John Oak Dalton

"Not 'Hollywood Independent' - writer John Oak Dalton is the real Real Thing." --Cinema Minima."Very weird and unpopular b-movies and comics."--Blogalicious. "After watching the film I am left to wonder if he had some childhood trauma he is not telling us about."--IMDB user review. "Screenwriter John Oak Dalton wanted to be in Hollywood. Instead, he's in the rustic kitchen above the Germania General Store, stirring a pot of boiling hot dogs." --The Harrisburg Patriot-News.

Sunday, December 18, 2022

My Head is Stuck on Something Precious

This post first appeared, in a slightly different form, in my e-newsletter I WAS BIGFOOT'S SHEMP.

Had a brisk 42-page three-day weekend to wrap SMART HOUSE, including a 27-page shooting day. It helps that we were mostly shooting a single person in one location. I had much of the crew from the first weekend plus a few old friends, which also helps.

We didn't write it as a Christmas movie, but as the fates would have it we were shooting at various homes at Christmastime, so I thought we might as well lean into it. The DP, Henrique Couto, has a snow machine, and when Iabou Windimere is outside at the denouement after ~~REDACTED~~, we decided it should start snowing. We both recognized it also snows when Jimmy Stewart comes back to the real world at the end of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, so if we accidentally made a Christmas movie, at least those have legs.

There were a number of difficult shots, but I left a close-up for the very last one, in film production called "the martini shot." Simple enough, Iabou gets startled and drops a plate. I thought I was set by going to Dollar Tree and buying two matching 99-cent plates; we could drop one on a pillow in a wider shot and the other we could drop on the floor in close-up.

But damned if that 99-cent ceramic plate didn't bounce three times in a row, clanging like a frying pan. So Henrique ended up banging on it with a hammer for while, then roughly super-gluing the pieces back together until it was loosely assembled and somewhat dry. Then it broke in one more take, and we were done with SMART HOUSE and even finished a little early.

It doesn't seem like a huge accomplishment right now because there is so much more work to do, and I'll update you on that as we go along. Thank you for following this adventure. Here are a few fresh screen caps to wrap this one up.