Then Tyler and I found a Rax restaurant, which we haven’t eaten in for 20 years. We topped our adventure off with chocolate chip shakes and Rax barbeque. Could this day get any better?

Yes. Yes, it could. George Lauris, from “Sasquatch, the Legend of Bigfoot,” did some narration for our film. It arrived today. And to quote Tyler (via Twitter): “Holy Crapenstein! Too awesome!”

So, how was your day?

Annual Bigfoot Conference

Last year, Don Keating, of the Eastern Ohio Bigfoot Investigation Center, was kind enough to let us shoot a scene at his Annual Bigfoot Conference held at Salt Fork State Park in Ohio.  As a result, our conference scene will feature several real-life Bigfoot researchers with our fictional ones.  We’ve just started doing the necessary legal paperwork, and so far we’ve for Dr. Jeff Meldrum officially on board, and several others who have verbally agreed.   Very cool.  We’re very thankful to everyone involved.  This scene will go a long way to helping make this film the authentically Bigfooty experience we’re hoping to present.

Me and Bob Gimlin

P.S.  Them Bigfooters were EXTREMELY nice.  Everyone was very helpful and accomodating to me.  People get the idea that a Bigfoot Conference is a freak show – I, myself, didn’t know  what to expect when I went – but it was really nothing of the sort.  Lots of families in attendance and a lot of friendly normal people.  The Conference itself was very impressive.  If you love you some Bigfoot, it’s really a lot of fun.  Go there.  Also, I ate a Bigfoot cookie.

Cleveland Shoot with Lynn Lowry

Where the hell are we going?

Most of March was spent planning for what turned out to be our most expensive shoot on the film.  We have a short scene where Stephan’s character goes off by himself and meets a stranger living in an old, creepy house.  We had been talking about getting a name actor for a small role in our film… for years really, before we even started working on Grassman.  With our original budget, this wasn’t really a possibility, but I’ve been making some extra money by working on sports shoots on the side, and I felt with this scene – and with the slight break in our schedule caused by the cold weather – that it was a perfect opportunity to learn this particular skill.  I’ve begun thinking of The Legend of Grassman as my film school and so I like to set up lessons for myself – to teach myself specific skills.  Since 1999 when I took Dov S S Simens’ 2 Day Film School, I had become aware that I had the power to not only produce my own film right now (this was a novel idea for me at the time) but also to get a name actor in that movie.  It’s not a superpower.  Anyone can do it.  All you need is a project, money, and the ability to stop being a chicken shit.  Finally I found myself in a position where I had all three.

So we picked an actress and I went after her.  Used that IMDb Pro to get her manager’s contact info.  Emailed him with an offer and immediately received a response to give him a call that night.  I was terrified, but I wrote down notes about what kind of film we were doing and about the role and called him up and tried to subdue my chickenshitness.  When I hung up, it occurred to me that there’s no reason to be nervous.  I’m hiring someone to do a job.  Like calling a plumber.  I offer them money and they either say yes or no.  So I hung up, feeling like a badass.  A total badass.

The phone call did not get me an actress.  It did, however, give me a direction to head in.  I had never heard of Lynn Lowry or seen any of her films at this point, but once I took a look at her demo reel, I knew I wanted her.  Eventually, I was able to get in touch with her, make an offer, negotiate (holy shit, I’m negotiating with an actress) and we made a deal.

Lynn Lowry bringin' it...

In my dumbass mind, I thought I could do this for cheaper if I went to her rather than flying her to Cincinnati.  She was scheduled to be in Cleveland (about 5 hours away) soon for the Cinema Wasteland horror convention, so we planned to shoot then.  I paid to change her flight (which was more expensive than I imagined) and put her up in her hotel room for a couple extra days.

Then came the process of finding a location in a city I had only visited a handful of times.  I was looking for an old Victorian house.  I had this idea that the scene should be like a quick trip to Psycho or Dracula, in the midst of a film that was took most of its inspiration from 1970′s Bigfoot movies and 1930′s adventure films.  Chuck Gove, from Haunted Cleveland Ghost Tours, was kind enough to direct me to the Robert Russell Rhoades House, a 19th century home currently occupied by the Cuyahoga County Archives.

