'I feel this strange combination of excitement, relief and fear. All I can think about is that something I wrote is going to become a film. The trip is finally here.'....A Writer's Journal continues.....

By: Ken Henderson

PART 2 CONT'D.....

Saturday, June 2, 2007

Scott and I left Westlake, Louisiana at 7:15am. The car was loaded to capacity. We made 958 miles before we stopped in Las Cruces, New Mexico. We drove through Texas all freaking day. From rice fields and marsh to mesquite scrub to sun blasted rock and cactus. We tried to get a steak here in Las Cruces, but we wisely decided not to drag our road worn, tshirt clad, carcasses into a restaurant with white table cloths. Instead we opted for Bennigans. Guiness and Ribs. Tomorrow Tucson.

Sunday, June 3, 2007

Whew. What a long day. Scott and I drove into Tucson this morning from Las Cruces and got here around 11:00am. We checked into our apartments. They are great. We're going to be very comfortable while we are here.

Shortly after noon, we headed over to Patrick's house and pretty much went right to work. Scott and Patrick talked about lights and cameras for an hour. After that I was able to drag Patrick away and he and I walked through the script line by line for a couple of hours. Jennifer made us a great dinner and a pitcher of margaritas. All good. After dinner, Scott and I set up the dolly for a camera test and Patrick seemed to think it went pretty well. Tomorrow is the first day of shooting. I need to print out some script addendums in the morning and get that to Patrick.

Monday, June 4, 2007

The shoot today was at the Fox Theater in downtown Tucson. The theater is amazing. It was built in the 1940's and has been fully restored to its art deco glory. The crew and cast started showing up around three and it was exciting to meet them. We ended up with around a dozen extras last night plus the main actors. Camera rolled around five and things moved very, very, slowly. Everyone was warming up to the work. We shot around half a page before the dinner break at 7:00pm. But we ended up with seven pages in the can by midnight.

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

We got to the theater around 12:30. Today, I started feeling like 'the writer'. At one point one of the producers (Vicki) and I were sitting in two very plush chairs on the set watching the action.

Patrick's father was on set and I spent some time with him. During our conversation he told me he had never actually seen a film script. I gave him one and he surprised me by asking me to sign it. A couple of hours later, one of the extras asked for a script and did the same thing. I gave two autographs today. King of the world, ma. King of the world.

Michelle Belegrin was on set today and she is strikingly beautiful. Her scenes were great. Her physical presence is awesome and she was completely prepared. I'm glad she's here.

Josh Marcantel came in just before we wrapped. He flew in from NYC and will be staying with Scott. Go out around 11:00

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Light day for me today. Went to Patrick's and got to watch some of the dailies from the shoot and everything looked great.

The crew, minus me, headed out to the Saguaro National Forest to shoot the driving scenes with Shane and Lorain. I took a nap. I went back to Patrick's and drove the Buick convertible to the set location for the McLean house. Pretty awesome driving this old car. It rumbled and groaned. No taillights, no seatbelts, no horn, no dash lights. Good times. We shot all the exterior work at the set and wrapped pretty early.

Thursday, June 7, 2007

Day four of shooting. I got to the set around 2:00 and we spent the entire day shooting in the club 'office'. The set looked amazing. Also saw some amazing performances today. Most notably by the actors playing Freddy, Peter and Geno. Awesome.

Friday, June 8, 2007

Got to the set around 2:00 and hung around while the crew did setups. I helped Patrick finish up the pickups for the office scene and watched him wrap up. We had our dinner break and then we struck the set. We're out of the Fox now. I loved that location. Roomy, cool and beautiful. I don't think we're going to be that comfortable again.

Saturday, June 9, 2007

We got to Patrick's around 1:30 to pick up the cars needed for the shoot and caravanned to a 1950s style motel made up of little bungalows. Three of the units were rented for the shoot. None had air conditioning. Instead they had a swamp cooler and considering that the temperature was north of 100, they did a pretty good job.

The rooms were really small and only had room for four or five people. I was selected as one of those four or five. We shot all of the motel room shots that involved Michelle and at the end of the evening she was wrapped for the movie. It was great to have her in the picture. Watching her work was like watching a classic actress perform in a 1940s film. It was great.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Tonight's work was split between two locations. We shot exteriors at the building we selected for the Sheriff's office and then we headed out to a dismal location behind the airport to shoot the scene with Shane (Nathan) and Freddy (Josh). Everything went really well and we even got a little stunt driving action in. As usual, Josh was amazing. We wrapped around 11:30pm. We just completed the seventh day of shooting. We're over halfway. Scott and I talked about the work on the way home. He is very impressed with the coverage we've got. The dailies I've seen make me very happy. Dark, beautiful, perfect. The performances have been wonderful. I really love the work of the local actors. I have very high hopes for the film. I asked Patrick what it took to qualify for Cannes. He just laughed.

Monday, June 11, 2007

We shot all of the scenes for Jack Kenny's roadhouse today at a place called Keeylocko Cowtown.  To get to this location we drove 30 miles out of Tucson and turned onto a dirt road and drove yet another 20 minutes. We ended up sandwiched between a Native American reservation and some mountains. Beyond the mountains - Mexico.

The town consists of a dozen or so buildings all built by hand during the last thirty years by Ed Keeylocko himself. Each is unique and looks like something out of the old west. Amongst the buildings are a variety of animal pens that house horses, cows, pigs and a wide variety of birds. They even had a performing stage and a rodeo arena. Electric power was provided by a generator and I noticed that my cell phone had NO BARS showing. The few trees in the town house animal skulls, skins, and parts. One tree is festooned with dozens of shoes and boots. Another has an entire cow head hanging to rot and dry in the sun. Old vehicles, farm equipment, bathtubs and anything else you can imagine fill every crack and crevice between the buildings.

