us at the gallery was pretty tired. Finally got out about seven p.m.

Jacky Reres at the Craig Flinner Gallery

Rick Ganz in front of another painting my brother did.
--------

Dead tired. Went to the house and caught a little football before heading out to the theater for our 11pm – 4am shoot. At least, that’s when we were hoping to wrap.

Started shooting; it’s the pickup where the clown confronts Lynn and Tuck in the theater. We missed it the other night. Everything’s going okay, except we have to shoot a slight variant ending since I don’t know if we’ll get the whole fight in.

The battery ran out and we went to get the other battery. It’s not there. Neither is the charger, so we can’t use power from a plug.

Turns out we left it at the gallery.

I have a replacement at my house, so I run out, go 70mph to my house and back. We rock and roll through the end and finish up at a little after 5am. Great. Now I have to get up at 11am to go up to the mediation scene.

Fuuuuuuuuck.

October 11th, 2003

2009-10-21T20:53:00.000-07:00

Yes, we all have to try that homage shot.
----------

Okay, how bad did we fuck the first part of this day up?

We get back to the house and haven't taken any continuity shots. There's a sliding ladder in front of the bookcase and none of us can remember exactly where it was when we shot part of the scene before.

So we're trying to shoot and dodge the ladder, but if you watch closely in FOC you'll see it moves by itself! One second it's over on the left, then on the right! I cut it pretty close so you probably won't notice it now.

With Lauren's scene it was just awkward. Looking back maybe I should have shot more meaningless scenes with naked girls like my college film buddies did, but I was too busy making horror trailers to movies I wanted to make...

Which means I had never before shot pictures of a naked girl that I didn't intend on sleeping with right afterward.

In the end it came out pretty good though, and that's all that matters when you're talking about movies...

Oct 11th

Went back to the Eastern Shore for pickup at Ed’s—the big house. It went okay. Nothing great on footage. Gotta hope it matches the other footage we shot, even though we tried to cheat daylight when it was night.

Lauren Pellegrino as Amanda

Then off to kill Amanda. It’s awkward. We’ve never met this girl, and here she comes four hours away and we’re like “Hey, take off your clothes”. Feels awkward. She’s not a nude model or actress, but she says she’s fine with it.

She is fine, but I’ve never shot full nudity. I want to be considerate but I also want to get the scene so it’s freakin’ awesome.

It goes well. Lassise hit her head on the wall once. Threw her down a couple times. She was a real trooper. She didn’t care, just kept doing it.

We ran late, so the owners of the house were out waiting in their car until like 2am. But we got it and I think it’s good.

October 10th, 2003

2009-10-20T04:49:00.000-07:00

This day was pretty relaxed when compared to everything else, but I was having a real hard time finding a little girl to play young Lynn Blodgett. I can't remember why.

And again at the end of the night when I rushed off to get things prepped for the next day, Rick and Mun went out to a bar or a strip club. Bastards.

Oct. 10th

As thought, no go on the first two scenes. I wasn’t prepared, we had no kid to play the young version of Jacky's character, no station wagon for that scene, and no Viper for the other scene.

Just slept in after calling everyone and telling them not to go anywhere until I called them. Jacky didn’t get the message and went to the location(my mom's house) anyway. She couldn’t get in touch with me, and called Mun and Rick.

So they met her down there, then finally got in touch with me. I told them to go ahead and shoot the scene—they have the shooting script and it’s just a sleeping scene. They had to make the bedroom look like night. Mun does some more camera trickery. It looks good. I get there in the middle long enough to see it went well and finish directing it. Mun had it under control though.

Had a couple of hours to kill so we took an impromptu break and went to see Kill Bill Vol 1. Pretty entertaining, but almost too stylized. Unbelievable how nice it is to sit down and relax, and try to forget I'm in the middle of waging the war that is no-budget filmmaking.

Finally went to Rick’s apartment to get another scene where Frank is at Detective Peters’ house—gets a call and rushes out the door. Went well. Everyone had beers and it was kind of relaxed.

Mun did some good lighting setups—the shots with Frank at the computer look very good. I dont' realize until later though that Frank has done some of the takes with the phone in a different hand. Cut together it looks like the phone teleports from one hand to the other.

Frank also managed to dent Rick’s wall when he swung the door open and rushed out. Rick was kinda pissed, but it's not really Frank's fault. Should be a door stopper or something, and what? He's gonna be delicate when he's off to save a lady from a killer clown?

I left to return the actual police radio I've borrowed from my cop buddy Rich, and pickup another room key for Lauren Pellegrino who will be coming in tomorrow from New York.

She’ll play Amanda.

Lauren Pellegrino, about to make her entrance

October 9th, 2003

2009-10-19T03:13:00.000-07:00

Judy Furlow as Gale, and me as the cop who ate too many doughnuts
-------------

When I look back at this day in the log I just remember what a nightmare it was. Getting up earlier than normal so I can have my wife drive me into the airport, walking through the terminal to the car rental place only to have them tell me I was screwed. That's another 90 minutes of sleep I could have gotten. I think the actual shoot went well. Had some fun with Jacky, Judy and Frank.

Oct 9th

Started bad. Didn’t get much better. Made a reservation for a Dodge Intrepid at the airport rent-a-car. My buddy cop said those were the new model cars and we could make them look good.

Go to the airport, walked a half a mile to the counter and they told me they don’t have any more Intrepids but they could offer me a minivan for same price. Obviously that’s not going to work.

What a waste of time.

