What's Going on In Movie Set Land

So this is my weak attempt to bring you the daily scoop on what's going on in Movie Set Land while I am away (8/12/99 - 9/1/99) in Louisville. This is taking the place of Moment for Us, but do read it, as it has guidelines for what will be changing while I am away. For those of you not in the know about this movie, go here. Also for those of you that tuned in late, I am leaving all the entries up, beginning with the newest one first. Pictures (if any) will be on a separate page. Todd Fischer has since skipped out on the contracts that all of us signed and his whereabouts are unknown as is the movie itself. He conned us all. That really sux but if any of you get in contact with him or have a number - there are people out there that want to beat his ass - so please do give that info to me.

September 1, 1999

I am very sad that after almost three weeks, its time to go home. I really wanted to stay on if possible and finish the rest of the movie. But that's ok - it now turns out that Todd is going to come to Huntsville again if more shooting is needed. (most off the cast is centered around Huntsville - even the special effects guy - Jonathan).

I was hungover, but I helped Todd with loading up the impala and getting most of the equipment to his parent's house as storage for the next two hours (we had to be out of the hotel by 12).

I am going to miss everyone, but lucky for me, we are promoting the movie at all my favorite conventions - Exoticon, MOC, Fantasm to name a few. this means I will be seeing them again, and we will be partying once again. Woo hoo.

I have many momentos from the movie as I did get to keep my wardrobe (yes, we will see it later), and I did get to keep the back from my director's chair (all the leads got a chair with their name on it). Rob Prior even got all of us a toy from Todd McFarland's collection (he used to do art work for him). I got the Skull Queen and hope that someday I can make that outfit for myself. I even got presents from some of my fans out there in cam land (chocolate, alcohol, caffeine pills - as well as a really cool t-shirt).

I learned many things along the way as well:

1. Never fly in a plane going backwards - its not cool to see that the plane is amost perpendicular to the earth.
2. Never eat hotel food for more than 3 weeks. The food was almost disgusting at the end of the movie.
3. After making a scary movie - not a lot of horror flicks will faze me after knowing the magic that goes into it.
4. Shooting is just like camp - only you get paid for it.
5. If there is a romance on the screen - it more than likely happens on the set.
6. Rob Prior's face is fully animated - and looks goofy.
7. Vince is very sweet guy, once you get past the lech exterior :) (jokes vince - don't get all sensitive on me)
8. Todd looks a lot like doogie howser's stunt double - or Matt Frewer.
9. Todd will not tell you what you want to hear - he will tell you the truth.
10. Caffeine is the answer at one of these sets.
11. Always show professionalism on the set even when you want to tear some bitch's tongue out.
12. The rumor mill is so rampant on a movie set.
13. None of the cast or crew were good at Karaoke.
14. None of our bar tabs were below 150 bucks
15. John doesn't wear speedos, he wears boxers.
16. Never work with pets or kids.
17. Don't get the pyrotechnic guy drunk before he has to set up explosives.

I am sure I will think of more....

August 31, 1999

We had an early start today as Vince had to leave town and we had to get his scenes in quickly (although Todd was going to visit him later in September to finish any scenes we might have missed.) Brandon shot a lot of his stuff by himself while Todd was going over some more complex scenes with the rest of us. Did I mention that Brandon had been promoted to Assistant Director? way cool.

With some script changing, my character is being impersonated by the killer and lures some poor boy into the elevator with Patty. Patty then gets to hit on him and then ultimately kill him in a sick way that would make every male cross his legs in horror. translation? - I get to do all that stuff in lieu of the killer - cool. Me and John (boy in the elevator) thought the scene looked way cool and we had a good time practicing it :)

Jason was doing his pyrotechnic work out at Jennifer's house (she has a huge field) to make large explosives go off just by using his handy radio shack made detonator. This was to be one of the final scenes. I am not sure if I can say a lot about it, but the fire department was called in to watch over to make sure nothing horrible would be lit on fire (mainly the killer).

The killer now was in the final stage of makeup at this point, and when it arrived, I was shocked. Here was my pal - now made up to look like demon spawn. It was gross and I couldn't look my friend in the eye when I talked to it. It was almost sad that I was disturbed by it, but with lack of sleep and poor lighting - my mind can play tricks on me. Jonathan was pleased by his creation and hoovered over it like an insistant stage mother. He was busy making sure the makeup stayed on and the appliances looked right.

The fireworks display was fabulous and we had three cameras set up to capture everything - as well as point of view shots.

We were 10 scenes short of filming the movie when we got back to the the hotel. Todd announced that it was a wrap and that the movie was done. He is going to go back and edit it to see if there is a need to shoot more scenes or to redo others and to make sure the story is coherent. He really wants this to be a kick-ass video.

We ended the evening with much drinking and socializing. I wish I could show you the pics of that, but I can't because my friend that played the killer was wearing the demon costume during the wrap party. ARGH!!!!

August 30, 1999

Shooting started pretty late today. We rapid fire shot a lot of scenes that were only two or three lines and scenes that are little to no action at all (i.e. I had a scene where I was banging into walls going down the stairs looking really pathetic and girly).

Then after shooting a bunch of short scenes, we went to a different location for the final ending scene. (a lot of these things are shot out of sequence). That was way cool. I think I acted better in these last scenes than any others I have done. Being the hysterical moody bitch is something I am all about.

We only had a few hours of nighttime left, so instead of looking for more woods to shoot, we decided on shooting some of the killer's transformation scenes. This involove s a lot of puking. Jonathan made some gross (but tasty) looking puke out of green food coloring, applesauce, and something he likes to call "his secret".

