Demons, Titles and KY Jelly...Oh My! 05/27/2011
 Early demon conceptual maquette. Photo by Larry Frank. The 2nd production meeting for BUT NEVER A GOOD ONE was scheduled for 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, May 25th. Shockingly, it was raining. Despite the assault of the elements, stemming from the Gods raging in battle on high, the intrepid band of BNAGO team members fought their way to the Dark Heart/Whatcom Filmmaker's Co-op office...and brought reinforcements! (Mental note: We need more chairs!) With each addition to the team, I can feel the whole becoming stronger and stronger. Individually, artists can be fragile beings...but together, they become a force to be reckoned with! New faces included Jack Lipke IV as our Assistant Camera Operator. Jack is a great Director of Photography in his own right and will be working closely with DP Sean Leonard. Very excited to have him working on this project! Wearing the hat of Production Still Photographer is Lawrence Frank III. Larry is using his Canon EOS 7D to help capture some of the behind the scenes images...including this meeting. He's already shown that he can do a great job of taking photos on the fly, while staying out of the way. D.K. Reinemer, as one half of the improv comedy team DK and Morgan, is something of a local celebrity. Besides being one funny guy, he's a good actor as well...and has agreed to play one of the reporters in the flick! BTW, D.K., if you are reading this, I think you're great...despite what Morgan says about you =) The newly re-named Nicole Carter (she recently got married to our Production Designer Bryce) will be handling craft services...and her first mission involved bringing coffee and still warm chocolate chip cookies to the meeting! This lady can COOK! I've had the pleasure of sampling her foodstuffs on a number of occasions and it's always been amazing. We may not end up with a lot of money for this shoot...but the food's gonna be awesome! I need to express my thanks to my lovely wife Yahtil at this point...in her efforts to keep her hubby healthy, she was quick to swoop in and confiscate a cookie or two that was headed to my mouth...in exchange for tacos! =) Speaking of my wife, she is on board as the Script Supervisor, or, as we like to say at home, the Script Monkey. She'll be in charge of continuity, tracking a myriad of details and minutia that might save us from embarrassing moments later...so we won't have to hear a viewer say something like, "Why was Charlie missing a finger on his left hand in one scene, and magically had returned in another? It's a bloody miracle!" As Script Monkey, Yahtil is demanding a set of monkey ears and a tail. I'm on it, dear!  The universal sign of choking. Photo by Larry Frank. Once we all got settled in, we got down to brass tacks. Right off the bat, Producer Mike Barbero dropped some welcome news. One of the biggest worries for me on this project has been the costumes. Taking place in 1920s rural America, it DOES require period costumes. Fortunately, Mike was able to get Michael Watters on board. Michael is heavily involved in local theater and has a variety of costumes available to us that will be perfect. While this will still leave some costume elements to be made or found, Michael's inclusion takes a weight off my shoulders. Additionally, Mike has been able to secure all the equipment that we'll need. Thanks Mike! DROP THE BUT! No, this is not some kind of code for a sexual or drug practice. Allow me to explain: From the beginning, the occasional person would ask me about the title. "Why does it start with 'But?" The short, cop-out answer is that it's from Charlie's direct quote, "I've killed men, but never a good one." I didn't want to call it I'VE KILLED MEN, because of the Woodbox Gang record...also, the point is NOT that Charlie's killed people...it's about HOW he sees that. Having said that, I have to admit that I'm a sucker for titles that are pulled from the middle of a sentence or thought...basically, I have a fetish for titles that begin with prepositions and conjunctions: and, but, and so on. Why? I don't know. So a few people have come to me and said that I should drop the "but." That NEVER A GOOD ONE is a better title. It came up yet again prior to the meeting. So, I put it out there....and it seems that I'M the ONLY person who liked the "But." I think that a good director surrounds himself with people who are smarter than him...so I concede. The project is now known as NEVER A GOOD ONE. As it turns out, EVERYONE had been bothered by the title and were waiting for opportunities to delicately bring it up with me. Who am I to argue with a roomful of smart people? A new title it is! This does NOT mean that the website title is gonna change, though. And if I continue to use the acronym BNAGO, please bare with me. It has a better ring than NAGO. =)  Sean looks like he's in trouble. Photo by Larry Frank. DEMONS!!!!! Then it came time to unveil the early concept designs for the demon. I felt that I had nailed a good design for the demon ON PAPER. But often, a three dimensional representation of that initial drawing will show that there are elements that work great on paper, but not so well as a physical object. Toward that end, I usually make a small foam sculpture of the drawing. I like using the foam, because it gives a fast, rough idea of the thing will actually look like without spending a lot of time and material on it. In this case, I saw right off the bat that I wanted to change the basic shape of the head, raise the nose and decrease the jaw size (I initially wanted to give it a severe under bite that would result in teeth jutting out when the mouth is closed. On paper that looked fine...in the maquette, I thought it just looked silly). We passed it around and we all put our two cents in. In addition to the above changes, we decided we'd like to see even MORE pronounced cheek bones. We wanted to give it a more triangular shaped head, keeping the skull like feel, but less human. We all liked the lack of eyes ("Creepy!"), the burnt flesh feel and the nodes along the top of the head. Somehow, we started discussing how the addition of slimy stuff like KY Jelly to a sculpt helps to bring it alive. Nicole pointed out that KY makes EVERYTHING better!  