The people I spoke with from the County were very accommodating, helpful, and eager to work with us.  Unfortunately, due to the historic nature of our location, there were extra expenses involved, including liability insurance for the duration of the shoot.  (We don’t do no insurance.)  To that, add the cost of gas for two trips up and back (location scout, and shoot), rental car (my wife and mother-in-law insisted my car wouldn’t make it (thankfully)) food and hotel rooms for the crew (thank goodness for Priceline) and it became an extremely expensive shoot compared to what we are accustomed to.

So, a terrible idea for a no-budget movie.  Don’t shoot five hours away to try to piggyback on your actress’ convention schedule.  This is probably a no-brainer, but being an idiot, it’s tough for me to tell.

As a film school class, it was AWESOME.  Money well-spent.  College can go suck it.  Our location was incredible.  Lynn was absolutely amazing to work with.  She’s very easy going and incredibly talented.   Watching Lynn perform our script, I felt like a teenage girl at a Justin Bieber concert – she was amazing.  I’ve never had raw footage that was so fun to watch.

Other Stuffs

Shooting in Real Restaurant = Production Value

We recently had a great shoot at the Little River Cafe in Oregonia, Ohio.  It’s for one of those exposition scenes that set up the movie at the beginning.  Justine Moore joined our cast as a waitress.  And thanks to Mark Burris, who owns the restaurant and was gracious enough to allow us to shoot there, we also had – for the first time ever – EXTRAS!  It was weird.  We never have extras.  I didn’t know what to do with them.

In addition to Lynn and the Bigfoot researchers, we’re working on getting a couple more guest stars, which we will tell you about when the contracts are signed.

Stephan Meyer, who plays one of our main characters, just finished up the last of his scenes this past Saturday, so we have kicked him off the set.  This leaves two more main characters, who’ll be finished up soon, and a couple short scenes involving different actors.  Production is almost DONE.  Seriously.

Seriously.

First of all, we finished the last of our outdoor shooting. This is a tremendous milestone, considering that 80% of the film takes place outside in the woods. We managed to get in about 5 more shooting days before the weather would no longer permit it.  But we got a lot of good footage during those five days, including the majority of the climax (what’s left will be mentioned below).

These were not easy days. People were tired and worn out. Schedules, as usual, were tough to coordinate. But, folks hung in there and gave their all. And I think it will show in the end product.

Getting the shot, anyway we can.

Since then, Tyler has been continuing to edit the film. I’ve seen much of the new stuff from this year added in and it looks damn good. I have been working on rewriting the few remaining scenes to account for location and story changes. And we both have been having meetings regarding the stuff that’s left. And in between all of that, we have been dealing with real life, which is it’s own unique type of pain in the ass. I think I speak for us both when I say that the bullshit, imaginary world of moviemaking is way more fun.

"Death and danger are my various breads and various butters."

Which leads me to what is next. We have three indoor scenes to shoot with the three core actors. We are location scouting for two of them, and one is inside a vehicle. We have one indoor scene that is half complete, but the location is not available until the weather gets nicer. And we have some effects shots to do in the studio (We call anywhere people let us shoot indoors “the studio.” We’re kinda like filmmaking hobos that way.).  One of the key effects bits involves the climax of the film and a really cool stunt that would kill people if we tried if for real. Which, of course, we considered.

Tyler, with his Nth adventure hat on, makes magic out of fur and leaves.

Add to that all the work that needs to done in post (more editing, sound, visual effects, music), and we still have a ways to go. But we are confident that the film will premiere this year. Somewhere.

Insanity: the final stage of filmmaking

What then? Who knows. But, keep checking here for updates and more insight on this ate-up process as we put the finishing touches on the greatest bigfoot movie to ever to be made for a few grand by two jackasses and a team of untrained professionals in their own backyard. Ever!

So, we’re determined to grab the days when we can and get this film finished before the fall (or rather, before Mother Nature decides to mess with us again). In the meantime, we have been working on what we can; Tyler editing our footage into a very viewable rough cut, myself working on some scene rewrites, our make-up FX  head creating and testing new blood formulas (enjoying it a little too much sometimes, I think).  So, without further ado, or excuses, I give you Day 23 of shooting.

Day 23 – August 1, 2010

After a day of purchasing supplies, dusting off the wardrobe, arranging the availability of the actors, and confirming a shooting location,  the team was ready to begin another intensive day of shooting in the woods.

Tyler and his army of one.

We arrived on location and I was pleased to see a familiar face onset: Kirk. Kirk has been a friend of Tyler’s for many moons, and he helped us out on our short film The Projection Booth. He had been following our progress via this wonderful blogstrosity here, and had offered his services should we need. Hell yeah, we do! In fact, just a few nights before I had told Tyler that he desperately needed a right-hand man, or two, to work with him through the organized chaos that is our shooting style. Being so short-staffed, while intentional, has also been a bit of a hindrance.