I had to slate this scene, but after watching the killer try to look like it was puking up the green stuff instead of some of the killer's own puke, the rest of the crew was sort of ill as well. Brandon and I were one of the more weaker stomached people trying to watch that. I took pictures for later.

Well, tomorrow is the last day. I hope we get everything done.
August 29, 1999

Todd woke us up at 11am today to get us ready for the long awaited pentagram scene. I hurried up to get ready only to find out that everyone else was an hour late. Ugh! For the set up of the master scene, it took about 5 hours to complete. Then we had other scenes involving the pentagram that had to be done so we could take down the pentagram (we didn't want any of the locals to find the symbol in the middle of this conference room on Monday morning and freak out).

We shot all the scenes involving the initiates and the sorority girls, and then it was time to shoot Kevin and Bonnie's scene at the pentagram. Unfortunately, Bonnie is a total bitch and started throwing a hissy fit on how she wouldn't get naked (even though she agreed to the nude scene before getting the part). So to get Bonnie the Bitch out of the movie entirely, Todd decided to kill her off sooner and cut most of her scenes down. She threatened to walk and Todd said he would sue her, then she broke down and cried. Kevin tried to make her feel better (he is such a sweetie), but she had such an attitutde problem she made Kevin feel bad instead.

Also, it turns out that she really hates me because someone in our group that she likes happens to like me more. I am not sure how this is my fault, but whatever. In one of her close-up scenes, she shot me the look of death while my back was turned. It wasn't acting - I wasn't in this scene. Jeez.

I wish I had sympathy for her, but I have never blamed any of the girls that unintentionally were the objects of desire by men that I liked. (not to be confused with girls that intentionally try to steal your man, even when they know that you like him or if you are dating him. - that's just a girl code you shouldn't break). This chick needs more medication than I do. i have some pretty bad mood swings, but she would swing back and forth enough to make you sea sick.

In fact, there were times that I was pissed off on the set (and maybe I handled it a little too drastically - stomping off set as loudly as I could muttering obsceneties) because of jokes that were played on me (they really liked having me say my lines but totally focusing the camera angle on my boobs unbeknownst to me - jeez), but I got over it and everything would be cool. Not to mention the fact that I didn't hold up shooting or make delays happen. I am pleased that I am not the only one that hates the boob jokes ("Turkey's done" is a favorite saying among the cast and crew), as we didn't choose our wardrobe (yes, I have to wear my cut off t-shirt without a bra - you can imagine what happens when it's a cold room). I overheard Jenna voicing her opinions one time on the amount of tit jokes. Thanx Jenna for backing me up.

I can tell you that bonnie was completely professional, and was nice to me to my face - and that was decent of her. I just think she didn't want to start any crap with me because I could easily out wit her any day. That's too bad - after all the delays she forced on us, I would have loved to make her cry.

Enough with that rant (I could bitch about her all day)- lets move on:

After we shot all of her scenes, we had to go to the station where Glenn works to dump some of the footage off. While we were there, we shot some more footage of us running in the woods and running up stairs. Vince hated it immensely (Todd even made us do an extra running scene just to piss off Vince). Of course we did screw up a couple of the scenes. It turns out that if you stop suddenly, and you are in front of a large person who doesn't know to stop, the force involved will throw three people on the ground. Very funny, but potentially painful.

I was soooo tired when I got back from that shoot, I just wanted to go to bed, but I knew that a cool death scene was to be shot in the next hour, and I really wanted to see it and take pictures of it for the site.

By this time, the person dying in this scene had so many cool scratches and wounds and blood, he looked like a walking car accident. Jonathan really did a good job with him. The scene ended complete with the Oscar award winning blood-out-of-the mouth death. I had my picture taken with him as well and hope to put it up as soon as the movie comes out. (sorry, boss's orders).

Tomorrow I have been told the bathtub scene happens. I hope I am having a thin stomach that day.

August 28, 1999

Today was mainly a blur of scenes to shoot and me either acting in them or slating them. (Kevin has invented a new game with the slate - he puts on another title movie instead of HELL NIGHT. Like he put on "Nightmare before Hell Night" or "Saturday Hell Night Fever" - sometimes they are so funny, we fuck up the scene even before Todd says "action.")

We had a late call at 1pm and immediately started in on shooting. I was only in a few scenes today but they were long ones. As I play a bitch, I got to do a lot more angry bickering at Rob (the guy that plays the ex) and a lot more Sweet Valley High poses with my hands on my hips. I even got to storm off the set with one of the characters apologizing to my character and my character treating that character like shit. There was even some cursing involved. Fun.

We had an initiation speech scene (where I had to give the same speech on love and friendship and sororities while keeping a straight face) that took forever to complete. Thank god this time I didn't stumble over the speech like I did the last time (it took 8 takes for one speech last time). Unfortunately, now I know that garbage by heart. Oh well.

Todd could see that some of us were faltering around midnight, so he gave us some vitamins to help us out (yes, they were really vitamins - not the special vitamins you get on your local street corner). I think we each took about 8 different pills. But they helped out a lot.

We shot a love scene that evening. Todd seemed pleased that there was actual drama (and acting - just kidding, todd) in this scene without it looking too much like a soap opera. Of course, it was easy to believe that the couple liked each other, they had been getting along really well since they had arrived at the set.

We were going to shoot another love scene (this time it was supposed to have nudity - the other one was just some sort of meaningful kiss thingy) but time ran out while we tried to find the perfect location (i.e. something that didn't look like the hotel) and plan on shooting it tomorrow (on a weird note about that scene: Todd wants a female to be present on the set during that scene to make the girl feel more comfortable - kind of like having a female nurse present during a gynecological exam).

