Breaking Me Down, One Segment At A Time. Pumpkin Trail Part 1...

The past week was tough. Right up until the last minute, I was working on some practical FX to take the place of what I was given last week that was...bad...to say the least.

I'm not positive my version will work, but it will work better than the other.

There is a metric fuckton of props in this segment, so I had to confirm I had them all and wouldn't forget to take them on the days needed. Had to finish carving a few pumpkins--I had given some out to friends to carve too, since we had around 40 total.

Then I ran around and picked them all up the day before the shoot. I went to bed early Friday night, knowing that I had to be down on set at 8:30 am.

This

Is

When

Things

Went

Wrong

First thing you do on shoot day is check your phone to see whether there's any last minute problems. But oddly enough, I tap the power button on my phone and it flashes that symbol that tells me there's no battery left. Even though it's been plugged in all night.

I unplug it from the computer and plug it into another computer, thinking maybe the USB port on that computer went bad. Nope. No charge. So it's either the charge cable has gone bad, or the phone has.

I'm suddenly phone-less on a shoot day.

I'm up early so I toss everything in the car and head to Walgreens with my laptop. Buy a new charge cable. Plug it into my laptop. It starts charging.

I hit Dunkin Donuts to get some donuts for everybody. Check my phone and hey, it turns on enough that I can see that I have a text message from one actor that says "Call me ASAP", and was sent at 8am. I don't have enough charge to call anybody, so I text him back to call Zig.

I drive to the parking lot that we meet in, and by that time have enough that I can check the voicemail the actor left. It says, basically, "Hey, my face is swollen up and I'm in pain, and if you have any other options for actors, maybe call one."

I do not have any backups for the role. Who the hell could take a role with zero notice and learn 16 pages of dialogue? We're shooting over 11 pages on the first day, so there's no down time to give anybody.

I'm hoping Zig has told him to come and we'll just deal with it. If the actor can do it, we'll just make his swollen face part of the character. Whatever.

He shows up. Doesn't look TOO bad, but he's definitely in pain. I ask him if he can do it. He's a champ, says he will. But he warns me he'll be a little muddy on the lines, as he's taking some painkillers.

The other actors show up, and we get to shooting. Again, small crew. Me, my brother Mike, Zig, and Stewie shows up for a little while.

Crazily enough, we not only get the 11 pages done, but we get another 1 page scene done before we leave at about 11pm. (we shot from 10am-11pm)

I've been getting a scratchy throat for a couple of days, but I'm glad it didn't turn into a full blown cold for my first day. Unfortunately, I woke up the next day and it HAD turned into that.

And we had a big day of FX, shooting at night, and one of the cast has mentioned he works early the next morning so that--even though the shooting schedule has for weeks said that we'll be shooting until 4am--he'd love to end early.

But hey, here's a shot of the pumpkin trail(part of it) that my brother shot on day(night) 1...

Never Before Seen Pictures From the Terrortory 1 Wrap

I know I haven't really done many updates--had a lot to do.

At this moment I'm doing last-minute prep to shoot the "Pumpkin Trail" segment this coming weekend. We were supposed to shoot it last weekend, but rain was threatening and I had to either cancel the camera rental on Monday, or eat it if it rained.

On top of that, there was some other FX issues that you just would not believe if I told you. If you have seen Brutal Massacre: A Comedy, then you might be able to imagine it. (and if you haven't seen that movie, DO IT. If you work in low budget horror, you will dig it in a big way.

Anyway, today I'm going back out to the woods to get a few pickup shots for the main story plus some foley. Cutting's coming down from Connecticut, and Joe's coming out, so it'll be a reunion.

I was out in the woods again yesterday doing my final location scout for the Pumpkin Trail.  Keeping track of all the trails and locations is tough, to say the least.

I can confirm that I will debut a teaser for Terrortory 2 at Monstermania at the end of this month, so if you're around, come check it out and say hi. (If you can't make it, don't worry--I'll put it online sometime after that)

So here's some pics from the first wrap that I never put out, featuring the Gotz character. I figure it's long enough to wait to spoil this, right?

All pics are by my brother Mike Kangas--you can see some of his pics here:
http://www.thepicta.com/user/mike__kangas/1642219067

And follow him on Instagram. It's mike_kangas there.

This is what no-budget sound department looks like. I hope it becomes a meme on the Movie Set Memes group. (It's Steve "Stewie" Pattee, working hard as usual)

Laura, Steve and Brad. Pretending to have fun.

So, this. Probably needs some explanation, because you didn't see it in the movie, did you?

We had some issues with the first version of the doll-face makeup for Brad. It wasn't good. Made him look like some sort of geisha doll. I'd show it to you, but Brad made me destroy all pictures of it. (Okay, not really, but why embarrass all of us by showing it?)

Well, they had THIS mask in their stuff so we toyed with the idea of using it instead. Only problem for me was that it really made no sense to the plot. See, Gotz turns people into dolls. So why on earth would he turn Brad's character into leatherface?

So we shot some pics, but never used it. I may have rolled some video, I can't remember.

Gotz, doing his best Elvis, I think. That's M.T. Smith under the mask--he's also Smiling Jack in the film. (so if you see that question on Jeopardy, now you can totally answer it)

Goddamn Stewie trying to score with Gotz. He's really desperate.

Then below, another two shots of Gotz. You can see my immediate problem, which is that we didn't make his neck match the mask. So any low shots got really problematic.

You could say this is me lying down on the job. But what it REALLY was was one of the most dangerous shots ever. I lay down there while she swung the stick at me, so it's sort of the Gotz-dies POV.

It was pretty scary looking through that lens as she swung it over and over. Luckily, I hadn't irritated her enough that she "accidentally" hit me or anything.

Another shot oft he not-used mask.

