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.

A Hole in the Sock Of

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

 I was a little worried about jumping back into the director's chair after over two years out, especially when the air sort of went out of me after COVID put the brakes on my last project, literally the night before principal photography.  But it turns out it's like riding a bike--a large, multi-gear bike that is speeding on a downhill road faster and faster, with that rock from RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK closing behind, and people along that road shouting out questions that need answered as you go past.

Since me and the writing team of Richard Pierce and Luka Nikolic first put pen to paper in September, with a December production date looming quickly, I knew I would have to load up cast and crew with people I've gone to war with before, like director of photography Henrique Couto, actors Tom Cherry and Iabou Windimere (and her husband Joe), make-up artist Chelsea Swinford, and utility players like Eric Widing, Erin Hoodlebrink, Andy Britt, and Ashlee Brown, who can all do a little of everything.

I was happy with how the first weekend went.  I purposefully loaded the schedule with easier things up front; one location and two actors and not too many set-ups.  I thought we had a rather breezy 16 page day and 17 page day, ending early both times. 

Mentioning this on social brought a small ripple of shock from people who wondered how we were shooting so quickly.  I remembered that when I was girding up to shoot THE GIRL IN THE CRAWLSPACE a friend who was making his first movie at the same time told me he was worn out from shooting ten-page days, and I had a sinking feeling realizing I had scheduled a couple of 20-page days.  But that one worked out, and the next one, and half (or maybe 40%) of this one so far.

New crew member Jake Baker told me he had worked on two 14-day sets this past summer in a variety of roles, and I had to tell him this was my third film, but only my eleventh day of directing.

I think it certainly helps that I started volunteering at the local PBS TV station in Muncie, Indiana (the home of Bob Ross) in I think 1981, and got my first part-time paid production job around 1985, going full-time in 1988 and working in various video and IT jobs clear through to 2009. 

It definitely helps that I have worked a lot with Henrique Couto as a DP and he pretty much knows what I like--which is rooted in the 70s auteur style that I drone on about--and I have a shorthand with several crew people who have been on sets with me before, as well as cast people who always come prepared.

I think I'm still a good live TV director, and I feel like I used to be a really good linear editor, but the tech goes by in dog years so I don't know anything anymore really; though I think I still have that feeling for it, which helps you shoot if you know how it needs to cut together.

But it really starts with writing a super-tight script with minimal actors and locations, just knowing what can be done easily and what is difficult, what has to be real and what can be shemped, what is expensive and what is cheap, overall thinking about what resources you have on hand.  And I have written A LOT of screenplays like that.

Today I am headed to Dayton to shoot the other 43 pages over three days, and there is a lot of running around and spooks and jump scares and such so we will really have to knuckle down and grind this one out.  Watch along on social to see how we are doing, and thanks for following along so far. 

Here are a couple of EXCLUSIVE screen caps from the first weekend that you won't see on social media, including that split diopter shot I always try to figure out where to drop in.

Tora, Tora, Taxi

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

Although principal photography on my new feature SMART HOUSE really starts on Saturday, I feel like I pre-gamed a bit this past weekend.  I drove to the Farmland Community Center, where I shot scenes for both THE GIRL IN THE CRAWLSPACE and SCARECROW COUNTY, to record some voice over with Katy Wolfe. I got to see that the Cake Walk, which my late beloved dog once won a cake for me on, is still there; that this exists confounded many of my Ohio cast and crew, who could not understand our ways.

It was neat to be back in that space where I had several long days but good memories.  Katy and several people from the cast of both of those previous movies perform in plays and recreate old time radio shows there, and I arrived on a performance day and got to catch up with some familiar faces.

You only hear Katy on the phone, but she has a big role.  A lot of SMART HOUSE is about people trapped in various circumstances, physical and psychological, but even though Katy's character Alicia is blind and seems housebound she in fact galvanizes the other characters into action.  Naturally, she is named after Alicia Masters, the blind sculptor in the FANTASTIC FOUR comics.

Then I raced over to Dayton for a last-minute production meeting with producer/director of photography Henrique Couto to go over gear and crunch the production schedule, even though the main thing is that I wanted to eat at Marion's, the legendary Dayton pizzeria.

I've been getting up early, working through lunch, and working every night (while my wife is working out some Hank Williams Jr. on the guitar) so we can go straight to post and deliver this film sooner than I have my previous two.  The main reason is we have been fortunate to already secure streaming and physical media distribution for the film, based on the strength of our previous films under the Midwest Film Venture banner, so not only are you loyal readers hopefully eager to see this movie, but some people who are giving us money are, too.

I updated the production schedule Sunday, based on notes from that glorious pizza meeting, wrote out a prop list Monday, figured out the food for the weekend last night, and still have a ton of things to do. 

