http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SPwryOS76Y&feature=youtu.be
Ok, now I'm gonna go back to playing Robot Unicorn Attack for another hour.
I just wanted to say that just moments ago the trailer for "Of Rats and Men" went up online. Please check it out, and give us some feedback somewhere, on here, or YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, krej.tv, something... Just do it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SPwryOS76Y&feature=youtu.be
Ok, now I'm gonna go back to playing Robot Unicorn Attack for another hour.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SPwryOS76Y&feature=youtu.be
Ok, now I'm gonna go back to playing Robot Unicorn Attack for another hour.
Sorry it took a while. Here’s the recap for Sunday.
Sometime late, late Saturday night I got a really bad headache. I’ve been trying to quit drinking sodas for a little while now, but can’t go a day without caffeine without getting a really intense migraine. I really didn’t need to have a headache all day, so myself and young Trenton struck out at about 3 AM to score some caffeine, despite having no idea where we were going. Eventually, we ran across a 24-hour CVS right next to a Huddle House. After we noshed on shitty diner burgers, we headed back to the house where we were filming, and spent the rest of the night chilling (literally, because it was too hot inside) in my car, and listening to an episode of Never Not Funny (a hilarious podcast hosted by genius comedian Jimmy Pardo). The podcast ended at exactly 6:00 (on the dot), right as the food, provided by the wonderful Stephanie Norton, arrived and Kaminski came outside to meet her. After breakfast, we started shooting.
As with Saturday, we again had to rush to get everything with Diane and Steve out of the way, so they could be wrapped by 10:30. And again, we managed to wrap them just in time. We started off with the final scene in the film, a fun scene to shoot for me, because I didn’t have a whole lot to do. So, I spent the entire scene doodling on a sheet of paper, which I hope Kaminski can find and post up here, but I don’t imagine he will do soon, because it is supposed to be a testimonial, which I wrote in character (for no reason) and it is full of spoilers.
After that, we went around and finished up all of the scenes that had Steve and Diane, and we sent them on their merry way, to be brilliant somewhere else. The last scene we shot with Diane was in the garage, which was hotter than the rest of the house (and possibly even Hell) and was an extreme hassle for all involved, but especially Craig and I in our jump suits. But whereas I was a whiny little bitch, and ran out to get some air every time we cut, Craig persisted and hung in there like a champ.
After we left the furnace, I made myself scarce while Trent and Steven shot a couple of scenes outdoors. To be completely honest, I have no idea exactly what happened in these scenes, and I’d like for it to stay that way until the premiere. I like there to be some surprises when I watch the final product. It’s no fun watching a movie for the first time and knowing every single thing that’s gonna happen before it happens, so I always like to be elsewhere while certain scenes that I’m not in are being shot. Lucky for me (and maybe the viewer too), there were a lot more scenes that I wasn’t in in this film as opposed to Tim and Katie, which had such a tiny cast that we all had to be there for pretty much everything.
As I said before, we had to recast Chris into the “Vernon” role, which made the scene he had already shot, a hilarious soap opera spoof, unusable. So, everyone was really excited that our original choice for “Vernon,” Mr. Jan Lefrançois-Gijzen was able to come in and make a small cameo in that re-shot scene, along with his girlfriend, Katie Causey. Given such a quick scene to shoot (it only took about 10 minutes) Jan and Katie really brought the funny in a big (and sometimes uncomfortable) way.
After the soap scene, we shot what was the funniest, craziest, most high energy scene to shoot for the entire project. It takes place in the climax of the story, and features myself, Steven, Craig, Dasha, Chris, Trent in full-on Billy Hutton mode, guns, a rat costume, a lot of screaming, and a LOT of insanity all going on at the same time. It was intense. I’ve never been a part of insanity such as this in my life. I can’t wait to see how this scene looks on the screen, because it was a blast to shoot. There are a few scenes that I am really excited to see how Jerry cuts them together, and this is one of those.
