Posts Tagged ‘canyon country’

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I thoroughly enjoyed this project and I am so excited to see the finished product. With any film there are always an array of obstacles and challenges you are faced with and the trick is make everyone else think that everything is running as smoothly as possible. Needless to say we had a few of our own challenges. From rain on our first day of shooting (in May nonetheless!) to blood pumps with a mind of their own.

In an effort to keep our expenses as low as possible, we were able to secure some fantastic locations through personal connections. One of the locations in particular was in Canyon Country, CA. Everything about the location was perfect for what we were looking for, except that in order to get to the location we had to drive 20 minutes (one way) up and down some of the bumpiest dirt roads I have ever experienced while being surrounded by some rather interesting neighbors who were ready to follow through on any of the numerous threats posted on their no trespassing signs if we gave them any reason. Fortunately for us, that never happened.

I think one of the scariest moments for me during the whole shoot was being literally hours away from completing the short on a pick up day and we were still without one of our most important characters: the RV.

In spite of it all, everything always came through and worked in our favor. With the exception of the rain on that first day!!

Unfortunately I was not able to be on set as much as I would have liked. I was too busy running around putting out fires most of the time. But I do remember one of the scenes I enjoyed most, even if it gave me a heart attack, was when our character “Krin” (Jen Nikolaus) stabs “Chet” (Matt Lasky) in the back. We had a blood rig set to squirt blood when she twists the knife in his back. True to form, blood gags never behave quite the way you expect and the blood explodes out of the pump literally covering the inside of the RV. As much as that was a nightmare to have to clean, the shot looks unbelievable. I don’t think Jen was really ready for it. Everyone outside watching the monitor literally jumped and shouted in shock when it happened. I think it was very effective.

I think the most fulfilling part of it all for me was watching all the pieces come together and seeing all of the things that Ben and I talked about start to materialize. I believe that it turned out differently than some of us originally imagined, yet so much better than we may have expected. A lot of it was dead on and exactly what we envisioned, but from the casting process to our wrap some things were a little different than we originally imagined, and a little bit better. That’s what I love about the creative process. It’s alive and constantly changing, and as long as you allow room for change then more times than not you may discover things you didn’t even know were there.

I loved working with all of the cast and crew. We had some stellar people who were willing to work with us for peanuts (literally) with a combined passion to make a quality film. Ryan Parrott wrote a great little story for us to work with and I think Ben really brought it to life. Michael Roy had a very clear vision of what he wanted it to look like and I think he did a brilliant job with it. Zach took a tiny budget and made our sets look like a million bucks worth of trashy hillbilly scum, which is exactly what we were going for. Well done to them all!