Early demon conceptual maquette. Photo by Larry Frank.  Yahtil's reaction to Nicole's KY Jelly theory. Photo by Larry Frank. I explained how there is going to be an actor wearing a demon costume and essentially an unarticulated mask for long shots. However, a separate mechanical demon head is being constructed for closeups. That's where Ivan comes in. Ivan explained how he can rig a hand operated mechanism to the back of the demon head to control the jaw and how he can rig a cable controlled device to make brows/side nodes move under the foam latex skin. While I like the human side of the story, I have to admit: my main reason for doing a project like this is to BUILD MONSTERS! Turns out, that's what Ivan's excited about too =) The next step in the creature design is to sculpt a more permanent maquette bust that reflects all the changes and more accurately represents the final project. Watch for that soon! SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!  A true producer, Mike perks up at the mention of money. Photo by Larry Frank I updated everyone on the progress of the crowdfuning sites. For those who don't know crowdfunding is, here's a brief run-down. In the past, when you needed funds for a low budget film, you either maxed out your credit cards and went into massive debt (I talking to you Kevin Smith, you lucky bastard), or you sought out investors to fund the film. The problem with investors is that you normally were trying to secure large amounts of money from one or two people who would see the project as an "investment:" something might give them a return. That's a tough sell. However, using the powerful tool of the internet, a couple of sites have sprung up that take the more realistic route of "crowdfunding:" essentially casting a WIDE NET, getting A LOT of people to contribute a LITTLE bit of money each, not so much as monetary investment (which suggests a return), but as a contribution to a worthwhile work of ark. It allows the viewer/donator to take part ownership of the product. By offering them perks, such as a credit or copy of dvd, etc., they get a little something extra and have the knowledge that they helped to produce something cool. The two main crowdfunding sites are Kickstarter and Indiegogo. I am cutting a short "teaser" promo video to include on the crowdfunding sites. I've found that the projects on these sites that have some video tend to do better than those with just descriptions and photographs. I just needed one more element to complete the teaser. I needed to have a basic representation of the demon to add to the end of the teaser. Toward that end, see below:  Scott White, mild mannered bartender. Photo by Larry Frank  Emissary from Hell!!!  I demonstrate the size of the demon's breasts. Photo by Larry Frank Overall, it was another successful meeting. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, further tightening the bond as a team and a lot got covered. Actors Scott White and Dann Warick were both given some material to go home and research, in an attempt to gain greater insight to their characters. Rick Farr, originally slated to play Guard #2, got a promotion of sorts, to the larger role of News Photographer. The role of Prop Master was given to Bryce Carter. As the Production Designer, Bryce is not only responsible for set construction, but the "look" of the set as well. This includes the use and management of props. He is already assembling his department's team! This was to be the last of the "Pre" pre-poduction meetings. From here on out, the meetings become task specific, going over certain things with certain people, monitoring progress, identifying problems and dealing with them. The September shooting schedule is fast approaching and we have a lot to do! As the old song says, "We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there!" But with this team, I know we'll succeed.  Dave approves of the demon's breasts. Photo by Larry Frank Tune in next time, when we take a look at individual team members and check out their mad skills! You'll see why I'm so excited to have this team. Until then.... Langley CommentsLincoln Bellow Fri, 27 May 2011 05:07:40 Sounds like a lot of fun, I'm jealous =) Langley West Fri, 27 May 2011 13:39:50 It IS fun...but as September looms on the horizon, the stress levels are starting to amp up. I just hope that we can make something cool. Langley West Fri, 27 May 2011 13:53:18 So, I learned something revolutionary with this post...it's called PROOF READING! I can't believe how many skipped/missing words are in this thing! Sat, 02 Jul 2011 08:18:34 Sean did look like he was being berated! Lol! Great blog, Langley.:) Leave a Reply |
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