Guerrilla Filmmaking Hijinks: Part Two

Here’s another behind the scenes story.  This one is from the last day of principal photography in May 2007, and the moral of the story is that there really are people in this world with the hero mentality.

We were shooting the first chase scene of the movie where our main characters begin to butt heads, but that gets put on hold so they can save the day.  They chase a motorcycle riding criminal who steals from another principal character we get to know better later on. It was shot in downtown Baltimore, on a Friday, during the day.  Not exactly a secluded setting.  The cops never tried stopping us, but I guess they thought we were part of the crew shooting the tv show The Wire a few blocks away.  Thanks big time production!  While the cops gave us no trouble, a regular citizen made one take quite interesting.

During this shot, the motorcyclist (played by Chris Beatty) would steal the woman’s purse, turn the corner, go up an alley, then turn around to reset.  The guy in the car must not have seen what we were up to because when he saw the purse “stolen”, he took off after the bike!  When Chris tried to turn around, the guy blocked him in with his car and yelled “HAND OVER THE PURSE!”  While Chris was taken aback, our AD Matt Holder was sprinting up the alley frantically screaming “IT’S A MOVIE! IT’S!… A!….MOVIE!!!”  The hero was unconvinced and we had to show him the camera and production truck before he finally stood down!  If we had the time we should’ve interviewed him.

Later on in the film you’ll notice a different bike rider, but in the script it’s supposed to be the same rider.  We must’ve lost Chris’ contact info and couldn’t get a hold of him, and wound up using someone else. Sorry!

In other news…

I’m compiling a list of movie reviewers who we’ll send a DVD.  I doubt any will top the great review from Dan Frazier of Comic Hero News, but it helps to get some more quotes for our website.  Is there any sci fi/comic/action movie reviewer that you often read?  What’s their website?  We’d like to get those kinds of reviews since they interact more with our target audience.

Until next time!

A Commentary On Commentaries

Sorry for the lack of updates over the weekend, although my “have a great weekend” signoff on the last blog was a subtle hint that this may not get updated until Monday. Sunday I was acting in a short film about zombies and Saturday I was helping out TPE creator Dan Poole with a pool problem. Why someone with that name needs help in that area is beyond me! Anyway, on with the blog.

After defeating those swimming hole gremlins Dan showed me some of the special features going into the movie DVD, which will be done done by the end of the week. Seriously! The extras will include a 5 minute Q&A with Dan about his filmmaking career including TPE, 3 behind the scenes featurettes, an “alternate” ending made at the request of one of our producers, and a commentary track featuring me, Dan Poole, and actor Derek Minter who plays Jay Powers.

After listening to the commentary track I couldn’t help but compare it to the tracks on other movies I’ve watched.  My personal favorite is from Dawn of the Dead (2004) with Zack Snyder and producer Eric Newman. First of all they were very informative about all things behind the scenes, which I guess is the whole point of commentaries in the first place.  On top of that, they were also fun to listen to, like we were having a couple rounds at the bar while they b.s.’ed about the movie.  We think we’ve got the same vibe in our commentary and hopefully you all will feel the same way.

Since this is about all commentaries here’s the fun part- the bad commentaries.  I can’t stand it when the director gets in what I like to call “artist” mode, trying to talk down to the audience or other pretentious tendencies.  *cough*District9NeillBlomkamp*cough* Not only was he talking to the audience like we were clueless about movies, but also about social issues.  Yes Neill, there are poor people and rich people in all parts of the world. We know.  Now zip it until you have something else to say about the creature effects.

As bad as that was, the District 9 commentary can’t take the crown of Worst Ever.  That honor goes to Sons of Anarchy, which pains me to write because I absolutely love the show.  Why is it bad?  Because Kurt Sutter can’t make it through a sentence without a couple dramatic pauses and a few more “uh…um…..yeah”s.  He does act on the show, so I don’t know if he’s trying to play some role or if he needs the help of that Geoffery Rush character from the king movie.  Add in Ron Perlman’s “I’m too important to be wasting my time on this” schtick and I had to shut it off halfway through the pilot.  Maybe I’ll try again someday, but after hearing this same routine at their Comic Con panel last year I doubt the rest will be any better.

So, which commentaries do you love or hate?  When watching them, what info are you trying to learn?