What’s the best thing about being on a film set, other than the fact that you’re making a feature film? The stories that you accumulate along the way.
There is nothing better than being on a film set and working with others to achieve a common goal. I love the work. I love the comradery. I love everything about it.
The set of The Devil’s Instrument was no different.
I’m going to share with you a few of my favorite stories from the set and what I learned from this amazing experience.
Processes Fascinate Me
One thing that really fascinated me while working on the set of The Devil’s Instrument was just how all of the actors had their own unique way of studying the script, learning their lines, and building their characters.
I was usually busy looking over the shot list or setting up the lighting for the next scene, but, on occasion, I would look over and see one of the actors doing something amazing with their script.
Ally was really into the backstory of her character. She was really into the backstory of all of the characters, I think. She would write and write and write on the back pages of her screenplay. I believe she wrote more words on the back pages of the script then there were in the actual script itself.
I forget who it was, it might have been Cory, but somebody went to town on their script with a multitude of multi-colored highlighters. Every word in the script was highlighted, and everything was a different color.
I just looked at it in amazement, and I thought to myself, “Wow, that script is really pretty.”
I looked down at Austin’s script at one point and it was covered with all sorts of different symbols. There were no words to speak of. Nothing was highlighted. Nothing was underlined. It was just symbols.
I asked him about it and he said he used them as visual cues to remember his lines. I mean, imagine that. You look at two or three different symbols and, all of sudden, you now remember the next paragraph of dialogue you have to say. If that’s not fascinating, then I don’t know what is.
One script had a whole lot of things circled on it, and another one was completely blank. This just goes to show, everyone has their own unique way of doing things. As a director, I just try to keep from getting in everyone’s way.
Dedication Has a Face
One morning, we all met up at our usual spot, and when Austin got there, I noticed that he looked a little pale. He also looked extremely tired, but I just thought to myself, “He hasn’t had his morning coffee yet.”
We went to the house and shot a few scenes and then it was time for lunch. At some point, I looked over and Austin was asleep in his chair. Or, at least, he looked like he was asleep.
I said something and then everyone starting poking him until he woke up. As I’ve said previously, we all had a terrific relationship with one another, and if any of us ever fell asleep in the presence of one another, then, if somebody got poked, not only was it tolerated, but it was to be expected.
At any rate, he woke up and starting looking around as if he didn’t know where he was. Then, everyone started asking him why he was so tired and that was when he told us the whole story.
He was working at a department store, that much I knew. However, I didn’t know that he was working there even though we were filming The Devil’s Instrument. I just assumed that he had taken the week off.
As it turned out, that was not the case at all. It is worth mentioning that we started filming at about nine or ten in the morning and we didn’t finish until about nine o’clock at night. That’s a pretty long day. It’s even longer if you then leave that job and go to work at another one.
And that’s what Austin had been doing. He was leaving the set and going to work. That, my friends, is what you call dedication.
He had obviously had a lot to do at the department store the night before and he said that he had gotten home so late that it wasn’t even worth it for him to go to sleep. So, he just had a little coffee and met up with us that next morning.
We shot a lot of scenes that afternoon, and every now and again I would nudge Austin, just to make sure that he was still alive. Every time, it turned out, he was, and we continued filming.
After all was said and done, he did his job and he went more than forty-eight hours without any sleep. Dedication definitely has a face, and it looks really tired.
Are You Okay?
It’s probably common knowledge at this point, but I will repeat it here, and that is, part of the fun of making a horror film is that someone always gets the chance to get covered in fake blood.
That fake blood is made from a mixture of corn syrup, red food coloring, blue food coloring, cocoa powder, and cornstarch.
I put fake blood on myself, in order to “test it”. That’s how much fun it is.
So, one of the scenes required Jordan to have blood dripping all down his face, and he was more than happy to have it put on him.
Ally did most of the make-up and effects for The Devil’s Instrument and I gave her the credit of Key Make-Up Artist because she did such an amazing job.
She put the blood on Jordan and he did his scenes, and, as always, he was amazing. After we had wrapped for the day, I noticed Jordan still had blood all over his face, and I asked, “You want me to wipe that off for you?”
All he said was, “No, I like it. I’m just going to drive home like this.”
I thought to myself, “Well, I guess dedication has another face, and this one has blood dripping all down the side of it.”
True to his word, Jordan did indeed drive home like that.
I mean, think about it, seeing someone driving down the road or walking on the street with blood dripping all down their face. What would you do? Would you say anything to them?
My town is probably used to that sort of thing all throughout October, but this is the middle of July that we’re talking about here. It’s a little outside the norm.
I did ask him about it the next day. I asked, “Did you get any weird looks driving home yesterday?”
A look of realization overtook his face and he said, “Oh yea, somebody kept looking over at me when I was stopped at a stoplight. I looked over and they mouthed the words, “Are you okay?” I just smiled and shook my head, like, “Yea.”
I always pray the same prayer every night when I’m in production, and that prayer goes a little something like this, “Dear Lord, please don’t let anyone call the police on us.”
So far, so good, I guess.
I Hope He Didn’t Notice
Another thing that I thought was funny usually occurred on set during lunch.
The kitchen was a pretty tight squeeze no matter how many people happened to be on set on any given day.
And, I had a transport wheelchair on set that I would use on occasion for tracking shots. It was my dolly, so to speak, since we couldn’t actually afford a real dolly and track.
I didn’t end up using it all that much because the set was so small that it almost rendered a dolly, or even a makeshift dolly, useless.
I always made sure that there were enough chairs for everyone at lunch, but just to be on the safe side, I put that wheelchair in the kitchen for extra seating.
I figured I should at least get some use out of it.