I ended my eveng around 5am, but not before I saw Vince try on my fairy wings, white wig and feather boa. It was too funny, and he reminded me of the time I went to the Boybutante Ball in April. He confided that he had been wanting to try those on and flap around the halls in them since he saw them last week.

First thing tomorrow morning - the awaited pentagram scene :)

August 27, 1999

I had my photo shoot today at 11am. Since I only got limited hours of sleep (2 1/2) I had to put on the extra special makeup that makes me look like I got 8 hours. Jennifer was going to take me to the fossil beds to take pictures of my ivy outfit, and two of the fur outfits I own.

For the ivy outfit, I posed in this stream and woods around the fossil beds. For the furs, she basically teased up my hair to where it looked uncontrollable and then I got to look angry for that roll of film. But the really trying part was when I used a huge leg of meat that we bought from the grocery store . It was so gross - that thing must have weighed about 8 pounds. Jennifer took pictures of me ripping the fat off of the meat and me looking like an angry dog about to get his food taken away from him. The crowning glory was when I pretended to eat the raw meat by biting into it. Yagh! I am not sure which seemed worse - the actual act of doing it, or seeing the pictures later. Luckily, I didn't catch any diseases (rinsed with listerine right afterwards). And I don't want to hear any shit about it from anyone. There were a couple of cool photos from that experience. You might even get to see them later.

When I got back I was so exhausted that i slept for a few hours. We had Dominos (for free for a credit in the movie) and Todd planned out the next scene (special effects). We were going back to the mall to do another shoot. This time we were doing a really bloody special effect. It took a long time to do and we went over the time we were allotted at the mall, but the mall cops let us stay and Todd offered them a part as extras in the bar scene of the movie. Way cool.

We had the person rigged up with condoms filled with blood with a charge that would make them explode. The blood would pop out of the condom (making it look like gunshot wounds) and break the shirt open. Everything went exactly as planned (and looked so lifelike), the only problem was the guy slipped on the fake blood and hit his head pretty hard on the tile. He went to the hospital later that night and was treated for a concussion.

Then the killer was squibbed up to shoot off the gun in the hotel arcade. Jason promised that it would only take 20 minutes to do... three hours later, we were still waiting, and we didn't get to do our cool ass pentagram scene. I guess that will wait till Sunday. I went to bed at 5am.

Tomorrow we have to shoot 40 scenes... or at least try to.

August 26, 1999

Today was extremely tedious and long. After lunch we had to redo some more scenes from the frat house (all because of some grainy shots from the last time) and the whole thing took about 4 hours. The reason I know is because I was the token slate monkey for the day (i.e. I get to write in chalk all the time). The bloopers were pretty funny, though. We added a new character and got rid of another one (because the old character is now the cop and can't be both people). I especially liked the fact that they called the new character "Pledge Queaf" and basically humiliated him throughout the scene. What was even more weird, is that Jason thought the whole thing was hilarious as well, and played the dumb pledge guy very well.

After dinner we went to the mall to shoot the campus cop office scenes as well as the initiates prank scene. That didn't take so long, and we found out that Jenna could start a serious career in phone sex (you'll see what i mean when you see the movie). I think that was the only scene that I wasn't in that I didn't have to be slate girl.

Then we sat on the floor of the hallway of the hotel and Todd figured out what scenes to do next. It was only 12:30 and we were going to be up for a while. I went to Chris' room while he was blocking scenes with Brandon and attempted to do an interview with her. She is interviewing all the cast members and putting them on tape as well as taking stills. She will have that up on her site at a later date. I had to leave in the middle of the interview, so I hope to catch chris tomorrow before she leaves town.

Then came the grueling part of the evening. Four of us had a scene to do that was 3 1/2 pages long - which means a lot of dialog that has to be learned, and quickly. It even involved us running down stairs and taking positions. Then we had to sound out of breath and "actually" act scared, confused and mad all at the same time. Vince was very displeased about the whole running thing (he is a bit large) and was sweating buckets by the second take. I think the best time of the scene is when Rob and I start a fight, its pre set at the beginning, but then we need to ad lib the rest of it while other actors say their lines. We had a contest as to who could get the last word in before Todd said cut. They ranged from "Go take your steroids and get the fuck out of here" to "You should fucking put on a bra." Rob and I both agreed that it was a great stress reliever. But it must be said - I won the contest the most times :)

After all the closeups of the scene it was 5:30am (about the time that I am writing this) I am wired and can't sleep, but I have to do a photo shoot tomorrow in the fossil beds, and I better look good, dammit. So I am off to sleep, only to have to be up at 10:00am today.... ARRGGHH!!!

August 25, 1999

Sorry I've had troubles getting the diary out, please bear with me.

We had a late call today (Todd was trying to be nice). We had lunch and then I had to go do laundry (i only have so many clothes). Since I wasn't the only one, Jenna and Jonathan went with me to one of the coin operated deals (nope, we don't get full service laundry). Afterwards, we managed to relax for a little bit until some of the guys came back from the grocery store with dinner.

During dinner, Debi asked me to make some nuclear tea. Apparently everyone wanted to be jacked up like I was the night before so they could make it through the night of shooting. I was flattered.

After dinner, I turned into Slate Girl and Jason turned into Sound Guy and we reshot some scenes at the University of the guys walking up to the door. It took us all of 20 minutes (we knew what we were doing this time), and then left to shoot more frat boy scenes at the hotel. The night manager from last night was even watching us shoot from a safe distance.

After getting several shots of the frat guys and of some scenes of sorority girls in the halls, Todd decided to do some experimental shots with the split screen again (it's gonna look cool).

I wish I had more to write about on this day, but most of the day was taken up with the same scenes I have talked about before. Tomorrow we are working a 20 hour day.

