Chapter Four - June 13-16, 2005.

Monday, June 13, 2005

Shooting schedule

For the last few months, Lloyd has been regularly freaking out about how behind schedule we are. We’re supposed to start shooting in seven weeks, and:

- We still haven’t cast all the leads.
- The rehearsals are terrible - the only readers who make any effort are Gabe and Kiel… neither of whom will be in the film.
- None of the vocals for the musical numbers have been recorded.
- We have nothing in the way of costumes or art. (While we’ve been working 18 hour days, for months, Troma’s art director has been taking mid-week halfdays.)
- The bulk of the FX exist only as words in Gabe’s script.

Lloyd constantly screams: “This film is about only two things: effects and beautiful young people! And we have neither!!!” He’s right. It’s true. With so little time left, and still no money, we need to accomplish as much as we can.

So LK called me up today. Freaking out. Screaming about how little we’ve accomplished. So in return, he’s decided to pull filming forward a week. What the fuck!?

I think back — a few months ago, Trent H sent me a warning. “No matter how much you plan everything out, Lloyd is still going to come up with some absurd last-minute request, or change of plan, to shoot himself in the foot and sabotage the film, and create the drama that he believes causes the art.”

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

Low budget continues

Buffalo loves us — we’re the new city dump! Bill R raided his poor grandmother’s attic, and brought over her antique Danish bed frame, a mattress, a desk, a couch, and more. Sam’s dad CJ, who works at the local college, brought a dozen chairs and desks that the university was tossing. On the doorstep this morning was an anonymously-dumped computer. And Lloyd called to let me know that his wife had a bunch of old sheets and towels that he’d bring up to Buffalo. (Sorry PK, but I worry somewhat about the stains.)

But with each delivery I’m a little more excited. I feel like a college junior on trash day.

Indigestion
Mostly we’re eating processed-ham and processed-cheese sandwiches on processed-white bread, that we bought in bulk at the local wholesale distributor. I can’t wait until we start getting stale bagels from the trash of a local bakery… one of the PAs is working his connections there.

Poultrygeist Drive-By
While I was talking about the gargantuan task of recruiting 200 locals to make up as chicken zombies, and also my fears about the shadiness of the McDonalds ghetto neighborhood, Lloyd started joking and riffing on the image of hundreds of chicken zombies actor-persons being mowed down by local crips and bloods. Extras running for their lives, hiding behind cars, screaming like children, peeing their blood-stained pants. Meanwhile, I was starting to sweat. I’m not entirely sure this won’t happen.

Anti-ACB
Poultrygeist features a bunch of protesters mobbing the opening of a new fast food restaurant. Some of the slogans, proposed by our amazing helmer LK, include:

clever political statement’s that show the hypocrisy of the
protest…Some signs should be serious,some goofy but making good
satire…and every once in a while something that makes no sense…like
“Chicken Soup kills chickens;kill the Jews.”
“Animals have rights…don’t wear fur;wear leather.”
“Jesus hates fags…”
“Save the Indians..and the White Sox..”
“Go Yankees”
“Kill all Jews”
“Serving dark meat is racist.”

We are making such fucking art. At least PETA is sponsoring us somewhat.

Graveyards & Sacrilege

One of my big jobs right now is to find a graveyard that we can shoot the opening scene of the movie in. It’s filmed at night, involves a topless girl and zombies, and the gory death of a peeping tom (who receives a zombie fist right up his gape, out of his mouth, and back again). For some reason, many of the local graveyards don’t really want to be involved. Or even talk to us. (The poor film commissioner, Mark, has been hung up on by peers halfway through this request.)

Talking around, though, we’ve managed to find a glut of tiny graveyards in nearby townships. History lesson here. Turns out that in the winters, back in the 1800s, before they had snowploughs, the roads were impassable and the dead would have to be buried in the immediate neighborhood of their decease. So surrounding towns are riddled with ancient graveyards, with old knocked-over headstones. Several of them happen to abut the back yards of Troma fans. We still need to apply for permits, but it seems like this could be promising.

News from New York

Now that an amazing gay Latino actor has been discovered, Lloyd has agreed to allow the amazing gay Latino character to remain. But he’s forcing Gabe to write in a new character — the deaf-mute drive-thru lady. (Concurrent to insisting Gabe write in new characters, another being the “guy with a mohawk”, LK still screams at Gabe relentlessly about chopping down the overlong script.)

Also of note, Lloyd’s former assistant, the Persian Rose G, has auditioned for the Farsi-speaking burkha-wearing burger-lady. At last the film finally has some class.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

The Casting is complete, but…

We were far, far, far behind schedule, but at last the five leads have finally been cast! So on with rehearsals!!!

But… it now turns out that Jason, the star of the film, can’t rehearse after 6pm. Ever.
Further… lead actress Kate needs about two weeks of random days-off, for various unbreakable plans.
And finally… the actress playing the burkha-wearing bimbo is headed off to LA for the next week.

Did I mention that we only have five weeks of rehearsals before we start shooting?!! I hate to say it, but everything is turning real ugly. It’s gonna be some work to fix all this shit.

Outta money
Our only promising costume director is an English lady by the name of Thea, with whom Lloyd is seemingly smitten. Originally, she was to pay for her flight over the Atlantic, which was great! Unexpectedly, Lloyd offered to pay for $400 of her flight. Now, even more unexpectedly, she doesn’t have the money to do it. So Lloyd’s offered to cover $700.

