God Bless Johnny Brento & Call of Duty
This weekend was another two days of active production and on Mother of Vampires. We shot at an area mansion. If it wasn’t haunted before it surely is now. Read more to uncover the mystery.
Everything went as well as it possible could apart from the fact that we were mostly limited to a crew of two due to various commitments, sickness, no shows and general unavailability of the people who usually help me out. Robert hustled, I hustled and Todd Britt held down the makeup department. A few later comers were able to show up just before midnight and somehow we managed to pull off a 15.5 hour shoot on Sat/Sunday. The bottom line is that we got everything on the page in the camera with the exclusion of one gag which we decided to truncate in the interest of time.
Steven Tucker as Johnny
Speaking of the makeup departments, the vamp makeups looked extremely good. Since we are beyond the twist of the short film, “Take That,” I can share with you, the Mutantville faithful, that indeed, “Mother of Vampires” is in fact a vampire movie. Shocker right?
After a lunch meeting with Robert on Tuesday, I now have most of the footage in hand and it looks absolutely stellar. These shoots are expensive for me, so they will proceed only as funds become available and casting moves forward, but I do see a high level of quality so far and that is exciting.
Felicity Winkler as Katie
With Nevermore and Mad Monster Party on the horizon, I’m approaching what will hopefully be a fun time to relax and fellowship with other film makers and enthusiasts. Inevitably the shoot weekends are super stressful for all, especially the director/directors. It will be nice to shuck off some of that stress for a few weekends of fun.
A promotional shoot which was scheduled for this coming weekend has been canceled so that expunges further editing or VFX responsibilities for the coming weeks. That was to be Streebo’s baby and I was only on the hook to lend a hand if needed, but it’s never unwelcome to find yourself with a weekend that’s a little more free after you were essentially shooting your entire weekend.
During the course of this latest streak of production I recorded 2 more episodes of Brento’s Budget Film Making podcast. By the way, here’s episode #6.
In my spare time, as I seem to have so much of it, I’ve been slowly uploading all the concert footage I can find of my band, “Absolute Zero” to our new Youtube channel for posterity. Since we typically only get together and play shows a month or so a year, it’s always a good bit of fun seeing the progress of the performances, from 20 years ago through this past Halloween. I’m really happy to have been able to be an active musician for so long. Here’s a little number called Disillusion. It’s about what I feel when someone doesn’t appreciate my weekly JuJu articles.
Michael Ruff as Holliss
As many of you may be aware, I’ve been working on the removal of the 3rd chin through CrossFit workouts Mon – Friday. So far, at about a month in, this has been as rewarding as it is challenging. I’ve let my long sessions editing exploding monster heads turn me into too much of a couch potato. It was long passed time to return to the gym and this has proved far more effective that the normal, mossy on into the gym and work at your own pace. So lately, I’ve been in the business of squats, dead lifts, lunges, running sprints and box jumps and business is good! Witness my daily check in’s on Facebook at the local CrossFit Delphi box (box is their fancy term for the workout space) and if you want to offer a word of encouragement, I’ll appreciate it. It ain’t easy moving a body this big.
Next week will be my big pre-Nevermore post where I’ll lay out where you can find the cast and crew of Take That at the festival.
Finally, I just wanted to say that working with Felicity Winkler and Tim Rossfor the first time was a real treat. Thank you both for getting out and really making your roles excellent for the film.
Tim Ross facing a Vamp down the barrel.
