WEEK 4

SUNDAY JULY 19, 1998, Shooting Day 12 of 16

Fuckemos no show. Russ was called into work. I freak.

Sandy showed up and cracked the whip. She’s great to have around. We need that kind of motivation. She basically sent Barna to Russ’s house to find out what was up.

So we shoot the drag queen scene with Miss Laura and some queens that Barna found, Joe from the Ritz, some guy named Kyle and a drag queen with a monkey puppet that called herself Jane Goodallover. Brad Retina volunteered as a queen also and Rob Thompson and Gabe Ornales showed up to be extras for the Fuckemos stuff, but they too were drafted as drag queens. We got some really great footage of them running around.

Ted’s dad was there and we used him a customer at the bar.

Jackson kept referring to Miss Laura as a him. It is a him technically (I think), but refers to herself as a her, as does everyone else.

Barna found Russ at home and dragged him down to the Bates. Barna thinks Russ was home the whole time, just not answering the phone.

Wade from Squat Thrust offered to have his band sit in as the Fuckemos and if we could get Russ down to the Bates, then we could fake it. We ran with that plan, better to have the Fakemos than nothing. Fortunately, Russ shows up with Sean Powell and Brian McGee, _ of the Fuckemos. So now, Wade sits in as the bass player, and after all, he played bass in the Fuckemos for three months (along with half of Austin, the Fuckemos are a great Austin tradition and most everyone has played in that band).

Russ decides that since Miss Laura was in their "Barf Baby" video as the drummer (Sean failed to show up for that shoot), that it would be funny if she sat in on bass. I thought that would be funny too. What the hell, why not have Wade from Squat Thrust sit in too, and Jimmy, the guitar player too. Lets have mayhem on stage. I think it worked out great.

We filmed the scene where PigPoke plays "Go Kart Go". It was a lot of fun. It reminded me of playing shows and how much fun it is.

We started to film the "Kane" song scene where Ned punches Toe and on the first run through, Ned actually punched Toe. Right in the eye. Toe’s eye immediately started to blacken and swell. I think Ted had a few beers, Toe didn’t see him coming because the lights were in his eyes, Jackson was rushing everything, I neglected to tell Toe when his cue was, Toe leaned forward to sing into the microphone as NED’s punch was flying in and all these things resulted in Toe getting punched.

Apparently Jackson snapped at Jerry and said something to the effect of "Your eye better not go black or we’re fucked. The whole shoot’s fucked. We might as well quit right now." And he didn’t say it in a joking way either. He was serious. Ted’s dad overheard this and was about to tell Jackson off. Ted had to chase his dad down and stop him from beating up Jackson. Mr. Jarrell told me about it and how he thought Jackson was a jerk. I asked him not to confront Jackson about it for my sake, and he didn’t.

We lost half of Sundays shots because of the Fuckemos no show, Ted punching Jerry and waiting on the drag queens to get suited up. We will try to pick them up tomorrow.

MONDAY JULY 20, 1998, Shooting Day 13 of 16

Jerry got really drunk last night, Ted felt sorry about the black eye and bought him several shots.

Jerry, in his drunkenness, forgot that he had decided to not return to San Antonio and as a result was quitting his job. I think he might have told Travis that he was going to crash at his house in New Braunfels. Anyway, I get a collect call from the Hays County Jail at 4:23 AM. It’s Toe, he got a DWI. I call Aaron Mueller to see if he can help. I leave a message on his machine. I was up at 8AM to call his office. I learned that they are banned in Hays County and I’ll need a bail bondsman. I find one in San Marcos and make my way down to the jail house. Once in town I decide to get thrifty. I stopped at a gas station and called all the bail bondsmen in the yellow pages. The end result, $300 bail and a deposit of $600 (in case he is a no show on court day).

Barna and Sandy got into a yelling match. Barna says that he’s pissed about the way Sandy talked to him. Barna chewed Sandy’s ass. The general consensus is that Barna’s pride was damaged when Sandy scolded him about having lunch on the set precisely six hours after we start shooting. Barna insists that his pride was not the issue. Jerry heard what Sandy said to Barna and Jerry says that she spoke to Barna in the same way that she speaks to everyone else, and granted she is a little abrasive. So they had a big fight. They later apologized to one another and now everyone gets along.

We filmed LUPE smacking TOE around. It was some pretty good stuff. I gave Rob some direction on how to do the scene and he took it perfectly. He did a great job, he wants input on what he’s doing. It helps him act and makes him more comfortable.

We were shooting the scene where PACO, LUPE, and TOE enter the Del Rio bar. Jackson took eight takes. We shot at 6fps, so I wasn’t too worried about using too much film. What really screwed us was how long it took. I’m thinking that maybe I can make use of all the footage by jump cutting around with it to add some chaos to it and prolong the entrance.

We didn’t get around to filming the scenes with PACO on the phone with the MAN.

Barna hired a makeup lady, she’s really nice and very good hired a make up lady. Ted’s punch is costing $125/day. She’s very good and one hell of a nice lady.

TUESDAY JULY 21, 1998 Shooting Day 14 of 16

Lame squibs, Frankie says he was told to put in a minimal amount of blood. That’s crazy. We need tons of blood. I don’t know who told him that, but we need more blood. All I saw was fire coming out of NED’s leg. That might work if he were an android or cyborg or something like that.