So, it was cool to see Kirk again after all this time. And it eased my mind to know that Tyler had someone there whom he knew and trusted, and who knew him and his bizarreness, to provide needed support. Kirk would be our sound guy this shoot. Awesome!

You think you're above the law?

Stephan, Max, and I geared up. Today would be a actiony day. Two scenes, both with a fair share of running, ducking, jumping, falling, and slamming into trees.  The first 2/3 of the day was a lot of me doing the aforementioned physical work. It was surprisingly hot, and I was soaked, exhausted, and not feeling well by the time we finished. For some reason, only a handful of water bottles were brought down from the vehicles into the woods, so it was a while still before I got any fluids in me.

"More action hero, and less you, please."

Stephan had a stunt, which he nailed several times very well, and then he and Max had some running of their own to do. And it was done. It’s been rare, but I love when we get a whole scene finished in a day, more-or-less on schedule.

We then headed back out to the Lebanon, OH location for a couple of quick pickup shots for a scene that seemed to be missing some things.

Water... why did it have to be water?

Max was not pleased to find out that he was going to wind up in the creek for what would be the second time.  But, he stuck it out. We shot there for about an hour or so, then called it a day. Everyone did a terrific job and it felt good to get back into the groove. And Kirk jumped right into the mess without missing a beat. It was a good day.

August 2, 2010 – August 4, 2010

I have heat exhaustion, having been severely dehydrated from the 5 hrs in the heat.  I spend the next 3 days dizzy, cramping, nauseous, and swimming in Powerade.  I curse my stupidity for not ensuring we had enough fluids on set because, as a former EMT and US Army Medic, I most definitely know better. I decide that I would rather be accidentally caught on fire again than to let myself get dehydrated like this again. In a light-headed daze, I silently make a Khan-like vow to avenge myself.

Day 21 – April 16, 2010

This was a short day of shooting, just to get a some… well, I’ll let Tyler explain:

Day 22 – May 29, 2010

“Holy shit! We gots cave!” I believe were my exact words when Tyler informed me that he had made contact the owners of a cave/mine and they were excited about allowing us to shoot for a day out there. The awesome folks at the Lewisburg Haunted Cave agreed to permit us to film our cave scene in the mines which they use to run a kick-ass haunt attraction every year. So, Tyler arranged the shoot date with them, and our cast and crew, and Thundercats were GO.

Despite last minute travel instructions and arrangements that could easily have gone horribly wrong, everyone made it to the location, about an hour north of our Cincinnati base of operations. I have been to caves before, but none this large and not for this length of time. Let me just say: this mine was intimidating.  80+ feet below the surface, 40 miles of tunnels, home to 30,000 bats. This wasn’t just a film set. This shit was the real deal.

Well, that looks mighty inviting....

Several members of the crew had some serious anxiety to overcome, but everyone was professional and dedicated, doing what they had to to make this work. We all went deep inside the mine to the location Tyler had picked out. If we thought the woods were dark at night, well this place was pure nothingness without the lights. Fortunately I had purchase a lantern the night before, which not only did an excellent job of providing some workable light, but also managed to light the scenes for us as well. Why? Because we had no electricity. At all.

Everyone was on the money, performance-wise. It was as if we had never had the past 6+ months off.  People jumped right into character, folks worked together through scenes, joked around like always. It was excellent. The crew was also on with extra set dressing, props, make-up… you name it, and everyone was brought their A-game.

Anybody remember what the hell this movie's about...?

One scene in particular, involving everyone’s favorite cryptid Bigfoot, was so good that everyone, including the workers of the Haunted Mine who came on set to watch, was dead silent. You could hear a bat shit, it was so quite. And it was perfect.

So, this was a tremendous return to filming. Exactly what we needed: actors on, crew focused, and a location that makes our film look way better than it may actually be.

After countless takes, nothing remained of the actors but bones...

I especially want to thank Jebenezzer Law and the folks at the Lewisburg Haunted gave. If you have a chance this fall to check them out, I highly recommend it. However, per Jebenezzer’s recommendation, bring a change of pants. They’ve won awards for… that.

Their website: http://www.hauntedcaveatlewisburg.com/

Their Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lewisburg-Haunted-Cave/121195016829

EARFDHFRGEHH-DGGGHHHH!!!!!!!

