Rednecks, Concussions, wrestlers, pokemon and half of a film.

Loganm187

Loganm187

Well-known member
UPDATED WITH INDIEGOGO PAGE! This whole thing is now a 30 minute documentary!!!
http://www.indiegogo.com/Extras-Need...-hell?a=451643


As many of you might know I was working on a short film with the AF-100 called "The BEAR" and this weekend I had a wrestling facility about an hour out of town booked for Saturday and Sunday to film all of my wrestling and Backroom drama. I had this place booked a month ahead and talked to the owner almost daily about how many extras needed, wrestlers etc... and here is where the first problem starts. Four days before we shoot he tells me to get a hold of "Rich" and make sure there isn't a show on the first day we shoot. This was never mentioned before hand even with the dates needed being thrown in his face everyday. So I get a hold of this Rich guy and and of course there is a show on the day we are shooting all the wrestling shots. I had already had over 50 extras and various wrestlers coming down from all over to make cameos so there is no way to re schedule, so we go on. I just think "Hey, the Wrestler with Rourke was all shot at live wrestling events with real small town fans I could benefit by this as I was going to shoot all hand held in the ring to make it seem very live and gritty." The date comes up and only half my wrestlers show up and very little extras(I pulled one extra up to the ring who looked insane for the "Hardcore" match)...Welcome to trying to pull off a very big no budget shoot. We press on and shoot our wrestling scenes and the owner the whole time is calling me names like "twat" and keeps harassing my crew saying things like "You think wrestling is fake I'll hurt you" and threw a fit about us bringing in fake blood in and not really hurting people...We are in a backwoods town in TN by the way... and me being in control directing the fights in the ring. He couldn't grasp it was a movie and movies aren't fun, real, or exciting to watch be made. There was tension without a doubt. I just ignore it all as I'm under a strict schedule and have to get so much shot. About 11 PM rolls around and we have one scene left when he walks in a tries to drop kick my actor while he is in the ring cleaning up some liqued, but slips and busts his ass. Gets up and starts to head towards me saying I'm ruining his business and I show no respect to wrestling bringing in props and such. He goes for my AF-100 and tries to get it to break it. While this is happening his friend comes into the ring and screams at my actor playing the wrestler and says "Wrestlers don't clean the ring! You aren't a wrestler! Stop cleaning the ring! etc" They both go into the back and many of my extras are just in shock. we are just about to shoot when the dude who yelled at my actor comes out to apologize to the crowd. He asks if he offended anyone when one of the extras stands up and says it is beyond messed up how we are being so nice to everyone and trying to make this film and they are acting like freaks...all hell breaks loose. PLEASE WATCH THIS FREAK IN THE VIDEO. THIS WAS CAPTURED BY AN EXTRA.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UKIvWhRpfw

We are literally chased out the door by two rednecks for no other reason than he felt we were making fun of wrestling and his ego got the best of him.

DAY 2: I see the second day as being worse and it was an all dialogue shoot in one location. My actor Phil which plays the wrestlers manager which you can see a pic of below is following script and slaps my other actor in the face and he actually had a CONCUSSION form the day before and didn't tell anyone and this set him off. Phil, playing his manager then just tells me when I get a professional He will come back and storms out(rightfully so)...My main talent walks right out the door and I'm left with a bunch of wrestling, a quarter of the backroom footage and no story to be told. When I get home I have death threats from the wrestlers and have to call the cops and I'm currently trying to re-cast the manager character and get this finished, but as of right now I made a Faux trailer of sorts. I am tired, stressed, and beyond depressed. I finished a full length film earlier this year and it took 6 months to shoot and is in fests as we speak. This weekend was crazier than that whole 6 months combined. Below is a link of what I could salvage for a trailer. It is rough, private and only uploaded for you guys to check out after hearing all this as I think I will have a new actor this week although I hate to re-cast him...Thanks for listening guys I have never felt like giving up so much.

 

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LOL! I watched the youtube of the redneck. LOL. You might go viral with that one. I wish you had more! You hurt that guys feelings by exposing that wrestling is fake. I would send him a Pokeman t-shirt as a thank you note. Anyway, the shots look good and keep up the good work.
 
I would be a little concerned about posting that video. If that guy finds out it's online then I'd hate to see his reaction.

What a nightmare.

Don't be afraid to quit at this stage and regroup. Knowing when to quit something is actually an important skill to have. It's well discussed in a book called The Dip by Seth Godin.
 
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I would be a little concerned about posting that video. If that guy finds out it's online then I'd hate to see his reaction.

What a nightmare.

Don't be afraid to quit at this stage and regroup. Knowing when to quit something is actually an important skill to have. It's well discussed in a book called The Dip by Seth Godin.
Click to expand...

Agreed, but what you managed to salvage looks good as trailer.
 