I thought the outside was eclectic until I stepped into the saloon. The well appointed bar was rough hewn and fronted by stools made of two by fours and covered with scraps of carpet. The floor was a mixture of pea gravel and sand. More bones, including a human skull, hung from the rafters. Hundreds of knick knacks and pictures filled the walls and ceiling. Some of the locals - I don't know if there are actual 'citizens' of Keeylocko - drank beer and watched us all day.

Ed Keeylocko himself was dressed in vintage cowboy attire and looked like he wore it every day. This old man was well spoken and a genuinely nice man. He seemed to thoroughly enjoy having us there. He plays the role of Murphy the bartender in the film and handled it like a pro.

We shot all of our scenes - including some stunt work from Justin - and had an amazing time. At the end of the day, we packed up all our gear and made the long trek back to the highway and on back to Tucson.

It was, in a word, surreal. There are a lot of moments during the last week that make this trip worthwhile, but the trip to Keeylocko tops them all.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

We shot the final scenes of Shane's motel and spent the day there. Since most of the scenes were visual and light on dialog, I got to spend some time just hanging out. Brian brought his bulldog, Spike, to the set and he kept us company.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

The shoot today was at a recreational clubhouse in Vicki’s neighborhood. We shot all the interior scenes for the McLean woman’s house and Thelma’s apartment. Bear was on set as the Pig Man. The mask and gloves he had to wear were ridiculously hot, but he held up and seemed to have a good time. Because he was on set, we did most of the violence tonight. Not as a violent as I wrote it, but nice and bloody nonetheless. Chocolate syrup and cottage cheese.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

We had an early call today and went to the Scottish Rites temple to shoot the morgue scenes. The building is very old and has these narrow staircases and old fashioned bomb shelter signs. We used their large kitchen and its wonderful stainless steel tables to lay out the corpses of Charley, Del and Nick.

There were a few new folks on set today. The first was Jon Proudstar. He played the role of deputy Gill. When he wasn't on camera he was funny as hell. Native American, long blue-black hair in a tail - he looked great in policeman's blues. I also met Angus Scrimm. 81 years old. He looked great. He moved with this incredible grace. I'd written a scene where he makes a sardine and peanut butter sandwich, but I didn't include him eating it. In every take he took a bite - and not a little one. He said the audience would expect it. Amazing.

The sheriff was played by Greg Sweet. He looked and sounded a lot like Dale Dye. Did a great job. He'd come by the set before, but I hadn't met him. We chatted for a bit and he said Josh looked like weird Al Yankovic.

We wrapped the morgue pretty early and had a break before shooting the scenes at the Sheriff's office.
Angus shot his scenes and Vicky hustled him off to catch his flight. We also finished all of Josh Marcantel's scenes and he caught the red eye back to NYC. I'm really going to miss him and I know Scott is too. It was great having him around and his performances were awesome.

The last day of shooting is tomorrow. Sad to think this is almost over.

Friday, June 15, 2007

All we have left are some exteriors related to the caddy. No dialog and only Nathan and Bear in the shots. Scott and Chuck went with Patrick and the actors into the desert and I took the opportunity to stay home. Around 8:00pm I started packing for the trip. Pretty depressing.

The shoot wrapped around 10:30pm and we got to the wrap party around 11:00. We had a good turnout. Cast, crew, friends and family probably totaled between 30 and 40 folks. Got back to the apartment at 4:00am.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Woke up at 10:00am on Saturday. We got the vehicle packed, checked out of the apartments and made it to Patrick's around noon to say our goodbyes. Patrick actually hugged me. We got some gas and hit the road.

The trip was freaking long and once again almost all of it was spent in Texas. We drove straight through and by ‘we’…I mean me. Scott kept me entertained and awake, but he finally dozed off around 2:00am. Dropped Scott off and got home around 8:30am. By the time I got unloaded, showered and into bed it was nearly 10:00am. I remember the 10 seconds or so before I dropped into a coma thinking - I wrote something that got turned into a movie. I might have smiled at that moment, but I probably just started snoring.

EPILOGUE: Back to Tucson

After months of editing and sound design, Red 71 was complete. The producers invited the cast and crew to a private screening prior to sending the film out on its festival tour. My wife, Christy, and I flew to Tucson for the screening. Unfortunately, none of the other LAFG participants were able to attend.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Christy and I slept in and had breakfast at the Broadway Cafe. We drove around a bit and ended up in Saguaro National Park. Christy took a few hundred pictures. Patrick called a couple of times during the day. He was struggling to get the screening cut finished and sounded pretty harried. There wasn't anything I could do to help him. I found myself wishing Scott was here again.

At 7:15pm I found myself at a theater buying popcorn and a soda for a movie I wrote. Surreal. Patrick and Jennifer arrived and everything just fell into place. The theater was packed. I greeted most of the cast and crew and met quite a few new people. Brian and Patrick spoke before the screening and then the movie started.

Red 71 was beautiful. There were still some issues with sound, but it was amazing. I was very happy with the editorial choices. What a great film.

The after party was at a local bar and around forty people showed up. Christy and I left around 11:30 and stopped at the In and Out Burger for the best burgers ever.

What a great day. 

Links:

Lake Area Film Group www.lakeareafilmgroup.com

Ken Henderson’s Red 71 Journal www.red-71.blogspot.com

Patrick Roddy www.patrickroddy.com

Scott Waldrop’s Red 71 Journal www.red71.wordpress.com 

Hilary Gayle's website www.hilarybronwyngayle.com