And then October came.  And the shoot didn’t stop. It kept going.  The plan was to shoot most of it in September and then in October we’d kind of take it easy.  Get a scene here.  Do a scene there.  But Mother Nature handed us our own asses in September, and when we weren’t having our asses handed to us, it actually still took a lot longer to shoot than I had planned.  Not once did we stay on schedule in September – on those days that we actually had a schedule.

And now October was here.  And the shoot kept going.  We’d have a couple days off between shoots, but it kept going.  The seasons were about to change and the falling leaves were a constant reminder that the clock was ticking on our little filmmaking endeavor.  But after a while, that would become a comfort to me.  There was no end to the shoot in sight, but the leaves WOULD disappear.   Winter WOULD come.   And it did.  And we all packed up and got there hell out of there.

Tyler in his lair...

And in the dark recesses of my underground editing lair, I began to assess the damage.  Putting scenes together.  Figuring out what we had.  What we needed to get.  What we needed to do over.  I didn’t get too far with that when we realized we could really use a new trailer.   We still have a good chunk of the film to complete; only now we have less money and a tired cast and crew who have already endured a long hellish (good) shoot.  So, Dennis and I figured, we first needed to get everyone excited again, and also create a showreel that we could use for convincing new partners that we aren’t out of our minds (I have determined that at least 50% of the people we come into contact with, when told that we are “independent filmmakers” actually THINK we said “We are out of our freakin minds.  I EAT MY OWN FLESH!  EEET!!!  EEEET!!!”).

We are independent filmmakers!

So I began the arduous trailer-making process where you take a bunch of unrelated footage from the hours and hours of footage you’ve shot and start piecing it together to tell a story that is similar to your actual story, only shorter and containing just the really good parts, only without actually giving away the good parts cause then you’ll ruin the movie.

I don’t really know how to do that too well.  So I cheated a bit.  I found a trailer I liked and slapped my shots on top of their shots.  Throw in some music and half-assed digital effects in there and we gots ourselves a trailer.

And we’ve gotten some pretty positive reaction online from the trailer, and that’s been really cool.  It’s a bit surreal to me that people are talking about this movie while we’re still making it – that’s NEVER happened to us – but it’s very cool.

As I write this, I am locked in my aforementioned underground editing lair for the next week, editing what we have and planning Phase 2 of the shoot.  We have Phases.  By the end of the week, we’ll have a solid plan for moving forward that will put us on track to finish this bastard this year.  Woot!  Woot!  Crazy Town, here I come!

You tell 'em I'm comin'! And Crazy Town's comin' with me!

One Sheet

Day 19 – Nov 1

We’ve have a bit of a break. The weather today is not too bad. Sun is out. And since we’ve got Rich and Matt on set we figure we’re going to squeeze whatever we can out of the opportunity. Tyler decides we’re going to get some more walking footage (which we need plenty of) and shoot a few dialog scenes. And that is pretty much what we do the whole day, except for an impromptu soccer break.

"There she was just a walkin down the street, singin..."

We get some dialog with Matt, Rich, and Max that we had missed earlier, and I am done for the day, so I hang around pretending to produce something. Although it did not seem like the most productive day, it was all necessary footage and would have to be done sometime.  Actually turned out to be a nice, laid-back, relaxing day of shooting.

We called it a day, thus ending our first leg of shooting with the primary cast members.  Everyone went their separate ways, eager awaiting the arrival of spring.  Tyler went to Disney World with his wife for a couple of weeks. I began working on other writing projects, and kept telling myself I needed to update this blog.

Day 20 – Nov 21

We resumed shooting this day for something a bit different. This day would involve a semi-different location (up ’til now, we only shot exteriors of this place) with half of the day being interior scenes. That’s right. We were finally going indoors! And by “we” I mean a whole other set of actors. Today, we would be joined by Dennis (my son, because it’s nepotism, not nope-otism), Erin, and Naomi. Another addition on set this day would be Steve, who designed our bigfoot face, and who would be lighting and assisting Tyler.

Yes… lighting. This would be the first real use of lighting on the film. Most of the time, Tyler has wanted to capture things in natural light. It may not have worked out on some of the previous night shots (that remains to be seen), but this scene actually requires light in specific ways to strategically show (or hide) things. As the producer/jobless person on set, all I can say is that is looks cool from where I stand.

Let there be light!

