Afternoon, blogosphere. Hello, studentfilms.com. I’m simulcasting this little journal/diary/blog type thing because I enjoy the studentfilms.com website, and I’d like to be able to add some content to the message board rather than just lurking. I’d like to be able to add some content to the site as well--my short films--but A: I need to spend all the cash I can get on this movie I’m working now, and B: I don’t own the rights to the music in my shorts. If anyone is, like, so insanely interested based on my writing skills in this blog or something that they really think I ought to get on the ball and edit my short films to eliminate the copyrighted music… you know, reply to this saying so, and maybe I will. I probably will anyway, eventually, because I would like other people to see my stuff, whether they think it sucks or not.

So, anyway, this is the first entry in a blog that will hopefully give you a good idea of my experience making my first feature film, “The New Mike Rogers.” I suppose I ought to start with some background information. My name is David Smith. I’m 17-years-old, I live in Oak Hill, West Virginia, I’m a senior at Oak Hill High School (for the next couple of weeks anyway, until I graduate), and I’m a filmmaker. I’ve made about seven short films so far… John Masse: The Punisher, The Potato Chip Bandit, Banana Ninja, More Wishes, The Dog’s Name is Karl Malone, Gregranio, and Golden Shower… yeah, that’s 7. You know, whether they’re any good or not… that’s debatable. People tell me they like them. Two of them have placed in the West Virginia International Film Festival’s Student Film Competition (http://www.wviff.org). I’m proud of my work, but I’m definitely not 100% pleased with it, and I think that’s good. I certainly don’t ever want to get cocky. Really, I think my writing needs a lot of work too, but most people’s take on the Wazzlehog Films (the production company I co-founded with my friend, Kris Peraldo) productions so far is that the writing is good, but there’s a lot of development needed technically. Currently, I’m trying to do the best with what I’ve got. Right now, I’ve got a JVC GR-D72 miniDV camcorder, which from what I can tell, is the kind of camera best suited for taping home movies and soccer games. I want to save up money to get a nice 3CCD camera for future projects. It’d also be nice to get an external microphone. Even if I had one of those right now, it wouldn’t do me any good, because I idiotically didn’t realize that the JVC camcorder doesn’t have an input for an external mic. The editing program that I use is ArcSoft Showbiz 2; it came with the HP DVD writer my dad bought me. I like it. I imagine it’s not nearly as advanced as Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, or probably even a lot of other editing software, but it does the job.

Mayhaps I settle too much. I haven’t exactly done my part to get money for all these wondrous filmmaking appliances that would up the quality of my movies. I don’t work. I think I’d like to get a job after I’m finished with this movie. I might even get one during it; the only reason I want to wait until afterward is that I’m already going to have to work around other people’s work schedules. Working around mine would make scheduling scenes even more difficult. But anyway, I do want my movies to look and sound good. I love shooting, and I love editing. I love writing most, though. I just think that if I can tell a good story and make people laugh… hopefully they can forgive a little shoddiness in the production value. I’ll probably sound retarded to most people who are really into film when I say this… I’ll probably sound retarded to anyone who even knows the slightest bit about making movies saying it, actually… you know, all these folks say, “Oh, yeah, Robert Rodriguez shot El Mariachi for just $7,000!” and stuff like that… and $7,000 is still a hell of a lot of money. I don’t understand how if you have a basic idea and people who are willing to help out and act in the picture… why can’t you make a movie that costs, like, $5?

Well, this movie will cost more than $5. In fact, I think it already has gone over that mark. I don’t want to sound like I’m saying, “Oh, my movie can be crappy; I don’t care, la la la la la…” But, you know… I guess this movie, if it goes the way I’m planning it to now, will answer the question of whether or not a feature film shot on a, like, $350 miniDV camera, using the camera’s mic, edited with software that mostly garners strange looks from people whenever I answer them after they ask me what I edit with, with a lot of natural lighting… can be, uh, entertaining. Enough to where it might be accepted to at least one of the film festivals I plan on entering it into. Hey, I’ve got my fingers crossed.