August 24, 1999

Today I didn't have to get up til 11am while the frat guys had to get up to work on the set at 8am to redo the frat house scenes. (Aparently Glenn sucks at being a camera man - as we seem to have to redo all the shots with Brandon now). Unfortunately, during the night, Vince got sick and had no voice the next day. The guys ended up just doing laundry at Jennifer's house.

We had lunch and discussed which scenes to do and I got dressed and did three scenes by myself. They were only difficult because the lines were all about sorority girl love and friendship towards her fellow sisters and the sorority. As the sorority girl in me just doesn't exist, I about gagged, gritted my teeth and smiled a lot. (I think the scene looks really fake with me smiling).

We shot some scenes with our new security guard. Richard Nessler was entirely too disruptive (as well as ran up a 200 dollar bar tab) so we got Jonathan (our special effects guy) to fill in as the guard and had Jason (the pyrotechnic) be Frat Guy #1. Jonathan did a great job of being deputy dog, more so than Richard. He really seemed to be enjoying the part and he was very realistic as a southern deputy dog.

We had Kentucky Fried Chicken sponsor our dinner that night. We are now trying to get restaurants to send us free food. Jason had the great idea to call up beer companies and see if he could get some of them to comply. I am thinking not.

We shot well into the evening that night (and did another cool-a-roo special effect involving lots of blood and gore and an enema bag) and I was all hopped up on nuclear tea (a recipie I got from my mom) and didn't get to bed by 5am. While we were shooting our last scene in the men's bathroom, some holier-than-thou night manager (or so he called himself) whipped out his toys-r-us police badge and gave us a bunch of shit about girls being in the men's room. Realize that it was 4am at this time. Everyone but Todd and Vince went upstairs. Todd convinced the guy that we were allowed to shoot there and managed to get the guy in trouble the next day. Chris recorded the whole confrontation on her camera and plans to upload it soon.

I just managed to set my alarm before I passed out that morning.

August 23, 1999

After our daily call at 12pm and seeing how the shoot wouldn't happen till 6pm, my parents decided to take off (it takes 4-5 hours to get to Huntsville from here). They hugged me good-bye and told me they were very proud (despite the fact that mom doesn't like where my character is going after the script changes), and they would see me soon. Most of the cast thought they were pretty cool, and I am glad they fit in well.

To break up the monotony of the day, Jonathan took me, Chris, Rob, and Jenna out to the fossil beds. Chris took a lot of pictures of the different embedded bones and skins. Jonathan tried to take a rock home with him, but it was way too big, and illegal. Then we got gas for the car. Chris was laughing at the pre-recorded announcements that were blasting in to the gas station. It was apparently letting you know important car etiquette towards your other car neighbors. Rob said that if that was in Pittsburgh, they would shoot the speakers.

Next on our oh-so-exciting trip we went to Walgreens, where I showed Rob what REAL catholic school girls looked like. A few had walked in just as we were walking out. He was unimpressed. And rightfully so, as most catholic school girls are really plain looking and don't feel particularly sexy in what they are wearing (at least I didn't feel cool).

Then Rob got a wild hair up his ass and decided that we should visit the pet store. I was disappointed that there were no puppies, but I did get to hold a snake. When it was almost time to leave, Jonathan and I spotted a huge fish that would lunge at the glass if you got too close to it (which kinda made me uneasy) and it had a really small fish in with it. We were waiting for the larger fish to eat the other fish, but to no avail.

Then we went back to the hotel (after getting oreo shakes and root beer floats for the road) to see the dailies. I didn't particularly want to see myself, so I fell asleep on the bed (and became fodder for notes to be put on my back) for about an hour.

Now that we are done with the filler part of my diary, it's time for the cool movie stuff that we did

We were gonna kill Chris that night, so Jonathan had her in the make-up chair for her huge gash to be put in on her forehead. We put the whole thing on cam while he was making her up. I had to leave after I set it up so we could do some outside scenes of the sorority girls and frat guys walking up to the school. One scene had the character Patrick having to drive up to the school. We were trying to time the parking so that no cars got in the shot, but Todd forgot that the boat factory let out at 12 - the exact time we were trying to shoot. So we had to do that scene in about 7 takes.

When we got back, Chris was ready for her strangulation scene. We had problems with that one. Todd was trying to get her to be hit in the head with the phone receiver and have the killer strangle her with the phone cord. We were trying not to have the killer's face seen. Brandon and Todd brainstormed about what to do, and the final product is pretty cool. Chris makes a beautiful dead woman. Todd even told her how to make "dead eyes".

Tomorrow we should be working another full day.

August 22, 1999

We met at 12 today (thank god for a late call), and then had lunch with the cast and crew. Today Brandon would be showing back up again, and my parents were coming into town to see some shooting. We were also gonna have a cool special effect rigged up by Jonathan of someone's throat slashed.

My parents showed up at three and I had a great time telling them about all the script changes and new special effects that had been added since they read the script. They were pretty pleased that Todd let them hang out to see some of the scenes. Unfortunately, I wasn't in any of them for them to look at, so Todd showed them the stuff we had already shot (a.k.a. the dailies).

I look very pale on tape and I hate my voice as well as the fact that sometimes I looked at the camera without even realizing it (a rule that Todd enforces - no acknowledging the camera). I also felt like I talked to fast. We did laugh at some of the bloopers.

Most of the scenes were pretty mundane so I will only tell you about the cool shots. The first shot was set up by our pyro technician - Jason. He had put up 4 squibs (charges) in a fake control box with lots of wires coming from it. The villain's hand would open the box, rip out the wires and then some sparks would fly out - as if the person really had shut off some electricity. It was pretty neat and Jason was especially pumped about it as he like a grown-up version of Beavis - really into fire and explosives.

