Well, we’re officially in the pre-production phase and one of the million things that we have to get done is a short teaser for investors before we start principal photography in June. That means…
Its time for Cherry to get a little nasty.
The opening scene of the feature calls for a beautiful young woman to be driving through the streets. She looks free and happy; like the weight of the world was just lifted off of her shoulders. She looks sweet and innocent…
Then we see the screaming, bloody body she’s dragging behind her.
We wanted to film this as a teaser trailer to our film. This forty five second clip shows who Cherry is, the style we hope to achieve with the feature and shock you into wondering what led this attractive young woman to drag some poor schmuck up and down the Austin streets.
Several elements had to come together:
- Bad Ass Car
- Bad Ass Cherry
- A guy to be drug up and down the streets behind a bad ass car being driven by a bad ass Cherry
We needed a car that was a 1984 or earlier muscle car for a few hours at a really awkward time of night. Its hard enough to approach someone and say “Is if cool if we borrow your car… at 3 AM… and tie a dead body to the bumper?”
Its the kind of proposal most people pass on in favor of sleep.
We scoured craigslist, put out ads and contacted all of our friends before Kyle stumbled onto an ad put out by an AWESOME young lady getting her PhD in Archaeology (or a similar field. I was talking with her at like 4 AM. Sue me for missing some details.), named Micaela. She had an awesome 1978 Camaro. Black. V8. Enough sex appeal to make Magnum PI blush. A better car than Garrett had ever imagined when writing the script. She was selling the car and agreed to let us use it for the short.
Now we needed Miss Cherry Bomb. We needed someone young, attractive and a little devious when you took a deeper look at her. When casting for another short film called “Top Story”, Garrett sought out actresses with similar characteristics to Cherry. One of the actresses who could regretfully not make it to the audition for “Top Story” and had a great look for the part was Mysteria Black (http://www.mysteriablack.com). After 5 phone calls, 3 e-mails, and a singing telegram, she agreed to do the teaser trailer.
With the car and actress all set, we just needed a dummy named Pete to drag down the street…. at 50mph. A mannequin was too flimsy for the abuse Cherry would inflict upon him. Well, 3 days and a lot of duct tape later, Kyle had Pete finished. The trifecta was finally complete!
Going into the shoot, we were walking on thin ice with regards to the law. You are required to have permits to shoot on public streets. It’s frowned upon to drag bodies up and down Austin roads. Its even worse to record loud screams in a residential area at 4 AM on a Sunday. We were doing all of the above. Eat your heart out, Rebel without a Crew, Robert Rodriguez.
Shooing low budget isn’t without its charm. Its the little things that make you smile. Like expecting to use the interior car cigarette lighter to power an interior light to illuminate Mysteria. Then having the cigarette lighter not work. (In the Camaro’s defense, it’s built for bad-assness, not lighting cigarettes.) But, being the efficient and sleep deprived crew that we were, we made it work.
After solving the illumination problem, we were set to shoot the first shot, which was the car whipping past the camera dragging Pete. The stage was set. The engine was roaring. Then… the street light went out. Then after a few minutes came back on.
Then it went back off. It was slow motion strobe without the cheesy techno music or glow sticks.
Rather than get frustrated and call it quits like lesser crews, we persevered. We used a street racing like “drop my arms” signal to go and managed to properly time the car zooming underneath the lit streetlight just before it went out. We were able to get four or five good takes.
But the seeds were planted for interruptions as some people saw us dragging a body up and down Pleasant Valley. Some also shouted nasty things at us. Keep talking assholes, we’re the ones with the Camaro and 20 feet of rope…
We then began the stage of filming that saw Kyle tied into the back of Garrett’s SUV getting some moving driving shots. Kyle’s friend Jason illuminated the car using a spotlight and a diffuser. It took about seven or eight trips up an down the secure stretch of road we were working on to get the footage Kyle wanted.
It then took one person yelling at us to “stop dragging that poor man around” to decide it was time to move on to shots not involving Pete.
After putting Pete into Kyle’s trunk, we went back to shooting with Kyle in the back of Garrett’s SUV. After a few runs, a car with a blue and red lightboard turned onto the street and came our way. We steadied ourselves. We readied our defense. We were prepared to go to jail or receive whatever punishment would come our way…
Officer: You boys been dragging something behind a car?
Kyle: Yes sir, his name’s Pete. He’s in my trunk now.
Officer: Ah. Is this for a student film?
Kyle: Um….yea… sure is officer. Student film, yup. We’re making Fast and Furious 4.
Officer: I love Paul Walker, keep up the good work boys!
It went more or less like that. After dodging that bullet, we felt it was time to move on to interiors. Kyle spent a little bit of time with Mysteria as she did car related things like pressing on the gas, shifting and looking devious.
Then it came time to bloody Garrett up for his closeup. He would provide Pete’s screaming face. Kyle had more fun pouring gook onto Garrett’s face than he should have, but the effect was all the same. Using a low budget greenscreen, Kyle shot Garrett fake yelling. He wasn’t about to yell for real and wake up the poor people in the surrounding apartments. That would just be mean.
After Garrett’s cameo, we took in many decibels of the throaty V8 Camaro’s engine. It would be a shame to have access to an engine roar like that and not record it for use in the teaser. Then, after we packed up, it was time for one last annoyance to the good people of Pleasant Valley before we took off.
“Scream at the top of your lungs” Kyle told Garrett. We did three takes of him waking up the people in the adjacent apartments with a scream, which sounded a little too much like Fozzy Bear on crack, before calling it a night.
The teaser came in costing about $130. It was shot in an hour less than budgeted and we got about a half dozen more shots than we had planned to. Guerilla filmmaking at its best. Check out the Teaser section of the site for the results of our hard work and let us know what you think by responding to this blog.