Unfortunately, I was wrapped after that scene, along with Steven and Trent. Trent and I had to head out early so that we could drop Matt off at another gig. Jerry filled in on sound for the final couple of scenes. The first marked the return of Lake to do his final scene with Dasha. Everyone was nervous because it was starting to look like rain, and Lake was running behind because he was coming from North Carolina, where he was doing another shoot. Just before he got there, it stopped raining just long enough for them to shoot the scene, which I hear went really well. Then, the cast and crew packed up, waved goodbye to the house (I’m guessing that part, like I said, I wasn’t there), and headed over to the final location where Craig and Richard Hoard reportedly knocked it out of the park in a matter of minutes. I got the call just after I got home that we filming had been completed.
So, that’s that. It’s a wrap, as they say. Principle photography is completed on “Of Rats and Men.” I think we managed to do something that is interesting and a lot more diverse than any of our past projects, but it still has the core of what makes it a KREJ film. There has been talk of shooting an extra scene or two, nothing crucial, just a couple things to bring everything full circle story-wise, but we haven’t officially decided whether or not to do so. For the most part, we managed to shoot everything we set out to shoot as planned, and in a lot of places, things turned out WAY funnier than we expected. That’s what you get when you hire great talent.
On that note, I’ll go ahead and admit it, we got lucky. We somehow managed to pull together an amazing cast and crew for this film. If it wasn’t for some of the stuff we’ve been doing outside of KREJ (improv, acting classes, etc.), we wouldn’t have never met most of these incredibly talented people that we had the immense pleasure of working with on “Of Rats and Men.” I would like to take this time to thank everybody that was involved in some capacity or another, alphabetically or course (sorry Craig). Here goes:
Matthew Aschberger
Nick Bilz
Brenda Breedon
Katie Causey
Diane Dicker
Brett Grueber
Richard Hoard
Johnnie Holland
Keegan Ingram
Dasha Jordan
Jeff Kaminski
Carla Larson
Jan Lefrancois-Gijzen
Matt Levy
Regina Nicole
Stephanie Norton
Melissa Owens
Chris Parsons
Steve Pryor
Kelley Roark
Lake Roberts
Hakim Robinson
Trolle Selander
Steven Teuchert
Trent Whitmire
Craig Zeiss
I don’t think I forgot anybody, but if I did, I’m really sorry. Keep checking in, because we will be announcing when the premiere of “Of Rats and Men” will be as soon as we set a date, and hopefully, since we’re done with shooting, we can start blogging again soon.
-Grantzy
Sometime late, late Saturday night I got a really bad headache. I’ve been trying to quit drinking sodas for a little while now, but can’t go a day without caffeine without getting a really intense migraine. I really didn’t need to have a headache all day, so myself and young Trenton struck out at about 3 AM to score some caffeine, despite having no idea where we were going. Eventually, we ran across a 24-hour CVS right next to a Huddle House. After we noshed on shitty diner burgers, we headed back to the house where we were filming, and spent the rest of the night chilling (literally, because it was too hot inside) in my car, and listening to an episode of Never Not Funny (a hilarious podcast hosted by genius comedian Jimmy Pardo). The podcast ended at exactly 6:00 (on the dot), right as the food, provided by the wonderful Stephanie Norton, arrived and Kaminski came outside to meet her. After breakfast, we started shooting.
As with Saturday, we again had to rush to get everything with Diane and Steve out of the way, so they could be wrapped by 10:30. And again, we managed to wrap them just in time. We started off with the final scene in the film, a fun scene to shoot for me, because I didn’t have a whole lot to do. So, I spent the entire scene doodling on a sheet of paper, which I hope Kaminski can find and post up here, but I don’t imagine he will do soon, because it is supposed to be a testimonial, which I wrote in character (for no reason) and it is full of spoilers.