No other cops would show. We used a Crown Vic from down the street plus my younger brother’s Taurus. Everyone showed up late. Some extras didn’t show again. I decided my cameo would be a cop on the scene, since I needed some cops and didn’t have the extras. Fucked by the extras again. That could be the name of my book.

Steve Carson, our first AC, also became a cop.

The scene was the morning after the clown has killed a family a few doors up from our protagonist. Our choice was to use the next house up, which I had permission to use.
But I liked the one two doors up better. Rich Herard, our police advisor advised against it.

I outranked him.

We ran crime scene tape all in front of the house, parked two fake police cars there, and began shooting. I even commented on camera that it would be funny if the people who owned the house came home to their new crime scene.

Not five minutes later, the lady of the house pulls up, ready to have a coronary because her house looks like a crime scene. At least I know it looks believable.

The bad new is that she’s pregnant. I hustled over and explained what was going on and she was cool with it. Even moved her car for us.

Then the guy who owned the house with the pregnant wife comes home and is a dick. Five minutes after he gets home and I talk to him, he’s out back mowing his lawn(and the grass didn’t look that long). Ten minutes later and he’s out front loudly raking his leaves. How do you spell COCK, boys and girls?

We started doing all the shots. A car drove by just about every take. A fucking plane took off every other take. Some nimrod with a hammer was pounding away at his house.

Not a lot of fun. I’m not in love with all the stuff we’re getting, but it will have to do.

Frank and Jacky run lines

We rush down to the side of the house where Detective Peters(Frank Lama) tells Lynn what he believes happened regarding the hitman clown. And we're losing light fast.

We try to do Frank's side of the convo but he keeps tanking his lines. Can't remember. In his defense it's a lot of lines in one chunk, and he's doing double duty acting and directing on another movie, but we just don't have time.

End up just letting him hold his script below camera line so he can glance at it when he needs to. Then we get some good stuff on Jacky's side just so we're safe for any cutaway. Say what you want about Jacky, but I can't remember a time she was unprepared with her lines.

We eat, move on.

Did the scene where J.P. and Frank knock on the door, looking for Jacky’s character. Rich Herard did return duty as another cop with them. Set up the screen to double for daylight. Went okay.

Afterward Mun pulled me aside as there was a littler personal conflict going on that I didn’t know about. He tells me that the night before he and Rick went out. Rick got drunk and said that “we” weren’t happy with the shots he was getting. That “we” wished Gil had been available. Mun says if I’m not happy he’ll take off—no problem.

I don’t know what the fuck Rick is talking about. I tell him it was just Rick being drunk. The stuff looks good, and the stuff that doesn’t look good is not his fault—we’re so limited by the equipment we’re using in the locations we’re using them that it’s a miracle we’re getting ANY good stuff.

Think we straightened it out.

Funniest blooper of the night. We’re doing the scene where Jacky gets a call from Phillip after she and Rick are mugged. Phillip’s not there because we only need Jacky’s side of it. So I’m reading Phillip’s lines so Jacky has something to respond to.

We do the take a couple of times, and one time when Jacky asks, “Phillip, what are you doing up so late?” I respond seriously, “Buttfucking your mom.”

Jacky opens her mouth to respond with her line, and then it sinks in. We were all tired, exhausted, and everybody burst out laughing. Took five minutes for us all to compose ourselves.
Anyway, we finish up. There’s a shitstorm coming for tomorrow.

Another shot of the star of the movie. Yeah, me.

A Brief Break

2009-10-16T18:24:00.000-07:00

This was the trailer we shot to show investors what we were going for before we shot the movie.

A few tidbits:

This was before I ever met Mark Lassise, so as you can see, the clown costume is all in one piece. You know, before we realized we were gonna turn the clown into a perverted sex symbol.
This is all shot on fairly-crappy hi-8 video, but we actually shot 16mm film at the same time with my Bolex. Due to the cost of development and transfer to video, I STILL have the film in my refrigerator. Besides, the video-version of the trailer worked...
Darla Albornoz("Vampire Sisters") played Lynn in this video and was a finalist for the role that eventually went to Jacky Reres.
We shot a bunch of stuff that wasn't even in the script, but there are a couple of shots that are actually exactly like they are in the final film.
Yes, that music is from other movies so there's a chance this will get taken down.

October 7

2009-10-15T19:24:00.000-07:00

I always thought this hand looked pretty realistic as FX go...
------------

The first scene we shot this night was supposed to be just one straight take--the whole dolly into crane thing to reveal the body. We spent an hour setting up and lighting the shot. Then we did about 5 takes.

The crane was shaky every time we went up. And then when the movie ran long I ended up dissolving part-way through to speed this up.

I also remember that the mini-van I borrowed from my parents wouldn't start the next day. Had to call the dad who brought me another car, had the mini-van fixed that day, and returned to me that night.

Now that I think about it, thanks Dad!

Oct 7

Went down to Annapolis to shoot the aftermath of Julie’s death. The scene has the camera on a close up of phone cord. We move down the cord to the phone, past that to the receiver and a hand clutching it, past that to show the arm is chopped off, then we crane up to reveal the decapitated corpse of Lynn’s best friend and manager, Julie.

Very easy. Went well. Had to set up a lot of equipment for one shot, but it went off great. The crane worked out well—just not sure how realistic the body looks.

We shot it at my buddy Luke’s house. He was pretty cool about letting us dump fake blood all over the wooden floor. Gave us a rug to ruin.

