Hey, it’s been a good weekend for the movie!

BLOOD!

On Friday night, I met two of my actors at the house of Bubs. His eldest daughter (Dystopia) is handling makeup for the movie. Two of the characters are going to get head wounds, and I wanted to do a test where I could get a sense as to what is possible.

Head wound for “Casey”

Head wound for “Ray”

The Casey character has a cut on his forehead, while Ray will have a wound on his scalp.

I really liked how things looked, but after the actors left I had mentioned to Dystopia that I would like Casey’s wound to be messier. She played around with some different things. She took some greasepaint and mixed it up with some of her fake blood to create a dirty-looking, clumpy mixture, which I think will be absolutely great to surround the wound. Here’s the mixture on her arm:

VOMIT!

I have four main actors in the movie. I was able to wrangle time in which all would be available, on Saturday the 19th. The actors are all located in Chicago. Some have their own car, some don’t. We had a small two-hour window to rehearse, so I thought it would be better for me to drive into Chicago to meet them.

Since the movie takes place outside, I thought it would be fine if we rehearsed in a park — I picked Portage Park, for no particular reason. Another reason for rehearsing in a park was that I didn’t really *have* a place inside to rehearse in Chicago.

Well, as Saturday approached, I kept a close eye on the weather forecast — about six days before Saturday there was a prediction for a 60% chance of thunderstorms. I started scrambling for an indoor place to have the rehearsal. I called several park districts but was unsuccessful in reserving a room.

I sent an email to my actors a couple days before the rehearsal, confirming times, etc., and asked if they had any ideas should weather become a problem.

One of the actors recommended Welles Park, which was in a neighborhood where I used to live. In the time I have moved away they have installed a large gazebo. I was happy and relieved when he told me about this, and we switched the rehearsal to Welles.

If you weren’t in Chicago on Saturday, let me assure you it was a thoroughly rainy and shitty day. It rained for hours without letting up. I had directed the actors to meet me on the corner of Lincoln and Montrose (the southeast corner of the park). I got there early, so was sitting in my car for a bit. I popped out of my car briefly to see if anyone had arrived. A man in a white minivan pulled up and rolled down his window. He yelled at me (in a friendly way): “The PLAYOFFs are CANCELED!”

“Huh?” I replied.

“The PLAYOFFs are CANCELED!”

“Thank you,” I said.

I looked behind me and saw a woman, and a kid dressed in a Cubs uniform.

The playoffs I speak of are also referenced by Johnny Yen here. Mr. Yen, in case you weren’t aware, the PLAYOFFs are CANCELED.

So anyways, all the actors eventually arrive and we head toward the gazebo. The gazebo was quite lovely and spacious, and perfect for the rehearsal. The one minor drawback to the space was a large chunky brown streak of vomit in the gazebo’s center. I think we all finished the rehearsal with only a little bit of vomit on our shoes. Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the vomit.

MISCELLANEOUS!

After the rehearsal, I still had some very important business to deal with. There’s a very large furniture store in the main location of the movie. We are actually going to be shooting on a street where the side of its building will be very visible.

I wanted to make sure I asked their permission to shoot there. I drove down and spoke with the manager. After I explained the details of the shoot, he was perfectly fine with us being there, as long as we didn’t obstruct the store from doing business. I asked him if it would be possible to use his bathroom and a couple power outlets as well (seeing as we aren’t going to have a generator or a portable toilet with us) and he was fine with that, too.

A lot of my stress melted away when I found out they were fine with us being down there.

*******

Last night, I met with my cinematographer friend Lance, and we hashed out a lot of storyboard ideas for the film. Lance had a couple really neat ideas which I’m really looking forward to doing.

Okay, that should be enough updates for anybody who has the faintest interest in this moviemaking process.

So, in my movie, there is a crashed car. I’m renting the car-to-be-crashed (a convertible) for the duration of the shoot.

