Month: April 2011

We interrupt 10 years of wendago to discuss Rikki Bjorn Farmer. That’s right, Bjorn. Like the dude from ABBA. Or the Borg. The tennis player. Not the pseudo-race of cybernetic organisms depicted in Star Trek.

So this morning, Rikki texts me a picture. Asks if I know how to post to Facebook. I get a little lightheaded from the possible responses to said question. He says, “Kendra and I thought it would be funny to see what kind of comments would be posted. Got to have fun with it.” Which made me smile.

We at Team Farmer have never been very good at hiding our misery. Or living under a woe is me rock. This is it. Life. You make the best of it. The good and the bad.

I ask if he wants me to just post the pic or would he like me to comment in that special and possibly offensive way that the Farmers are known for. He says he wants to let people know we are in good spirits.

And by the way, we were texting all of this. Because as everyone knows it is far better to text in an hour what you could say in 5 minute over the phone. I text back to him, “Okay, I’m on it. But first… tell me what I’m looking at.”

He replies, “Those are button caps for the machine that attaches to my head for the bone saw and needle.”

To this I reply, AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGG!”

Alright. I guess this has been more than enough build up. I may as well just say it and get it out there. At the ripe old age of 32, my little brother has…genital herpes.

No no no. He does not have an STD. He has… well, he could have an STD. I mean, he’s never mentioned one way or the other. But while we at Team Farmer pretty much share everything online, an STD we would likely not go wide with. Probably just announce that on Twitter. See if it goes viral. Where was I? O yeah.

Rikki has cancer.

Sadly this isn’t the first time he’s been under the bone saw. In 2002 at the blistering age of 23, he had a tumor the size of a golf ball removed. In ’07 they went back in to tidy up a bit. And now it’s back. Roughly a ping pong ball which is a little smaller than a Titleist.

Tomorrow is Biopsy or as we at Team Farmer like to call it, “Bone Saw Day”. Or as Rikki puts it, “Yup. 5:30am. Can’t wait.”

Then we’ll be in a holding pattern. Waiting to find out what sort of fight lies ahead. I’m hoping the crack the lid, take a peek and determine that it’s just irritable bowel syndrom. Which would NOT surprise me. I never told him this but when we lived in West Oaks and he slept on the top bunk, the kid was constantly breaking sleep farts.

So, let’s see. Cancer, the Borg, STDs and farts. I think that covers everything.

Of course, if you are on speaking terms with your God then I’m sure Rikki and Kendra wouldn’t mind the mention. As for me, I’ll welcome Voodoo, magic, sorcery, Amway, anything that might help. :)

OCTOBER
Happy Birthday wendago.com. I have kept an online journal for 10 years. I say “journal” cuz when I got started “blog” and “blogger” were relatively unknown. I started this so that one day I could look back and behold the journey. So let’s continue the catch up and bring us to October of 2010.

But first…

ALIEN is one of those movies that made me what I am. LOOK at this trailer. My heart pounds yet it gives NOTHING away! The trailer grabs and leaves you wanting more. I WANT to see it. Today, our trailers give away SO much you FEEL like you can decide whether or not you will like a movie based on the trailer alone.

All the way back to campfire ghost stories you want to build to the JUMP. Or the big surprise. Now days the surprises are in the trailer. It’s just lazy marketing.

So, on with October, a month distracted with Audience Preview.

Focus groups are a part of the Hollywood process. While there are debates over their legitimacy, they are and likely always will be a part of the movie making process. After a studio screening a focus group spokesperson will keep several audience members and ask them questions about their experience. Normally by morning focus group answers as well as the audience questionares are analyzed by massive computers that are seven or eight gigabytes away from going sentient and creating terminators or fembots.

Patrick and team spent all day at the theatre prepping the preview. I was there but was mostly just stumbling around in the way. They had to make sure the sound levels were right. Make sure the base was thunderous. And then, of course, 3D added a whole new layer of possible screw up. Patrick ran the movie then ran it again, then we were ready for the big show. A few walked at at the initial gore. To me that was a win. The remaining crowd laughed and cheered at all the right places.

Questionares were handed out. The focus group was asked questions and it was decided we would meet at Summit once all the numbers from the preview were crunched and discuss further.

Big meeting. Focus group leader was on speaker phone to go over his statistics from the focus group. He announced, “Let’s be honest, this movie will only appeal to the lowest common denominator.” Wow.

The biggest issue seemed to be the visual FX (could we finish them on time?). And Summit suggested the movie to open on Milton escaping from Hell.

Now remember we had written Drive Angry so that the whole “he escaped from hell” thing would be a secret. Like Bruce is a ghost. Darth is a father. That Crying Game girl ain’t no girl. If you build it Kevin Costner’s daddy will play ball with you. In fact, even in the finished product, we never came right out and said Milton’s from hell. The idea was to think he had busted out of prison only to learn at the midpoint that he’d escaped from hell. This was the story we sold. It’s also the story we shot. We always figured the audience would get it. But Summit, being in charge of American Distribution and Marketing, believed without hell this was just another “old man revenge movie”. For Comic Con they had created a trailer with a voiceover and big white lettering that said, “HE BUSTED OUT OF HELL”. So the cat had already been let out of the bag, so to speak. Therefore it was decided that we would create an opening that revealed Milton escaping from hell.

