"Fantastic Stan Goes to Hell"
Adventures Part II: Production Stories On the Road:
(This vacuum’s been around, Or: Making Vacuums Fly)
Now that Jake and I had our main lead cast for the movie we'd wanted to make for almost ten years, it was time to find performers for the other roles. Casting Ace McVayne: Paranormal Investigator, (Stan's wacky sidekick) was an easy choice. For that we went to Bellingham's infamous Circus stage performer and long-time friend of mine, Sam "Strangley" Doesburg. Casting him as Ace was a no-brainer. His character was meant to be quirky and charismatic, while simultaneously being capable of doing the extensive stunt-work for the action sequences. And then there was the second most important part to cast: The Devil himself. That was another obvious choice. Who better than Bellingham's infamous "belebrity" musician and performer: David Ney. There was no second-guessing that decision. The last casting for the main leads landed such other local musical talents, David and Shelly Lyon as Stan's parents...another perfect fit. And from there, we were off!
The crew was to consist of simply: My brother Jake and myself. This was somewhat intentional, as we were intending to prove to others what you could make on such a small budget, with such a small crew. The ultimate DIY Independent short film. We weren't looking for the fanciest of equipment for the shoot either, just what would work. (We ended up using four different cameras over the course of the shoot...but w'ere not telling what.) It's also a saying in the movie business: Don't work with kids or dogs...and we were doing both...
It took a few green screen tests with Brandon (AKA: Fantastic Stan) on the flying vacuum to get it down just right. Thankfully, we had access to a large warehouse for our green screen shoots, where we could hang the material and set up lights with room for multiple camera setups. For the flying vacuum shots, we had a real make-shift setup: with Brandon on the (pre-designed) vacuum cleaner, which was attached via rope and lot's of tape to a forklift, allowing us to position Brandon and the vacuum where we wanted it. This was not the most comfortable for the actor, and awkward when it came time for lot's of movements and maneuvering. With time, we figured out ways of making it work better and more ideally. For the first while though, Brandon was not quite sure what to think. (Keep in mind: He was 12 years of age when we started shooting in 2009).
Some of the very first shoots were intended to get Brandon comfortable in the role, and from there on it was a plunge into the deep end of the pool. Brandon's admiration of Jake and myself probably wore off fairly quickly, when he begin to realize that this was not all going to be just fun and play. The first of these challenging moments came when Brandon found himself: wearing a full-on suit in the dead of summer, strapped to a vacuum (simultaneously attached to the fork-lift) with a sprinkler system raining down upon him, as he maneuvered the vacuum around in ways it was never intended for. By the end of the shoot, it was pretty clear that Brandon thought Jake and I were just out to torture him.
The first big shoot outside of the green screen footage saw Brandon really out of his comfort zone. As the movie was about a traveling door-to-door salesman, I wanted there to be a sense of realism in the reactions from Stan's unhappy "customers", so our crew found ourselves unpacking gear in a quiet, unknown suburban looking-neighborhood, as I went over the script with Brandon.
From there, we found ourselves knocking on doors and explaining what we were attempting to shoot. Most people were receptive to the idea, and we got some great natural reactions of people responding negatively to Brandon's "sales pitches". We met the most interesting of characters that day, most notably an old quirky man named Leone who was identical to the lead in Pixar's "UP". He made us laugh uncontrollably, entertaining us with his reactions and told us we'd made his day.
The next big challenging situation dealing with our interactions with strangers, took place in a small "up-scale" trailer-park in an especially "classy" part of town. Perhaps things didn't start off on the right footing, with Jared (Knapp) and Paul (Kirby) dressed mockingly as over-the-top trailer-trash rednecks in the middle of a real trailer-park, surrounded by real gun-toting rednecks. I'd gotten permission to shoot outside someone's home, but minutes into shooting and we began to feel eyes digging into the backs of our necks. Everyone in the park had gathered to watch the shoot, and weren't looking too happy about it either. I signaled the guys to hurry it up, and we rushed through another take, but not before it was interrupted by a loud truck that had pulled up behind us and ruined the audio.