While this was going on, me and Chris were having fun on her cam (hers broke, so I lent her mine - so go look there). We even chatted with some people and introduced them to some of the cast that wanted to be online. Vince was the funniest with his sexy poses (when a 350 pound man poses in a manner made for playboy bunnies, you gotta laugh). My dad even made several appearances on the cam (I get my goofy faces and weird spontaneous style from him) and my mother was also seen (in-between doing the slating for shots - she liked that job a lot). Giggles probably has a pic of them in the chronicles in case you wanted to see what spawned me.

The really cool effect was shot at the end of the day (3am) where we had the special effects shot. A girl was having her throat ripped open by the villain. It took over two hours for her latex throat appliance to be put on. Jonathan had already made it look real, now he had to blend it on her throat and put tubing underneath it for the blood to flow out. He cut the pouch at the end of the tubing in the exact three cuts that were on the throat appliance. Then he attached the tubing pouch to the tube and then on to the bottom of the appliance. Then he put the whole thing on her throat and attempted to blend in the color of her skin with the color of the throat appliance. It was taking forever, and it seemed he didn't have the right make-up tones to do it, so Rob stepped in with his air-brush kit and showed him what to do. It turned out perfect.

The girl that was acting this scene out was really nervous (she was about to cry) so we all piled out the door and waited for her scene to be over. We were trying to make her feel more comfy. I didn't get to see the real thing, but the video looked really life like. A clawed hand was swiped through the air, and over her throat. Then the three slits in her throat started to pump out blood and then she fell. When she was done, she was a huge mess. Blood was everywhere (and she was laughing about how cold it was). Jonathan did a great job, and I can only imagine what his next stunts will be like. I think the best part was when I looked over at mom and she had this pained look on her face that told me she was gonna vomit. She didn't, but she had a really hard time watching the tv. I asked her how she was gonna watch any of the movie when it was done, if she couldn't deal with horror movies and she replied that she would see it through her hands.

Tomorrow I am not sure what we will do, but I do know my parents leave at 12pm.

August 21, 1999

Shooting started at 10am today, so we were at the meeting room at 8:30. However, because of the previous night's drinking, some straggled in at 9. We packed all the gear and headed to the engineering vocational school to shoot all the cafeteria scenes. We had to get ALL of them in today, because we wouldn't be able to use the school after that.

This is where the shooting gets interesting when you have groups of people in the same room saying different things. I was positioned with another girl and our lines of acting would take all of 20 seconds. Behind us were two more girls sitting at a table. Further away was a couple making out and then there were people that would be going in and out of the room. To do all the speaking parts of the scene in order, Todd would direct the first person to speak, and then a domino affect would take place as to what happened after that (i.e. girl talks to boy, boy talks back, she spills a drink on him, he says "yow" which is a cue for another couple to start their conversation and when one of the couple leaves, it's a cue for another girl to walk in...etc.).

After that was mastered (three pages of script had to be done all in one shot), we then had to do the separate close-ups of each conversation. And each conversation had three different shots set up to it (one shot focused on one person, one shot focused on the other person, one shot on both people) so that there are different angles when they cut to the different parts of the cafeteria scene. Not only that, but if a couple is talking, and my arm is in the shot, I have to stand there as well for that scene, even if it doesn't even involve me.

As if that weren't enough, we had to pretend like we were talking about other stuff while waiting for the "real" conversation to take place. It makes sense as a group usually doesn't just sit there waiting for someone to walk up to them before a conversation takes place. It was hard just to fake a conversation, so we had a running gag of what we were talking about before the "real" conversation - a sorority girl that got out of a DUI by screwing the two cops on the cop car (Jennifer's idea). Of course, whenever I was doing my part and talking about it and about to get to the part as to how Holly got out of her DUI, we would be interrupted by Rob and start the "real" scene.

Then we had to do more split screening with even more confusing shots as we had a girl that had to leave, so we shot her close-up scene first. What's more, is that the stand-in for the actress couldn't very well turn her head at the camera to the actually place that the actress was, so we had to pretend that the cafeteria was rearranged in a way which made sense. (i.e., the actress was shot behind the stand-in, but we made it seem like she was positioned in front of the stand-in.

After everything was done, we had 4 scenes shot and it was already 5pm. It was a wrap and we were able to go out that night as tomorrow's meeting wouldn't take place until 12pm. Woohoo, plus the bar tab was on Todd. Steve and his girl made it out to the bar as well (Steve got to do more slating work today).

I guess what was most memorable about last night is that a bunch of people decided that after a few drinks, perhaps their singing voices weren't that bad after all, and proceeded to sign up to do karaoke. (Nope, I wasn't even a part of that, unless you count ridiculing them as participating). Jason (the pyrotechnic) did a horrible rendition of a song from Saturday Night Fever. I chalked it up to him being plowed. Then he told me that he only had two beers. Frightening.

After only three drinks, I was dead tired and called it a nite.

Tomorrow my parents are coming into town. Unfortunately, they have given me no time frame, so I hope I run into them by accident. Also tomorrow I am practicing my fight scene and there will be some special effects rigged up by Jonathan for another girl on her scene.

August 20, 1999

Again, another fun filled day/night of shooting. I started the day at 11:00am to meet everyone at 12. Larry Elmore (who apparently created some art for D&D) along with his male model and bimbo girlfriend (who paid more for her boobs than I did for my last car) arrived at 1pm to watch some of the shooting. Larry is a long time friend of Todd's and he invited him up to the shoot. More importantly Richard Nessler (who plays the campus rent-a-cop in the movie) showed up as well. Richard is a funny funny man and he always makes me laugh - especially at Dragon Con this past July.