Went back to the theater to get another shot. Did it fast. Half assing the police cars with those party lights. Don’t know if audience will buy it. Need to get the cars on Thursday or they definitely won’t buy it.

Finished by 4am. Early night. Sweet. If only I didn’t have to go get comics.

Accidentally left the “COME IN THEY DIE” sign on the inside window of the theater. The theater locked behind us so we couldn’t take it down after we noticed it. That should be a pleasant surprise for the early crew tomorrow. I hope they don’t call the police.

We got the 8th off, then back to work on a very hard scene.

We need cop cars bad.

October 6th, 1999

2009-10-13T00:06:00.000-07:00

Shivers in action

It's funny to read this log entry. To think, the movie was LONGER? You mean I cut shit out and the movie's first edit was like 3.5 hours long?

Honestly, my biggest regret in the whole thing was not having another month to go through the script--I'm sure I would have fixed a lot of the things that ended up being problematic.

But had I waited another month then we would have had to push the shoot back another year since we would have been shooting in the winter months, which brings problems that can be unfixable. (Snow one day, no snow next day--that's an unfixable continuity problem, not to mention if your actors can't GET to the set because of snow it could shut your movie down...)

That's why I don't shoot any movies in the winter.

Oct 6

Back to the theater again. Doing Jeff’s death scene.

Mark was late getting to my brother’s, so we sat around waiting for him for a while. Shot some stuff when he arrived. We were running behind—again.

Did Jeff’s death scene. His wig cracked us all up. It really didn't look right--he looked like a Beatle or something. It amazed Jacky that it looked okay in the shot though.

Wow, they're like twins...

Jeff was a trooper though—throwing himself on the ground with no pads or anything.

After that, though, we were real behind.

So I rewrote part of the script right there. It’s nice having the writer on set to do on-the-spot changes. Had to omit stuff. We just don’t have the time and I can’t make any more pickups. We’re running out of days to finish this. So I’ve shortened stuff.

We moved to an upstairs scene that I was really looking forward to, and had seen in my mind very vividly--the scene where Shivers corners Tuck and Lynn at the door.

Of course, it was about 4:30am at the point we started shooting. We just didn’t have time to light it right, so we could only shoot from certain angles, and you can bet those weren’t the angles I was imagining when I did the shooting script.

Little disappointed about that. I really wanted that scene to turn out awesome. We shot until 7:15am, then packed up. Home by 8am. It’s 8:33am right now.

I’d go to bed but we blew two lights tonight. The only two that I don’t have replacements for. Gotta try to locate some replacements or we’re in trouble.

Fuck it, I’m going to bed. I just ordered them overnight from someplace on the web. We’ll have to do without them for one day. It's 9:14am.

October 5th, 2003

2009-10-12T03:56:00.000-07:00

Some extras think that posing with me will get them better background placement.
Sorry, ladies, only handjobs will do that.(I'm kidding. Maybe.)
-----------

You can see much of this day in the "Making Of" FOC. This is the night you see me leaning over the counter rolling my eyes while Jacky and Rick make fun of the lines and then do some uninspired acting with them.

Now normally I'd laugh with them and then try to explain to them just what the point of the scene is. Once you get an actor understanding the whys, then they will typically get on board.

But at this point I've probably had about 12 hours of sleep in 5 days, and have already been working 14 hours with my only break being the five minutes I sat in my car eating my Burger King meal.

I'm exhausted, frustrated from actors not showing up, and there just comes a point where you hit a wall. This was that night for me.

Oct 5

Enchanted forest. We slipped the crew and equipment through the hole in the fence and tried to block the scene.

Some other people were there. I acted like we had permission to shoot there, and started bossing them around. They left and we got down to it.

Again it's pretty cold for the day. We did okay. The contacts are bothering Mark. He can't keep them in for that long so we try to get all of his angles done first. I'm concerned about the clown running around in the day, but the reason I'm doing it is to try to buck the all too common killer-only-appears-at-night.

Don't know if it will work or not.

We lost light fast--the scene was taking a while. There's a lot of wind, and the trees are blocking the sunlight. We get it done though, and I think it turned out okay.

Rick and the crew were gonna go grab a quick bite to eat. I said go ahead, but be at the diner by 7pm.

I hit Burger King, eat on the drive, head by the house and grab some equipment. Then went to restaurant. Rick and the crew was late.

Set up, not bad, but I forgot to call Mark to tell him to go to Paul’s early and get made up for the scene later that night.

Paul’s pissed—he’s gotta work early in the morning. I’ll hear about it more later I’m sure. But right now I have to get the diner scene with Lisa Willis Brush finished. It's a lot of set-up and exposition.

Got it done in a minimal three hours.

We ran late getting to theater. Two actors didn’t show up—Frank Lama and Jack, the kid. I call Frank and he says he must have got the nights confused. Says he can be at the theater in two hours—he lives all the way on the eastern shore. Means he’d show up about 4:30am.

Can’t reschedule. Had to improvise and shoot one side of the scene with Jacky and Rick talking to me, standing in for Frank. A couple days down the road we’ll shoot Frank talking to me, standing in for Jacky/Rick, and hope the eyelines match. Jack’s just gonna be written out of the scene, but it’s gonna make the main character look like a bad mom since I wrote her kid out of the scene. Or it’ll make me look like a bad writer.

We move on to James’ death scene. We don’t have much blood left that night, so James grabs a bag of cherry slurpee mix and we use that.

James dove in. Looks a lot like blood. Crazy man.

