Making: Chapter 02

We recorded this on Lost Dutchman road.  I drove my car, the Buick, and Steven drove his car, the Jeep.  We parked on the side of the road to figure out logistics.  He and I had walkie-talkies so we could communicate when to pass each other on the road.  I set down the GoPro to record all of the driving, and dropped my sister off on the side of the road to record the passing shots.

When those were recorded, we moved my sister to one corner of the intersection, and also moved the Gopro to the opposite corner.  I couldn’t see what the GoPro was seeing, so the angles actually lucked out nicely.  I’m not sure anyone was around those roads long enough to wonder why two cars were driving in circles up to the stop sign, and if they were nobody put up a fuss.

After those were all shot, we went up Ellsworth road to Usery pass.  While Ariel recorded Steven in my rearview mirror, I radioed Steven to direct when he should change lanes after me.  I had planned on also recording my personal shots while we were driving, but Ariel wasn’t feeling very well so she got some rest in the car while we drove to the next location:  a mostly dead plaza with a dairy queen.  The stop sign with the spray-painted “GO” had been there forever, it seemed, so I definitely wanted to include it.

At the plaza, I would show Ariel what I wanted her to do with the camera, and then Steven and I would get in our cars and go through the motions while she recorded.  Later, I would edit the timing of our cars with VFX, since it was safer than trying to get our cars so close at such speeds.

Speaking of VFX, I brought along tracking markers to stick on the Jeep’s windshield.  Steven and I had previously done tests in the same plaza with tracking on a broken windshield to his car, so we were using the learning from that experience.  The blood used on his head, and throughout the whole movie, is just chocolate syrup.  We could have easily enough mixed up some fake blood, but I liked the stylization of black blood.  It wasn’t as dark as I may have liked, but I think it still works well.

We recorded some shots of my character going through the items in his trunk, but I wasn’t happy with what we got there, so we recorded some insert shots later.  The tube going into the gas tank was recorded later, the gas going into the portable tank was water, and was recorded in my front yard on a green screen so I could add the rough pavement later with clean shadows.

I later needed a shot of his body getting covered with the trash bags because it wasn’t reading very clearly that it was his body in the trunk.  Unfortunately, when we filmed the insert shot, he was wearing different shoes, so in post I changed the color of his shoes in previous shots to smooth that detail over in case anyone noticed.

I tried green screening myself in the driver’s seat, but doing it solo did not yield positive results.  I drove up the same roads with my dad recording me from different angles.  We’d drive up with my dad in the backseat, then passenger seat,  and then we went to Lost Dutchman again to record the exterior shots.  This part of the road is just a dead end by a neighborhood, so all the traffic turns off before it makes it this far.

On another day, Steven and I recorded the traffic light sequence.  We recorded a light going through the whole color sequence, then went to Dutchman for the side-by-side moments.  This was all footage, I would record the various car sounds later with my friend Stephen Leavitt.

The music was again me with my guitar.  I had a piece of copper tubing I used as a guitar slide for a different type of sound.  The last song, though, was made by my friend Nathan Gentala.  I was at his house, I think to help him record some test video for a new camera or maybe it was to watch a movie.  While we were hanging out he brought out his electric guitar.  I had my Tascam with me and I recorded it while he played.  I really liked it, and it was one of the first things I put into the rough edit.