I'm beyond speachless, where did you find these guys? Craiglist? I would cut your losses and move onto a new project. Save it as B-roll in case you ever need to use a couple of clips down the road. Heck, start a new boxing or wrestling film with an entirely new cast.
 
He already knew about the video of him screaming via Facebook and told me he was seeking legal action over it, but nothing will happen. I have no control over that video as an extra uploaded it and sent it to me via facebook. Hope he isn't tracked down and killed haha. I am meeting with a different actor tomorrow to see if he would be interested to replace the manager character, but yea **** got way out of hand. I have a hard time giving up on something i care so deeply about, but the trailer does stand on it's own for sure somehow haha.
 
And they wonder why their known as ignorant hillbilly rednecks. It's amazing this guy can run a business. But then again it's fake wrestling. If the moves were real, they would all have broken necks and backs, and there would be a death every match. Too bad it's not real huh. lol

The funniest part is that these guys can't wrap their pea brains around the fact that movies are fake. It looks to me like a bunch of inbred goons. Cut your loses, If anything make a doc about these guys that would be funny.

The trailer looks great, I love the gritty look you graded the footage to.
 
If you follow the YouTube link, there are two more clips from inside that place where a fight actually does break out.

Those guys probably think that all movies are real, and that one day they will get to meet Optimus Prime.
 
That location did not look like anything special.

Next time get a few bucks and rent a place without redneck involvement.
 
Sorry to hear man, sounds like a total nightmare.

At the very worst if you pull the plug on the project, you still managed to get a good trailer out of it! Just remember, that it could always be worse!

I only spent five hours lighting a scene on a rooftop of my friends apartment building as we are waiting for night. We had the landlord's permission, all was well. We're about to roll the first shot (We we're rolling Supe 16) and a neighbor calls up the fire department just to mess with us, and they shut us down for the night. Was so happy that we got shut down, and lost a location as I'm slating the first shot. I would have been despondent if we burned through 1600 feet of film stock and then got shut down, let alone if we had already shot there for a day! Keep your head up!

Keep us posted with what you're going to do with this film. Any chance that there's a rival promoter or wrestling school in the area that would want to help you just to spite a rival?
 
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Or you have a new storyline about the only person in the business who doesn't know it's fake.

When I was a kid we went to "live studio wrestling" at the local tv station and rooted for the bad guys. People were not happy.
 
It can and will happen to everyone - so don't get too freaked out. Twice in my career of producing TV ads, homeowners have tried to kick our crew out of the location. Pretty tense situations to be sure, but a solid location contract with everything laid out:
-Crew size
-Exactly what we'll be doing / moving around in the location (people get freaked out when you touch their stuff!)
-Times
-Provisions for overtime

These things saved the day, when the homeowner realised that they in fact hadn't read the contract they signed- but greedily cashed the location rental cheque… (although I was kicked out of a church on a music video I was shooting for another producer).

So it's not unusual for the location owner to not listen to or understand your needs / wants as a production crew.

It would be killing me if I was in your shoes and I saw my project slipping away. Keep us up to date on what happens - and remember you can never be over prepared, and get everything in writing!

G
 
Hectic. So many stories that originate from us low-budget guys. I've had some pretty tense situations myself - probably nothing as bad as this though. The worst one I can remember is from a music video I shot. We only had the location that one night (for the rest of the year), and it involved the band playing and a van speeding in and a bunch of masked "bad guys" kidnapping the band members. Anyway, we start by rehearsing the van "action" scene. The one guy hangs on the back of the van to jump off quicker. He has a number of piercings on his ears. Three dry-runs later and one of the curved shaped piercings hook the railings of the van's roof. As soon as he jumps off it tears about a centimeter through his ear. Blood all over the side of his face, band members going crazy recording it on their phones, I'm stressing my ass off that the guy's going to sue me and that we'll have to shoot the whole thing the next year. Turns out his a nice fella (I was expecting him to unleash on me) and the band patches his ear up with masking tape and we quickly shoot the scene in like 15 minutes. Comes back later that night/early morning to show us his stitches, 6 of them. Luckily I had everyone sign release forms and contracts beforehand. Now I'm actually friends with the guy.
 
Years back I was talking with a fellow enthusiast who allowed his Ferrari collection to be photographed with swimsuit models. The stipulation, the cars are not to be touched! He went out for lunch, and when he returned the photog had a bubble butt model sit back on his 275 GTb light weight, which has a special very thin light weight aluminum body skin for racing. Her big ass did $60K worth of damage to the car.
 
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Well, I re-cast the manager character and will be shooting this coming Monday at a near identical backroom closer by. So it looks like I might have a short film after all and not just a trailer. I loved hearing your stories about past disasters... I think it should have a thread all to it's self. I'll keep you guys updated.
 
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