We do a scene by the soda machines and Rick and Jacky have both decided they don’t like the dialogue. They make fun of it during the first run-through, then proceed to do the most-uninspired first take ever.

I’m very frustrated and short tempered. It was a sixteen-hour day for me, and I had had enough and didn’t have the energy to fight to get what I wanted. We finished shooting, packed up, and I left without saying goodbye to anyone.

It’s getting harder every day. It’s hard typing this now.

We worked until 6:30am.

I know--they don't look like they're sucking at their jobs right now, do they?
(I'm kidding--it was brutal on all of us)

October 3rd&4th, 2003

2009-10-10T19:56:00.000-07:00

Shivers about to chop some piggy

Setting up a shot at my parents' house with our Lowe's-made screen

The bouncing head on the car window

-------------

One of the key difficulties in a super-low budget flick is one of special effects. Most of the FX on FOC1 were created and I never got to see them until the day of the shoot.

So you never know what's going to work and what's not going to work. You have this shooting script that you hope to achieve and then find out that the FX prop isn't going to work for what you need.

In this case the head needed to be airbrushed on the spot to get it closer to J.P.'s skin color. We lucked out that my brother was on set that day with his airbrush. He didn't have all of his paints but he definitely worked it closer.

Then, the prop body for J.P. wouldn't really cooperate. It was stiff and kept falling over. It's not really Doug's fault--we didn't have a ton of money to work with so it was impossible to make a realistic body.

To me, the worst shot is the far-away Heston POV shot where the body is on top of the Happy Clown. I should have had Jed(the Happy Clown) moving around, trying to get the body off of him.

But I was busy running up and down the street, trying to watch what we were getting and still direct people. Bit of a mess, really.

Oct 3

The decapitation day.

It went as well as could be expected. Drew a crowd of about 20 across the street. One of the kids did pics and then brought them over for us to autograph.

I think the head looks good—Paul had to touch it up color-wise so it matched JP. The dummy is pretty rough through. Its joints don’t move right. Probably won’t look very realistic. Too late to do much now.

The shot where Shivers walks out and pulls the axe out of the balloons didn’t work. I see it in my mind and it’s pretty cool, but the wind gusted so hard that every time he walked the strings would wrap around the axe blade. Even ended up popping some balloons. Impossible to pull the balloons away without using a cut.

Too bad. It was a “trailer shot” for sure.

We ended early enough I got home to do a rough cut of the decap.

Oct 4

A bit of a clusterfuck. Supposed to be an early day, but the wind and rain blew in and darkened the sky so much that it wouldn’t have matched our day shots. We spent some time doing bedroom scenes.

Mun rigged up a pretty cool setup for a bounce-board outside the window. Used duct tape and a stick. He’s pretty creative with our ghetto equipment list.

October 1st & 2nd, 2003

2009-10-09T06:40:00.000-07:00

Tuck and Lynn, trapped in the projection room

---------------

You know, not surprisingly, I don't remember a ton here other than what I typed. I was tired. I was making a lot of decisions with hardly any sleep, so it was nerve-wracking.

But Mun helped out a lot here. There were times I couldn't remember which way we did something but he was always pretty helpful there. And even though he was very tired, he barely ever gripes. Another good thing about the Chinaman. (he's not really Chinese, but he loves it when I say that)

I remember Mark and his protein drinks. He always had this gallon-plastic jug full of his protein drink so he could stay in shape. In between takes he'd stick his straw into it and drink from it(so he didn't smear his makeup).

As for the posters that I mention below, you can see in the final product that we had to blur some while others were fine. Go figure.

Oct 1st
Shot scenes of rick and jacky escaping from clown into projection room, without clown. Then we did every scene in the projection room. Went well. Will be interesting to see how I can dodge all these fucking movie posters hanging up all over the place. The line of “fair use” and copyright infringement is very blurry.

Did jeff’s scenes right before he meets the clown.

Shot until 7am, then went to get comics. Finally got to sleep about 11am and slept for a good 7 hours. Shooting went well. Because of my strange sleep hours, my head feels muddled. Hard to think.

Still very tired.

Oct 2nd
Went to the Eastern shore to nice house, shot some scenes, jumping between each other.

Workers working on house kept making noise—there’s a lot to fix and clean up because of the hurricane a week ago. The workers keep walking into our shots from the backyard, would come outside and stand by their trucks talking—which was all picked up by our mics. Sorry about that STD, guy.

The shoot gets confusing--we lost our light so we’ll have to go back. Can’t fake the light in a house with giant windows.

We eat lasagna that my wife made—she brought it over and cooked. It was nice.

We pack up for the next scene...

It’s starting to get cold. We drive to the roller-coaster office on the eastern shore. Very cold. Wind chill was 38 degrees. In between takes everyone would run inside to try to get warm except me and Mun. I mean, it didn’t feel that bad once your body went numb.

We shoot the scene where Rick and Jacky get mugged by Heston, played by Ted Taylor. It went pretty well I thought.

Got way behind though, didn’t leave til 3am. Typing this at 4;08 am and am ready to drop. Got some decent stuff though.

September 28th/29th, 2003

2009-10-07T22:13:00.000-07:00

Lynn, in shock from being mugged--Rick's out of focus with his hand in her lap. (probably)
-----------------------------------

The only thing I remember from the 28th was how fast that freaking car was, and how much everybody wanted a chance to drive it.

Also, I remember being a bit of an idiot. I had my shooting script but hadn't broken it into a shot list. When shit started getting really confusing I realized I needed one, so at one point during the shoot I broke a couple of scenes down into shot lists.