This had its challenges. For one, Nic was on another movie. We could not get him back. Two, we didn’t have time to physically shoot it anyway. Three, it would have to be created in a computer by an FX team that already didn’t have enough time to finish the movie.

First off, I’m not against the idea of busting out of hell. Patrick and I debated it before we even started writing. But we had decided to keep it a secret. We could have gone the other way. But revealing it wasn’t in this current design. And design is a big deal. Believe it or not, we try not to just slap a movie together. If we knew we were going to reveal hell from frame one then we would have written it differently. We would have shot it differently. Would have delivered a grand set piece of Nic Cage escaping hell. But in the 11th hour all we could do was with CGI. So we did CGI as best we could.

Millennium also wanted more action in the end. So more FX were added to an FX team that already didn’t have enough time. They also wanted to add more jeopardy with the baby. So a day of baby pick-up shots was added to the schedule.

As soon as the meeting was over, Patrick and I started writing variations of voiceover for Fichtner to Account. We also created pages and pages of ADR lines. And while Patrick fought the good fight on Drive Angry…

…I flew to NY to meet with Team Weinstein, FJ DeSanto (pictured above) and assorted others.

I had never been to NY. After the Weinstein meeting I walked down to ground zero as it’s not too far from their office. It was emotional. I took pictures of the construction but I will not post them.

On the flight back I created a Milton wrap sheet for the bust out of hell opening but it was never used.

On the 15th we closed our Hellraiser deal.

This meant the “verbal” agreement was done. This meant TWC could announce that we were joining forces if they so desired. We made a good deal and we were very excited about our story. They came to us for a remake. We were not the first. We have seen outline after outline that went before us. Some were pretty good. Some were dismal. What we pitched was something off the grid. Waaay outside the box (yes, HR fans, that pun was intended). BUT, I don’t want to tell you anything about our story. I don’t want to say the remake or reboot or sequel. I don’t want to say Pinhead or Doug Bradley. I WANT YOU TO BE SURPRISED!

I will likely fail in my want. But I’m going to remain hopeful. Because I’ve always thought Weinstein marketing was smart and strong.

Meanwhile Patrick landed in Shreveport for a day of pick-up shots with the baby.

The 18th was my ADR. Or Frank’s ADR. This consisted of recording dialog that didn’t record well on the day. It also consisted of “Wild Lines”. Dialog that can play while the character’s back is to camera. Dialog to fill in gaps or blanks. You record sounds. Grunts and orgasms. And then you replace all your wordy dirds with “freak” and “bonehead” and “dummy” for the TV version.

On the same day, the Hellraiser story broke which meant everyone found out Patrick and I were doing it. No one seemed too destroyed by it. While a couple of fan boys threatened suicide, most were excited.

Mel celebrated her birth. We went out to dinner and drank adult drinks.

The Drive Angry release got pushed two weeks in fear of Beiber.

For the annual Halloween party at a neighbor’s house I carved the Jason mask. I won second place and a big cookie. Izzie ate the cookie.

Happy Birthday wendago.com. I have kept an online journal for 10 years. I say “journal” cuz when I got started “blog” and “blogger” were relatively unknown. But I gotta think ten years puts me in a small group. I’ve never made a dime off my goofy site. Started it for me. Not you. I started this site so that I, when old and bald or dead but in ghostly haunty form, could look back and revel in my unawesomeness. So to show respect to meself I am going to play catch up. I got behind after the My Bloody Valentine 3D release and now seems like a fine time to play catch up. So let’s get this underway and bring us to September of 2010.

But first… Trailers. (Special thanks to Edgar @edgarwright Wright for tweeting a couple of these last week.)

If you work in Marketing for the Hollywood machine… please watch this.

So how did we go from the above to the current standard which is defined as “reveal everything”? What is going on? Do we really need to show MOST of the movie before the release? Doesn’t that sort of take the fun out of it?

And even when a nice twist escapes the trailer you nearly always end up with it leaked online. Like in the case of Roger Ebert dropping a GIANT spoiler to the movie SUPER in the front of his review, there’s simply no excuse. Man. I just don’t get it.

So, moving on to SEPTEMBER 2010:

Patrick was fighting to finish the movie. This consisted of editing as well as post music, sound and visual effects. It was also the month to prep screenings because the powers that be naturally wanted to see what they’d paid for. Sadly, the time and energy it takes to stop the train in order to screen a movie can impact the finished product. Perhaps not on a Cameron or Bay movie but when you have a tight budget it can sting a little. This isn’t a jab, it’s a statement of fact and common sense.

As for Hellraiser, we had pitched, Bob said yes. So while Patrick and his team were fighting the good fight on Drive Angry, we were also in the heart of negotiations to write Hellraiser.