A large, scruffy looking man peered out from behind the wheel of the truck, and motioned for me to approach him. He demanded to know what was going on, with repeated angry glances back at Jared and Paul. I informed him that we'd gotten permission to shoot there, but he suddenly claimed to be the landlord and using the biggest, most threatening Alpha Male voice he could muster, declared that we didn't belong there and that we must "remove ourselves from the premises". I could almost swear I heard the distant sounds of a shotgun being fired into the air, as he pulled away and we quickly packed our gear and fled.
This wasn't the first or last time we got strange, confused, curious, or annoyed stares from strangers and passerbys. It probably wasn't a very common sight for most to see: Two young guys running out from behind hedges and onto roads, covered in dirt and mud, slinging cameras, tripods and gear over their shoulders, a young kid in a full suit and tie in tow, dragging a dirtied vacuum cleaner behind him. Some were inquisitive and approached us, asking about the movie, and others I swear could be seen hiding behind bushes, dialing 911 on their phones.
Yes, there were stares all around...Unusual, was probably what most were thinking. Another notable attraction was the day we shot the "talking dog" sequence with none other than my mom's celebrity dog, Gabe the Bulldog. We were shooting in the alley-way behind the Wild Buffalo (our favorite alley to shoot) in a scene in which Brandon is supposed to converse with Gabe, and learns his parents have been taken to Hell. With computer technology we would add Gabe's voice and mouth movements in post. But on set, it probably seemed strange to see Brandon "speaking with and listening to" a Bulldog with Jake and I out of sight with camera.
And then there was another level of difficult, with Brandon having to interact with other supporting cast members as well as memorization of long lines. This tested everyone's patience, as all involved hadn't much prior acting experience. Shooting scenes with Strangley and Brandon in an Old Growth forest for the Netherworld sequence for instance, proved especially difficult...what with bad weather conditions and loud environmental noises. Because of this, the decision was made to ADR (over dubbing of the audio) most of the second half of the movie. Action scenes with green screen after all required noisy fans and other equipment. Not to mention, the actors were having to interact with characters and creatures that would later be added.
For instance, another central character to the movie: a ghost guide named Blinky (a puppet we had to create from scratch), would have to be added into all of the shots via green screen, as well as be puppeteered. Or a talking tree in the Netherworld that the actors had to converse with, which would later be created by Jake on the computer.
Trickiest yet, was filming the end Hell sequences, which required not only Brandon to ride the vacuum and do action stunts, but Strangley riding behind him as well. We had him leaping from the vacuum, and dangling from a rope Tarzan-style and so on. And I'm sure we'd probably make it into the Guinness Book of World Records for most people to ride on a vacuum cleaner, if it was even a category. (By the end of the shoot, we had a total of four on it: Stan, Ace, and the parents.
The shoot we were all most looking forward to though, was none other than the Devil sequence. This was something I'd envisioned for years, and was extremely satisfied with the way David Ney had interpreted and portrayed the role. The makeup for the role however took over seven hours to complete, and another seven hours just to shoot. One big, 14 hour day of Devil goodness. David Ney had us laughing the whole way through.
Once the main parts of the movie had been shot, Jake and I still had a lot of work to go. A lot of people were wondering why it was taking us so long to complete, and the detail work that followed is probably to blame. We had yet to create the miniatures, background plates for flying scenes, various post fx work on creatures, (the flying demons notably) environments, and most of: building a miniature set for Hell that would be used as the background for all the green screen footage we'd shot (totaling almost half the movie...)
This movie was definitely a learning experience for Jake and I, and most assuredly a growing experience for Brandon as a person...pushing him out of his comfort zone, socially engaging him, working in tough situations that challenged him and in which he proved himself every time. We couldn't have made the movie without him.
As we speak, Jake and I have a solid rough cut of the entire movie (after almost four years in the making) and are working on sound editing/mixing, the soundtrack, and finalization of the cuts. We will be happy to finally be releasing the movie this year, with a premiere at Bellingham's Independent theater, The Pickford Cinema in the next couple months. It will be rewarding to finally show it to the public, as well as try to promote ourselves and find some online distribution for it. (Possibly Netflix/Amazon/iTunes). Stay tuned, and thanks for the continual support of Indie filmmakers such as ourselves.
Watch out Hollywood! This year: Fantastic Stan is going to Hell.
(For "Fantastic Stan Goes to Hell": Adventures Part 1, click here.)
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