Diary of a MUCKMAN (pt.1 / pt.2 / pt.3)
“Well, let's just say the shoot could be going better. The first day we got off to the usual rocky start, what with people showing up late and the confusion typical of your shake-down day. Then the next day one of the actors decided he wasn't going to sign his contract until his lawyer looked it over and made it clear that until he signed the contract he was free to walk off the picture any time he felt like it, so I told him in that case if he didn't sign the contract I would replace him. This caused a stalemate which lasted almost all day while I shot around him and another actor who happened to be his brother. We finally got it straightened out. Then his brother called me tonight and said he quit because - get this - he wasn't having as much fun as he thought he would. So we're out two character and we're scheduled to shoot again this weekend. Oh yeah, and it's the last weekend one of the actresses will be available because she's getting married in a few months. Go figure.
Aside from that it was he usual grind. Anju and Alison were a pleasure to work with, as usual, and Mark Polonia and Bob Dennis (who starred in THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED) were hysterical as a couple of inbred rednecks.
Unfortunately, we never got around to shooting the Muckman himself. We had planned to use him Sunday evening but I'd neglected to factor in the long drive back to Manhattan for some of our cast. I didn't want anyone trying to drive half asleep so we knocked off early so they could leave at a decent hour. Those are the difficulties of shooting in the middle of nowhere (not to mention trying to shoot feature film in six non-consecutive days for almost no money!). We should be back at it next week, but we'll see.”
(Brett Piper/June ’09)
“We resumed shooting on MUCKMAN this weekend. Things
went much better this time around. We were concentrating mostly on Alison
Whitney's scenes and managed to finish everything we had scheduled, some of
which went extremely well. We even got to use the Muckman.
Steve Diasparra, who plays low-life TV producer Mickey O'Hara in the movie,
volunteered to don the costume and plunge into frigid water at 1:00 a.m. for
a scene where Alison encounters the creature. At first we thought he'd gone
into shock when he hit the water but he rallied and we got the shot. He
wasn't the only one to suffer in the cold and the wet for is art --- Alison
and co-star Danielle Donahue donned bikinis for a fight scene in a frigid
mountain stream. I swear I don't really hate (most) actors but no great art
is created without suffering.
Altogether Mark estimates that we managed, in just two weekends, to finish
around 70% of the movie. Now we're going to go over the footage we have
already and assess what needs to be redone to replace the two guys who quit
(well, only one of them had actually quit, the other one simply hasn't been
heard from again and is assumed to have quit). More to come as the adventure
continues!“
(Brett Piper/June ’09)
“We shot again last weekend. It was a good news/bad news situation. Bad news first: we had intended to finish all of principal photography by Monday but Ian and Jared, our replacements for the infamous Barker Brothers (as they shall be known until I get spiteful and mention their real names) were unable to make it up from Delaware due to car trouble. I have no idea when (or even if) they'll be available again. One of them is due to enter the Air Force soon and that will be that as far as he's concerned. We may find ourselves rewriting the script to work around the remaining scenes we needed them for. Such are the vicissitudes of low-budget (make that no-budget) film-making (make that digital movie making).
The good news is that we did manage to shoot all of Anju McIntyre's remaining scenes (we also got to see her photo spread in the current Penthouse. You should check it out). It was all night shooting so we made the five hour drive to NYC (make that Jersey City) Saturday morning, drove back with her and shot until 4 a.m., and I must say things couldn't have gone better. Well, they could ave gone a little better --- Bob Denis, who plays one of my two favorite inbred yokels in the movie, was too ill to make the shoot so we had to work around his absence, but that was a minor annoyance. To us anyway. I hope Bob feels better. And check out Anju in Penthouse!”
(Brett Piper/September '09)
”Since then we managed to get Bob Denis back and shot all the remaining footage of him and Mark Polonia as the Scragg Boys, Horace and Elmer. We've also picked up much of the remaining material, in bits and pieces, including an entire night spent doing nothing but various shots of the Muckman himself, so that now almost all of principal photography has been completed except for Ian and Jared's remaining scenes. We were supposed to get them a week or so ago but, alas, more car trouble prevented us. With any luck at all the boys will be joining us next week and we'll finally put this sucker to bed. We'll see.“
(Brett Piper/November '09)
“We finally finished principle photography on Muckman last night. My nephew Ian and his roommate Jared made it up from Delaware and shooting went quite smoothly over two nights. I'm working on effects now and we expect to be able to dive into editing soon.”
(Brett Piper/November ’09)
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