Tuesday, April 09, 2019

One Last Bell to Answer

This post first appeared in my e-newsletter I WAS BIGFOOT'S SHEMP.

Finally wrapped for well and for true on SCARECROW COUNTY Saturday night in Dayton, which started with a scene where the actors use a Ouija board to summon a scarecrow, as one does, and ended with a surprise blast of ice and snow on the way home.



This cold open (so to speak) for the movie features Joe Kidd and Iabou Windimere, a real-life married couple who were also the cold open couple in HAUNTED HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW, a movie I wrote for Henrique Couto, and as it happens I met them on the set the night they shot that scene for Henrique.  In fact Joe began to speculate as to whether they might have a career as a cold open couple, as some people do playing dead bodies on tons of television shows.

Iabou plays the newscaster, and Joe the mysterious gunfighter, in THE GIRL IN THE CRAWLSPACE, which we also shot on the pickup day outside of principal.  My movies keep gently weaving themselves together, in my mind and elsewhere.
On the last full day of shooting THE GIRL IN THE CRAWLSPACE, I gave my four leads--Erin Ryan, John Hambrick, Joni Durian, and Tom Cherry--each a book as a thank you for being a part of the project. All four books were important to me and in some way influenced the movie. Those books were Marisha Pessl's NIGHT FILM, Emily St. John Mandel's STATION ELEVEN, Ursula Le Guin's THE LATHE OF HEAVEN, and Jim Thompson's THE KILLER INSIDE ME.



When I wrapped principal on this film, I did the same for my three leads Chelsi Kern, Rachael Redolfi, and my old friend Tom Cherry (again).  These books were Ursula Le Guin's THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS (which Chelsi's character is seen reading in CRAWLSPACE, actually), I SHALL DESTROY ALL THE CIVILIZED PLANETS by Fletcher Hanks (a comics collection), and FUN HOME by Alison Bechdel (a graphic novel I gave to Tom, although Chelsi was acting in the musical version of it on stage in Fort Wayne while also shooting SCARECROW).  All three of these works have something to do with the making of SCARECROW COUNTY and I hope you see the connections when the film comes out.

Now SCARECROW COUNTY heads into post, and I'll share more news when I have it.  Thanks for reading.

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