Weirdly enough, people don't want you to bash heads in on their carpet. They don't want blood stains all over. How ridiculous, right? So we had a piece of the carpet, and took it outside to try to fake it out there.

The color balance on the lights didn't match AT all--a fact I'm sure you can see in the final film. No matter what I did to try to get it to match, couldn't get it perfect.

Also, this is the FIRST time we tried it. His face didn't bash in like I wanted it--the top of his head sort of popped off and blood oozed out. It was kind of cool looking, but not so realistic.

Anyway, more to come. I gotta go get my equipment ready.

Music Of Terrortory and Terrortory 2

When I first started on Terrortory I wasn't sure what we were going to do musically. My usual and first love is orchestral--it's what I've heard in the movies I've loved all my life. From Bernard Herrmann to John Williams to Basil Pouledouris to Alan Silvestri to Jerry Goldsmith to Danny Elfman and more.

But in the back of my mind were guys like Harold Faltermeyer and Tangerine Dream and Vangelis.

They did some pretty incredible, non traditional scores using synthesizers. And with Terrortory being an old-fashioned horror anthology, now would be the time to go with that sort of sound if I ever did.

Well, way things worked out, I couldn't get one composer to do the whole thing anyway. Time was not our friend, and by the time I moved forward and realized my regular guy Chad couldn't do it, the sand was slipping through the hourglass too fast for one guy to meet the deadline.

So I started thinking...there's no REAL reason that the segments couldn't be scored by different people. We could keep the classic orchestral stuff for the main storyline--which would be handled by the talented Terence Jones(who returns for the sequel)--and then I would start looking around for talented synth guys.
By the way, you can get the score for Terrortory here at Terry's site:
http://www.terencejonesmusic.co.uk/music/

I'd been part of a synth FB group for quite a while, and had heard some great songs. Could any of them segue into actually doing MUSIC that would accompany the video, rather than just a SONG?

Turns out that I got a lot of submissions. I went with a well-known guy named Daniel Deluxe for the Smiling Jack segment, and he hit nearly a home run right off the bat. The music he gave me the first time is about 98% of what's in the final movie. I had one tweak for it, which he did right away, and it was perfect.

Then another guy named Ben Mosely--his moniker is Bishop of Battle--came on to do Siren. He was super cool to work with, and unlike Daniel, we talked face to face a few times in vid-chat to discuss ideas and my thoughts. The Siren score turned out awesome.

Meanwhile, another guy had started work on the Drone Collector but after he saw how much work it was for the money, he bailed. I don't blame him--if the only reason you're doing it is for the money, then this probably isn't for you.

I didn't exactly have a backup, and hadn't even found anybody to do Prowler yet, so I hit Ben up because he's mentioned he'd be interested in doing more. I sent him Drone Collector and he went to work.

I also mentioned that if he had time and wanted to do Prowler, well, I'd owe him big.

He got both done, and they're both very different-sounding and excellent scores.

-----------

Also in the back of my mind was the end-credit music. What do I do about that?

Well, I aimed high at first. Like, WAY too fucking high. I actually looked into licensing real 80's songs that would be perfect for the after-"We're going to the beach" cut to black.

On my list:
Ain't Nothing Gonna Break My Stride
We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off(To Have A Good Time)
Modern Love
Don't You Want Me
She Drives Me Crazy
I Can't Go For That
Can't Get Enuff - Winger
Lips and Hips - Electric Boys

Had a conversation on the phone with a very nice guy who licenses music for TV and movies. It would cost $500 just for him to find out the exact amount it would take to license a song and from who. But he told me--if I didn't have a minimum of $5000, there was no way I was going to get rights to any song that played on the radio in the 80's for any more than a couple of years, and if I wanted anything that hit the top 40--WAAAY more.

And as I told him, no, I didn't have that money. He was super cool about it. Gave me a lot of information, when he could have just told me to fuck off, peon.
UPDATE--I located his name and company in case you have the money and want a good music clearance guy.

THE MUSIC BRIDGE LLC
(Music Clearance, Licensing, Supervision and Consultation)
P.O. Box 661918, Los Angeles, CA., CA 90066
Phone: (310) 398-9650 Fax: (310) 398-4850
Website: www.themusicbridge.com

Then I went back to the music groups. I had been listening to quite a few songs, and some of them were pretty perfect. I made a list of my top 10. They were these, in no particular order:


This is the song that ended up in the credits, and it's perfect there. The guys in Foret De Vin were super cool to work with, and had no problem with the contract. (it takes no rights other than the rights to put it in the movie--the master use and sync rights)



FM-84 is a group that hit it big just about the time I was looking at credits music. They got back to me, but they'd hired a company to place their music in movies and TV, so I'd have to go through that company. That would have ended up being too much money, so they were out of the running. But that song(and that album) still kicks so much ass.



I didn't get that far in pursuing this song, but it's such a catchy, funky tune, and the whole "Men are not nice guys" sort of fits into my idea of how a lot of the men are in the film.

This one doesn't have a video, but is totally worth a listen on Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/rad-rush-records/sebastian-gampl-winner-get-it-on



This one fit in with the fact that Brad and Carly were on vacation(holiday), and is just a super catchy jingle.

I knew I wanted an upbeat song, because in my mind I was sort of trying to ape the feel of the ending to Lost Boys. You know, drop a great one-liner and punch out to black. I knew I'd never do it as well as Lost Boys, but steal from the greats, am I right?

Anyway, I'm on the search for the end-credits to Terrortory 2 and may have found the perfect song. I'm talking to the artist now, so fingers crossed.

But I can let you hear this--this is a song that gets played in the movie. Since I've already licensed the rights, I have no problem letting you hear it. It's a funky, cool tune by a very talented guy from Poland--go buy it and support him.