I do have a fundraising idea for the project. My little brother’s youth group will occasionally have car washes at Wal Mart in order to pay for trips to church conferences in Virginia. I’m thinking about asking someone at Wal Mart about the possibility of having a Wazzlehog Films car wash. You know, that youth group is trying to get money to go on trips across the state lines… what I’d like, is like, some ****ing light bulbs. So, I think I might be able to make some good money to use in the budget from something like that. I contemplated some ideas for it while making the two-hour drive to my girlfriend’s house on Friday. I don’t think I would be able to use the ideas; I was just bored. I thought I could have the people there come dressed up as characters they played in the movies so far. People could get their car washed by all sorts of characters from movies they’ve never seen! I thought maybe I could give out DVDs to the people who get their car washed, but that would mean I’d have to buy a lot of blank DVDs… because hopefully we’d have a lot of people. Although I guess we might only get one car. I thought maybe I could have everyone who gets their car washed sign a piece of paper so I could credit them at the end as a producer since they invested some money via the car wash. I don’t know…

So, anyway, I’ll bet you’re sitting there asking yourself, “What the **** is this movie even about?” Well, no, that’s a little arrogant to assume… you’re probably sitting there asking yourself, “Why am I still reading this? This guy is so stupid.” Or, you know, you’re thinking, “Why is David pretending like people he didn’t tell about this blog are reading this?” because maybe I know you. Okay, now you’re probably thinking, “I wish he would stop assuming he knows that I’m thinking and just tell me what the movie is about,” if I haven’t already insulted you to the point where you’ve stopped reading. And since you’ve made it through all that, I will now talk about what the movie is about. It’s hard to describe briefly. I know this, because everyone always asks me, and after I answer, I think they’re even more confused. So, there’s this guy named Jack Collins. He’s in high school, he wants to be a writer, but he can’t write… he spends all his time typing short stories on Microsoft Word, but he always deletes them before he finishes. He’s trying to write something more personal than a lot of the “silly” stuff he’s written in the past, but he’s having a lot of difficulty with doing that. Then, there are these guys, Samuel Blackman, Will Caterson, and Mike Rogers. They run around town pulling pranks on people, but they’re pranks are usually very strange and either really stupid or too conceptual. One night after suffering an injury due to sticking his finger in a fan, Mike decides to quit the gang. Not wanting anything to change, Samuel and Will set out to replace their friend. Thinking that becoming this replacement could provide him with the kind of life experiences necessary to write a personal story, Jack starts hanging out with them. But when a new girl in town named Ophelia persuades him to quit, it all goes to hell.

I wrote the first draft of the script a couple of years ago now, I guess. It was a lot different than the one we’re shooting now. There was an extended flashback sequence involving Jack accidentally killing a dog while masturbating, as well as a backstory for Ophelia that involved a secret society of ninja who killed Jack the Ripper. While neither of those things made it to the shooting script, masturbation is still a pretty prevalent theme. Someone asked me the other day why I’m making a movie about what I’m making a movie about. “What am I making a movie about?” I asked him. “Masturbation.” Now, while there is a lot of dialogue about self-gratification in the movie, and even a couple of scene where it happens (off camera!), I really don’t think that’s what it’s ABOUT. You know, there’s themes about change, and being yourself… but yeah, I won’t deny that the subject of jerkin’ yer’ gerkin’ pops up a lot.

Some people who have read different versions have told me that they like the first draft better. There are definitely things that I like about it, but there are a lot more things that I don’t, not to mention that there are a lot of things that would be impossible to shoot with the budget I have and everything. So, I just did a page one re-write, keeping the outline of the plot intact but changing a bunch of other stuff. I originally got the idea for the movie after these guys started calling me the new Josh Roberts. The characters of Samuel and Will were based on those guys, but in this new draft, I think they changed a lot. They aren’t really the kinds of guys who would go around town pulling a bunch of dumb pranks. Ophelia changed a lot. In a way, I think she’s an amalgamation of some different girls I’ve known… and I think there’s a little bit of me in her too… as well as, at least I would like to think, some original qualities… but the more I read the script, the more I realize that she is mostly my girlfriend. She kept telling me that the character was her, and while I certainly knew that I was taking some lines from things she had said, I don’t think I realized exactly how much of her I used for the character. But I like it, and I think she likes it. The main character is based on me, as it always has been, but what I liked about writing it this time was that I think the character is based on a version of me from the past. I felt better about writing it this time because I felt like I was writing about who I used to be, rather than who I am. The character is a lot more depressed and anti-social than me… I’m still pretty quiet and cynical, but I’m a lot happier. I’m not as lonely.