We also had only 6 good blanks. That means one chance to empty the gun. Jackson thinks he might have missed the action while he was running the slo-mo on his camera. I ran a CP-16 (borrowed from Austin Film Works’ Production Three class that I was going to try to make Rock Opera in) there was a lens problem. I would zoom in and focus and as soon as I would start to zoom out, everything went out of focus. I took the lens off and put it back on in case it was mounted improperly, but nothing changed. I just guessed the distance at around eight feet and set the lens accordingly. The image in the eyepiece was completely out of focus, but I shot it anyway (what else could I do?).

We managed to shoot off twelve blanks at three o’clock in the morning and not one cop showed up.

Jimmy was stinking drunk when we shot the Doorguy at Del Rio scene. We managed to get through it, although it took extra energy to deal with a drunk rock star like Jimmy. It should work out just fine.

We were shooting the one-hitter scene with Ned and Chicken and Chicken puked from the one hitter, I think I got it on film.. It was pretty damn funny. We got at least one good shot of him shooting out a flaming spitwad of weed.

It seems as though all the set ups to too long. There was too much down time. We could have shot more.

We’ll have to shoot more pick ups next week for the stuff we lost tonight.

WEDNESDAY JULY 22, 1998, Shooting Day 15 of 16

EXTERIOR TOE’S HOUSE

We shot PigPoke loading up for show at Blue Flame/Bates show. Mike G. wasn’t there and we lost the direct sun light before he showed up. We shot it in the shadows which pissed Jackson off and immediately put him in a pissy mood. Despite this, I did have fun acting.

We managed to shoot all ROSS’s scenes. Good thing too, because the Fuckemos leave for a tour soon. We shot all his stuff at the house and then went down to the railroad tracks. We got a good shot of Ross walking up to the camera as PigPoke drives by and tosses the bag, Ross picks it up and finds the pills.

While we were preparing for the reverse shot where ROSS walks away and we see PigPoke drive away, Jackson got frustrated and snapped "You take the damn camera and shoot the thing, do whatever you like" I had to remind him that I was in front of the camera and that he would have to shoot it. What a bitch.

Here’s how it went down: Jackson bitched about Ross’s black t-shirt, "What the fuck can we do. This won’t work, his fucking shirt is black. Why don’t you paint the rest of him black and you can shoot the damn thing yourself.."

I said, "You know I can’t shoot this one because I’m in the scene. We talked about this at the top of the hill."

Jackson, "Well excuse me forgetting now and then."

There were two trains and three cops in the forty-five minutes that we were at the railroad tracks. I shot some stuff of a passing train and the blinking red lights. I put a penny on the tracks and so did Jackson.

We shot Jarvis’s scenes, where he gets out of the trunk and walks up to the house. Paul stayed in the trunk for nearly an hour before we started shooting him. He was building up a greasy sweat and getting into character.

Luis took a nap as he waited to be shot. We never got to his scenes and had to send home without shooting. I also sent Mike G. home, as it was clear that we weren’t going to get to the PigPoke scenes.

We did shoot the Witchbanger van scene, where NED has BURTIS buy a sack from TOE.

Jackson was a zombie all night. He was sucking big time.

THURSDAY JULY 23, 1998, Shooting Day 16 of 16

We started to shoot interiors at TOE’S HOUSE (Rob Gasper’s). Gonzo forgot to put the batteries on the charger and they lasted only long enough to shoot the scene with Isaac. Isaac was good and the scene went well.

We rented the batteries that we had from the sun guns. Jackson though they were 12 volt. We had the people at Gear come down after hours and rent us the batteries with an additional cost for opening up the shop. It turned out that they were 13 volts, and wouldn’t work. So we wrapped for the day

While we were waiting for the batteries, Jerry, Kurtis, and Mike G. jammed out on the PigPoke equipment.

Steve, Floyd and David came out to shoot, they patiently waited, but were sent home because of the batteries.

We are loosing the sound equipment and will have to find some replacements for next week.

We’re loosing our gaffer Tom K. and his grip truck, he has another job. We’re also loosing Andrew, but that’s not as bad. What’s worse is that we lost an entire day’s worth of work. We now must shoot pick ups for three days, Tues, Wed, and Thurs.

So I went drank beer at Continental and talked with Rob. I gave Rob a half ounce of weed for letting us use his house.

Jackson, Barna, Richard, and Gonzo were all there. Jackson and I went out back and got high with a bunch of other folks. We stood around and got drunk. Finally the frat-band ran us off.

I talked with Richard and Gonzo outside and Gonzo said that he nearly walked yesterday because Jackson was being a jerk. Gonzo nearly hit his limit. We basically stood around and took turns bitching about Jackson.

Jackson is pissing everyone off., he’s getting a (well deserved) reputation as an asshole.

In an attempt to improve working conditions, I gave Jackson a $500 bonus , it was also for his survival during the shoot, to help him out, to help keep his concentration on the film and not on his finances, to shut him up, to get better work from him, as a show of support, etc., etc. I hope that doesn’t come back to haunt us when we’re low on cash, but it was just about the only thing I could do to shut Jackson up and hopefully improve his enthusiasm and attitude toward the project. He seems to have no energy at least half the time. I also gave Jackson a half ounce of weed to boot.

Jackson wants to re-shoot the squib scene and the gun shot scene and the Ross walking up the hill scene.