Robbin' fo' Robbie

BackBlog: a law-breaking love story. You know, that would be a good
name for a movie. Except the BackBlog part. You need a character
name in there, like... "If you see only one movie this year, see "Bill
the Coroner: a law-breaking love story." Actually that sounds like an
incredibly sick movie.

I would be lying if I said that I didn't we haven't done slightly
crazy things to accomplish this film. But we have, and luckily for
you, we'll document its truth here. Even if we have to also put
forward a disclaimer that *NONE OF THIS IS REAL: IT IS ALL FABRICATED
AND POSED FOR THE PURPOSES OF ENTERTAINMENT*

Now that that's out of the way (curiously ambiguous since it could
apply either to the events in the film or the methods by which we
accomplished the actual film... Hooray for legalities or something.
But then, what's a good movie if it doesn't involve a few legal
ramifications?), its time to backblog! We need to catch up on things
that we've done.

By far the most entertaining is the abandoned house. But I'm going to
let Amanda, Will, Ryan, and James (AHEM!!! Get off your duffs, or
rather get back on them and write a damn blog entry for this
production diary so it isn't all my ranting and raving going on here
alone!!!) tell you in their own words about their excitement with
breaking and entering.

I will give you the details (maybe boring details?) of searching
endlessly for props and room decor, and for the creation of specific items.

In making this movie, I wanted to have a bit of an homage, as it were, to the Silent Hill games themselves which impacted me enough to give up my pride and actually create fan film material. In striving to do that, though the story is totally original, I wanted to incorporate some of the awesome imagery of the games. Consequently, we went through the script and discussed the art direction, and where, if possible certain scenic elements could be incorporated into our movie (and make sense, of course).

Some of those included the Seal, which I blogged on before, the chained door declaring "Don't go outside" (sans the "-walter" since we have no walter in our story), and Robbie Rabbit. Ah, Robbie Rabbit.

Robbie Rabbit, as far as I can tell, first makes his appearance in SH3 at the amusment park (although it is possible that I didn't notice him in one or maybe two, if not likely since a cute pink rabbit with a bloodstained face isn't an image you forget easily). He's carried over into four, sitting as a small stuffed rabbit on a woman's bed. Either way, his existence is creepy, fascinating, and rather a mystery. Does he represent despoiled childhood? A cute fluffy bunny costume that hides a much darker world, the blood seeping down his fur? Who knows. But it was quite the event making our Robbie.

As usual we did this at 2:00 am. This is a popular time for me to create things it seems, since it is one of the only times in which my late-night friends, (actually that should be "late night friend" because it consists of only Amanda. Everyone else has to go to bed because they "have to get up early tomorrow." Whine whine whine.) can get together. It may or may not lend itself to the creationary process, since it usually involves coffee and being incredibly loopy. Such it was with Robbie.

You see, we searched for a Robbie Rabbit. We looked long and hard. But it seems no one makes a decent pink rabbit, even without overalls. I mean, I'm not asking for Jesus himself to come down and turn water into stuffed animals. I just don't think I'm asking for the impossible. So we made it. Well, sort of.

Amanda and I found a stuffed white rabbit which didn't look like the one we wanted, but had a close enough body type. His eyes though were all wrong, I'm afraid, and gratefully, Amanda had enough forethought to visit a random used clothing store and when no one was looking, slice off the eyes of another rabbit. Okay, yes perhaps it wasn't entirely moral to attempt. But! We did get eyes for Robbie. For the Greater Good! (I just watched Hot Fuzz again the other night. Its on my mind.)



On the first night, we attempted dying robbie a delightful shade of pink. First we cut out the insets in his ears, surgically removed his face, unstuffed him and pulled out the battery pack that, disturbingly, let him speak. Don't worry, he didn't suffer. I ought to point out that I'm a licensed ( and by licensed I mean illegally working for the underworld) stuffed animal taxidermist. Its difficult to count the number of stuffed animal heads I've mounted or faux-bears i'v skinned for rugs. The saddest part is I'm not kidding. But regardless, I'm saying that I'm quite skilled and experienced and Robbie undergoing this cosmetic surgery was only mildly taxing on my skills. At least until putting him back together.

Let's back up for a minute. Have you ever used fabric dye? It works great. On natural fabric. Natural fabric.