Sept 28th

Skipped first two scenes, pushed them to later. That’s called a pickup. Don’t want to do it too often, ‘cause all of a sudden you have your days off turned into days on.

My friend Beth has a boyfriend who has a nice house we’ll be filming in, and he owns a Porsche and a Viper. We went over to borrow the Viper for the scene where Rick drops Jacky off after the Heston(hitman) attack.

We all took turns driving it for fun--Mun got it almost to 100mph in 2nd gear. The thing goes to 180mph. FAST. It was getting a little cold though, and it has no top, so the ride across the Bay Bridge to return it was a little chilly.

We got the scene done, piece of cake. Looks nice. So far been good day bad day good day. We’re in line for a bad day.

Sept 29

Movie theater night. Mark came by and we went over to get him painted up at 9pm. We went to the theater.

Now, we don’t really have permission to use the theater. The head projectionist, James(everybody calls him Kimo) is a friend of mine and he’s good friends with the Assistant Manager. They’re both cool with it. We have managed to leave the General Manager and Corporate out of the loop.

We show up and wait for the customers to leave. We can only shoot when the theater is closed, and we have to be out before it opens again.

Things go well—a lot of the theater employees helped. Bill Stull, the Assistant Manager, and some other movie people helped us load in. Went fast.

Started shooting. Had a shot list. Think things went well, but when you’re shooting actual shots out of order, it’s very risky. Are you going to be sitting in the editing room going, “Shit, I wish I had shot that?” Turns out, yes you will.

Jack porter, the kid showed up, a little early and we were running behind. I brought Shivers out to meet him, rolling video on it—I was hoping Jack would freak out and it would be a cool story to tell later. But it turns out he thinks the clown is cool. Not scared at all.

Got the auditorium scene done where Jacky and Rick are talking, waiting for their movie to start, then we had to move to another auditorium and light it for the scene where Shivers holds Jack hostage.

We did that. Jack was decent, but he wouldn’t stop smiling. Too cute to yell at though. I shoot a lot of coverage behind him and from afar.

Shot a little more, got out of the theater at 7:30 am. Got home by 8am. Gotta get some sleep.

September 27th, 2003

2009-10-07T01:54:00.000-07:00

Dennis Long played Shivers in the promo trailer we shot to raise funding.

-----------------------

We shot this entire day at the house I grew up in. My parents still live there. And I realized something in that one day that I never knew the entire time I lived there.

That house and neighborhood is LOUD. The kitchen floor CREAKS if you move an inch.

My sound guy was giving me fits and I finally said screw it--not much we can do now.

I can tell you, fixing sound in post taught me a TON about sound.

Sept 27th
Exhausted. No other word for it. It’s 4:57 am and I just walked in the door. We started setting up to shoot at 11am this morning—I’ve been awake and working for almost 18 hours. I booted up notepad and then excel before I realized I needed Word to continue this log.

I’m that tired.

The day was a bit of a disaster. I figured we’d fall behind, so you might expect that I was prepared. But no.

During the shoot inside there is so much noise outside--people using every fucking’ power weedwhacker and lawnmower, there’s construction up the street (BAM BAM BAM with the hammers) – it’s impossible to get good sound.

We’re so far behind by the time we finish shooting the first couple of scenes that it’s getting dark outside. We still have to do the scene where the hitman in a clown mask comes in, fights Tuck and gets shot—and all that takes place during the day.

Mun figures out a way we can light it like it’s day outside—close the curtains inside and blast just about every light we have at the curtain so it looks like sunlight outside. It works okay, but it’s still pretty dark inside now.

We choreograph the whole Tuck runs in, tackles him, fights, and then they stand up. The room is actually too small for this scene but we try to make it work. It takes a long time.

The scene, as envisioned, has Jacky shoot the hitman and behind him we see the picture shatter. He laughs, then we crane down slightly to show that the bullet went through him to hit the picture.

So I’m behind the camera with a BB gun. Jacky would pull the trigger on her blank gun and I’d fire the BB gun. It would crack the picture frame but not explosively enough that you could really tell anything was happening.

We did it a couple of times with a couple of different pictures. Never worked out.

There was a lot of sexual innuendo going on all day(and this was when the “nugget porn” conversation happened, which I think was on the Making Of. Also, Jacky scrunched up her boobs for the camera. She’s fun like that.

At the end of the night I called off the first scene of the next day, and thought I might call off the second one because we need a wig that Lisa Willis Brush said she’d get—we need her “corpse” to wear it.

September 26, 2003

2009-10-06T01:27:00.000-07:00

Jacky's headshots sent to us WAY back when. If she asks me to take them down I will.

--------------------

Not sure why I don't mention casting Jacky Reres.

We were having a hard time filling the lead role. I really only had one other serious contender and then we got a video audition from Jacky.

Rick really liked her. She was a little nervous, very spunky, and cute. She did the audition and at the end said some cute stuff to us through the camera. I think Rick wanted to bang her.

I told him we'd have to see her in person before I could cast her in a role that could make/break the movie. She lived in Virginia, so we set up a time to audition her at a house halfway between us--a friend of Rick's.

We met her and auditioned her at a table in the basement of the house. You have to wonder how creepy it is for young ladies to go to strangers' houses and audition in their basements...

I wasn't totally sold. Still wavered between Jacky and the other woman because, to be frank, Jacky exudes sexuality. It's not on purpose, I'm sure, but it really was the opposite of how I saw the character. I had based the character on someone I know who is like a sister to me, so to think that her character would be like that...hard to wrap my mind around.

