[Last night, I watched the amazing documentary Man of La Mancha, about the disastrous making of Terry Gilliam’s Don Quixote film. With each crisis, all I could think was: “this is just like the making of Poultrygeist.” As actors don’t show up or quit mid-shoot, I remember going thru this. as the set floods, and equipment floats away, I remember going thru this. As NATO bombs drop near the set, I remember the drive-bys and hold-ups on ours. I had to text Gabe and Kiel, mid-film, to compare the documentary to our lives. Gabe wrote back, short and to the point.

“Yeah but we got the flick made.”
So fricking true. Hope you enjoy this week’s updates.]

Saturday, July 23, 2005

Application letter
Dear Andy,
Ever since I was a youngster, I dreamed of one day becoming a chicken zombie. Please let me know how I might serve as one in your upcoming film.

Rose in rehearsals as the burka-bimbo.

Bombers Vest
The same guy who built me a frighteningly realistic-looking time bomb just sent me pictures of the suicide bomber’s vest he created for burkha-wearing employee Hummus. It looks, again, frighteningly real. I’m sending a PA out to Niagara Falls to pick it up from him this weekend. If the PA gets stopped by cops for speeding, or whatever, he’s completely fucked.

The Shakes
This morning, before my coffee, I was greeted with the newly-arrived make-up girl, a short, heavily tattooed, riled and ragged-looking lady, shaking and sobbing on the porch, surrounded by confused PAs trying not to watch.

“Martha, what’s wrong?”

She answered between gulps and sobs. “Everyone ditched me! The costume department ditched me! I was supposed to go to the McDonald’s, and no-one will put me on the call sheet, and they don’t like me, and they all hate me! Why did they ditch me?! I don’t think I can handle this!!! I’m gonna freak out!!!!”

So I called over to the McDonald’s, found that no-one in the costume department had really realized she was needed, or was planning to go, so arranged for a ride, and to get her added to future trips over there. It seemed weird, but I needed to have coffee before I spent more time working on it.

Hair
When word got out that one of the costumiers had given me a badly-needed haircut, all of a sudden she was barraged with requests from shaggy PAs, miserable in Buffalo’s humidity. She’d spent 5 minutes on my hair, which was followed with an hour of others. Most of them opted for mohawks… appropriate for a film about chickens.

Email from Kiel
An Irish journalist is coming over for 9 days to be a chicken zombie and write about it for GQ. I think we should make him clean toilets so he can write about the full experience.

It sounds like a joke, but we’ll probably do this.

Ben
One of the kids I had to let go was Ben, an arrogant college kid who may have been smart, but was also an irritating ass. He goofed off, gave attitude, and mouthed off just a little too much. Sadly, it turns out that one or two of the PAs really liked him… choreographer Maria was going to use him as a dancing jew (for the song about how hard it is to be a female muslim in america today), and was furious that I let him go. one of the most enthusiastic costumiers, who I heard was on the verge of breaking up with her boyfriend for ben, is now on the verge of quitting over his being fired. and a bunch of other kids were demoralized and angry. the anger is fading now, but it’s been a difficult few days. (it’s especially uncomfortable that — without exception — the dept heads were all actively in favor of me getting rid of him. but all of his peers were completely shocked at it.)

Security Woes
Security continues to be a problem. At Friday’s dress rehearsal in the parking lot at the restaurant, with the full cast, the crowd of protesters, and musical numbers, neighborhood kids kept throwing rocks and pulling other pranks. A couple of them padlocked one of the older extras in the portapotty and ran off. of course, we now have a formal security detail, with walkie talkies, uniforms and codenames. I’m “Mr Pickles”.

now that that’s all organized, today’s rehearsal went far smoother. except, of course, for the fire-truck pulling up at lunchtime. a dozen firemen piled out, looking for lunch from the fancy new fastfood restaurant on Bailey Avenue. If I had a nickel…

Keith’s new computer
PA Keith is amazing. He’s relentlessly enthusiastic, smiles at miserable jobs and shitty boring tasks, and has become one of the great go-to guys around here. one of my favorite kids around. but he’s not always 100% switched on. today he bought a hot laptop off the street, from some kids, for $76. an amazing deal, except I wish he’d opened the box before he got back to the office. inside was nothing but a heavy block of wood. poor fucker.