Trivia time! Did you know that most stuffed animals produced today have acrylic fur? Did you also know that Acrylic is a clear plastic, which, it turns out, isn't super susceptible to the dye-ing process?

They do, it doesnt, and now you know.

Well Robbie came out cotton candy pink, not the electric magenta of the dye. This was actually fortuitous since we weren't shooting an 80's music video. His dye however... i suspect is mostly caked on the acrylic. The more one handles him, the rosier palms one gets. Ahem. Anyway... moving on.

Now we had to add eyes. It was a simple matter to cut the ugly brown dots off, but a much more difficult task to sew larger random eyes on. Please recall the above late night comment. We sewed the eyes on, but not entirely perfect. They're mildly crooked and he was goddamned creepy. He looked, sitting there mouthless and unstuffed, like a freakish boo-bah. (That's another story entirely, although suffice it to say boo-bah is one of the most LSD-inspired and disturbing children's programming concepts ever.) It was at that moment we started laughing and couldn't stop.

Adding the face didn't help, in fact we started referring to him as our (watch out - inappropriate humor ahead) "downs rabbit." The slightly crooked face became more apparent with his hand-stiched slightly crooked mouth...

I'm just going to show you pictures of the process because they're ridiculous and do a better job telling this story than I can.





Winging it after this point, we found ribbon for his bowtie; some great fabric for the overalls and blood all over the face (which have required special shooting methods, since he looks great from the front, but the overalls have the shittiest sewing job in the back; not to mention anytime our little girl actress hugs him to hide the blood all over his mouth, she has to place her arms correctly to hide his lousy sewing... sigh).

All in all he turned out great and looks like robbie rabbit. I'm bored with writing this so, the end.



If you or someone you love would like to learn more about Robbie Rabbit, please take a moment to view the video below, you won't be disappointed. "Hold on to Dear Life."



Courtesy of youtube and Konami entertainment.

Cults & Transformations: Our Room Scene

It is perhaps easier if we address who is speaking, since other may add their own blogs of the same events to this page. Therefore...

Peter, the Director says:

Exhausted. I think that pretty much sums up our weekend this week. While the plan was to back-blog everything we've done up to this point, I couldn't resist at least giving my spin of the weekend since its fresh. And since I just barely put all of the clips on my computer for some serious editing/coloring/and fx-ing...

We knew this would be the roughest piece of the script to shoot. Most of the other locations were things we could find and with minimal work turn into our location sets. The room however, required more. In this particular scene there needs to be a great deal of control, which we wouldn't have in an outside (and possibly illegal location acquired through breaking and entering... just kidding. like we'd ever do that...) set.

In this particular scene, the same space moves from an abandoned apartment building into a hellish nightmare world. To achieve that end, we needed someplace that would be customizable and allowed us to move, shake, and change things as necessary. Turns out my apartment was it.

To say Will wasn't thrilled about this would be... and underestimation, simply because he is concerned about the lease and us leaving permanent marks. I guess that makes him not only the star of the film but the suits too, since he kept popping up to shake his head and be concerned about what we were doing. In his defense, we did do a great deal to that room - it looked quite different, going through three different appearances before the weekend was over. But I also have done many a murder mystery party, and eventas, as my friend Anna K. would call them, in which my parent's or roommates homes have suffered a made-over fate. And each time I'm quite conscious to do nothing permanent. While this shoot was a huge undertaking, we did it, did it well and did it with virtually no damages.

Basically the operation started when we determined that this scene was something better done before school started for us, since it would require so much. And require it did... For the entire week before hand, Amanda and I pulled 4:00 am nights collecting, building and furbishing two very different apartment rooms, filled with some of our favorite imagery from the Silent Hill games, and our own creations.

One of the biggest undertakings visiting Amanda's house where Ryan, myself and her sorted through the scads of excellent (and free!!) additions to our production. We found rusted chains for doors, the doors themselves complete with frames, barbed wire, rolls of paper destined for stained wallpaper, etc. This trip was quite advantageous, because we also discovered the perfect location (with a little work) for an upcoming scene, and a large metal disc.