And due to the fact that we never went over our Drive Angry budget, we were awarded Skywalker Sound. This was wonderful. I mean no disrespect to other sound shacks but if you aren’t Skywalker Sound you’re sort of meh.

So, we went up North for the temp mix. A temporary version of the movie allows you to get a quick idea how she’s coming together so that adjustments can be made. It’s a temp edit, with temp music and temp sounds. But as far as the suits are concerned the temp mix is for them. They want to see how it’s going.

I GET their logic. If I invested money, you bet I’d want to see the progress. And it certainly protects the investor from a rogue filmmaker. At the same time, I see the drawback, especially if your filmaker isn’t a rogue. And Patrick isn’t rogue. In fact, what he managed to accomplish on the shoestring given is rather impressive. And he did this without ever yelling at the crew. So while I understand the process of the temp mix, I wish we could take the money and time spent in the temp world and feed it into the finished product. Or I wish we’d had access to it back during production. BUT this is simply a part of it.

All that aside, any excuse to go to Skywalker should be taken VERY seriously.

Skywalker Ranch is Disney for workaholic geeks. And Skywalker Sound is simply the best in the biz. Even those who hated My Bloody Valentine would often comment on how great the sound was. I can nearly always hear the difference. First of all, the Skywalker humans are good. These guys and gals aren’t phoning it in. They aren’t punching a time card while thinking about quitting time. There’s real talent at work. I’ve seen it. They can hear things I can’t. I don’t have the ear. I watch them and am fascinated. Second, their droids are the best. The equipment is remarkable. Even the coffee machine in the lobby is fifth rendition R2 unit.

Third, there’s setting. This one Hollywood accountants will likely never understand because a the benefit cannot be measured on a spreadsheet. But when you take a creative out of LA and drop he or she in paradise, watch out. The air is clean. There’s grass and trees and hills. There’s livestock. There’s Jedi. The security team happens to be the fire department. So not only can they pummel you, but they look good with their shirts off. All of this translates to better creativity. LA is stifling. Don’t take my word for it. Ask around.

In the end, all you really need to do is walk down the hall of posters and be blown away. ALL of your favorite movies were mixed there.

There is a strict rule not to take pictures inside the buildings. Oops.

On the way back I stopped and had dinner with Blake and Brenna.

Blake and Brenna started Fridaythe13thfilms.com way back when. I started hanging out at the site while we were working on Jason X. They are no longer involved with the site but we have been friends ever since.

In fact, one year they somehow convinced Mel and I to fly to… Arkansas or some similar State, journey to a youth camp in the middle of nowhere and camp out with a bunch of machete collecting Friday the 13th fans. If you have never experienced 48 hours of drunk with a bunch of Karaoke singing horror fans then perhaps you win.

Mel and I survived the journey. And I even walked away with my Friday the 13th The Website Camp vs. Camp T-shirt which I still wear as one of my favorite pick-up-chicks-at-bars T-shirts. Okay. Maybe it’s not THAT cool.

Izzie Rain and the year of the four. Time sure does speed up when there’s a kid involved. September was roughly six months since we were told that Izzie was autistic. And in that time our team of Jedi had been nothing short of amazing. We had speech therapists, occupational therapists and counselors. Even the gym where Mel and I work out has daycare attendants trained in autistic needs. Granted the private school may have been the weakest link but I’ll come back to that later. What mattered was that Izzie’s progress resulted in the term “high functioning”. Because the goal for everyone is to simply be able to function in our silly world.

The key to all of this is early diagnosis. Look, we’re all screwed up. I’ve met most of you and you people is crazy. BUT, we have all learned to live with our screwedupedness. And that’s the thing. Autism is no more nutty than my own Attention Deficit Disorder or my moments of OCD or my monthly stuggles with being extremely good-looking. BUT, I have learned to live with it. Izzie Rain is learning to live with it. In fact, she’s learning to excel at it.

But please don’t pull that conspiracy crap with me in which you say, “Oh there’s too many “terms”. They have a “term” for everything. All these “categories” mean nothing.” Because you simply don’t know what you don’t know. I have an autistic child and I’m very proud of her. She is loving and kind and pigheaded. She says please and thank you. But then… there are moments that make her slightly different. Unique if you will. And I and her mother couldn’t love her more for this uniqueness.

After only six months I’m in awe. I can’t imagine where her world will be in a year. I look forward to that journey.

And the other happening of note in September was Melanie’s taking the Fall Festival by storm for the St. Angela’s Private School of We Are Slightly Better Than Everyone Else. Mel was part of the Silent Auction and when you compare what was done last year to what Mel accomplished this year, well, they should let Izzie go there for free.

At the end of the month I drove to San Francisco to support the unrated release of Hatchet II. If you are a horror fan and you didn’t go then shame on you. Buy the Blu-ray. Twice. Adam Green’s Hatchet is the only surviving 1980’s slasher franchise in today’s world. I know this because I’ve written a 1980s slasher. And now that Hatchet 3 has the go-ahead the franchise will continue. Ye who call yourself horror, support it.

And that was September. In a couple of days, I’ll tell you about October because by the end of April “10 years of wendago.com” will be caught up!