After that, we went around and finished up all of the scenes that had Steve and Diane, and we sent them on their merry way, to be brilliant somewhere else. The last scene we shot with Diane was in the garage, which was hotter than the rest of the house (and possibly even Hell) and was an extreme hassle for all involved, but especially Craig and I in our jump suits. But whereas I was a whiny little bitch, and ran out to get some air every time we cut, Craig persisted and hung in there like a champ.
After we left the furnace, I made myself scarce while Trent and Steven shot a couple of scenes outdoors. To be completely honest, I have no idea exactly what happened in these scenes, and I’d like for it to stay that way until the premiere. I like there to be some surprises when I watch the final product. It’s no fun watching a movie for the first time and knowing every single thing that’s gonna happen before it happens, so I always like to be elsewhere while certain scenes that I’m not in are being shot. Lucky for me (and maybe the viewer too), there were a lot more scenes that I wasn’t in in this film as opposed to Tim and Katie, which had such a tiny cast that we all had to be there for pretty much everything.
As I said before, we had to recast Chris into the “Vernon” role, which made the scene he had already shot, a hilarious soap opera spoof, unusable. So, everyone was really excited that our original choice for “Vernon,” Mr. Jan Lefrançois-Gijzen was able to come in and make a small cameo in that re-shot scene, along with his girlfriend, Katie Causey. Given such a quick scene to shoot (it only took about 10 minutes) Jan and Katie really brought the funny in a big (and sometimes uncomfortable) way.
After the soap scene, we shot what was the funniest, craziest, most high energy scene to shoot for the entire project. It takes place in the climax of the story, and features myself, Steven, Craig, Dasha, Chris, Trent in full-on Billy Hutton mode, guns, a rat costume, a lot of screaming, and a LOT of insanity all going on at the same time. It was intense. I’ve never been a part of insanity such as this in my life. I can’t wait to see how this scene looks on the screen, because it was a blast to shoot. There are a few scenes that I am really excited to see how Jerry cuts them together, and this is one of those.
Unfortunately, I was wrapped after that scene, along with Steven and Trent. Trent and I had to head out early so that we could drop Matt off at another gig. Jerry filled in on sound for the final couple of scenes. The first marked the return of Lake to do his final scene with Dasha. Everyone was nervous because it was starting to look like rain, and Lake was running behind because he was coming from North Carolina, where he was doing another shoot. Just before he got there, it stopped raining just long enough for them to shoot the scene, which I hear went really well. Then, the cast and crew packed up, waved goodbye to the house (I’m guessing that part, like I said, I wasn’t there), and headed over to the final location where Craig and Richard Hoard reportedly knocked it out of the park in a matter of minutes. I got the call just after I got home that we filming had been completed.
So, that’s that. It’s a wrap, as they say. Principle photography is completed on “Of Rats and Men.” I think we managed to do something that is interesting and a lot more diverse than any of our past projects, but it still has the core of what makes it a KREJ film. There has been talk of shooting an extra scene or two, nothing crucial, just a couple things to bring everything full circle story-wise, but we haven’t officially decided whether or not to do so. For the most part, we managed to shoot everything we set out to shoot as planned, and in a lot of places, things turned out WAY funnier than we expected. That’s what you get when you hire great talent.
On that note, I’ll go ahead and admit it, we got lucky. We somehow managed to pull together an amazing cast and crew for this film. If it wasn’t for some of the stuff we’ve been doing outside of KREJ (improv, acting classes, etc.), we wouldn’t have never met most of these incredibly talented people that we had the immense pleasure of working with on “Of Rats and Men.” I would like to take this time to thank everybody that was involved in some capacity or another, alphabetically or course (sorry Craig). Here goes:
Matthew Aschberger
Nick Bilz
Brenda Breedon
Katie Causey
Diane Dicker
Brett Grueber
Richard Hoard
Johnnie Holland
Keegan Ingram
Dasha Jordan
Jeff Kaminski
Carla Larson
Jan Lefrancois-Gijzen
Matt Levy
Regina Nicole
Stephanie Norton
Melissa Owens
Chris Parsons
Steve Pryor
Kelley Roark
Lake Roberts
Hakim Robinson
Trolle Selander
Steven Teuchert
Trent Whitmire
Craig Zeiss
I don’t think I forgot anybody, but if I did, I’m really sorry. Keep checking in, because we will be announcing when the premiere of “Of Rats and Men” will be as soon as we set a date, and hopefully, since we’re done with shooting, we can start blogging again soon.