It turned out to be Austin’s favorite seating spot for lunch. I’m not sure why, although I did sit in it, and it was pretty comfortable. He always had it sitting right next to the counter, too, probably because that was the only place it would fit.
Now, I’d like to think that I’m a pretty nice guy, so, every time we had lunch, I would always make sure that everyone had gotten all that they wanted to eat before I would inevitably go back for seconds.
The only problem with that was that Austin was always in my way. He’d be sitting in the wheelchair, studying his script, drawing his symbols, and there would be a glorious sandwich with my name on it right behind him.
What was I to do?
I didn’t want to be rude and disturb his work. So, while he was hard at work making his symbols and working his way through the script, I would gently unlock the wheels on the wheelchair, and, as carefully as I could, I would push him forward, slowly.
I did this just enough so that I could get my sandwich, and then, I’d move him back to his original position and lock the wheels back without missing a beat.
I did this on several occasions throughout the week that we filmed The Devil’s Instrument, and I always watched his eyes. If he ever took his eyes off of the script, even for a second, then I would have known that I was caught.
But that never happened, and to this day I still don’t know if he was aware of the fact that I was wheeling him all throughout the kitchen just so I could get my fill of the lunch that day.
Wow, That’s a Long Time
One afternoon, I remember, it was getting late and I kind of had a feeling that everyone was tired and wanted to go home. I certainly understood how they felt, so I said that we’d do one last scene and then call it a night.
The shot that I wanted to get was a stationary shot, which meant the camera was going to be on the tripod the whole time. Jordan was holding the boom pole, so we were ready to go.
As I said, I was tired like everyone else, so what I did was tilt the monitor down where I could see what was going on and then I quite literally laid on my back on the floor and just looked up at the monitor.
I said, “Rolling on video.” And Jordan said, “Rolling on sound.” And the scene began.
I will mention that this was a pretty long scene with a lot of dialogue and as we went through it, someone would flub a line or two, and I’d say, “Just go again, starting with the previous line.”
We were getting kind of punchy, as well, and when somebody started laughing, we would all start laughing, and it was pretty hard to stop.
I’d say something to the effect of, “Just start from the beginning.” And we’d do it all over again.
That’s one of the benefits of shooting digitally. I wasn’t going to fill up the massive SD card in the camera, and even if I did, the information would automatically be transferred to the extra SD card I already had in the camera. This also gives you a wealth of outtakes to aide in the creation of your gag reel.
If we were shooting on film, we’d have to be much more conservative, and on extremely long takes like this, I’m glad we didn’t have to be.
A few more restarts later, and we finally reached the end of the scene.
I looked at the monitor, and to my amazement, it said forty-three minutes. Even for us, that was one long take.
I said, “Cut.” But then, all of a sudden, I heard a huge sigh of relief. I looked over at Jordan with wide eyes and I said, “Oh man, I am so sorry. I forgot that you were holding up the boom pole all this time.”
Goodbye, My Friend
This story is not technically about the set itself, but it is related and so I will include it here.
I filmed The Devil’s Instrument at the house that I owned at the time and it was part of a very busy neighborhood which meant that there wasn’t very much parking available.
So, to avoid angering my neighbors, I had every one meet in the parking lot of a home improvement store close to my house. Every morning we would meet up there at around eight or nine o’clock in the morning.
Everyone would then either ride with me or ride in one other vehicle. That way, we would only have to park two vehicles at my house.
I would usually be the first one there every morning and someone else would usually show up right after me. We would then get out and talk until the others got there.
The first morning I looked over at the home improvement store and saw a worker outside getting things ready for the day. He was probably in his thirties or early forties, with a full beard.
He looked over at us but then went straight back to work.
After we finished filming each day, we’d have to take the same two vehicles back to the parking lot so that everyone could get back into their vehicles and go home.
I was a little tired that first day and as I was about to pull out of the parking lot and go home, I looked over and saw the same worker outside cleaning up, and I thought to myself, “Has he been out here the whole day?” And then I went home.
The next morning, we were back in the parking lot of the home improvement store and I saw the same worker from the day before outside again. I thought he looked at me with some kind of recognition on his face and so I gave him a wave. He didn’t wave back.
The day’s filming went good and, I don’t want to spoil the film for anyone, so I’ll just say, when we pulled into the parking lot of the home improvement store and everybody got out, essentially what you would have seen is an older gentleman in a really great suit, a younger gentleman in a really great suit, a bigger guy in an Hawaiian shirt who has blood dripping from his face, a younger female with mascara running down her face and her hair a mess, a younger guy who looked extremely tired, and me.
I was kind of afraid to look at this point, but I did. And sure enough, I saw the same worker outside and he was really staring at us this time and he had a very peculiar look on his face.
I thought I saw him take a concerned step toward us for a moment, but then, he turned around and went back to work.
I saw the same worker every morning and every afternoon for five straight days.
I know it’s strange to say, but I really felt that after everything we had been through together, that there was this kind of unspoken bond that had developed between us. So, on that last day, after everyone had left, I looked over at him and I waved goodbye.
He didn’t wave back.
It was Fun
There are, of course, other stories, but I found that they were really only fragments, if that. A film set is a very busy place and as much as I want to remember every last detail about everything, I can’t.
I do remember we had to change the schedule a couple of times because of actor availability.
One of the actors had to leave by a certain date because they were going on their honeymoon.
So, I shifted things around, got all of his shots, and then he went off to paradise. Another actor just said he had to go to court and would be back in a couple of hours. I didn’t ask any questions. I just shifted things around.
There was also something about a gun and something else about a bellybutton, but it’s all a blur now.
If I’ve learned anything, it’s that there is never a dull moment on the set of an independent feature film.