Casting was quite difficult there for a while. In the script, Jack and Ophelia are supposed to be freshmen. I think that makes them seem more vulnerable in comparison to Will and Samuel. So, though the characters were based on my girlfriend and me, I didn’t want us to play each other. Not only because I thought we were too old, but I also wanted to be behind the camera to set up shots and everything. My first choices were Mark Comer and Cassandra Lovejoy. Well, that’s not entirely true… my first choice for Jack was my little brother, Cory. Everyone says that Cory and I look alike, so since the character was based on me, I thought he’d be great for the part. Not only that, but I really liked his performances in my other short films even though he only played small parts. He never really thinks he does well. Aaron Crisp, one of the head members of Wazzlehog Films, and probably the original Mike Rogers in this movie, is always criticizing me for giving him ****ty roles. I thought Cory could do the lead in this, but there were several different problems with him doing it. The character swears and talks about masturbation, and I was wary of how comfortable he would feel about that since he’s big into Christianity. He said he would be okay with it, but he wants to be a preacher, and I keep having this image of him getting successful with ministry and then regretting being in my filthy movie. Aside from that, he, like me, isn’t the most social guy around… and, with Jack having some kissing scenes with Ophelia… it just seemed like it was going to be kind of awkward.

So, I decided I would ask Mark Comer to do it. I can’t explain why, but I just thought he had the right look, and I especially liked his voice; I thought it would be good for the character. I sent him the script; he e-mailed me back and told me he loved it. Then I sent it to Cassandra, Aaron Crisp’s little sister, who was also a freshman and looked sort of like how I thought Ophelia could look. She liked the script too but said that she felt like she might be a little uncomfortable since she didn’t know a lot of the other people who would be in the movie. She said she would do it, though. So, I was happy. Both of my first choices said yes. Then she asked who I was considering to play Jack. I told her, “Mark Comer.” And then she laughed. She said that she thought she would be uncomfortable with Mark and told me she actually had an idea for someone to play Jack. That ended up falling through though.

So, for a while, it went back to Cory playing Jack with Cassandra playing Ophelia. Then we had a read through and just as she had said before, Cassandra seemed a little uncomfortable with all the guys who were around. So, I decided I was going to look for a new Ophelia. Realizing that the actress portraying Ophelia’s comfort with the other people involved with the movie should probably be something to consider more, I began leaning more in the direction of Kathryn Wilson. Kathryn is a friend of mine who’s also friends with some of the other people in the movie. She’s also a girl I used to have a considerably large crush on, which brought about another issue… Casey, my girlfriend, was uncomfortable with her playing the part. So, all throughout the period that I was considering Kathryn, I was torn. Here was this actress who would be incredibly convenient for the part since she already knows a lot of the people involved, but my girlfriend was annoyed at the prospect of her doing it since I used to like her. I thought about it a lot, and it really made me almost want to just call the whole movie off… I mean, if Casey was making a movie and she wrote a male character based on me, then she got some guy she used to like a whole lot to play him… I would feel pretty damn uncomfortable about the situation.

I was going to do it, though. Casey assured me she would be okay. I still felt bad because I felt like it might lessen her enjoyment of the finished project, but I wanted to do it, because I really want to make this movie. You know, I just want to get it out of my head… I’ve had it floating around for so long now. I at least want to film it so I can move onto something else. Casey said she would be okay with it. Kathryn playing Ophelia meant that Mark could play Jack… only, I think he would’ve been a little young with her playing the character. We never really got to discuss that, as Mark expressed that he wasn’t feeling confident with playing the main character. He said that he would do it if it was between that or not making the movie, but if we could get someone else, he would rather it be someone else. So, we got someone else.

I had also thought that this kid who rides my bus (or the bus I used to ride before I started driving) and has a mustache might make a good Jack… Cory suggested him using his actual name, Michael Underwood. We gave Michael a script, he read it, he said he enjoyed it, and it looked like things were all set for him to play Jack and Kathryn to play Ophelia. I set up a read through with them last Monday afternoon, but when that time came, plans changed again. Michael couldn’t come over because he was grounded. Kathryn seemed more worried that she wouldn’t be able to play Ophelia since she was moving soon and wouldn’t be available a whole lot… and she also seemed a little uncomfortable with the idea of kissing Michael. I was planning on starting to shoot Wednesday since I need to get the scenes that take place in school shot before school is out, so losing some certainty in my two lead actors was not the best thing. Kathryn said she would play Ophelia is I really wanted her to, but I told her she didn’t have to… because if someone is reluctant to play a part, I don’t think they would do that well anyway. Michael called back later to tell me he could come over the next night, but without an Ophelia, it looked like things were uncertain with him too. After deciding to cast Michael, my desire to cast Kathryn was strengthened since they’re friends with each other. So, now I had to find a new Ophelia. Chris Harmon, the fourth and final (along with me, Peraldo, and Crisp) big member of Wazzlehog Films, came over and suggested something that it seemed like everyone else was suggesting too… that I just needed to find a girlfriend and boyfriend to do the parts. Then, I told him, as I told the other people, “That’s a lot easier said than done.” But then it clicked. Jack and Ophelia are based on me and Casey. Sure, it would be nice to be behind the camera, but I would feel fairly comfortable in front of it with Cory or Mark holding it. We look a little more mature than I wanted the characters to look, but A: we’re certainly a lot younger than the actors and actresses who portray teenagers in a lot of other high school movies, and B: the story doesn’t completely fall apart if Jack and Ophelia are a little older. And so, I decided to pull a Woody Allen and cast myself and my significant other as the leads in my movie.

