It's about 3 hours or so before I hit the road for Worcester, MA to attend the Rock & Shock Horror Show which should be quite a time. We're screening EFFECTS at the show, and star Joe Pilato will be in attendance to introduce it. Not to mention, Pittsburgh legend, George Romero will be there too. Good times lie ahead methinks.
Three conventions in three weeks. The Fangoria show in NJ went great. Met John Harrison and spent some great time hanging out with him and talking. Also bumped into filmmaker Mick Garris (THE STAND) twice on two separate days on the same stretch of 42nd st near Times Square. I'm sure he thinks I'm a stalker now, but what can you do.
Last weekend was the Cinema Wasteland show, my personal favorite show to attend. This year brought back the cast & crew of DAWN OF THE DEAD and it was one of the best Cinema Wastelands I've been to yet. Spent most of my time at the Synapse Films table and helping out the lovely Gaylen Ross (Fran from DOTD) with her table.
One very positive note...my documentary work for BASKET CASE 2 has officially begun. One great thing about attending these conventions is the chance to interview folks who just might figure into a project you are planning. This time, DAWN OF THE DEAD cast member David Emge was my subject, as he also played a small role in BASKET CASE 2 as Half Moon one of a group of freaks that figure prominently in the movie.
I had brought my camera and gear with me in the event that David said yes, and thankfully he agreed to sit down for me on Sunday morning in my hotel room.
I've now had the opportunity to shoot several interviews in the comfort of various hotel rooms, and I can tell you that while there are some advantages to having the ease and accessibility to the room for prepartion sakes, there are truly some limitations which make it a challenge every time.
The primary issue with any hotel room when it comes to shooting an on-camera interview is...room. There never seems to be enough square footage to set everything up properly, and if you are hoping for a depth of field in your shot...forget it.
Unless you are lucky enough to book a suite with enough room to move furniture around, you gotta make do with whatcha got. And at the Holiday Inn Select in Strongsville, Ohio, I didn't have much to work with. Basically a 7x10 living space next to the bed in front of the window. That's it. I cleared out the little chair and endtable, and set about my task.
I had this conceit a while back while thinking of BASKET CASE 2, that every interview I do for it should have a big wicker basket somewhere in the background. If you've seen the movies you know what the basket is all about...deformed twin brother and all that. So fortunately at the nearby Target, a large wicker basket was available and $80 later it was all mine.
Then a trip to JoAnn Fabrics...a store which I try to avoid usually. With all the fabric bolts thrown about in haphazard fashion, the place tends to remind of a Morrocan street market and I can never get in and out of there in any reasonable amount of time.
Sure enough, with the welcome help of my friend Don May from Synapse, we scored some nice black fabric and a cool swatch of cloth with a reflective red pattern in it that I hoped would catch the light just right.
Now this was all on Saturday...and I set aside two hours to take care of it. Of course I didn't have any clamps, rods, poles, C-Stands, or any kind of metal apparatus to hang the fabric with. I'm still a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants organization here and I haven't quite got all the mechanical hoo-hahs I'd like at this point.
So to take care of business, I had the old standy...black duct tape. Soon enough I had a tapestry of black and red hanging about the back of the hotel room with a wicker basket placed just right off to the side. I even added a little green light to the inside of the basket to give it a little goofy feel.
Somehow this whole setup managed to stay up and together for the next 12 hours, and when David arrived Sunday morning, I managed to get him in and out in about 40 minutes. We even talked about his bit role in the sexy soft-core flick THE BOOBY HATCH which was made by the Pittsburgh Mafia...ergo John Russo, Russ Streiner, and Rudy Ricci. I'll probably end up doing a little piece for Synapse's upcoming DVD release of that film as well. Amazing how things work out sometimes.
David was a real pleasure, and I can't thank him enough for what ended up being (in my opinion) my best looking interview to date. You tell me...
Oh well. I gotta run, but look for more BASKET CASE 2 updates in the near future. As it turns out that wicker basket is perfect for hauling around all my video crap. So if you see a guy carrying an abnormally large dark brown wicker basket around for no apparent reason...it might be me.
Talk to you when I get back...if I get back...this month is gonna kill me!
Oh, and there are no monkeys to speak about...I just threw that in the blog title for shits and giggles...I'm weird like that.