Tonight I want to spray paint a coffee can to hide the logo and then find a bunch of old thumb drives to put in it (IT MAKES SENSE IN THE MOVIE--maybe).  Then tomorrow I'll go hunting two cheap, identical plates, one I can smash on the floor, for another scene.  I've got dinner with writer/producer Richard Pierce on Friday, all the way from Vegas with his family, and some of the crew is coming in to sleep in my grandsons' room.  We will have a lot to talk about, for sure.

Speaking of props, I like including art from people I know in my movies.  In CRAWLSPACE, all of the "Outcast Swords" RPG art was from my friends Ray Otus and Dyson Logos as well as actor Tom Cherry.  There was a tee shirt from Tim Shrum (who did the killer's mask) and one from Steven Paul Judd.  They are all blink or you miss it things, but I was glad to have friends represented in there.  Same with SCARECROW COUNTY, with cartooning from actors Tom Cherry and Rachael Redolfi as well as director Joe Sherlock and screenwriter Dan Wilder.

For this one I decided to use a shirt designed by Ashlee Britt, who worked on the crew of SCARECROW.  It just sort of caught my eye, and I am going to have Tom Cherry wear it throughout.  If you think it is cool also you can get it on sale right here.

Speaking if shirts, if you want to look hip in front of all of your friends this holiday season you can also grab this boss Midwest Film Venture tee now.

If you don't already follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, go hunt me down at @johnoakdalton to ride along with all of our adventures, big and small, this first weekend of shooting.  And I will check back in with more secret content, on the other side.  Thanks for reading.

In the Middle of the Street

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

We just fit in one more (snowy) camping weekend this season before girding up for shooting my next movie, a thriller called SMART HOUSE.  Hopefully the weather can stay relatively mild through then.

Pre-production means there are a million little things to do.  Bought an ankle monitor security bracelet cover for a character to wear (a used real monitor is too expensive on eBay, so I'll just put a block of wood in the holder).  Found a used copy of The Great Gatsby at a book sale to use as a prop.  Talked to an actor back and forth about whether he could wear a pink bathrobe in the whole movie.  Told another I hoped she could dress like Grace Kelly in REAR WINDOW.  Compiled my "Secret Soundtrack," all of the songs that inspired me when I was writing the movie with Richard Pierce and Luka Nikolic, but could never afford to put in the movie:


Peter Schilling, Major Tom

The Fifth Dimension, (Last Night) I Didn't Get To Sleep At All 

The Vogues, Turn Around, Look At Me

The Police, Every Breath You Take

Blondie, One Way or Another

Death Cab for Cutie, I Will Possess Your Heart

Duran Duran, Planet Earth

Rainbow, Stone Cold

Flock of Seagulls, Space Age Love Song

The Rolling Stones, Gimme Shelter

I asked my old friend, legendary b-movie director Mark Polonia, if he would do a voice cameo, and like a true pro he recorded and uploaded it within 48 hours.

I have been getting up early, working at lunch, and trying to grab an hour at night, breaking down the script and hunting out PAs and combing through sound effects and all that I can to be ready for December 3 for the first of five days of shooting.  Join me here for more exclusive updates in the coming weeks.

Until then thanks for riding along.

Monster Mash

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

It's Halloween season, but I've fallen behind on all the spooky movies and spent a couple of pretty fall weekends camping instead, a fair enough trade.  But if you are behind yourself, and want to catch up, you still have time to watch at least one of the ten movies I've written for other directors that are currently free on Tubi:

REEL MONSTERS
 

NOAH'S SHARK

SAND WORLD

ALONE IN THE GHOST HOUSE

JURASSIC PREY

AMITYVILLE ISLAND

SHARK ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND

AMITYVILLE DEATH HOUSE

RAZORTEETH

PETER ROTTENTAIL
 
Or to make it a true devil's dozen, here are both of my directorial efforts as well.

This one isn't out yet, but the trailer for JESSE JAMES UNCHAINED dropped, a film I wrote and helped produce during COVID.

I finally caught up to BROADCAST SIGNAL INTERRUPTED which I liked a lot, and you will too if you get kind of spooked thinking about that weird Max Headroom thing that happened in Chicago way back when.  Also caught NOPE and BARBARIAN, both of which I enjoyed for originality even if I thought they unraveled a bit at the end.  That's light for me but not bad overall.

I have a really excellent book recommendation for my readers, one I have told everyone I know IRL to read and sent to a friend for his birthday:  THE EMPLOYEES by Olga Ravn.  It's like if the Strugatsky Brothers were showrunners for THE OFFICE and that's all I will say about it.

Longtime readers know that both me and this guy Tom Cruise and a couple other people had movies grind to a halt during COVID.  It's been hard to get the machine running to get back to it.  But slowly, and then quickly, I'm working on a new movie to shoot in December.

