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| The McHenry County College Film Production Club, early January 2011 |
It was December 2010. I was working on two scripts I planned to submit to the MCC Film Club at
the time, finishing up a script called "Eleanor Rigby" and writing another called "Phoenix Fire". At
the same time, I was also in the planning stages for "Chronicles of the
Chronicler: Inika" (now "Lost World", but it was "Inika" at the time). I
was also writing the last several comics for my "2010 comeback" series.
As I was drawing them, ideas began to pop into my head, great ideas for
future comics... but they were all too ambitious, all too hard to draw.
As I tried, I was thinking "Dang, this would make a better movie than a
comic." Thus began "Sam's Comics: The Movie."
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| concept art #1: Scene 1 - Nick's original introductory scene |
At first, I
didn't know if I wanted to submit my comics movie idea to the club, so I
didn't write it right away. When January 2011 rolled around, I submitted
"Eleanor Rigby" and "Phoenix Fire" to the club. When they asked if I
had anything else, I told them about the comics movie. They were
intrigued by my stories, but in the end they decided to go with another
script. I can't say I could blame them, "Eleanor Rigby" was based on a
copy-written song by The Beatles, "Phoenix Fire" wasn't finished, and
"Sam's Comics" hadn't even been written yet. So the comics movie idea
was shelved.
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| Me doing a promotional trailer for the film, long before filming took place. |
It was about March when Travis came up to me
and told me that the film club had dropped the script they had picked
for various reasons. He asked me to finish up either "Phoenix Fire" or
"Sam's Comics" and pitch them to the club again. At this point in time, I
hadn't done any work on either script since January, since I was
working on filming "Inika". Given the choice between the two scripts, I
decided to go with "Sam's Comics" even though I had not written a single
scene of it, because I was still stumped on how "Phoenix Fire" should
end. It usually takes me several weeks to a month to write a first draft of any
script, but I wrote "Comics" in less than two weeks. Part of this was
due to the fact that I was bored during computer literacy class (I
learned nothing I didn't already know in that class) and part of it was
that I wanted it written as soon as possible so that I had something to
show this time.
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| Original concept art #4: Scene 2 - Sam and Molly hilltop sequence |
The
first draft of the script was over sixty pages (which I knew was
unworkable), and had thirteen main characters, including comic
characters Sam, Bailey, Kenzie, Ryan, Rachel, Nick, Megan, and Joel.
Other new characters included were a villain named Greg Walker (named
lifted from an earlier script I wrote called "Secrets of the Forbidden
Lake"), a side-kick character named Aaron, and a trio of girls named
Lindsay Smith, Emily Miller, and Whitney Parker. I had served as casting
director on the film club's first movie project "Cerea", and knew that
auditions are sparsely attended, so I could tell that even though more
than half the characters were based on people I knew, there were way too
many characters in the script. Logistically, Megan and Joel had to be
the first to go. They were based off two kids I knew from church, but
they lived in Wisconsin, so filming with them would be near impossible. This created a problem, since Joel had a significant role to play in the story, and
Megan was part of his storyline (Joel in the script was upset with the
way his older sister was treating him). At first I thought I would have
to completely rework the story, but then I realized that he could easily
be replaced with the comic character Molly (who was not in the script
at that point) and that Megan could be replaced with Kenzie (who was
already in the script, but had a less important role). As for the trio
of new girls, I decided that there didn't really need to be three of
them, and I condensed them into one character, and chose the name
Lindsay Parker (combination of two of the previous names).
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| Original concept art #3 - Scene 2 - Bailey introduces Lindsay to Sam |
When
I finished the second draft, I showed it to Carl, who was the club
president. He and I sat down in the cafeteria at MCC and read through
the first two scenes. Before he finished the second scene he looked at
me and said "Sam, nobody talks like this." He particularly didn't like
the way I used the out-of-fashion word "weirdo" several times, but I
kept insisting that it was relevant to the plot. Carl also was confused
by the way Molly was being portrayed, saying that this fifteen-year-old
character had the maturity level of an eleven-year-old. This was partly
due to how the script was originally written for Joel (who was twelve),
but Molly was really fifteen. By the end of the meeting, I had agreed to
reword certain conversations, and change Molly's age. This prompted me
to change the age of several other characters to make them all similar
in age. The way the script was written had all of them the same age as
the people who inspired them were, so Sam was 20, Ryan was 19, Bailey
and Rachel were 18, Kenzie and Nick were 16, and Molly was 15. I changed
it so that Sam, Ryan, Bailey and Nick were 18, Kenzie was
17, Rachel was 16, and Molly would be 13.