Most of the scene involves Erin and Naomi, and then Naomi on her own. Both of them did excellent work, despite an early case of the giggles by one of the players (whose name rhymes with “air in”). Stephan was on set for the weapon scene. Noami did her outside scene alone, in the freezing cold,  and nailed it every take. Everyone filled up on pizza, we got a few more shots in, then called it a winter. From what I have seen of the footage, it looks terrific. It was a great note to end the first phase of shooting on.

This concludes the journal of the first part of shooting. Although we intended to get the entire movie filmed during this time, we came to learn that things rarely work out as planned and that you have to be able to adapt quickly and cheaply, and keep moving forward.

We are lucky enough to have a cast and crew of excited, dedicate folks who, despite the obstacles we faced, pushed through with us without complaint, without negativity, and without calling Tyler and I names.  So, to them, I say “Thank you” and I look forward to seeing you in the spring.

Stay tuned to this blog for more info on the film, like what we’re doing during the downtime, and for any other developments.

Day 16 – Oct 22

After some good days the past couple weekends, this day seemed less than productive. It was a weekday. Most of our cast was not available, so we attempted to get some key bigfoot scenes shot. Kick ass scenes. Climactic action-filled scenes. Although, I was not acting in any scenes, and I have not seen any of the footage from the day, my impression was that what we filmed was the exact opposite.

Shit.

If we’ve learned anything during this film it is the following: 1) action sequences take FOREVER to shoot, and 2) if you aren’t prepared, they will kick your ass and you will lose.  Unfortunately, given our budget, actor availability, and the schedule we are now forced to abide by, we often find ourselves picking the days shot list out the night before and hoping that we have what we need when we get on set.

Bigfoot takes a breather.

This day, we had everything we need but a plan. Bigfoot (aka Jory) was there. Max was present. We had the weapons, set pieces, and blood. What didn’t we have? A choreographed fight. All our locations picked. All of our stunts/effects thought out. And a bigfoot that could stay awake and didn’t have to work in a few hours. In my opinion as producer, we did not get much useful out of the day (Tyler may say different), other than the knowledge of what we really need to pull the climax off.

Day 17 – Oct 24

In an attempt to recover from Thursday’s fail, we decided, same folks on hand, to shoot some of the less involved but equally necessary bigfoot shots. Some chasing, deep in the woods, wreaking havoc kinda stuff. The lack of planning was less of an issue with these scenes.

Timing a running stunt, with something lurking in the trees...

Until later in the day. We have a scene where the sasquatch ascends a tree. Problem: Jory cannot really function well enough in the suite to safely climb. What we devised involved special angles, a tractor, and an unhealthily skewed perception of reality. Needless to say, it did not work at all.

One thing I noticed was that Tyler was not quite himself, and was getting worse as the day went on. I took him aside and asked him if he was okay, and that I felt he was kind of off. For a second, he seemed to take offense at this, but insisted he was fine. I chalked it up to exhaustion, trying to make sure he had plenty of fluids and was eating.

We got off a couple more shots and then called it a day.

Day 18 – Oct 25

This was going to be a good day, even if it was going to kill us. And it was decided that the first to be killed would be me.

We started the day with some stunts involving my falling over the edge of a gorge. The plan was for me to run up to the edge of an actual gorge cliff, stop myself from falling with a branch, then break the branch and slip and fall over the edge. The problem was that the aforementioned branch had ideas of its own, in a conspiracy to kill me along with the muddy earth. Twice.

The ass of an actor that does his own stunts.

That’s right. Twice I ran up to the edge, grabbed the branch, which immediately broke, felt my feel give way in the wet ground, and proceeded to really fall down the little cliff towards Tyler shooting below. My back hit hard, my ass was covered in mud, and I stopped myself before hitting Tyler. But, it was real and I think it was good shit. It better be, or I will be doing it again.

The remained of the day involve Jeidy rejoining us for some walking scenes, some camp scenes with Rich, and a reshoot of some of the coyote scenes. All of it seemed to go well and everyone’s spirits seems better. It was a much more fun day of shooting.

Shooting the cryptozoologists in action.

On a separate note, I had a talk with Tyler later that night and he revealed to me that he was, in fact, taking a doctor-prescribed medication with was having a severely adverse effect on him. Turns out his exhaustion was actually a side effect of the medicine. He informed me that he was now off the medicine, was feeling better, and it would be out of his system in few days. And he would be himself again.

God help us all…