Way back in October 2013, a young writer named Richard Pierce, eager to break into the b-movie world, wrote me an email.  Fortunately for him he didn't follow my advice too closely and is now living the sweet life in Vegas writing Lifetime movies like KILLER PROFILE and STUDENT SEDUCTION.  But fortunately for me he can't shake his love for really cheap b-movies, so when Lifetime rejected his pitch for a movie called SMART HOUSE he asked if I was interested in working on it with him.

It's about an influencer trapped in a smart house seemingly gone crazy, and I have to say it really kindled my interest, and we kicked ideas back and forth and started writing the first of five drafts on September 14th, and now Richard is flying out here the first weekend in December and we are starting production December 3rd with my great movie partner Henrique Couto.  Richard had all the good ideas, and I wrote all the eccentric characters and took out everything that costs actual money.  We may end up a dangerous combo.

Hopefully the weather holds, and I can assemble the cast and crew I put it together for.  For various reasons this is kind of a secret project, so the only place you can get real updates is right here.

Although I am still working through a cocktail of various pills for hypertension, we have had a beautiful fall in Indiana.  Wishing the best wherever you are--and Happy Halloween!

I'll Never See Your Smilin' Face or Touch Your Hand

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

This week was my birthday.  I took it off, which is a luxury when I can do it.  Since I turned 50 I have always taken a leisurely, ironic stroll past the neighboring graveyard on my birthday (is it a surprise that I live next to a graveyard?) but that seemed a little close to the bone this year.  I've been struggling with my blood sugar and especially my blood pressure lately.  My glucose monitor has several choices to pick from after you prick your finger and I always hit "I feel fine" because there isn't one that reads I FEEL LIKE HELL QUIT ASKING.  But I will lasso this in.

The beast of it for me is that when my daughter was married in 2014 I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes (after having an incident of disorientation I thought was because of all the stress). I went down four pants sizes and lost around 50 pounds and have stayed off insulin. My doctor said I was 1 in 100 patients but it could still catch up to me one day. Which is funny because until a month or two ago I felt better in my 50s than my 30s.  But i guess I can't outrace the devil forever.

So now my son is getting married, and I am doing the ceremony, on September 10 (not a Satanic Mass).  The reception is at my house.  And I mentioned last time my dog died.

I loved my dog like a person. She was our empty nest baby when my daughter went to college. She was a princess. It happened very quickly, over 72 hours. I think she had a massive stroke at 14. Her face was notably slack and she was stumbling around, whimpering and pacing all night. She was a West Highland White Terrier and that's about all they have in the tank as well. It was a hard decision to make but I respected her too much to let her suffer very long.

So maybe hitting the stress button hard and getting on some meds.  It would be awkward for everyone if I died right before the wedding.

I'm wanting to get started on a new project, so I decided to push the reset switch and just sit on the couch on my birthday and watch movies.  I burned my free seven-day SHUDDER preview I've held onto forever and watched GLORIOUS and ONE CUT OF THE DEAD, the first because an Indiana guy wrote it and the second because so many people have talked about it.  GLORIOUS is funny and original, about a Cthulhu-type monster trapped in a rest stop bathroom, and I'll leave it right there as to why it is called GLORIOUS.  ONE CUT OF THE DEAD is an incredibly meta zombie movie about some people making a zombie movie, and the storyline keeps nesting like Russian dolls.  This is a great, wild movie I'd recommend to anyone for an October watch.

I was going to watch BROADCAST SIGNAL INTRUSION and make it a triple play but I took a nap, these new blood pressure meds take some getting used to.

Been trying to feed my head in other ways too; I finally decided to tackle Grant Morrison's run on DOOM PATROL, mostly because I saw all three volumes in TPB at the public library.  It never struck me as a younger comic book reader but I have wanted to tackle this head trip as an older guy.  It's not like anything else, which is the kind of thing I need to put my eyes on sometimes.

I read a book I could recommend to my subscribers called SLEEPWALK by Dan Chaon.  It's about a mercenary and his loyal dog in a dystopian near-future (struggling to keep up with our real one) who starts to question his life when he finds out he has a daughter.  Our tarnished protagonist rattles through various genres on a number of broken highways, and it's a pretty original read.

I got a Carhartt hoodie for my birthday which finally made me articulate how I'm ready to put this busted-ass summer behind me.  Wishing all of you the best.

Just Like the One in Our Backyard

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

 A long time ago I took a handwritten script from John Polonia called PSYCHO CLOWN and over a three day weekend typed it up/rewrote it into a screenwriting software program and turned it into PETER ROTTENTAIL, without realizing that almost twenty years later I would still be getting on social media around Easter time and finding all the people who watch it as part of their holiday tradition.

I'm beginning to feel that way about another film I wrote, NOAH'S SHARK.  There has been A LOT of commentary on social media about it. 