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| Concept art #11 - Scene 3 - Jack's introductory scene |
From the second draft, came a
third. By this time I was starting to counter the idea that Sam and
Bailey were in love. For personal reasons, I did not want to go there
with the characters. The story as originally written did not have a love
story because it was about the friendship and trust between Sam and his two best friends, Bailey and Ryan. I wrote the third draft with Sam and
the new character Lindsay falling in love. This didn't quite work out,
and I never showed this draft to anyone. I was afraid that this version
made it seem like Sam was cheating on Bailey with Lindsay, and it still
didn't change the fact that Sam still rescues Bailey at the end, and
according to movie logic, they should kiss. I continued to vainly
attempt to write a way around it, but I could come up with nothing. It
had to be Bailey in the end, and it didn't make sense for Sam to rescue
anyone else with the same determination... not even Ryan or Kenzie (the
other two I tried to have kidnapped). It wouldn't make sense that Ryan
would get kidnapped (he's too tough for that), and Kenzie has too much
spunk and was too cunning of a character to get abducted.
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| Concept Art #8: Scene 14 - Rescue sequence (Kenzie and Molly's bits not filmed) |
Once we got a draft of the script we were satisfied with, we turned our attention to casting. I
offered the role of the comic characters to the people who inspired on
them. Bailey, Kenzie, Molly, and Nick all accepted. Ryan was unable to
play himself, as he would be spending the entire summer in Colorado.
Rachel opted not to be in the film, afraid she wouldn't have time to
commit to the movie. We started casting with the fifth draft (which was
basically the same as the second, except with better dialogue). My friend Shannon
Asprooth agreed to be my casting director, so we made a flyer for
auditions, which were to be held on April 25th and 27th. Characters up
for casting were the newly-renamed villain Jack Weidman, his follower Aaron,
Lindsay Parker, and Ryan Whittaker (Rachel was not on the roster yet, as
I had only just found out we didn't have someone). First day we had
three people audition, including Carl for Ryan. Day two was highly less
successful, with just Travis auditioning for Ryan. The week after
auditions, I met with Shannon to talk about our choices. Two people had
auditioned for Ryan, and no one had tried out for Aaron. Shannon and I
both agreed that Travis would make a good Ryan, and after talking, Carl
became or Jack Weidman. Shannon also suggested a friend of her's and
Travis's as Lindsay, even though that person hadn't shown up to
auditions. I had seen this person perform in a drama club play at MCC
prior to this, so I trusted that she could pull off playing Lindsay.
Travis contacted her, and reported that she was interested. Carl also
managed to find me people to play Aaron and Rachel, so we had a complete
cast.
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| Travis Cooper auditioning for the part of Ryan Whittaker |
First
thing to do was to schedule a script reading, where the cast gets
together and reads through the script and bonds with each other.
Problems arose right away. The person cast as Lindsay was not responding
with the scheduling we made. The script reading was postponed almost an
entire month before I decided enough was enough and dropped her from
the project. Without a Lindsay, we had an incomplete cast. I thought
about it for a while, and I finally decided to offer the part to Lindsay
Allen. I had only met her twice before, and didn't know her very well,
but I knew she liked acting, so she was offered and she accepted. I was
surprised by her enthusiasm for the project, and she asked many
questions about it. I admit, I liked that she was asking questions,
because some them were questions that needed asked and I hadn't thought
of. So we scheduled the first reading. When I got there, nobody else
was. Carl came shortly after I did, and eventually Bailey came as well,
but that was it. We immediately scheduled another reading. This time,
everyone came... except for the people Carl got for Rachel and Aaron. He
informed me that the girl for Rachel had backed out. At this point, I
just decided that Rachel was not that important of a character to the
story and just wrote her out. We were running out of time, as Bailey
would leave us in mid August for college.
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| Lindsay Allen as Lindsay Parker |
We
started filming on July 5th, about a month after I originally planed
shooting. I thought we still had plenty of time, as the schedule I made
only last for fourteen days, and Bailey was only needed for half of
them. The first scene we did was the picnic scene at Four Colonies park
in Crystal Lake. This location I had chosen, because I had filmed scenes
for my previous (unfinished) project, "Indiana Jones and the Hollywood
Grail" there. Nick was supposed to be in that scene, but he couldn't
come to that day of filming. I decided instead of rescheduling (we were
already behind) that we should run it without him. That day went very
well, with everyone ready and willing. Molly apparently had not yet read her script (she couldn't make it to the script readings), but I was pleased with her performance. This day held our first big "instant memories" moment, when we were filming a shot where Sam asks Molly if she saw something, but a guy walking his dog pass through the camera's field of vision. I wittily quipped if Molly had seen the guy walking his dog.