I asked him where this money was coming from… I’m cutting corners in every conceivable area to make ends meet. His response? “We’ll find somewhere… Just take it out of costumes.” The total budget for costumes? $1500.

A few minutes later, Gabe asked LK if he could ship the few special effects we have out to Buffalo. Lloyd’s response: “What! We can’t spend money on that!!!”

I really don’t know how we’re going to make this film.

Stress
I’m very stressed out today. The huge leak in the restaurant, which was pouring water this weekend, has left me worried about even being able to film in the restaurant. As we drive by other fast food restaurants, I instinctively glance inside to see if they might be closed down.

The issue with security is even worse - I’m nervous about going in alone during the daytime. And different voices give such different opinions. The former Military Police PA, Gary, says “Nah, as long as you have people in there all the time, it’ll be fine.” Meanwhile, the security guard who lives in the restaurant’s neighborhood (and I know is trying to shake me down for some money) warned of absolute urban apocalypse on the phone. Rape, pillage, and probably murder. He said we’ll be lucky to make it out of Buffalo alive.

Vaguely cool
One of the PAs, while cleaning up the old theater under the church next door, found a dead bat.

And now Nick, plugging in an air conditioner upstairs, blew the fuses for the whole top floor of the ancient rectory. (Where the building’s only shower, still with no hot water, and all our bedrooms, are.) We finally located the fuse box in the cobweb-filled basement, but it’s some antique beast - six old rusted metal cylinders with no directions. So instead of risking electrocution, we’re now creeping around the top floor, using our cell phones as pathetic flashlights. To make the situation even more cliched, a loud thunderstorm has begun outside.

This really has all the makings for a terrible horror film.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Vacation
Determined to destroy this project, director Lloyd (who’s also cast himself in one of the lead roles of the film) has decided to take a week’s vacation to Cancun, coming to Buffalo only a week before we start filming. Kiel, still in New York, is apparently over the edge with stress and lack of sleep. Gabe, also in New York, ends most e-mails to me with the words “we are fucked.”

Alone in Buffalo with a handful of PAs, I have so much to do I really don’t know how to describe it all. Even without our local casting director yet in town, we begin holding local auditions on Friday. I recruited a PA named Doug and some girl who’s name I forgot to manage the operation. How could I expect this not to go flawlessly?

We still don’t have hot water.

Blocked
Eating only ham & cheese sandwiches on stale white bread, and all-you-can-eat-for-$2.25 spaghetti, I’m starting to get a bit stopped up. For historical records, it’s probably worth mentioning.

Security & Burmese Reptiles
All day yesterday, I was anxious about my afternoon appointment with the security guard. On the phone, as I wrote already, he’d forewarned of carjackings, murder, rape… and other terrifying urban apocalypti. But as soon as he walked in the door at 481 Linwood, with the stacks of donated bed frames and a church pew in the corner, he knew he wasn’t going to find Hollywood cash here.

So instead of filling my head with more nightmares, he gave me his cell phone number (”Just in case you need me at short notice”), and told me about his son — the handsome bar-back at a local strip club. He then tried to sell me a Burmese snake.

It did freak me out that he had a handgun sticking out of the waist of his jogging pants the whole time.

The leak is still going
Most of today was spent with my true love, the small Swedish FX-girl Bitte, and Buffalo’s huge bearded mountainman of FX, Dave Ray. David took us into his basement, filled with molds of ripped-apart zombie faces, homemade steadycams, and styrofoam smoke machines. Then to his garage, which he’d converted into a dank medieval dungeon. (What sex shit goes on there???) In his slow, stoned monotone, he made promise after promise of effects he could make for us — but every few offers, he’d suffix with a painfully drawn-out “although I’m really blocked up, until September, you know?” (September being well after Poultrygeist will be in the can.)

“Ohhh, the grinder, yeahhhhhhhh. I got an ideaaaa for that.”

“The graveyard? Ohhhh, I can do that easily…. we can work that out in a few hours.”

He took us to his warehouse. Four floors of crazy industrial machines and old props from plays and movies he’d worked on. A mechanical dog. A poorly-wallpapered wall, leaning up against a crate, marked “kitchen”. A jet airplane fan. And dozens of leaking oil drums.

“Who owns all this stuff?”
“Ohhhhh, you knowww, a bunch of guys.”

From looks to voice to mannerisms, he is The Dude.

“So, David, you keep saying you’ll do all this shit for us, but then you also keep saying how busy you are. How are you going to make both the grinder that Paco Bell falls into, and the toilet that the demon pulls Jared from Subway’s guts out through?”
“Well, you know, I’m real busy, but you know, everything’s a little easier when you add some turkey.”
“Huh?”
“You know, turkeyyyyy.” He slowly, carefully, painfully rubs his fingers together. What is up with Buffalo thinking we have… turkey?

So much for getting this stuff for free. We did leave with a couple of the zombie face molds, a bucket with a stale inch of latex, and Bitte’s memories of David repeatedly asking for her bra-size. (”I’ll make you an amaaazing armored shirt to wear…”

Oh, and the restaurant’s roof is still draining water at a violent rate inside. I almost screamed.

Next week: A PA sends a naked picture of himself in WalMart, as his application. The mafia joins the Poultrygeist team. And my favorite FX boy screams “That big Christmas tree box is full of female body parts!”All at poultrygeistmovie.com. Find out more about this Andy at Andy Deemer’s website.