BEHIND THE SCENS: NESTS OF THE DISEASED

This entry was posted on 10/17/2006 9:58 AM and is filed under production.

This was a long, tough filming day, almost eight hours in several locations. We filmed ten scenes with stunts, gunfire with major wardrobe and FX makeup changes between scenes.

Our FX Makeup Team makes a habit of going above and beyond with every shoot day, meeting seemingly impossible goals with a confident smile like it's no big deal. Frank Guerra and Danny Hernandez are amazing artists and total professionals. They're a really big part of why our production has been so successful. Our Cast have fun going through makeup and actually enjoy it instead of cringing. I've never seen that before. Because this is an FX Makeup heavy movie, the pressure is really on the FX Makeup Team to get the Diseased to look right and we have lots of Actors playing the Diseased. Each one has to look good on camera, and they always do.

Our staging area was at Artfare's AREA 51and we filmed at the former restaurant at 47 N. 6th Avenue that Coach bought to renovate into an eatery after a few months of renovation. Coach was very generous to allow us to shoot there before he begins his renovations on his new establishment, so we had to move fast and push these scenes up in the schedule before it lost its abandoned, picked clean look we needed for the movie.

We also filmed in a nearby basement down the block that was truly frightening in the dark. There isn't a set dresser alive who could have dressed that set any better than the condition we found it in. It was the perfect location for a dark, scary, Nest of the Diseased. All we had to do was bring in power from outside and we were good to go for lighting.

Even though I ultimately hope the audience gets too wrapped up in the scope of the story to notice, I hope no one ever notices how simple this movie actually is. Making a movie about the end of the world demands a certain density of rich locations and production value, which is a really tall order when you don't have a budget beyond production insurance and sometimes food. Scroll down the images on the Production Stills page and see how dense the production values are. That's the really impressive part about this no-budget show, the richness of its production value. Yet the entire production fits into the back of my 1992 Ford Explorer that usually has enough space left over to fit my Producer into the passenger seat.

 
Makeup FX Supervisor Frank Guerra gets Stuntwoman/Actress Dominique Borrego into her diseased mutant makeup.
James Arnett inspects the crimp on the .45 rounds made by Assistant Director (also acting as the show's Armorer) Paul Adkins .
Makeup FX Supervisor Frank Guerra puts Actor Armando Franco through makeup.
James Arnett directs Actor Santiago Craig outside the "Nest" of the Diseased.
Assistant Director Paul Adkins bounces sunlight onto Actor Santiago Craig.
Actor Santiago Craig walking through his armed entry into the Diseased Nest scene.
James Arnett setting up the reverse angle of Actor Santiago Craig entering the building.
Makeup FX Supervisor Frank Guerra puts Actor John Marken through makeup.
James Arnett filming, using his hand as a sand bag to steady the shot.
Actor Armando Franco in costume and makeup.
Actor Armando Franco between takes.
Assistant Director Paul Adkins blocks sunlight to get the silhouette effect in the doorway.
James Arnett selects lighting gels from the stage lighting gels from Tucson's Performance Systems.
A.D. Paul Adkins rigs power for the restaurant scene.
A.D. Paul Adkins powering up the 1-2-3K light.
A.D. Paul Adkins sets up the 1-2-3K light for the restaurant scene.
A.D. Paul Adkins and James Arnett light the kitchen set in the back of the restaurant.
A.D. Paul Adkins and James Arnett check the kitchen set for hot spots in the lighting.
Stuntpeople Dominique Borrego and Robert Linden with Actor Armando Franco wait for their call on set.
Makeup FX Supervisor Frank Guerra puts Actor John Marken through makeup.
Stuntman/Actor Robert Linden getting into costume.
Stuntman/Actor Robert Linden getting into costume.
Actress Marlena Holman going over her lines.
Actresses Dominique Borrego and Marlena Holman in makeup and costume.
Stuntwoman/Actress Dominique Borrego motivated to do the kicked into a wall gag down in the Nest.
Actors Marlena Holman, Dominique Borrego, Robert Linden, John Marken and Armando Franco play the Diseased inhabitants of the Nest.
James Arnett setting up the stockpile of canned food horded in the pizza oven of the restaurant.
Makeup FX Supervisor Frank Guerra puts Actress Marlena Holman through makeup with Actor Santiago Craig getting into character.
Actors Santiago Craig, Dominique Borrego and Armando Franco preparing for the scene where they catch Lionel stealing their food.
Stuntman/Actor Robert Linden on set for his getting thrown over the tables stunt. I can summarize Mr. Linden's work ethic in one word: FEARLESS.
Stuntman/Actor Robert Linden reheasing with Actor Santiago Craig on set.
Actresses Dominique Borrego and Marlena Holman getting into their cannibalistic characters.
Actresses Marlena Holman and Dominique Borrego getting into their cannibalistic characters.
James Arnett giving direction to the Actors.
James Arnett filming from a ceiling angle.
And from a floor angle.
Using a foot for an instant camera mount.
A.D. Paul Adkins doing the electrical down in the Nest.
A.D. Paul Adkins wiring power from upstairs all the way down to the rear of the Nest.
James Arnett putting a red gel over the Home Depot work lights used in all of the shots lit in this movie.
James Arnett splitting a red and yellow backlight between two room sets down in the Nest.
James Arnett and A.D. Paul Adkins trying to find a clean spot down in the Nest to hide the cables.
Actors John Marken and Armando Franco going down into the Nest set.
Actors John Marken and Armando Franco in the "nicer" part of the Nest set.
Stuntman/Actor Robert Linden waiting to film his stunt down in the not-so-nice part of the Nest set.
Actress Marlena Holman between takes by the meat locker door of the Nest set.
Police Officers Catalan and Lucero of the Tucson Police Department checking out the Diseased Nest set. It doesn't bother P.O. Catalan, she's seen worse.
Police Officers Catalan and Lucero clearing us for a blank fire discharge on camera while James Arnett saves his low-light vision from the camera flash.