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| DID YOU SEE THAT?! |
Day three of
production was the first time we had any real trouble. We had scheduled
an all day shoot on a Monday, but when I woke up that morning, it was
storming out. Not only was it storming, but it was one of the worst
storms we had seen in years. We had to cancel that day, but we pushed to
schedule for the next day. I managed to get Bailey, Carl, and Nick on
board, but I never heard back from Travis. This day ended up being one
of the longest days of filming, even though there were days where we
filmed more hours. Because we couldn't get a hold of Travis, we had to
film the scene without Ryan. While we were filming he texted me and
told me that the power at his neighborhood had been down since the day
before and the cellphone was for emergency use only. Without Travis, I
told Nick to look at the script and memorize Ryan's lines. He had about twenty
minutes to learn them, but I was amazed that he never messed up lines once, just his blocking (aka where he should be standing or walking to). On the other hand, Carl (who had
possessed the complete script for months before anyone else), did not
have a single line memorized. By the end of the day, Bailey and I wanted
to kill him. We did endless takes of the scene where Jack and Sam are
walking down the hallway talking. We spent almost an hour alone on that
one shot (the proof can be told by watching the clock on the wall go
from 5:15 in the first take to 6:01 in the last take). But nowadays we
have a good laugh about it when we look back. Bailey and I have agreed
to NEVER let Carl live that day down.
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| Me and Carl Mohr in the infamous Hallway sequence. |
Day four we shot one of the scenes I was not particularly looking forward to filming: The Hilltop scene. This was the first time I ever had to memorize a monologue, and even though I wrote it, I still couldn't remember the whole thing perfectly. Molly hit her part spot on, and after we were done filming and we were packing up to go home, Carl turned to me and said "I think she's the best out of all of us." Getting a compliment out of Carl wasn't the easiest thing to accomplish, but Molly did without trying.
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| Me and Molly Freemire posing to look like Concept art #4 (pictured above.) |
During
the fifth day of filming, we were shooting the classroom scenes. Carl
managed to get me some extras to play students, and through this, we
managed to get a Rachel for the movie. Shannon was brought on to play a
cameo as a classmate who helps Sam with math homework, but while filming
Shannon agreed to play Rachel instead. This cause a
slight problem,
since we had already filmed a shot with Travis (her character's brother
in the movie) in class together. To cover up this inconsistency, we made
an excuse later on that Rachel is super smart and in the same grade as
Ryan.
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| Shannon Asprooth as Rachael Whittaker |
Filming
progressed slowly, but steadily. We finally got to the last week that
Bailey was in town... and we still had six scenes to shoot with her. To make
matters more difficult, we only filmed with her two days that week, so
it was two scenes in one day and four in the second... and we weren't
even worrying about full scenes, we were just doing the shots she had to
be in! Even through all the chaos, the first day of "crunch week" ended
up being my favorite day of filming... go figure! And even more ironic
is that fact that we were shooting the break-up scene that day. The
thing I liked the most about it was the fact that it was just Bailey and
I shooting that day, and we both knew what needed doing and we both
understood the scene, so we did not have any chaos at all. Even when we
messed up, we just got back up and did it again. It was such an emotional
scene, and I have got to say she
NAILED it. Even with all the laughs we
had, she and I managed to get keep straight faces. AND the best part
(most rewarding for me) was the fact that extraordinary eye contact was
maintained, even though in all the close ups, neither of us were looking
at each other, since when we did her close-ups I had to be running the
camera, and when we did my close-ups, SHE had to be running the camera!
We made it work, and I think it's the most effective scene in the movie.
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| Concept art #12: Scene 11 - break-up sequence |
The
last day of crunch week was the deciding factor of the film's
completion. If we succeeded and filmed all of Bailey's shots, we were in
the clear. But we still had four scenes to shoot. It came down to the
last scene of the movie, and we were down to the final shots, when all
of a sudden, the camera battery died. So we took it in the closest
building and plugged it in. While we were waiting for it to finish, it started raining. I
started freaking out, I had no clue what to do, Bailey was leaving in
two days, and we couldn't get her anymore after that day. As fortune had
it, a stroke a luck came along and I realized all we really needed was
one more shot, so when it stopped raining, we could go out and film it
and Bailey would be finished.
Buuuuuutttt.... when it stopped raining it
was pitch black out. So I did the only thing I could do... find the
nearest street light and film under it. So despite the fact that the
rest of the scene being filmed in daylight, we found a way to complete
Bailey's shots and finally, the movie was in the clear... or so we thought.