I am not planning on *really* crashing the car. I don’t need to show lots of damage on it, but I would like it to have a cracked windshield. Okay, so how do I accomplish this?

On Wednesday after work, I drove to an auto glass place in Naperville. Here’s a friendly tip — don’t drive to Naperville from downtown during rush hour. Ever.

I had called the place earlier and said I wanted to get a cracked windshield, and they said they had no problem giving me one for free.

I rolled into their parking lot just as they were getting ready to close. They pointed me to a dumpster out back that had several broken windshields sticking out of it.

I put down the back seats in my car and carefully laid down one of the cracked windshields. The windshield I obtained wasn’t for the car I’m going to be getting (hopefully, a Ford Mustang). My thought was to try and lay the windshield over the existing windshield of the car, and see how it looks.

I spoke with an employee of the shop for a while before I headed out. He gave me a couple warnings. 1) Be careful handling the windshield, because it might have some sharp edges (it is broken glass, after all) and 2) Be very careful when putting the windshield on the other car, because it wouldn’t be too hard to break or scratch the real windshield with the broken one.

I haven’t tested laying the broken windshield on a car yet. Maybe I’ll get to it this weekend.

Another option for faking a broken windshield may be to purchase some window film (a very thin layer of plastic), affixing it to the windshield, then somehow drawing cracks on the film to give the appearance of cracks. I would need to figure out what to use to draw the cracks — I wouldn’t want it to look cheesy.

I’ll keep you informed, probably post some pictures if I get a solution that doesn’t look too half-assed.

An actor I was hoping to use for a small speaking role in my movie is going to be out of the country.

I may have to step in.

For the record, I *hate* it when filmmakers appear in acting roles in their own movies.

Okay, Hitchcock gets a free pass, because he pretty much started the whole director-in-a-cameo business, to the best of my knowledge.

But I don’t want to see Jon Favreau in a greasy big toupee driving Tony Stark around.

I don’t want to see Martin Scorsese with ridiculous hair getting turtledoved by Cameron Diaz in Gangs of New York (note that there about five horribly wrong things mentioned in this single sentence).

I don’t want M. Night Shyamalan talking about how he ran over Mel Gibson’s wife, or almost get caught selling drugs by Bruce Willis, or — okay, I don’t want M. Night Shyamalan at all.

I am not happy about doing this. For the record, if I do this part, it will be out of necessity.

And now, I grow a mustache. (oh, that I were kidding)

My upcoming short film, like pretty much any film, requires preparation. Locations must be scouted. Actors must be auditioned. Props must be acquired. Wardrobe must be selected.

There are a couple of brief shots where some of my actors will be bare-assed. These bare-ass shots will be outside, on the street, in an urban setting.

Since I am going to have some bare-assed actors around, I need to worry about their junk showing. To be more precise, I need to worry about their junk *not* showing. They can’t wear thong underwear, because I don’t want any straps showing from behind.

I was consulting with a couple people, and one of them mentioned spirit gum as a way of adhering fabric to the nether regions. I look up spirit gum on the Wikipedia and see a link to merkins.

Ah ha! So that’s what they’re called. I need merkins.

There’s a great, huge costume store on Milwaukee Avenue I’ve been to called Fantasy Costumes. They’re a treasure chest for all kinds of costumes, for Halloween, or any day besides Halloween.

On their website I pop “merkin” into the search criteria and hit the “Go…” button. Hmm. When I clicked it, it said the “Adult Costume” portion of the store was down. (however, if you type “merkin” today it provides this amusing result):

Anyways, I call up the store and ask if they have merkins. The woman who answered my call briefly puts me on hold — I presume to get the salesperson who works the “Adult” costume portion of the store, who then picks up.

The salesperson indicates they have a black one and a brown one.

“I really need four,” I reply.

“We may have a few more around,” she says.

“Great! I’ll be right over!”

So, on a beautiful Sunday afternoon I drive up Cicero Avenue. I reach the store, park on Milwaukee and head inside.

“I need some merkins,” I say.