-Grantzy
OK, first of all I want to apologize for not putting this up sooner. We didn’t have internet access at our filming location, and between work and trying catch up on all of my lost sleep over the weekend, I haven’t had time to post this production blog. After many scheduling conflicts the past several weekends, we finally managed to get everyone on the same page and we finished shooting the latest KREJ short, “Of Rats and Men.” It’s over. We can all breathe a huge sigh of relief now, except for Jerry, who has the honor of editing the film.
There were some changes on the cast and crew line up. First, because of scheduling conflicts with our original D.P., Hakim, we brought in Nick Bilz in. Nick was a real joy to have on set. He really busted his ass this weekend and we appreciate that. He somehow managed to come in, and blend seamlessly into our little group, so well it felt like we have been working with him for a long time. He really fit right in, and we hope to have him back in the future.
Our second line up change up came during the previous, when Jan Lefrançois-Gijzen, the actor we cast as “Vernon” regrettably informed us that due to personal reasons, he could not make it in to film his scenes. It was unfortunate, but luckily, we managed to enlist Chris Parsons to play the part. We had already filmed a very short scene with Chris in our first weekend, so that had to be added to schedule again to be re-shot with a different actor. We we’re very fortunate that Jan managed to come in and shoot the short, but very funny, scene and we got to have him in the film after all. I do want to apologize however to Kelley Roark, who was in the original scene with Chris. Unfortunately, I could not manage to get in touch with her to ask her to come in to re-film the scene, but we we’re lucky enough that Jan brought his girlfriend, Katie Causey, along to sub for Kelley. They both did a great job, and I really look forward to seeing that scene on film.
Ok, so here’s a little breakdown of what happened this weekend on set.
Saturday:
I don’t think anybody got any sleep Friday night. Most of us drove done to our shooting location in McDonough the night before filming. Trent and I had to work Friday night, so we didn’t even get on the road until almost 1:30 a.m. We arrived roughly around 3:00 a.m., with sound guy Matt Levy and Chris in tow. We were met in the driveway by Director Jeff Kaminski, who couldn’t sleep. We filed in, and everyone choose a place to sleep, but it was no use for me; I was up until call time. It sucked having to sit around while everyone else slept (or tried to) waiting to start shooting. I never was good at getting any sleep the night before a shoot. I think it’s a mix of being excited and a little nervous.
Luckily, I didn’t have to wait too long for call time. After the numerous delays, we had decided to move our start time up a little to 6 a.m. in order to accommodate a few of our actors, Diane Dicker and Steve Pryor, who had to be wrapped for the day around 10:30 a.m. This seemed like a daunting task, as will all of our past projects, we’ve had a little problem with meeting our pre-decided wrap time. I have no idea what got into us this past weekend, but we somehow, seemingly out of nowhere, morphed into a well-oiled independent film production machine. We pulled a Barry Allen (or perhaps a Wally West) and moved faster than we ever have in the past. Everybody pulled far more than their own weight. Actors we’re nailing it take after take, not a line forgotten. Crew was setting up and striking down sets in the blink of an eye. We were able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. OK, not really, but you get the picture. I guess after being delayed for three weeks, we all had a lot of pent up aggression, and wanted to get this thing in the can.