Rob, Glenn, Todd and I went to scout out locations later on that day. We found a warehouse building that had 4 floors to it. It had a lot of good spots for shooting (hallways, the elevator, etc.) and more importantly, Todd found out that he knew the receptionist from high school, and so she promised to put in a good word for him with some connections she had at some schools (some places that Todd had lined up canceled at the last minute, so we had to crunch to find another location). After that we visited an engineering vocational school which said that we could shoot that night as well as the next day. Woohoo!

We packed all the equipment that night and started out for the school. We had to wait for Glenn's uncle to open the school for us (which took forever), and we shot four scenes while we were there. I was in two of them. I had to slate for the other two. My pal Steve even showed up (Yakdog for those of you that keep up with the forum) with his girlfriend for the weekend to watch the shoot. He even got to slate some of the scenes for the lobby scene. That was pretty cool, and I'd like to think he had a good time doing it.

I learned how split-screen worked. I had no idea stand-ins were used or how or even how a scene was set up using a split screen. But I found out fast where not to stand. Just one mess up of timing and the shot would have to be redone. I can hardly wait to see the finished product of that scene. (yeah, I bet you have questions as to why split screening would be used, but I can't answer them at this time - sorry - blame todd).

I did another scene with other sorority girls. I had to fake happiness at being in a sorority and that life was fabulous and gay for me. You can imagine the stretch I had to do for that one. Steve was laughing at me the whole time. He knows that the real me is nothing like that. Oh well, I 'd like to think that I did a good job faking love for the universe and especially love for a sorority.

After 6 hours of shooting, we had to pack up and leave as the uncle had to lock up the school. Richard was hot to trot on going to the bar, so we hurried up to have our drinks before the bar closed at 2:00. As it is a weekend, karaoke was in full swing when we got there, but the need to party was greater and so we stayed until close.

On an interesting side note, the role of Leslie was open, since Jenna was Leslie until she upgraded to Mary. We had to find someone fast, and Vince spotted our waitress (Mandy) from the hotel restaurant (she had served us several evenings ago). She agreed and was cast that day. Kinda funny how some people get their start. I guess if I didn't have a cam, I wouldn't even be here. :)

BTW: It seems that Chris of gigglecam is not only trying to put a cam in for the shoot, but also updating stuff that happened that day in her chronicles - so as a supplement to this diary, go to her chronicle as well.

Tomorrow? You guessed it - more shooting. Let me know if there are any questions you have in email. Maybe I am missing something in this journal that you want to know about. I will post them and answer them here as well as personally. Also, tell me if you DON'T want them posted. :)
Tough day tomorrow... shooting from 10am till ??????

August 19, 1999

Today was jam packed with movie stuff. We started our day at 8:00am only to find that Jenna had a sore throat and wasn't going to be able to make the shoot. It was no big thing as she wasn't needed and was able to rest all day.

We went to Todd's pal Jennifer's house (who also plays Holly) at noon to do both the Fraternity House scene and the Sorority House scene. It was kinda neat how both scenes could happen literally one room apart. Chris brought along her cam, and I think she will be showing all the stuff happening at the movie for the duration of the shoot, so go visit if you want to see what I am doing that day. My first job was to do the slating for the Fraternity House, which means I was the girl that would hold up that clapper thing and call out the scene number and the take number and then slam the clapper down and move out of the way. That was kinda cool. Of course it got rather tiring, and it kinda wore me down. But it was neat seeing how they would do the same take over and over again doing different shots and camera angles.

It was only three pages of script, but it took over 6 hours to complete the Fraternity House scene. That is so weird that it took that long. Of course if you saw Rob trying to pretend someone else was on the other line of the phone he was holding, you would have laughed out loud. It was almost as if he expected that there would be someone else on the other end. He got over that quickly and we moved on to the Sorority House scene.

I had to change into my costume (which took a little while and I can't tell you why as it will give away some secrets about the movie - but you will find out in time), and needed a some help. I was kinda nervous, but I think I did pretty good - I only had to do my close-up once, so that says something. We did all of our takes and then returned to finish more of the Fraternity shoot.

I think what was most annoying was Jennifer's daughter, Shelby (who is six and plays Debbie's sister in the movie) who couldn't grasp the concept of playing the quiet game. I honestly believe that if she weren't around during the shooting, we would have been done two hours sooner.

Todd was very pleased overall, and bought our bar tab for the evening. While we were there (yes, the hotel bar again) John came by to tell us of his part in the movie in Atlanta (RE: speedo guy - read August 14). He was completely horrified as he apparently had to be shirtless (although able to choose boxers over speedos) for 20 minutes of the half hour show. He also had some love scene that he had no interest or doing ("I was scared to death" says John). But apparently he did very well at it, sine most of the guys on his set said it looked totally real ("I closed my eyes and never looked down" says John). I laughed at his misfortune with him, and he got drunk and got over it.

Today was really hard work. I put in a 14 hour day, but I had a blast. If the movie business is this fun, i might have to make a career change. It didn't matter whether I was acting, or part of the crew, I had a good time and I am sure that some of these days will fly by. (of course the ones that won't will be the more difficult "all in one take" camera shots that are 15 minutes long, but I will bitch about that when the time comes.)

Tomorrow we are meeting later (as most of the cast and crew will be hungover) and we will be shooting some hallway scenes and some stairwell scenes. Sorry that I haven't been on cam much, but as much fun as I am having, this is really tiring work.