 

Our Assistant Director Paul Adkins pulled double duty as Set Armorer. That's one of his specialties, he even manufactures his own blank cartridges. Besides the obvious benefit of moving through many pages of script each day by maintaining a small Crew of just our FX Makeup Team and an Assistant Director is that the Cast have an intimate setting where they can focus on their performances without too much distraction. That casual and very informal atmosphere is really conducive to bringing out the best in performances. Everyone knows each other and doesn't seem to feel any inhibitions to pushing it further than if they had eighty or more eyeballs scrutinizing everything they do at every moment.

Despite the apparent casualness, we actually get through a great deal of material very quickly because we don't have lines of communication that reach any further than one-on-one talking. After working on shows with big crews that lumber along like constipated elephants, it's a real pleasure to go from lighting setup to lighting setup in a matter of seconds rather than wasting an hour waiting to film the next angle of coverage. We pre-light, tweak a light here and there between coverage angles, and move on to our next scene before anyone has a chance to sit down.

My principal Assistant Directors Paul Adkins and Justin Mashouf make that kind of mobility possible. Having a great FX Makeup Team like Frank Guerra, Danny Hernandez and Alison Radei make it possible to always get these visions of the Diseased on camera. Also having a great Producer like Gabriele Andres, who you never see in this Blog (because she's the one taking all these pictures), to perform magic every day by getting us these incredible locations to film in and coordinates everything so well, we can just walk onto the set and get it done are the reasons why we've been so successful filming everything from Siberia to the end of the world in Tucson. This is feature filmmaking in its most basic form, and even with no money, it has more production value and atmosphere than most of the half-million dollar features I used to work on in Los Angeles.

The people on this show really amaze Gabriele and me. After filming each day, we have our usual debriefing on what went right that day and what we could be doing better the next filming day. Our conversation always ends on the subject of how fantastic the people we're working with are. Even watching how fast the new people grow, who are just starting out in film, developing such high confidence in their abilities makes us very proud of all of our people.

This Blog is what it looks like when you are lucky enough to work with a fantasic Cast and Crew.

 

10/17/2006 8:08 PM Robert Linden wrote:
Hey this film has been awesome to work on i've done other films but i really love this one cause everybody gets along and has a great time and you james are a wonderful director.I know that this film will be successful
 

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