Filming Begins - Day 1

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Saturday Morning - 11/4/00

I arrived at Tadeo's home & was greeted by his sister who told me that the Tad man was already out in the forest shooting his first shot. Wait, I wanted to be there! I had brought my camcorder & wanted to capture every bit of this shoot. But no matter, he would be back soon she told me. So I set up my makeup supplies for the beat up Bumbles & then took a seat in the living room to wait for the man. I noticed that they were watching the film 'Usual Suspects' - Cool!

About 15 minutes our man Tadeo returned home. He told me to get our clown made up & gave me directions to the forest where they were filming. They would set up the camera & we'd meet them there once made up. Yours truly then went to work on Rory Posavec, soon to be our dead clown.

I did a very basic clown design on Rory. This way the cleanup afterwards wouldn't be that hard. Also it would be less time in the makeup chair before the shoot. No need for our actor to get worn out before his time before the cameras - Neither mind the fact that all he was going to be doing would be laying on the ground. Still, an actor is an actor. Looking back on it it wasn't the best make-up job I could've done, but it was fine enough for this shoot. Once the basic clown face was put on then came the fun part - To beat him up.

Not literally, but to make him up as if he were beat up. I always loved bloody gory makeup & I could've went farther with Bumbles. But I just decided to do the simple scratches, bruises (how do you bruise a clown face?), & blood. We all thought it turned out pretty cool. With this complete we piled into Rory's van & headed to the location.

Once we arrived the Rory man started to get in his clown costume. A costume that didn't quite fit to well. It was a little small, but once we set up the shots we fixed it so that you couldn't see any black t-shirt as in that above picture.

Shooting went on that afternoon quickly & really well, Our Director of Photography, Christopher R. Buzek, was a real pro. Between Chris, what Tady had envisioned, & a few ideas from yours truly, we got some great shots that day - In fact almost every shot in the film looks great! Wanting this film to have a haunting fall like atmosphere Chris used a red filtered lens that gave the film an orange hue. Really spectacular.

As Bumbles waited for his shots the first couple involved shooting the kids walking through the forest looking for the clown. The kids were played by Frank Garcia (Tadeo's younger brother), Frank Cobian, & Christian Enriquez who played our lead child Andy. Their acting took a bit of directing from Tadeo since these kids never acted a day in their life. But once they knew the basics - don't look at the camera, act natural, & do what I say - They soon got the hang of it.

About two hours into filming we were ready for our clown to take his place. It was at this time that we were joined by our Asst. Camera Operator Tsioshi Oba, another great influence to our production. We took Rory & set him up against a tree & covered him with some leaves & twigs as if he were there overnight. The shot really looked great & there was just something creepy looking seeing a dead clown laying in the woods.

One final shot of the morning was the POV from the clown looking up at the kids as they look & reach for him. This was easily done by Chris laying on the ground, hand-holding the camera as the kids look down to it.

With that the forest shots were complete. We flew back to Tadeo's place, munched down some pizza for lunch & then prepared for that afternoons shooting.

With our bellies full of greasy pizza we started shooting the final outdoor shots for the film. These consisted of the kids pulling the wagon with their new dead friend home & the shots of the kids putting the clown in the yard shed. The problem was that our friend Mr. Sunshine was going down & going down fast. We had to hustle to get this all shot in one day. Deadlines had to be met.

On a humorous note, while we filled our gullets, Tadeo & Chris had to drive on to a neighbor's house. See we needed a shot of a police car for the end scene in the film. Tadeo's neighbor was a cop & always parked his vehicle in front of his house. So Tadeo & Chris parked, shot the car for about 10 seconds, & took off - Commando shooting at it's best.

Our first snag came when we were trying to decide how the clown was going to be in the wagon. The way we originally wanted it was to have the clown in the wagon in a way so that his arm could drag across the ground as the kids pulled him. But once he was in that position we didn't take into consideration that this would leave his head laying against the pull bar. This we didn't want. So we had to change him around. This new way his head would be hanging off the back of the wagon & looked even more creepy.

We then set up one of the best looking shots in the film. The silhouette shot of the kids pulling the wagon over the hill. Again, the sun was going down & the filter that Chris used made the shot look spectacular!

The final shots of that day were of the kids pulling the clown through the yard, which was shot with a dolly, & the shots in the shed.

Soon we were finished with the kids & we let them head on home. By this time it was already around 5:30pm. But we had two more shots to get that day.

We wanted one shot in particular where as Joey closes the shed door a beam of sunlight would hit the clown in the face, eyes open & creepy as Hell looking. Quickly setting the shot up, we got just that.

The other was of the police officer arresting Andy's dad. This was quickly accomplished with Tadeo playing dad & his bud Eddie Cruz playing the cop. Only problem (a blooper) in the film is that you can see Ed's white gym shoes. No problem - No one will notice (until now).

We wrapped around 6:00. It was a long day, We packed up the equipment & made arrangements for tomorrows shoot. These would all be indoors & the least of our problems. Much warmer for one thing considering that we were outside all this time.

Continue to

Day 2 of Filming & Post Production

Copyright ©2001 Roger B. Domian