August 18, 1999

I woke up early again today (9am) to do the photo shoot for the movie poster. We were gonna take several posed shots and then Rob was going to airbrush the best one to promote HELL NIGHT. They had me on the left and then Jenna (she plays Mary) on the right with Rob in the middle. Rob was supposed to look like he was really into Jenna and shunning me, while I had my arms crossed and was supposed to look angry and jealous. When all was said and done it looked pretty much like the cover of any Sweet Valley High book. (For those of you that don't know, Sweet Valley High was a series of teen books that pretty much sucked, but the covers were really cheesy at depicting what the story MAY be about.)

Afterwards we went to Wal-Mart where Brandon and I were once again proud to be from Alabama. Yeah, we have a WalMart too, but we do enforce some sort of dress code and the hooligans do try to keep their pot smoking down to just at night in the parking lot. I wish Chris had brought her camera - I really wanted you guys to see all that.

I took a short nap after lunch and then we practiced our lines for a few hours. After making fun of others acting skills and watching Jonathan (the special effects maestro) make boils for someone's skin (he has made really cool broken throat appliances), we took off for dinner where a bunch of us were intrigued by someone's ability (who pleaded with me to remain nameless) to lead a discussion on tantric sex.

We tried to go to the pool, but were met up with uptight manager types who had once again found a reason why we couldn't swim. I am sure next time they will say no because they saw us eat in the hotel and didn't want us to swim for an hour - leaving them time to screw up the pool somehow.

We ended up in Rob's room playing video games and eating chocolate (Vince brought in the goodies). After trying to get a game of poker going, we gave up and went to Chris' room where she had the cam going. Debi and I had a cool time messing around with her cam doing cool wrestling poses and Debi showing off her thongs to the universe.

I got on my cam for a short time, but then after goofing around I looked at the clock and realized I would have 3 hours of sleep unless I got my ass to bed. Wake up call at 7am. double yugh.

August 17, 1999

Today was mainly a dry-run of our scenes and Brandon and Todd messing around with the film equipment getting angels down and practicing with the steadi-cam. Whenever we were doing a scene in which a role wasn't cast yet, we would always get someone else to read in some crazy voice. I think Vincent had the best voice of portraying a barely legal Vietnamese girl. Of course Rob did a good job with his Bugs-Bunny-as-a-female voice. We also got to see Jonathan's special effects stuff that he was using (can't get into details, but it's pretty gross).

Some of the script changes are pretty wacky (no, I can't tell you what they are, but I can tell you that they are pretty twisted) but I think we can pull them off.

Afterwards (around 6) we had some free time. Most people went off to the pool, to the store, and the bar. Jonathan, Todd and I went to run some errands. We bought my T-shirt I have to wear for the movie (Rob is gonna air brush the sorority letters) and then we are gonna cut the shirt off so I can show off my stomach (woo-hoo).

When we got back we had dinner. Vincent is really gross about food. He would take some gristle from Kevin's steak and chew on it. It was so disgusting. He seemed to eat everyone's leftover fatty pieces. Yugh. I even joked about him being the family dog. It never fazed him.

Later on in the evening we practiced our lines by rehearsing a scene that was to be done all in one shot. It was pretty difficult, but in one part of this scene Vince, Rob and Kevin all have to fall on top of each other. Mainly Vince (who is pretty huge) collapsing on both of them. They were in a lot of pain at the end of that rehearsal.

Tomorrow is the photo shoot for the movie poster, and I have to get up at 8. Ugh.

August 16, 1999

We started our day out pretty early as Vincent (he plays Wil) had his flight coming in at 8:30am. It was fun watching Brandon get mixed up in traffic. In Huntsville, we have rush minute not rush hour. We got to take a nap after coming back, had lunch (discussing the woes of some actors announcing their sexual preference) and then later picked up the rest of the cast. Jenna came in at 7pm and was thrilled to hear that Trish was detained in Canada (Trish was pretty bitchy anyway) and wouldn't be making the shoot (i.e. Jenna gets bumped up to a lead - Mary). After we picked her up, we hung out in the airport bar until Chris (gigglecam) arrived. The next flight (with Kevin and Debbie) didn't come in for another hour and half - time to suck down 2 drinks. By the time we actually got everyone situated and picked up their luggage, we were pretty loopy.

Upon returning, we made our way to the hotel bar (again) and proceeded to drink ourselves into oblivion. (well at least I did - I think everyone got toasted to the point of passing out). We played pool and darts until 1am and then went to Rob's room to play video games. The rest of it is kind of fuzzy, but I did end up in my own bed - clothed :)

Tomorrow we are going to do rehearsal readings and script changes.

August 15, 1999

It was very hard waking up the next day with a massive hangover from last night's festivities. So I didn't make it out of bed until 3pm. We spent much of the day mostly searching for food at McDonalds, talking about what to do this evening and listening to John agonize over his speedo dilemma. John had to leave for Atlanta (where his part was being shot at) that day, so we were only left with the four of us - Me, Todd, Brandon, and Rob. We spent the remainder of the day/evening practicing our lines (yep, that's what that was on cam last night), and making up good alternate lines for the movie, much to Todd's chagrin. Rob and I are in the most amount of scenes, but we rarely have any good one-liners. Rob was hoping to change that.

Jennifer (Princess MEG - photographer of MOONSET ENTERTAINMENT GROUP) came by with her daughter (a 6 year old cutie named Shelby) to listen and fill in for some of the girl roles in some scenes. We ordered a pizza, and watched Rob desperately try to portray someone in Pulp Fiction (he has a scene with gunplay and is really enthused about it), after laughing at him (he broke the gun at one point) we ordered a pizza and quit for the evening. Todd had a great idea about watching some B movies to get in the mood for the shoot. After realizing that the VCR we brought to the room isn't going to work without the remote, we called it a night.