The woman behind the counter gives me the faintest of looks, then reaches into a glass display case. She drops two plastic baggies onto the counter. They each contain what appears to be a mound of pubic hair (one is black, one is brown).

“Whoa, whoa, I don’t need these,” I said.

“These are merkins,” she says.

“Then I don’t need merkins,” I say.

I explain my needs to her, trying my best to sound civilized and not at all creepy.

She suggests I purchase some flesh-covered material from a fabric store and fashion my own modesty garments. She sells me some “men’s grooming tape” (normally used for affixing hairpieces and such), and even draws a nice diagram to help me with the shape of the garment and strategic placement of tape.

So, it’s one more step towards getting my film ready, and one more slice of innocence lost.

Click on pic for larger foreboding

My friend Lance, who is going to be doing the photography on my upcoming short film, came down to my work yesterday so we could both visit the deserted industrial location I had scouted (he hadn’t seen it in person yet).

Unfortunately, Lance had to sit around for 45 minutes or so while I scrambled around and tried to get a bad IT situation under control.

Finally, after my horrific 12-hour workday ended, we walked out and I took the above picture.

Lanced liked the industrial location for the most part. I have a sort-of risque shot of some bare asses in a commercial shopping area, a shot that I would like to try to fake at the industrial location. Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything really appropriate to serve as a shopping district background.

After the NYC trip and some recent family stuff, I am finally able to fully concentrate on this movie. It’s going to be difficult, it’s going to be a challenge, but I hope it will be fun, too.

I’ll try my best at providing some periodic updates as to my progress, so you can more easily graph my descent into madness.

When we were scouting locations, we found a brick building at the end of a long, overgrown road.

Upon closer inspection we realized it was an old, boarded-up Chicago Fire Department building.

It was kind of weird seeing a building I was more used to in a crowded urban neighborhood, all by its lonesome here.

What’s that? You say you want video of the building?

Alright, alright, here it is:

Today, I went location scouting on the south side of Chicago again. I found a few areas of note, but nothing as good as what I found at 37th and Loomis.

I revisited this location again and think it will work for what I need it for. It’s got a lot of interesting things — overgrown weeds, trucks done up with some graffiti, boarded-up buildings, an old brick street. I think it is going to work.

Here’s a few more pictures of the location, from today’s excursion.

So, I took another excursion earlier this evening, this time visiting a neighborhood off Ashland Avenue, near I-55.

I’m still scouting for locations for my upcoming short film.

I liked what I saw tonight. The buildings were a little bigger, things were a little rougher, not as well-kept as some of the other industrial areas I have visited. The neighborhood itself wasn’t that rough, at least that’s the impression I got.

Here are some pictures.

I had the day off today, so spent a little time at one of the locations I liked on a previous location scouting session. I had seen it at night, but hadn’t yet seen it in the daytime on a weekday.

It was largely deserted, except for some cars parked down at Mike’s Anodizing at the northern end of the block.

I dunno. It could work, but my search might not be over yet. It’s not that bad for a deserted industrial area, which is what I’m looking for.

What do ya think?

So, I met with my four main actors last night at the lovely Lincoln Restaurant on Lincoln Avenue.

I gave them a rundown of the prepwork I done for the film thus far, answered questions they had, etc.

We did a readthrough of the script, something which I had never done before. They read their parts, and I read the screen direction and the remaining acting parts.

It was strange. I had never done a readthrough before. I think it went well, though in hindsight readthroughs are probably done better in private than at a restaurant.

I want to do a couple rehearsals in July, and I’ll also need two of the actors to come in so we can decide on the makeup for their head wounds (yes! head wound makeup!).

I drove by the Spaulding location again and it was still pretty deserted, which is a good thing. I managed to snap some negative space signage along the way as well.

So, I’m going to go ahead and call the evening a success.

“Evening, you were a success!”

P.S. I have never seen Party of Five. I didn’t know Matthew Fox was in it (nor do I really care)!