There wasn’t quite as much trouble with the other leads. I thought I was going to have a lot of trouble casting Will considering that there’s a scene where he goes through the drive-thru of Burger King pantsless with a paper cup around his genitalia… yeah… but, after telling Jonathan Clemins about it, he said, “I’ll do it! David, I would be naked for one of your movies!” “That won’t be necessary,” I told him. “Just put your wang in a cup.” That’s a very odd scene to think about. It’s probably going to end up being the last thing we shoot. I have to think about certain things for it that I don’t really want to think about. It occurred to me that I had to ask him… you know, because of the positioning of the cup and everything… how… “bushy” a guy he was. I still have to ask him, I guess, because he didn’t really give me a straight answer. In the process of asking him though, I had a little trouble. I couldn’t come right out and ask him, so as I was trying, he asked, “What, you want me to do it without the cup? I’ll do it!” “No! No…” I said.

For Samuel it was between Chris Harmon and Michael Williams. Harmon has been really intense in the movies before, so I thought he would be good for the parts where Samuel gets that way. At first though, I wasn’t sure when I was going to begin shooting, and he was still at WVU. I sent him a script, but I started to consider other options. I thought Michael Williams, a guy I go to school with who expressed some interest in doing the score for the movie, might work… I think he’s probably capable of being intense, but also capable of pulling off the flip-side to the character who’s more silly… the kind of guy who gets a kick out of doing the signal one would do to get a truck driver to honk their horn to pedestrians. He read the script, liked it, and said he would do the part. I had a read-through with him and Jonathan, and I liked the way he read, so now he’s playing Samuel.

We did indeed start shooting on Wednesday. As of now, there are only two more scenes I need to shoot that involve Jack at school without Ophelia, Will, and Samuel. I’ll probably shoot the scenes with all of them the week after graduation, while school is still going on for underclassmen. I don’t need to go anywhere for Senior Week; I’m shooting a movie! A couple of the scenes at school were sort of “ghost directed.” I was a little nervous about shooting in my Broadcasting class since my latest substitute (we’ve had a couple since the regular teacher left) is also big into filmmaking… we ended up using his 3CCD camera for the scenes I shot in there. I don’t think they look too glaringly different from the other footage. He encouraged me to get more shots even after I thought I got as much as I needed. Later, while shooting in my old English and Creative Writing teacher’s current creative writing class, a student kept directing him to not move his hands around so much when he was saying his lines. I didn’t really mind. I thought it looked natural enough for the character. Sometimes, something I don’t like about directing is that people think I’m being a push-over when I’m not… I can’t really complain though, because sometimes I really am just being a push-over. But I know what I’m going to need to edit and what I think looks good. It is nice to have other people trying to help, though.

Different scenes at school take place on different days, so I’ve been changing clothes and wearing the same clothes for more than one day since the character dresses like me anyway. It’s gotten me a little confused. I’ve told some people we were shooting their scenes on different days than I had planned to because I keep losing track of what day it is. Oh well… I’ve got a lot of the school stuff taped now. It’s odd that these are my last days of high school, so I should really want them to go by fast, but I want to get this movie done so much that I keep thinking, “School can’t be over yet; it has to go on a little bit longer!”

