No Clowning Around Diary
Recap of 9-16 & 9-18
As I sit here today at 7:50am on a fall like Friday, I feel accomplished. Halloween II is playing in the background, my favorite time of year has finally arrived. I wanted to continue updating everyone with the progress of No Clowning Around....well, as of Tuesday night, September 18th at approx 9:56pm, we have wrapped on the film. So, what's next? The editing process...so stay tuned for a trailer...soon.
Sunday Sept 16th - Like the days before, we get to location at 8am and I start the make up process. I think I have it down to about 45 minutes or so now. The hardest part is knowing I will have to put on the make up, remove it, then put it on again...it really kills your skin.
The weather was fantastic, this worked out perfectly and allowed us to finish shooting the entire day outside. As you can see by the picture on the left, not everyone will enjoy this movie...the longer we shot this film the more we, most of the cast and crew, started to wonder what we were making...haha.
Matt (Co-Director, Matthew Burd) and myself just worked flawless together. We had a great idea of what we wanted to shoot, how we wanted to shoot it and we were flowing. Like I mentioned before, it's hard, with a small cast, small crew as you kind of have to do everything yourselves. Matt and I have said several times, we had a great crew and we are thankful for everyone that helped bring this together.
We attracted some attention while shooting some scenes and had to deal with a few people passing by, then we had a group of neighborhood kids that I supplied all with posters, just for staying out of the way and being great. I'm always a fan of the random drunk coming up and not hesitating to get "in the shot" just to find out "what's going on?". I mean it seems like the right thing to do, when you walk into a car crashed into a building, being driven by a drunk clown...right? Exactly! haha.
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| Taking a break, discussing our next move |
This was a good day also because I had a good friend, Sal Valente on set. Some might know Sal as the man behind Pigamortis on our Tv show Late Night at the Horror Hotel, while others might know him as "Big Sal" from ECW. He was the highlight of that show for me to work with....he was focused on getting it done. I can't get into a lot of details on what Sal did for the movie except, we have real good chemistry together and he is funny as hell. Sal was a trooper and hung the entire day, which was nearly 15 hours long!!
What I really liked was as the night began to roll in...my mood changed and it was time to focus on a downward spiral of the character. As Matt shot from behind the lens, he was freaking out..."Holy shit" and "Wow" as I crept around the outside of "Lenny's" house. I really enjoyed this stuff.
Tuesday Sept 18 - Ah yes, my Birthday and the wrap day. Kim and myself we short on sleep and credit to her, she did everything asked the entire shoot and supporting me all day long. We get up at 4:30am and we are on the road by 6am.
Originally, when I scheduled this final day to be on my Birthday, I didn't take into account that I would be gone all day long and not see my kids. I felt awful when I got home at 11:30pm too see they walked in the rain 6 blocks each way to bake me a cake and I wasn't home for it. They are awesome and I love them a ton, they understand that I had to be away, but it still stinks.
Anyways, the weather on this day...AWFUL!! We have one particular scene that we needed to reshoot and it rained both times making it a little difficult. Mother Nature hates me!!
Now, let me let you in on a little something...during this scene I need to eat an 8 in round cake...and this is the Second time in a week of having to do so. As we are filming the scene, I look over at the sink and I'm debating on throwing up as I'm filled with cake...don't want anymore, don't want to see anymore...DONE...haha. Matt and the crew LOVE this scene as my grossness makes them happy. Plus, I get to wear my elephant trunk...wait until you see this! Honestly, I loved what we captured the second time around.
Moving forward to the next location, I contacted my homeboy Steve Corino, as this day would be his death scene!! Steve was fantastic this entire shoot...seriously, he had an idea of who his character was and really pulled it off..I love the guy. I'm telling you, what he had to go through scarred him for life...he sat, dealt with it and was a true professional. My hats off to him. We had to make some last minute changes to the special effect due to a timing issue, but honestly I'm extremely happy with what we got.
As Trixie, Peepers and Mumbles sat on the sofa to close out the final shot of the film, I couldn't help but smile from ear to ear...it was a wrap! As the crew started to clean Bill's house (Thanks Bill...hopefully we didn't wreck it too bad) we brought out the Its a Wrap cake (yeah, more cake!! haha) and everyone had some...yes, even me.
Thank you to all who donated, helped and shared the progress of this dream. You made my dream a reality!
Special Thanks to Matthew Burd - you sir, are a professional!
Bill, Patti, Chris and Nanette - you guys were all fantastic and Patti, I owe you a shirt for coming through with the last minute help on the final S/FX!!
Brian Mitchell - Thank you for the art work and all you've done
Dave Hagan - Seriously, the pep talks you gave me helped me tremendously.
Sal - Dude..you popped me the entire day. Thank you!
Steve Corino - that part was yours from the moment I wrote it. Couldn't be happier you were involved!
And finally -
Kim - let's face it...without you, there would be no me. On Sunday we celebrate Twenty One years together...you are the reason I breath and I owe you more than I can ever tell you. I love you.
Thanks guys for reading and following along this long 4 day, 60 hour shoot schedule. It was intense, but I'm already looking forward to the next one.
Love,
Mumbles the Clown!