There were a couple of times though, where we got held up for a minute or two, here and there. One of the most memorable was when one of my contacts fell out during a very physical scene I shared with Craig Zeiss. I had to run down stairs to the basement/our holding area, and grab my contact solution. When I came back up stairs, everyone started feigning concern for my well being, each time calling me by a different famous actor’s name. Needless to say, this became a running gag. Everyone was ragging on me, calling me everything from Al Pacino to Michael Cera to Whoopi Goldberg. Some of my favorites include Larry David, John Goodman, Zach Galifianakis, Betty White, Kevin Smith, and Snooki. I eventually egged them on even more by challenging them to guess which name I was thinking of, Don Knotts, which Craig finally got.
Despite the little eyewear annoyance, I still have to say that that scene in particular, our big finale, is probably my favorite one we filmed. There was a lot to this scene, and it took a good chunk of the day Saturday, as well as a little time on Sunday to film. The majority of the cast we’re involved in this scene: myself, Craig, Chris, Diane, Steve, Steven, Trent, and Dasha Jordan. I think Dasha might have had a little too much fun. We could all see how holding a prop gun, and getting to push me and Craig around went to her head a little. I kid… a little.
We got a lot of other great scenes on Saturday, including several scenes between Chris’ “Vernon” and Diane’s “Wilma.” These scenes were very pivotal to the plot, but there were no worries, as they both nailed each scene. Another really fun scene we shot is a promo for a wrestling event we filmed featuring Johnnie Holland (who you may remember as the landlord from Tim and Katie) and a priceless director cameo from Mr. Kaminski himself. I went to sleep on the couch right before they started shooting this, and was woken up by screams and whoops from the two, not realizing that they had set the green screen up right in front of me, and was filming the scene just two feet away from my sleeping head. It was strange looking back at the footage and realizing all this was going on right next to me while I dozed.
We managed to get Diane and Steve, who were both exceptionally fantastic, out on time, which is a KREJ first. We then went on to wrap for the day very early (another KREJ first), and when we were done we didn’t really know what to do with our selves for the rest of the night. We did get to sit down and watch all the footage on the projector downstairs in the basement. It’s a real bonding experience sitting down with some of the cast and crew watching all of our hard work from the day on the wall in front of us.
I wanted to try and write up my blogs for both Saturday and Sunday, but somehow it is already 5 a.m., and I may or may not have a doctor’s appointment early in the morning, so let’s finish this up tomorrow, shall we?
Stay tuned for Sunday’s Production blog. Same KREJ time. Same KREJ channel.
There were some changes on the cast and crew line up. First, because of scheduling conflicts with our original D.P., Hakim, we brought in Nick Bilz in. Nick was a real joy to have on set. He really busted his ass this weekend and we appreciate that. He somehow managed to come in, and blend seamlessly into our little group, so well it felt like we have been working with him for a long time. He really fit right in, and we hope to have him back in the future.
Our second line up change up came during the previous, when Jan Lefrançois-Gijzen, the actor we cast as “Vernon” regrettably informed us that due to personal reasons, he could not make it in to film his scenes. It was unfortunate, but luckily, we managed to enlist Chris Parsons to play the part. We had already filmed a very short scene with Chris in our first weekend, so that had to be added to schedule again to be re-shot with a different actor. We we’re very fortunate that Jan managed to come in and shoot the short, but very funny, scene and we got to have him in the film after all. I do want to apologize however to Kelley Roark, who was in the original scene with Chris. Unfortunately, I could not manage to get in touch with her to ask her to come in to re-film the scene, but we we’re lucky enough that Jan brought his girlfriend, Katie Causey, along to sub for Kelley. They both did a great job, and I really look forward to seeing that scene on film.
Ok, so here’s a little breakdown of what happened this weekend on set.