What, pray tell could a large rusty metal disc weighing a hundred or so pounds be used for? What couldn't it be used for in the context of silent hill? But truthfully there was one particular use that stood out: The Seal. In the SH mythos exists a cult, which some of the story lines deal with in depth. While we don't particularly in our film, it immediately stood out as a nice ode. The screenplay I wrote definitely draws more upon the premise of Silent Hill 2, but the connection to the events of that game and the cult is concisely explained that, "...Silent Hill draws people with darkness in their hearts to it." Silent Hill may have become the way it is due a crazy religious following, but that doesn't limit the stories within it as it is an entity unto itself now. I'm getting a little caught up in SH theory, which is a blog in its own. So my reasoning for including the seal was a nice touch we figured we'd add.



The seal was a four hour paint job on the lawn, and while done by hand (we wanted a rough, crudely-drawn-with-blood look) it is actually quite accurate, even the symbols around the inner circle. If you're gonna do it, do it right. My favorite moment was when during the midst of tracing patterns I suddenly heard a "ssshhhrt" sound. With only a moment to spare, I muttered "Oh shit." Amanda, startled, asked "What?" and swung around just in time for the sprinkler to hit her in the face. We abandoned the seal and got out of the way of the sprinklers and couldn't stop laughing at how ridiculous this was. We're drenched by the sprinklers, at 2 am while painting a satanic cult symbol on the lawn next to the kid playground area.



I'm pretty sure the neighbors hated us in the time proceeding this shoot. Will was constantly worried that our HOA group was going to freak out at us because our porch slowly became littered with chained doors, old chairs and furniture, giant pieces of metal, chicken wire and dyed sheets. Because of our schedules we'd start breaking apart pallets at 3 in the morning, and hammering them onto door frames. Amazingly, nobody complained.

Basically it was a lot of manhours, which Amanda and Ryan were invaluable for. They did an incredible amount of work and I appreciate their help in pulling this vision off. Doors were carted in and out, Ryan, myself and Amanda did tons of set dressing for the shots, we were still building props like the great knife (oh the shitty shitty great knife...) up until the last minute. I am quite grateful to them for their help. The room was finally pulled together Saturday afternoon, we shot the first scene late Saturday night. While the plan was to continue overhauling the room, trips to wal-mart (the great oppressor) and our exhaustion made that difficult. We decided to crash, around 4 and just do the transformed room, the "Dark Room" as we call it, the next day.



Room #207 turned out great.

Bleary-eyed, we continued work early the next morning, and it took about two hours, not to mention lots of stabbing of feet on chicken wire to accomplish. But the effect really worked, I think - it looks pretty hellish in there. With a little post work, it'll be perfect.

The shoot went swimmingly. It was fun, and worked quite well. Jackie borrowed his brothers camera and it was great to have his help being a second unit on the shoot. Will did great, especially with the turn this scene takes into a bit of action. Its nice to be sleeping with the star; he give a lot to the performance. :) Our moments with Jessica, playing the little ghostly Lanna couldn't have been creepier. She's fantastic. Amanda and Ryan pulled out some great lighting schemes and frankly I'm happy with my crew and the way it went. For the most part we're on the same page.

I have to admit that this particular shoot was also a personal pleasure for me. It was the first time Pyramid Head got to make an appearance. With some help from my cousin, Ryan, this has been a costume that I've been working on for some time now. Aside from the slapdash great knife, I think it turned out really well. I'm excited to see its presence in this film. Ryan played our version of Pyramid (based mainly on the game, but subtle movie influences are included) and he did great.



Overall it was a fun, if entirely exhausting experience. Sunday night we were all drained and couldn't do much but lay around. I'm sure the others will have more anecdotal things to relate to you - it was a bitch of a shoot and there's plenty to laugh and bitch about. This is just my general account of how things went. Hopefully you'll enjoy and look forward to seeing the film we're putting together. It ought to be great.

Nitty & Gritty: Film, Cast, and Crew

Silent Hill: Shadows

SH: Shadows is a fan film set in the world of Silent Hill, with no connection to any of the previous game characters or the movie. It does draw on some of the striking imagery scattered throughout the franchise. It attempts to be a reverential ode to these games. It is unfortunately limited by our low budget, but will hopefully turn out great in the end.


Being a fan film, Silent Hill itself, characters, and all things Silent Hill are copyrighted by Konami. We, naturally, are doing this strictly for fun, with no intention of selling or making money off this venture.