August 14, 1999

I started out my day with showing Todd the cool jeans and white top (to be airbrushed later by Rob) I had picked out for the movie. After seeing them, he grabbed me and stuffed me in his car and we went directly to the mall (Todd said, "This is not that kind movie" - i.e. I bought a shirt that was a tiny bit too tight). After noticing that most white T-shirts were not to his liking, he decided to wait on Rob to get in to town to see about getting a purple baby tee for me instead.

When we got back, Brandon (my pal from Huntsville and the camera man) had made it into town and was looking for us. We had dinner and were waiting on Rob and John to come into town next. In the meantime, Todd and Brandon were amusing themselves with all the movie equipment and let me play on the internet for a while. Rob and John made it to Louisville (after much beer drinking on Rob's part) and were ready to go out again, so we hit the horrid Karaoke bar in the hotel and played darts and pool. John was telling us about his latest movie project (to be aired on the internet) in which he had to wear speedos. After the laughter died down, we tried to give him helpful pointers (I don't see why he just doesn't get out of it, but its a favor for a friend) that maybe could help him look good in the underwear ("It's gonna be cold, and I'm gonna be nervous," said John). The best we could come up with was to put a sock in them and hope no one asks to see the real package :)

After the Karaoke bar kicked us out at 2am, we went off to another bar called Sneakers. Brandon and I had never felt prouder of being from Huntsville, Alabama than at this moment looking at the trailer trash and bad hair. I only thought that Huntsville could be a year behind the times. This place was 2 years behind Huntsville. Amazing! Brandon and I could hardly believe it. We are taking pictures next time (the laugh factor at this club was phenomenal), because we know our friends in Huntsville will never buy the fact that there could be a town worse than where they are.

After a girl flashed our car in the parking lot (another thing you can't find in Huntsville anymore), we were off in search of something to rot our guts and found the answer - Denny's (Huntsville has this). While we were in deep discussion about something (mainly picking on Rob) the waitress told Todd that he better watch his language. (Apparently Denny's has a moral code I was unaware of). We paid our tab and took off to the hotel.

Tomorrow we are going to try to see Sixth Sense and/or play video games and/or hang out at the karaoke bar again. (Doesn't the movie life sound glamorous?). Once again, I realize no "movie" things are being done, but we are waiting for the bulk of the people to get in on Monday so we can start the shoot on Tuesday or Wednesday.

August 12 - 13, 1999

Everything was going great, I had everything packed, I had enough pills, panties and shampoo to last me for the next three weeks. I even had time to clean my house and take all the old food out of my fridge (quite a task). I was so hyped on this trip that I couldn't even get to sleep until 4:30am knowing full well I would have to drag my happy ass out of bed by 7am. My mother was taking me to the airport (1 and 1/2 hour a way) and we even tricked my alzheimer's ridden grandmother into going to this daycare place in record time before leaving. (We like to fool her by telling her its a "club" of some sort that you have to be 80 to get in. She hates it every time we pick her up from there each afternoon, but because she forgets about it, we convince her otherwise every morning.) I got to my flight on time and even managed to sleep for most of the ride to Louisville. And then I step off the plane. Todd (Director of HELL NIGHT) is no where to be found, so I assume he is downstairs or late or in traffic or lost a limb so I manage to find the baggage claim area and after paging Todd three times realized he wasn't going to be here to drive me to the hotel. I tried calling his voice mail, but it was full. After composing myself from freaking out and almost crying, (what would you do in a strange town with 8 Ramada Inns to choose from in which one has my reservation), I found the right hotel and was waiting outside the airport for the shuttle to come get me. Right as I sat down on an empty bench, I get a page - "Dawn Marie pick up a courtesy phone." I was mad by this time (I had already left obscenities on Todd's office phone) I found out that we had just missed each other and he was gonna meet me at the hotel. After checking in and getting unpacked. Todd and I went out to view the fossil bed to see where my photo shoot with my fur outfits will be taking place. Then we went to eat at some historical home and then on to Todd's favorite bar - Baileys. I was so shocked. I should have never even bothered leaving Huntsville. This bar was just like every other bar in my town (minus the Jazz Factory) complete with rednecks (trailer trash gum chewing women and men with ball hats and chewing tobacco) and buck beers. After the band Foreclosure started playing Eddie Money songs, I had had enough and we were off to Phoenix Hill Tavern to see Big Red Head (kick ass band - very techno - very eighties - all good). Then Todd showed me some other cool sights around town (the two story McDonalds and the strip club with only transsexuals).

The next day was spent moving stuff and calling various people (Rob Prior, Princess Meg, Glenn Porzig, other people connected with the movie) as well as unloading and loading movie equipment. My costumes came in (I had them shipped via UPS) and even though the box was crushed, the outfits were ok, so the photo shoot is still on and UPS won't owe me 1000 dollars :)
Glenn Porzig (co-writer of HELL NIGHT and very excellent comic book artist) came by the room, and he and Todd played with the very very very expensive camera. We saw Mystery Men (very cool outfits - I want Janine Garafalo's superhero costume) and then proceeded to the hotel bar where I drank a bourbon and coke and listened to really horrible Karaoke compliments of two very drunk girls looking to go elsewhere besides home at 2am.

I realize that none of the above has anything to do with the movie, but shooting doesn't start until Tuesday (Thursday was the only ticket I could get very cheap and the plane wasn't full), so we are filling our time up with movies and bar-hopping while more people trickle in over the weekend. Saturday - Rob Prior (he plays my ex boyfriend) and his cohort John (he plays Patrick) are coming into town along with one of my Huntsville pals Brandon (he is doing some camera work). I'll keep you posted on whatever fun comes of that this weekend. But don't expect any movie details until Tuesday.