There seems to be a general consensus that I was either crazy or on drugs, when I was rather quietly tapping away on my laptop drinking Coke Zero and listening to soft rock of the 70s on SiriusXM.

More fun are the people trying to read real Biblical storytelling into the movie, which I actually enjoy because I DID try to cleverly weave in real things and sort of get frustrated when people think I made up stuff like "The Witch of Endor", a real Biblical character.  It DOES scare me a little when people who have really studied the Bible are like "Noah is portrayed blah blah when in real life he was blah blah" when I didn't even bother to watch the Noah movie with Russell Crowe.  It's a rock and a hard place, but I had fun writing it, and that's how I pick my for hire scripts now--if I would have fun writing it.

At one point I was trying to figure an angle on DUNE WORLD and always thought it was interesting that Philip K. Dick used the I Ching to help with his storytelling, so I too used the I Ching for some of the dialogue.  Naturally, everybody thinks I was writing "gobbledygook" and "nonsense" but for those who know, they know, and that's who I wrote it for anyway.

Anyway, head over to social media (especially Twitter) and type in "Noah's Shark" or "Noah's Shark review" and see it unfold!  Some of the podcasts dissecting the movie are longer than the movie!

I've really flexed my muscles by writing some short stories for the Weekly Spooky podcast that couldn't be made on the budgets of most of the films I've worked on.  The site has been re-designed recently, and now you can search for mine, if podcasts are your kind of thing:  

https://www.weeklyspooky.com/search/?q=john+oak+dalton

It seems like more things in the world suck than not right now, including the death this week of my dog Bonnie, 14 years old and our empty nest baby.  But if the worst thing I ever have to do is dig a grave for a dog I loved like a person, I'll count myself lucky.

But the astounding thing was almost 200 comments on Facebook (and more than 500 interactions) about her, which makes me think we might just make it as a society, after all, if that many people care about dogs.

I've finished two screenplays lately and chunking on a third, so anything can happen.  Wishing all of you well.

The Bats Have Left the Bell Tower

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

It's funny when my day job and my side hustle overlap. I get asked to be on a lot of searches because I have a good eye for talent, even if I am bad at other things.  One thing I do on searches is google the names of finalists to see if anybody has said or done something bad that's been left lying around on the internet (and I have found a surprise or two, from time to time). 

But suddenly I'm finding out a lot of people have been in b-movies.  Here's the trailer for one you can rent on Amazon Prime right now but this one seems lost to the ages. 

I think a lot of people like to be around the excitement of the movie business, It can be an absolute grind, though, which is why I think it's funny that viewers think filmmakers set out to make "intentionally bad" movies. I tell anyone who asks, don't start a movie you don't want to live with for at least a year.  It's so hard, so ridiculously hard, to make any movie, I can't see any reason why somebody would want to make a bad one.

I was on a podcast last Friday where I talk a ton about filmmaking, and a surprising number of people have already watched it; you can check it out here if you missed it.

Kind of puttering around on writing, but I am proud of a two-part story I did for the Weekly Spooky podcast, Calamity Jane vs Dracula.  After writing Calamity Jane's Revenge (now free on Tubi), I had a dream I wrote this and was in a movie lobby waiting for it to start.  I've thought a lot about that dream over the years and felt it was time to bring it to crazy reality.  

A few things percolating and I hope I can report back soon.  Thanks for sticking around.

I'm On A Wavelength Far From Home

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

Easter has come and gone, always a busy season for me.  It's when I get on social media and interact with all of the people watching PETER ROTTENTAIL.  For something I wrote back in the early 2000s, it has just hung around and hung around.  It's fun to see.

It doesn't hurt that now you can watch it for free on Tubi.

If you want to add more spirituality to your Easter viewing next year, another movie I wrote, NOAH'S SHARK, is free on Tubi now too.

Man, Tubi, I tell you what.  Not that long ago I didn't know what it was, and now almost my entire career is on there (including what I thought was a lost movie I didn't get a credit for writing!).  A lot of people are saying it's now the go-to place to see independent movies and it's hard to argue the point.  What I like to do is type a word into the search engine, like "Amityville" or "Zombie" or "Ninja" or "Scarecrow" or "Massacre" and just click through a bunch of stuff and get the ebb and flow of it.  It's a fun exercise to sort of get the juices flowing.

We are all trying to figure out how to get the machine running again in the movie world, even way out in the hinterland where I am.  I am still quietly writing away, and maybe yet this year some of the fruits of that b-flavored labor will be out in the world.

I'm even falling behind on my annual goal of reading 50 books a year, but one I've read this season-- THE HEAP by Sean Adams--is a book I can recommend to people who like my stuff.

Hopefully will have some news to report soon, but until then, best to you all and thanks for sticking with me.