In the end I took Rick's advice and cast Jacky. Now I'm happy I did--she definitely took over the role and made it her own.

Sept 26th

First day of shooting.
Got to the main set and the crazy lady who lives there started screaming through the door to go away, she didn’t want us shooting there. Very embarrassing for me in front of the crew. So, thanks mom.

Went incredibly well. Working with a four-man crew for today, since we don’t need a sound guy. Everything we’re shooting is MOS(without sound).

Banged out the first couple of scenes and we were ahead of schedule. Ate some dinner of sloppy joe(thanks Mom!) and then moved on. I did get a little bored, since we were doing all the “Lynn paints” scenes—I’m aching to kill somebody…in the movie I mean.

Last scenes of the day involved Jacky in bed. We put her in bed, Rick sprayed her down(quick note: I’m not sure Rick really does this for the acting—I think he simply likes spraying down the actresses) since she’s having a very bad nightmare involving clowns.

The innuendo was flying today even more than on the set of “Hunting Humans”.

Even went to Jillian’s and had a couple of beers afterward and beat Mun in a game of pool. Better luck next time, my nine-fingered friend!

Came home, went over the shooting script scenes for tomorrow so I’ve got an idea of what we need to do. First thing we have to do is move all the equipment upstairs since we’re shooting in the whole downstairs tomorrow.

Hope it goes well, but we have a lot to do.

Okay, little extra here. What I remember from the first day was being very nervous. I was worried that Jacky would be underwhelmed by our crew--that is, me, Rick, Mun, and Steve Carson. She might not take us seriously.

But she did. And then I remember infinite boredom--taking an hour to light the scene and then shoot scene after scene of her painting. BOR-ING!

We made our day though. That's important. I think it may be the only day 1 of any shoot that didn't end in total disaster for me...

Sept 5th - Sept 22nd, 2003

2009-10-05T19:29:00.000-07:00

There's a road under there--this is downtown Annapolis, about 20 minutes from my house.
I did not take this pic though.

---------------

Man, shooting a low low budget flick isn't tough enough--we had a hurricane hit us. Every once in a while one will blow by but they NEVER do anything to us.

This time though, it kills the state. Knocks out power to my house for over a day. I'm supposed to be finishing the shot list and 900 other things, and instead I'm sitting around in the dark.

At this point I'm nervous because I've never seen Mun's reel. I'm going simply on the strength of him having worked with Gil. He clearly knew what he was doing, but I was still worried.

Turned out he was great. Easy to work with with great ideas, and very helpful in remembering shit like which actor was frame left and which was frame right in the shots.

Sept 5th – Sept 22nd

Mun said he could do the shoot if we pushed it back a week. This would also be helpful because then Andrew can still play Phillip. So, I push the shoot back and pray everyone’s okay with it.

They all seem to be. Hallelujah!

Comfuck—oops, sorry, I mean, Comfort Inn had said they would provide us with two rooms for the duration of the shoot, complimentary because we’ve been holding all the auditions and rehearsals in their conference room(and paying full price everytime). In addition, I have said we’d put a thank you in the credits.

So we’ve been calling them for two weeks just to ensure that we’re square. The lady isn’t calling us back. Finally my wife goes down there to find out what’s up and the lady says she talked to a manager and he says they can’t give us the rooms. If we want them she can give them to us for the bargain rate of $70 a night.

That’s $70 a night FOR THREE WEEKS. That’s their best rate?

I need a room for Mun and a room for Jacky, which she’ll share for three nights with Lauren, the actress coming from New York. I have already diverted the funds from the budget and spent it on other things. Now it looks like Mun will have to room with Rick at his place, and I’ll have to find a room for Jacky.

The lone lucky break is that Hurricane Isabel hit us on September 19th, which was our original start date. We all lost power. I’m still not entirely done my shooting script, and I lost a day and a half waiting for power to come back on.

Here it is September 22nd and Mun arrives tomorrow. There are a couple of small parts that we still haven’t filled, because they’re police parts and I don’t have any uniforms. Finding cops and their cars is one of the major challenges I still haven’t fixed, and we need a bunch of them on the 27th. Five days away.

September 1st/September 3rd, 2003

2009-10-05T18:56:00.000-07:00

Once again, here I am slamming someone I know. But you gotta understand where I was coming from here.

First, actors come into auditions and tell you they will give you the world if you will only cast them. They will work 24 hour days, they will walk miles through smoke and fire, they will kill their mom and eat her...if you will only cast them in your movie.

So you cast them, and the first thing many of them do is turn around and fuck you in the ass. All sorts of conditions, reasons they can't show up, etc. It's pretty frustrating.

That's where I was here. Andrew's a good guy too. Hey, everybody's a good guy. So the next person I slam just assume he/she is a good guy, 'cause I'm done saying it.

Just assume at this moment in time they weren't. And I know all this text is blowing your mind. Pics will start showing up when we get into production. I promise.

Sept 1st

I get a call from Andrew Schneider. He’s playing Phillip, Lynn’s good friend and the gallery owner. A big part.

He tells me that he just looked over the schedule and realized he’d have to back out of the part because he has shooting days on two Jewish holidays.

Uh, hello? You knew when we were shooting. What the fuck? Now I’m forced to try to rearrange the schedule, which was a bitch as it was. I mean, one guy can only work on Monday-Wed, I have to schedule the girl from New York so she has three days in a row, one guy doesn’t want to work on Sundays when the Ravens play at home, etc.