Yesterday I taped the first big “stunt” scene. I don’t know if you would really call it a stunt, but it’s the first sort of crazy scene. In it, Jack, Samuel, and Will have just bought a bunch of cheese popcorn, and they’ve set up a table outside of a grocery store to give away free samples. A customer comes up to get a cup, and they kick the table over in front of him. My first priority is to get all of the school scenes completed first, but I wanted to get this one shot soon also because there’s a grocery store that just closed near my house, so I thought it would be the perfect place to shoot. For the first part of yesterday, Casey and I drove all over Oak Hill looking for a table cloth to write ‘FREE SAMPLES’ on. We didn’t even know if we would be able to use it that night, since it was windy and it looked like it might rain. I also couldn’t get in touch with Jonathan, who was needed in the scene to play Will. When I finally did, I was informed that it was his first day working at Wendy’s, but he would be off at 8:00. The scene was supposed to take place in the evening, but I had to make sure it would still be light enough to do the scene… I went to the Weather Channel’s website and found that the sun was supposed to set at 8:27. So, I still thought, “Maybe we can do it!”

I told Michael Williams and Mark Comer (who is now a producer, as well as the customer in this grocery store scene) to be over at my house at 7:30. At 7:00, Casey and I went out to buy the cheese popcorn and plastic cups. I guess it was a little after seven actually, because at 7:22, we were outside of the grocery store and she asked if I thought we had time to stop at Dairy Queen for an ice cream. Stupidly, I said yes… we had less than ten minutes, and it’s not like the Dairy Queen is right next to my house. It’s not too far away either, but still. We went, got the ice cream, and when I got to my house, everyone was already there. We began hurriedly trying to get the desk we were going to use in the scene into a car. The desk we were planning on using wouldn’t fit in my car, my mom’s car, Michael’s car, or Joe’s (Mark’s ride to my house, and also in the movie in a small role) car. Mark and Cory decided to run and carry the desk all the way to the grocery store… now, the grocery store is closer to my house than Dairy Queen is, but it’s still a long way to run, even without carrying a desk. Jonathan called to say he was at the grocery store, and I told him to hold on while I sorted through all of the chaos. Harmon then called and asked if I needed him for anything I was shooting. I had told him that I was considering Michael to play Samuel, but it wasn’t until then that I realized I had neglected to tell him Michael was definitely doing it… so, now I have to hope that he’s not pissed at me. It probably wasn’t the best way to find out since I was not only talking to him, but also everyone else around who was confused about how we were going to get a table or a desk to the grocery store. I wished that we had someone taping behind-the-scenes stuff, because it probably would’ve made a great special feature on the DVD.

Anyway, Joe drove off to find Mark and Cory. He told them to bring the desk back. They did, and then we decided to use a little plastic table that was in the storage room. We loaded it in my car and everyone took off in the direction of the grocery store. We got there, and I set up the shot as Casey and everyone else got the table and the popcorn ready. I’m not entirely sure who did what, but I’m very grateful. I feel like I should’ve done more. I think it all turned out really well, though. I don’t know how, but it did. Kevin Smith has said that he would never take a “Film by” credit because filmmaking it a collaborative effort. In the past, I have to admit that I’ve thought there might not be a huge problem with using the credit, “A David Smith Film.” Especially in the last film I shot where I played both main characters in addition to writing, directing, and editing. Granted, someone else wanted to play the other character and I ended up doing it out of lack of patience, but still… the point is, in this one, I definitely can’t say, “A David Smith Film,” or “A Film By David Smith,” because I’ve already received a lot more help from people than I probably deserve. I appreciate it immensely, and I want to repay everyone who’s doing stuff. It’s really driving me even harder to make sure this movie turns out well.

I talked to Casey last night about how I feel a lot better now about the movie than I did Friday evening. I feel a lot more excited to shoot everything else, but at the same time, I feel a little weird because I know that it’s only going to get more chaotic. Making a movie is a bizarre process, especially the production part. I really like that part of it, even though I probably like editing best… when you’re shooting the movie, it’s like you’re making a puzzle, like how you can draw a picture on a piece of paper and then cut it up to make a puzzle. But shooting a movie is even weirder, because in order to cut the paper up, you’ve got to try to fit desks in cars and all kinds of crazy ****.

So, I guess this is basically all I’ve done so far. There’s still a lot more to go. Hopefully future entries to this blog won’t be so long, and hopefully they’ll be of better quality since I won’t feel the urge to set up so much. I really wanted to go into more detail about shooting the scenes, but by the time I got to that point, I’d talked about the script so much I started to get a little tired… I never found the right spot to talk about how I hurt my ass from having to fall so much for a scene in which my character slips in the bathroom. Anyway, that’s it for this blog entry. There are pictures from the movie here: http://photobucket.com/albums/y213/WazzlehogFilms/The%20New%20Mike%20Rogers/. Until next time…

--David