Last names have been removed for the safety of our sure-to-be famous actors and actresses who don't wish to be mobbed by autograph seeking fans.


CAST:

Mike - William
Jeff - Ryan
Lanna - Jessica
Patient Demon - Amanda
Bundle - Amanda
Pyramid Head - Peter/Ryan


CREW:

Director/Editor: Peter

AD: Amanda

Physical FX/Lighting/Costume/Production Design:
Ryan
Peter
Amanda


SH: Shadows has been shot on location in beautiful Eureka, UT. Oh, and some other places.

An Introduction

I don't remember knowing exactly what it was at the time, but as I wandered, bored, into the room, I discovered my brother, in a creepy apartment hallway attempting to solve a strange puzzle.  Puzzle solving games were about the only games I played at that point - games like Myst, Riven, or Morpheus - and while the horror genre was something I genuinely didn't take to, the puzzle did intrigue me.  

Horror always scared me, well into my late teens, if only because I had been denied it my entire growing up.  I had been nursed on Avonlea, Little Women, or Anne of Green Gables.  My mother loved happy, peaceful movies, and while I grew to appreciate those, frightening stuff was made that much worse. We didn't watch scary movies in my home and they became an unknown.  Nothing is more frightening than the unknown.  Thus I avoided horror films, books, and games at all cost.  

Ironically, I enjoyed the game my brother was playing for the few moments I played it with my brother, and left the room when it returned to strange creatures and frightening scenarios.  There was something about it though, the style, the puzzles, the disturbing action...

Years later, my friend Anna and I were looking for a game to play, and vaguely recalling the fun, and the freakiness now a vague memory easily dismissed and confronted, I convinced her to play Silent Hill 2 with me.  

We scared ourselves shitless that night.  Never had something freaked me out so much that I was afraid to fall asleep in the dark, dwelling the game.  Some people argue that games can't be scary.  I beg the differ and even dare to say that games have the potential to be far worse than movies, if only because you control the character.  You can't hunker down in your seat, tell the character they are an idiot for entering the basement alone while the power is out, and close your eyes in case something pops out.  No, instead you must guide them down into that basement if you want the story to progress.  And you can't close your eyes because if something does pop out, you have to be ready to take it on, lest you end up dead.  Games can be quite freaky.  We scared ourselves and it awoke something in me.  A tiny interest in being scared.

I didn't play Silent Hill again, thinking of it as a enjoyable, but freaky, diversion, until years later.  And this time, I finished it.  Not only was the game scary, but it was psychological as well.  Suddenly I realized that horror could be more than just gut-slashing, organ-spilling, bodily-fluid-fests.  No, horror could actually say things about us and about society.

I won't ruin the ending of the game, but it opened up a great world to me, filled with exceptionally well done horror films and books.  Perhaps now you can understand why I love Silenty Hill.  It changed my opinions on a subject I was previously dismissive of, because it is done right, and done right well.  Silent Hill contains beautiful imagery, intriguing puzzles and plots, and plenty of scares.  How could I not love it?  

I'm trying not to get too sentimental about this franchise, just to explain how this project arose.  I'm a film student, and having just purchased a nice computer and some editing software, wanted the chance to stretch myself on it.  One day, noting youtube was filled with fan films of Silent Hill, most of which were not particularly... impressive (SHit, we liked to call them), I determined that this was the kind project I'd be interested in.  My friend Amanda was immediately onboard, she being a giant fan as well.  It took some convincing to get Ryan and Will involved.  But I think everyone will be happy with the final product.

"Silent Hill: Shadows" is my first fan film.  It may be my only fan film, and I understand the connotation that term brings with it.  Normally I would express that creating your own stories in someone else's mythos is a lack of creative ingenuity.  I've been forced to eat those words.  But perhaps its not so bad; I'm learning that as in art, you must imitate the great masters before you become your own.  To me Silent Hill is a master, and I would do well to take some cues from this franchise.  

The purpose of this blog is to keep anyone (is there anyone, aside from ourselves?) interested updated on the progress of our film.  It's a short 15 minute production, but is taking us a great deal of time to create.  Hopefully we can make something that will fit into the world of Silent Hill as an ode to a great set of games that changed my perspectives forever.  

Welcome to Shooting the SHit.