Frank's Horror Film of Horrors
I feel great. Shot three scenes for the film today. One death, and some other nasty bits of special effects fun. I watched the footage and it's all terrific. While I've enjoyed myself shooting these pickups, they've been a major stress because of my lack of crew to rely on, as I've already mentioned. I was running around for days picking up props from far-flung rental houses, hiking through the park scouting locations, and scheduling, emailing, calling, revising, scheduling, emailing, revising, etc. The classic moment of bizarre indie film desperation came yesterday. I had picked out a nice location to steal in Griffith Park, for a scene where two characters climb a tree. It was really the only tree in the area that was low enough and big enough that two people could climb into it. Well, when we showed up yesterday to rehearse we discovered someone had spray-painted "FUCK" on the tree in several prominent spots.
After all else failed, I ended up doing the strangest thing I've done yet to get a shot. I'm ashamed to admit it, being a committed environmentalist (I'm even working on a new environmental weblog), but I actually went and bought spray paint to sneak into the park and cover up the graffiti.
That's right - I tagged a tree in Griffith Park to make it look like a tree. First with streaks of grey, then a few patches of dark brown. It looked damn good. Of course, I probably started a gang war in the process. I thought of explaining myself, if a park ranger caught me, as being part of the Hasty Beautification Project, whose mission isn't to actually clean up our city's parks, but to make them look clean.
Anyway, for months I've been pretty overwhelmed, and tonight I feel like I've reached a threshold - I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. In the past three days we wrapped a main character (Jacob), a minor character (The Nanny), a major costume (The Bloody Shirt), and our picture car (Little Blue, a powder blue VW bug). Most importantly, I can now count the remaining scenes on one hand. In other words, the end is so close I can taste it, and it tastes like sweet ambrosia. Like booze mixed with sex mixed with Mamoun's Falafel. Actually, that sounds pretty gross.
After all else failed, I ended up doing the strangest thing I've done yet to get a shot. I'm ashamed to admit it, being a committed environmentalist (I'm even working on a new environmental weblog), but I actually went and bought spray paint to sneak into the park and cover up the graffiti.
That's right - I tagged a tree in Griffith Park to make it look like a tree. First with streaks of grey, then a few patches of dark brown. It looked damn good. Of course, I probably started a gang war in the process. I thought of explaining myself, if a park ranger caught me, as being part of the Hasty Beautification Project, whose mission isn't to actually clean up our city's parks, but to make them look clean.
Anyway, for months I've been pretty overwhelmed, and tonight I feel like I've reached a threshold - I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. In the past three days we wrapped a main character (Jacob), a minor character (The Nanny), a major costume (The Bloody Shirt), and our picture car (Little Blue, a powder blue VW bug). Most importantly, I can now count the remaining scenes on one hand. In other words, the end is so close I can taste it, and it tastes like sweet ambrosia. Like booze mixed with sex mixed with Mamoun's Falafel. Actually, that sounds pretty gross.
posted by Francis at 1:27 AM
3 Knee-jerk Reactions:
That is fricking hilarious.. Tagging a tree to cover up a tag and starting a gangwar in the doing.. that is a whole movie for you.
Next time, leave out the falafel. I couldn't brush my hair for two days.
I just read this and now I'm (finally!) wrapped. Fraahhn has wrapped. Fraahhn and her Frax.
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