AD Caleb managing the McDonalds.

the calm before…
my life has actually calmed down — or maybe I’ve just adjusted to the speed. even though we’re starting shooting next week, it’s nowhere near as crazy and mad as it was before Gabe and Kiel showed up. props and sets are pretty close to ready. kiel and jamie have the local actors under control. mostly, I’m just focusing on the office, location details… making sure we have food…. keeping the FX heading along at full speed. (okay, that last one is pretty big.) oh, and — of course — ensuring that the costumes and makeup teams hold off from murdering each other. so many little fucking dramas to control. oh, and there’s the budget as well… so far, I’m keeping that well within control. (it helps to dramatically let everyone know how far over-budget we’ve run already. when they ask “how far”, just clench your jaws, and make a sad smile, very convincingly. they’ll hesitate before asking for money again.)

but all of that is a hell of a lot more manageable than “everything”. :)

Sunday, July 24, 2005

the crew
the bulk of the crew finally showed up tonight. back when we were negotiating the budget, with Lloyd screaming that Brendan wanted too much, Brendan would warn “you can’t pluck a plucked chicken”. Evidently he not only plucked this one, he skinned the bastard as well. My first impressions? The crew consists of four nervous boys, barely out of puberty, and a 70-year-old gaffer. “I told you,” said Brendan, as a quiet aside to me, “With what little you guys are paying me, we’ve already lost two people. At least these guys actually showed up!”

the storm
after tonight’s meeting, with Lloyd and Brendan finally at my side and on-set permanently, it sank in to the PAs how serious this all is. during the all-hands meeting, I warned that everyone should be in a department, or prepare to go home. After the meeting, a series of nervous PAs grabbed me and begged for better jobs on set. Nick wants to be UPM. Karyus wants to be a grip. The kid who sent in his application with a photo of him in his underwear in KMart wants to be on Set Dressing. The finnish filmmaker Markko, in a weird stalker way, wants to be the fight choreographer’s personal assistant. (Even weirder is the fact that this is the second purportedly-straight man who’s wanted to be fight choreographer Tim’s personal assistant. Like George in that episode of Seinfeld, all these boys seem to have developed crushes on the actionman.)

the financier
one of my college buddies, an investor in broadway shows and a longtime Troma fan, wrote Lloyd an email, cc’ing me, suggesting he invest in Poultrygeist. Kiel and I have to talk to him…. Lloyd is offering us a piece of the pie if we get him to sign. Of course, this pie probably won’t ever yield cash, but we’ll see what happens.

Lloyd’s on a tirade. Gabe’s just tired. And Brendan’s noticed the hot German PA in the costume department.

More on the crew
At the set, DP Brendan showed absolutely no interest in the film. He’d been given a copy of the script months ago, and sat through script readthroughs, and yesterday still had no idea of what the film was about. Every little point he’d argue, and then ask inane questions.

Sample One:
“So for this scene, Brendan, we figured we could shoot the lead character while he’s singing the song”
“Why would you do that? You’ve got two girls over there making out. We’ll just focus on them… They should be the focus.”
“But the lead character is singing a song…. it’s a musical.”
“We should just focus on them. Who cares about this guy… it’s girls making out”

Sample Two:
“So this is where the rabid chicken nuggets bury themselves into the woman’s face.”
“Why would chicken nuggets do that?”
“They’re possessed.”
“What — is it a virus? Like the plague? Or is it like they’re back from the dead? Are they possessed? What’s going on with this? And how can they bury themselves into her face?”
“They’re demon nuggets… they have teeth. They eat their way in….”
“They have teeth? Do they have assholes too? How do they digest what they eat? You really have to consider all of this, Gabe. You’re a writer — you should know this.”
At this point, Gabe is holding himself back. “It’s a three-second gag, Brendan.”
“But it’s important to consider… You have to think about these things… Otherwise I might as well pack up and go home…”

And so on.

Monday, July 25, 2005

A local craigslist post about us

I wonder which disgruntled PA wrote this:

no pay for virtually every single job- save the top staff and actors
claims of longtime independent film making glory- and they beg for food and furniture.
paying positions (choreographers, designers etc.) (or excuse me, positions that SHOULD be paid) suddenly become unpaid in the latest advertisements.

glorious 18- 20 hour work days asked for, with little to nothing to gain from it. ever heard of a day job Troma? or at least feeding your crew? HOW DO YOU EXPECT TO GET ANY DECENT CREW/DESIGNERS/EXTRAS WHEN YOU HAVE NOTHING TO OFFER?
completely unprofessional in contacting their extras and PAs.

oh i could go on. and what do they ride on? the ultra faded glory of the toxic avenger (which was not that good to begin with) and tromeo and juliet (who cares?!) and god knows what other pieces of crap.

