While everyone else was having fun enjoying their spring break, I (Trey), the film crew, and the rest of the warhorse filmmakers were out making a movie. After the blitz the warhorse filmmakers went straight into making the rest of the movie.
The Trailer
Eventually we ended up in a run-down trailer that we would use for Madison and Teddy’s home. When we first went in to clean it up the smell was so bad we had to wear those doctor masks so we all looked like some type of surgical specialists.
We all had to share a small little broom to sweep up all the cockroaches which some of them were alive. It was crazy, the entire floor was covered with them. “Doctor, I’m afraid that I’m going to have to make a surgical incision with the broom to extract the roaches from the floor. I don’t think the house is gonna make it. Ahh! Doctor, the dustpan slipped. The floor is being exposed to direct dead roach bodies. Oh my. This one is still breathing. Quick, get my rubber gloves. Too late! I gonna have to do this with my bare hands. Stop! No! It’s slipping away. It’s going in the cracks. I can’t reach this roach. No! No! Nooooo!…We lost him… “
The floor was pretty clean when we left. All the roach bodies were in neat piles and the smell was less sickening. The next day we come in, there’s dead roaches all over the place again. How fun! As we finished cleaning again, Andrew said that he liked the roaches where they were. Yeah right. I bet he liked the crunching noise they made when you stepped on them too.
Besides The roaches, we also had to worry about the puddle of water from the leaking wall in the hallway. Nice way to mop the floor you know. bust a hole in the wall, flood the hallway, and then throw some old paper towels on the floor. And the floor looks just as brown and moldy as it did before.
Gayle got me to set up the boiler room and parts of the kitchen and Petey’s room and I did all the odd jobs that Fletcher, Cory, and Jeff gave me. Luke worked with Corey to get some ambiance and he even boomed for Andrew a lot. Connor worked with Jeff and did all his Producer work. Quinn and Lucas also came to help and did what ever job they were given. What was fun for me was the scene where the landlord beats on Madison and Teddy’s door. The reason is because half of the door frame was missing so the door could just easily be pushed open but it was supposed to stay shut the hole time. So guess who they got to hold the door shut while Keven beat it to death. Yep, me. Let me tell you, Keven hits pretty hard. He really wanted that door to fall down.
Gayle was very helpful setting up and designing everything. She was also a very good teacher to me and she got me involved in the art department which I had a knack for. She taught me a lot of neat techniques for designing rooms and she took me out to goodwill and we went scavenging for props and anything we could use to dress up the trailer. Unfortunately, before we finished our shooting at the trailer, Gayle quit and left us due to the working conditions and some other things. Goodbye Gayle, it was fun.
Besides the ugly trailer, the trailer park was actually very nice. there was an awesome river behind it and fresh green grass and Spring time trees everywhere. There were also cows who lived on a hill behind a neighboring house. Storm (Teddy) and I really enjoyed the rocky waterfalls further upstream.
The funniest part of our time at the trailer was at three in the morning after the scene where Teddy completely goes crazy. He ended up demolishing the trailer. Jeff had to worry about paying for damages for the trailer. So Andrew asked me to show Jeff all the good stuff that happened. After I scared the crap out of one of the Ferry brothers I woke up Jeff and took Jeff into the trailer. First I showed him all the shattered glass and shards of plastic scattered across the dented floor, then I showed him the cracked window and the busted walls, next was the destroyed kitchen, after that I took him to the broken down door that was splitting down the middle, then I showed him the door to the boiler room ripped halfway off it’s hinges, and finally I showed him the hole in the wall, of the boiler room that was the size of his face (including his beard) . Oh I know Jeff was so happy to see that we destroyed his borrowed trailer the day before we had to give it back. I bet the owners were really happy. Luckily there were no residents of the trailer so it wasn’t that bad.
The Resturaunt
We went to Cocula to shoot the dumpster scene. All I need to show you for you to know what it was like filmming at the dumpster is this.
The Mall
When we finally finished with the trailer, we went to the mall and filmed the, you guessed it, mall scene. Before we went to the mall Andrew and Jeff and I went to go get some delicious buffalo wild wings with The stars of the movie. yummy. After that, it was off to the mall.
So we all walked into the mall with our cameras and bags and boom pole and fancy equipment and we looked completely normal and no one noticed us. Not really. We had everyone in the store staring at us as they walked by. Jeff and I had to go get everyone to sign extra release forms when they walked by which was very hectic and frustrating because we couldn’t get in Andrew or Fletcher’s shot and we had to get the shoppers before they left.
I also had the job of watching all the gear we brought with us. All the bags and junk we brought with us were put in a pile beside a column and behind a clothes rack and a shelf or maybe it was another clothes rack. Anyways, starting at the trailer, Cory had been teaching me a little bit about sound and he had been letting me use the boom pole some or use the headphones to listen to what was going on. At the mall I used headphones and a receiver to listen to the sound recorded by Cory’s boom pole so that I would know if they were coming or not. But I could still just look at Cory’s boom raised up and moving around above all the clothes racks.
We ended up staying a little after the store was supposed to close but we did get out eventually and it turned out to be a good day of filming.
The Farm
Fletcher, Bob, Mike, and I first went to our friend Ed’s farm to go clean it up for shooting several days before we started filming there. On shooting day Conner, Corey, Jeff, Fletcher, Andrew, Kevin, our make up department, our actors, and of coarse Ed were on set.
The farm was pretty cool. There were mountain faces everywhere with pastures of horses and there was even a small creepy bridge to get there. The bridge was barely wide enough to drive over and planks on the bridge popped up as each tire pushed down on them and there was no guard rail, and it was a strait drop to the recently flooded stream below… Anyways, Connor helped Kevin work on some set design. I came in to help so Connor could go Jeff to do some producer work.
While we were working, a bear happened to pop up on the side of the mountain beside Ed’s farm. I took out a camera and ran right up as close as I could get and started filming. The bear was really shy so I really had to slowly creep to the edge of the colossal hill face. I wasn’t the slightest bit worried about the bear attacking me because it was half way up the side of a mountain, it was obviously afraid of people, and there was a mean electric fence between me and him… or her. But don’t get me wrong, If I found a way to get through that fence quietly, I would’ve been sneaking up there in half a second to get some awesome footage of that bear. But that’s probably just the adolescent teenager inside of me trying to get myself into some thrilling trouble. Here’s the bear.
Well… This is a bear but it’s not the bear. When I was done with the bear, Cory and I walked around the farm and he taught me how to get some ambiance.
Our make up department was there to cut a gash in Chris’s leg and then make it look really old but without actually injuring him. Once the make up department worked their magic we started filming.
Since Cory had been teaching me sound all week he and he let me use the boom pole a little bit at the trailer, I got to boom for the farm scene. It was really fun! Its way better being in all the action instead of having to stay off set out of site and do boring stuff during filming like Jeff does. I feel like I did a pretty good job booming until that straw hat came out of nowhere and attacked my boom pole.
Once we were done Corey got me to go out and get some ambiance of the birds who came out when we were done filming.When we were all done with everything we got to eat some delicious Mexican food that Jeff and Connor got us. I still have some salsa from that day, unless it got old and it got thrown away.Finally I got to take Sunday off and be with God and friends and sleep. And that was how my spring break went.
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