Sept. 3rd

I’m attempting to get Dave Mun, First AC from HH, to be our Director of Photography on the movie we’re shooting in 16 days. He’s trying to clear his schedule. I’m contemplating moving the shoot one week back, but if I do it then I have to make sure everyone else can still do it.

In addition, some of the equipment hasn’t shown up. The company claims they need my driver’s license faxed to them so they know it’s not credit card theft. No explanation as to why they didn’t call me to let me know this.

August 31st, 2003

2009-10-05T00:37:00.000-07:00

Picture I shot at first contact fitting, altered by Rob Long II

--------------------

Sticking giant contact lenses into another person's eyes is not fun. 'Nuff said.

August 31st

Gil has not called us back. We’ve sent emails, we’ve called and left messages, Rick text-messaged him. Nothing. I’m left with only one conclusion: We have no Director of Photography and we’re shooting in 19 days.

Like I don’t have enough problems.

The plaster mold Doug made of Lisa has fallen over and broken. He may need her to come back over. I’m sure she’ll be overjoyed.

Had Mark Lassise come over to test out the special FX contact lenses. These things are the size of a quarter. I tried to put one in my eye and couldn’t do it, and I’ve worn contacts before. Mark hasn’t.

After about a half hour of trying, we finally got one in by him holding his eye open and me inserting it. Looked real freaky. I opened up the other contact and find out it’s ripped.

Uh…can ANYTHING go right here? ANYTHING?

August 26th, 2003

2009-10-04T20:52:00.000-07:00

Shot from 1st Make-Up Test with Shivers

--------------------

The worst part of this time period was that the Director of Photography, David Gil, was not returning phone calls or emails. When we last spoke to him he was good, but then months pass and we hear nothing.

We have no backup. I don't know any other DPs, and we're WEEKS away from shooting. I'm thinking I'm gonna have to be the DP, and I'm already wearing too many hats.

I'm not sure how I didn't get an ulcer.

I'm a little harsh to JP here--but in the interest of preserving what I wrote, I have not changed it. He's a good guy though.

August 26th

Did the first headcast for Lisa-Willis Brush last week. She missed the first appointment to do it because the big New York blackout trapped her out of state. We did it down in the basement of Doug Ulrich, the FX guru.

It’s a small dark basement and I’m sure Lisa was a little hesitant as it was; for all intents and purposes we were strangers to her. So he gets this alginate put all over her head, then plaster bandages are wrapped over that. She can only breathe through her nostril holes.

We were at the point where Doug was forming the bandages on her neck and she pushed him off and motioned to back off. Apparently her heart was running a mile a minute, but she couldn’t tell us that. I finally ended up holding her hand through the rest of the process so we could finish it. If she had ripped it off at that second, the whole thing would have gone down the drain.

We didn’t get time to do JP(John Patrick)’s head cast, so we rescheduled for today. Went over to Doug’s and waited an hour for him to show up. A no show. No call, no email. Nothing.

Pisses the fuck out of me. I don’t have time to waste. I only have about 1000 things to do before we shoot and I’m standing around pulling my pud waiting for an actor with a small part.

Lot of stuff to do. Shoot date is barreling toward us. I found a gallery to shoot in today which is huge, but we still haven’t gotten in touch with Gil, the DP. What the hell?

August 21st, 2003

2009-10-04T20:25:00.000-07:00

I remember this vividly. We were extremely up front about the Amanda part requiring nudity. It said so in the casting notice, it said so in the sides, and when we auditioned people we asked beforehand if they were aware of it and okay with it.

Anyway, I looked her up today because her name is pretty unique. She has no listing whatsoever on imdb and I couldn't find anything other than a Facebook page.

So I can say with absolute certainty that her career would be in no worse shape had she taken the part of Amanda.

August 21, 2003

Had three full auditions. Sarah D. came back for another read. When we finished she says, “I just wanted to talk to you about something.”

Uh oh.

She then tells us she’s not so comfortable with the nudity. She talked to an agent who thought it wasn’t a great idea at this point in her career. So she’s out, and I’d pretty much penciled her in as Amanda.

All told we received well over 1000 headshots.

I’ve cast almost all of the roles now. We’re about four weeks away from shooting and we’ve got lots of obstacles. Lots of things that need to be done. I’m not even positive my DP is coming. May have to shoot this myself, which just puts more shit on my plate.

Tomorrow we get headcasts done for Lisa Willis-Brush, who plays Julie, and John Patrick Barry who plays Officer Patrick.

June 7th, 2003

2009-10-04T20:15:00.000-07:00

The first casting session was a bit of a disaster. Not that many people showed up, and I gave everyone WAY too long to try out. I wasn't really experienced in casting, and I acted a bit too nice--even giving the horrible people five minutes of time.

Live and learn, huh?

JUNE 7th

Held first auditions. Rented a conference facility at a local hotel. My wife had her friend Anne help out, and her cousin Denise and my mom also came to help manage the people.

About 50 people showed up, which was less than I expected, but it was a good thing. As it is, some of the people were waiting over 3 hours, and we ran over by about 45 minutes.

Mark Lassise came. He’s the clown. Plain and simple. First time I saw him I thought it was a little eerie how close he looked to what I had in mind when I was writing. Except, Mark is a lot more muscular than I had envisioned, but I think it makes him even scarier.

A girl named Sarah D. came in. Very cute, interested in the Amanda role. Seemed okay with the nudity and she read well.