if you cant make DECENT movies WITHIN YOUR MEANS then die Troma. die.
call now and become part of a truly great new film- Poultrygeist! get hands on experience in cleaning out basements! doing shit work for a shit film! not at the very least being fed! it goes on! contact us immediately!

and…if you know of any bagel joints that would be willing to give us their days olds, please let us know! thank you!

to tell you the truth, it’s not so far from the truth. except for the fact that the top staff are being paid… hmmmm…. I’m the highest-paid member of the crew, except for Brendan’s team, and I’m being paid…. ummmm… Troma’s covering my rent for three months, while I’m in Buffalo. and the actors? ugh — they’re being paid shit.

start shooting
we were supposed to start shooting in a graveyard tomorrow night. weather.com warns: 40% chance of rain. just now, we decided to bag it and switch to an interior shoot, knocking back the graveyard by 2 days.

since we’re now shooting day instead of night, the first call is 12 hours earlier than planned. tomorrow morning, at 7am, we start shooting in the mcdonald’s, which we’d expected three more days to prepare. it’s time to scramble.

UGH
Yesterday, out of the blue, after months of preparing, Lloyd suddenly decided that we need three “random restaurant employees”, walking around in the background. Yesterday, we had three days to work this out, and were focused instead on getting the graveyard ready. All of a sudden, this is the hot coal in my hands. We need everything sorted out by 7am… actors, costumes, name-tags, rehearsals….. grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!

Coffee
Lloyd just clumsily dropped his cellphone into a cup of coffee, and it’s no longer working. He trusts none — not one — of the PAs to work on this. So my job has immediately gone from Lead-Producer-of-a-film-that-starts-shooting-in-hours to Coffee-drenched-broken-phone-fixer-and-hairdryer-holder. This is either his normal micro management or his way of trying to reclaim control of a film he never seemed very interested in. Either way, it’s fucking annoying.

A Section from the DP’s Contract
Food: Contractor understands and hereby agrees that Contractor and crew shall be provided the same crappy meals that Poultry Productions LLC shall be providing to all members of the production, and shall receive no special treatment.

After reading the contract carefully, Brendan made us (hand)write in the words “three” and “a day” before and after “crappy meals.” Just in case we tried to fuck him.

Quote From Meeting with Lloyd As He Watches an FX Rehearsal Video
“When he shits, can we do it so it squirts in someone’s face? but again — it’s gotta be thicker! It looks too thin! It looks like milk!” (Lloyd then went on a two-minute mime of a dank zombie shitting explosive shit, bending over and flushing his hands out behind his ass. He then spent several more minutes miming the reaction of the shit-faced victims.)

My big scene
I’m a pretty terrible actor. No — a very terrible actor. But, given my clout around here, I’ve managed to weasel my way into a short scene — I play a terrified man hiding under a table, who tries to escape and is scalped by a chicken zombie across a table’s edge.

Gabe watched the rehearsal tape and said I was absolutely terrible. Bastard…

Security
The head of security is a large man simple called “Beast.” Memories of Ogre come to mind.

XM
On XM, Al Franken was apparently just talking about Poultrygeist. Woohoo.

I.
I. has started to regain his sanity. He was so sure I was going to fire him (which I was thinking about — he arrived with grand expectations, and then — not finding a niche — dived into a world of endless smoke breaks and social hours, distracting everyone that walked by) that he started to became obsessed with the idea of staying here. (He’d taken out a bank loan to work on the film.) He stopped sleeping. He stopped bathing. He started pacing up and down the sidewalk with a broom, sweeping maniacally, talking to himself. I really like the guy, so hate to see this.

He moved into the props department, that didn’t work out, and he’s since found a home with the security team. Which would be great, except that somehow he managed to leave the mcdonald’s, and go home, with the portapotty padlocks in his pocket. Not a great first day.

Mouse girl
A new PA showed up: “Mouse Girl”. She lives in a coffin and has mice crawl over her. I’m not sure if this is for fun or for performance art. She’s not allowed in the sun, and is deadly pale with red hair. She’s cute and mousy as well.

I’m not too sure what she’s doing here. I just see her creeping around.

Meetings
We’re still trying to forge our way through the video rehearsals we’ve (or Gabe and Kiel) have been working on for weeks now… but Brendan falls asleep every time, and Lloyd start raging off on tangents. What they call Palm Olive dish soap in Bangkok, for example. (Far too much time was spent on this one.) Brendan would wake to ask perpendicular questions. We start shooting tomorrow.

A message
I just had to interrupt an FX meeting… “We need to have a cock for Paco Bell, but it should be latin flavored. Make sure it has the right coloring. Who can do this?”