Saturday:
I don’t think anybody got any sleep Friday night. Most of us drove done to our shooting location in McDonough the night before filming. Trent and I had to work Friday night, so we didn’t even get on the road until almost 1:30 a.m. We arrived roughly around 3:00 a.m., with sound guy Matt Levy and Chris in tow. We were met in the driveway by Director Jeff Kaminski, who couldn’t sleep. We filed in, and everyone choose a place to sleep, but it was no use for me; I was up until call time. It sucked having to sit around while everyone else slept (or tried to) waiting to start shooting. I never was good at getting any sleep the night before a shoot. I think it’s a mix of being excited and a little nervous.
Luckily, I didn’t have to wait too long for call time. After the numerous delays, we had decided to move our start time up a little to 6 a.m. in order to accommodate a few of our actors, Diane Dicker and Steve Pryor, who had to be wrapped for the day around 10:30 a.m. This seemed like a daunting task, as will all of our past projects, we’ve had a little problem with meeting our pre-decided wrap time. I have no idea what got into us this past weekend, but we somehow, seemingly out of nowhere, morphed into a well-oiled independent film production machine. We pulled a Barry Allen (or perhaps a Wally West) and moved faster than we ever have in the past. Everybody pulled far more than their own weight. Actors we’re nailing it take after take, not a line forgotten. Crew was setting up and striking down sets in the blink of an eye. We were able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. OK, not really, but you get the picture. I guess after being delayed for three weeks, we all had a lot of pent up aggression, and wanted to get this thing in the can.
There were a couple of times though, where we got held up for a minute or two, here and there. One of the most memorable was when one of my contacts fell out during a very physical scene I shared with Craig Zeiss. I had to run down stairs to the basement/our holding area, and grab my contact solution. When I came back up stairs, everyone started feigning concern for my well being, each time calling me by a different famous actor’s name. Needless to say, this became a running gag. Everyone was ragging on me, calling me everything from Al Pacino to Michael Cera to Whoopi Goldberg. Some of my favorites include Larry David, John Goodman, Zach Galifianakis, Betty White, Kevin Smith, and Snooki. I eventually egged them on even more by challenging them to guess which name I was thinking of, Don Knotts, which Craig finally got.
Despite the little eyewear annoyance, I still have to say that that scene in particular, our big finale, is probably my favorite one we filmed. There was a lot to this scene, and it took a good chunk of the day Saturday, as well as a little time on Sunday to film. The majority of the cast we’re involved in this scene: myself, Craig, Chris, Diane, Steve, Steven, Trent, and Dasha Jordan. I think Dasha might have had a little too much fun. We could all see how holding a prop gun, and getting to push me and Craig around went to her head a little. I kid… a little.
We got a lot of other great scenes on Saturday, including several scenes between Chris’ “Vernon” and Diane’s “Wilma.” These scenes were very pivotal to the plot, but there were no worries, as they both nailed each scene. Another really fun scene we shot is a promo for a wrestling event we filmed featuring Johnnie Holland (who you may remember as the landlord from Tim and Katie) and a priceless director cameo from Mr. Kaminski himself. I went to sleep on the couch right before they started shooting this, and was woken up by screams and whoops from the two, not realizing that they had set the green screen up right in front of me, and was filming the scene just two feet away from my sleeping head. It was strange looking back at the footage and realizing all this was going on right next to me while I dozed.
We managed to get Diane and Steve, who were both exceptionally fantastic, out on time, which is a KREJ first. We then went on to wrap for the day very early (another KREJ first), and when we were done we didn’t really know what to do with our selves for the rest of the night. We did get to sit down and watch all the footage on the projector downstairs in the basement. It’s a real bonding experience sitting down with some of the cast and crew watching all of our hard work from the day on the wall in front of us.
I wanted to try and write up my blogs for both Saturday and Sunday, but somehow it is already 5 a.m., and I may or may not have a doctor’s appointment early in the morning, so let’s finish this up tomorrow, shall we?
Stay tuned for Sunday’s Production blog. Same KREJ time. Same KREJ channel.
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