Another man named Christopher Lee Philips came in and was great as Osbourne. Seemed a little disappointed the part isn’t bigger, and I can’t blame him. Would be a waste of his talent, but as they say “There’s no small parts, only small actors”. May try him for Parrish.

Saw a couple of decent actors for the role of Phillip. Still not satisfied with what I’ve seen for the lead though. There have been a couple of decent actresses, but no home runs. There’s going to be a point where I have to choose between some actresses with the right look who are okay actresses and the excellent actresses who don't look the part. I think I’ll go for the latter. This movie hinges on her performance.

April 25, 2003

2009-10-04T20:06:00.000-07:00

I didn't start this log as early as the one on HH--this is the first entry I have, and it throws you right in the middle of it. I've removed the names of the stupid below. I have, however, left their (mis)spellings intact.

April 25, 2003

So I put an ad in Backstage magazine, the mag for aspiring actors/actresses. We did it for Hunting Humans and got like 500 headshots in a week. Unfortunately, 99% of them were from New York, and none of the New Yorkers wanted to come audition for us. It was like, “What have you done that I might have seen?”

I also put a brand new counter on the Fear Of Clowns page. Be good to know how many hits we get.

The ad runs. In a week and half we get about 3500 hits. We receive about 500 headshots in email alone. About another 300 in regular mail.

I began writing back responses. Most of them were standard “Thanks for your submission, we’ll get back to you.” That was for the people I clearly wasn’t interested in. I emailed sides to out-of-towners so they could mail us videotaped auditions.

I got some classic emails. One lady sent me a color picture of herself in lingerie on a couch. She didn’t fit any parts, so I emailed her back with the standard letter. She sent the same picture another two times.

Then there was this guy:

>“I feel I fit the part of BOBBY.
>I will only audition if it will be in NYC.
>If I get the part I will only go to Maryland if housing and travel is provided; view my Head Shot & >Resume at this link:
>LINK REMOVED

to which I responded:
“Good luck. You will only be in the movie when hell freezes over.
(In the future, you might want to tone down your demands if you ever want to get another job)”

His response:
>“Fuck you moron, I’m already a Movie Star, and you’re an uneducated wannabbe filmmaker who will accomplish shit…good luck to me you say, NO, it’s Good Luck to you getting nyc actors; the least you can do is pay for everthing since your not paying the actors, Moron, you’ll have to settle for Local >Uneducated Losers who are just like You :)
>Have a nice life, I’m sure it will suck :) :)
“

Yeah, this guy’s got superstar written all over him. I mean, it says on the web site that we’re paying the actors. And as it is he was looking to audition for a guy with two lines.

Anyway, another one:

>Dear Rick and Kevin,
>Thanks you so much for deciding to cast me in your production of “Fear Of Clowns”. Enclosed is the address and contact info where you can send my contract. Thanks a lot.
>
>Sincerely,
>Sia S
>ADDRESS REMOVED
>NYC, NY 10009
>PHONE REMOVED
>P.S. What is the phobia name for fear of clowns?

This is the first email I had ever gotten from this person. I hadn't even heard of them, much less cast them.

Another keeper. Out of the blue, this is how the email started:

>I currently have nipple piercings, clear braces and taking acting classes.
>
>I am a total natural when it comes to acting and I am a hardcore Horror Film fan.
>
>Best Wishes,
>Diamond1

I wonder if they put "nipple piercings" under special talents on their resume...

The Start Of This Log

2009-10-04T19:24:00.000-07:00

Promo picture shot for investment trailer--
Rick Ganz, Darla Albornoz and Dennis Long(as the clown)

-----------------

Unlike my other log for "Hunting Humans" this one has NEVER seen the light of day. I have never shared exactly what happened on the making of "Fear of Clowns", other than what you can see in the behind-the-scenes on the DVD.

At this point I had successfully shot a movie, won a few minor awards for the film, and received distribution from a reputable company who got the movie into Blockbuster/Hollywood Video/Netflix and paid us more on signing than the entire budget of the film--in general you can't hope for more from your first film.

But none of that stops the apprehension you get when moving toward the next film. How much work there is to do...how bad you may fail...how can you make it all happen and come out with the best movie possible?

So it began again.

I had to raise money for the film, which is really just glorified begging. On HH I paid for everything(by selling comics and using my charge cards) except for $5000 that one of our actors gave us to finish the film. So I really had no idea how to raise money.

I put together a prospectus. We dressed a buddy of mine up as a clown, put him in a vintage clown costume I'd bought on eBay, and I shot stills and some video. Scenes from a script I hadn't even written fully yet.

We had access to a movie theater, so I figured I'd set the end of the movie there. I took my actors and my clown up to the theater after hours to shoot some more video for this trailer I was going to put up.

I took my smoke machine. We're up by the elevator and I smoked up the area and started to shooting. The smoke alarm starts BEEPING wildly, and apparently it can only be turned off by the fire department who is ON THE WAY.

That's where we stopped filming and took off. I cut the trailer to music from Aliens and Signs, and it came out good.

To finish the story a lot easier than it was, I showed it to some people and two of them agreed to give me 10K apiece. I had 10K left over from what I got paid for "Hunting Humans" that I was going to put in, and just like that we had the $30,000 I thought the movie would cost.

So that's where the "Fear of Clowns" log begins. Hope you enjoy.

I think the only thing you're really going to learn is that if you just want to make low budget movies because you think it would be cool or that it's fun then you are sorely mistaken.

(As with the other log, I will preface each entry with current-day thoughts in bold type, and the log will be in regular)