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| Me tying Bailey Freemire up for the rescue scene. |
Once
Bailey left, things didn't necessarily become easier. School
had started again, and it was almost impossible to get everyone together
again, and we never filmed another scene with Kenzie, Molly, or Lindsay
again because of scheduling issues. I hated when I had to almost
completely write Lindsay out of the rest of the movie. I had put so much
on the line to film with her, since she lived about an hour away from
Crystal Lake (where the majority of the movie was shot). I kept trying
to schedule a day where we could go and finish her scenes on her own
turf in Sycamore, Illinois. When I first mentioned this, Carl thought I
was crazy, but he saw my reasoning (this was during a period where he
and I were butting heads on a semi-regular basis). Things kept happening whenever I
scheduled the Sycamore shoot, and eventually we just ran out of time. It was the hardest decision I had to make in the filmmaking process to can the
Sycamore shoot, effectively cutting Lindsay out of most of the film. It
still pains me to this day, because Lindsay was truly an awesome person,
and a strong young woman the likes of which I've never seen. I was
honored to work with her. But the movie had to go on, and the story
still worked without her.
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| Lindsay Allen as Lindsay Parker |
Filming
the big fight scene was another milestone. It was something I was
looking forward to as well as dreading. It was really hard to write a
fight scene in the script, but it was even more difficult shooting it. Not so easy when you don't have a clue
what you're doing. Carl and I were literally making it up as we were
going. My brother John told me that he was very impressed with how the
fight looked so coordinated. It all came down to editing, because if you
had been there that day, you'd see just how clueless we really were!
(evidenced by this picture below when Carl attempted a flying kick)
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| USE THE FORCE!!!! |
It
came down to the end, and we running out of time. We had put off filming the scenes with Jack Weidman's henchmen because no one was committing to playing them. The script called for at least two. Aaron was also a problem because we originally had one of Carl's friends cast. He backed out. Next we cast Antonio "Heavy" Clinton. He too backed out. Then Bailey dragged her then-boyfriend to play the part. He backed out. Carl brought in another one of his buddies. He backed out. Finally, Carl worked his magic and we got Heavy back for two days to finish the part. I think Heavy did a great job, he gave much more depth to the character than I had written, and depth is good.
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| Me editing the film |
It got to the point
where I had to start editing while we were still filming. It got very
frustrating since certain scenes had only been partially filmed and
couldn't be edited until it was filmed. Another big problem was that we
now needed the help of special effects to convert the climax scenes from
day to night, so as to mask the fact that Bailey's final shot was shot
at night. Another problem that came up was the fact that we were short
two of Bailey's lines with the chance that we may need to do ADR
(additional dialogue recording) for the picnic scene since we didn't
have the boom mic working for us then. Luckily, we did not need ADR for
the picnic scene. We still needed the other two lines, though. I
enlisted the help of my friend Sarah Kusz, whose voice sounded highly
similar to Bailey's.
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| From left to right, Shannon Asprooth (played Rachael), Gabri Zmich, Sarah Kusz (Bailey's voice mail), and Sam Shenberger (played Sam). All three of these girls were added to the comics after the movie. |
Carl was the only person who had access to the
special effects editing software, and of course that was the final thing
we did... in the last week before release. We spent long hours in the
MCC media center together putting the finishing touches on it. Carl and I had
long since gotten over our differences and were once again enjoying our
time together (stressful though it may have been editing), and we
enjoyed the thrill of success when it was finished... the day before
release. Yay procrastination!
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| Carl Mohr and Peter Lilly (our adviser) in the MCC Media Lab, reviewing the VFX edits. |
I had taken an entire year off from drawing comics to make this movie. The following January, I began a new season of comics, and I had more tough decisions. Should the comics after the movie continue in the same thread? In the end, I opted "no". I decided to view them as two separate entities, both reflecting the other, but neither depend on the other. A later comic parodies this fact by having Gabri asking Sam why he and Bailey aren't dating like they were in the film. The other big decision I had to make was whether or not Carl should be added as Carl, or as Jack Weidman. In the end, he became Carl. One later comic had Ryan referring to him as "Jack", but it was just for a joke. Shannon was also added as herself, and Sarah was as well.
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| Carl, Shannon, and Sarah in Comic form. |
All
in all, I learned so much from this experience. I met a lot of awesome
people while filming, and got to become closer to old friends. It made
me appreciate just how much work really goes into making a movie. You
can watch documentaries about making movies, but I didn't know just how
much making a low-budget (or literally no-budget) film would be similar
to Hollywood productions. From the initial ideas, to the writing of the
script, to the casting, to the shooting, to crunch week, to
post-production, to the premiere, I have had one of the greatest
experiences of my entire life, and I thank everyone who helped make it
possible. It was a long, difficult journey, but we made it through and I
loved every second of it.
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| Picked up May 7th, 2011 - began filming July 5th, 2011 - finished filming November 11th, 2011 - final edit completed November 18th, 2011 - released November 19th, 2011. |
