Production Diary - Frumpy Gets It

Once a month I’m going to talk about a specific production, what it was like to film it, and what was involved in making it happen.  This month I’m going to talk about Frumpy Gets It.

Ah Frumpy. Frumpy Gets It was a very important production because it taught me many things that I should NEVER DO AGAIN. 

Such things include:

Always write a script

Directing is a necessary evil

GOOD directing is an imperative if you want anyone

         to ever watch that production.

A variation of camera angles and shots is required

         in order for the audience not to fall asleep.

If you don’t allow your actors to eat while they’re off screen,

         then don’t be surprised if the first thing they do on screen

         is start eating all the leftovers.

Always write a script

Never let your actors adlib for more than a few minutes

         and only if they promise not to talk over each other.

A murder mystery needs more than a dead body to be a mystery.

While a good mystery needs to have a few twists and turns, it                  

       does not need to resemble a roller-coaster ride that a giant        

       has crumpled into a ball. 

The writer/director should always know how the movie ends.

The writer should always know who the murderer is.

And most importantly of all: Always write a script

Frumpy Gets It was filmed on a single night at the end of May in 1997.  I was graduating from high school at the time.  Most people who want to throw a graduation party go the traditional route with inviting friends to a cookout in a park or in your backyard, to hang out and have fun. 

Not me.

I decided to film a dinner party-murder mystery movie instead.  So Frumpy Gets It was my graduation party.  It was the only way I could get my dad to ”invest” in the “catering” of the production – which was a large KFC bucket of chicken with several sides, a couple bottles of fake wine, and a cake.  And that was the budget.  Oh wait!  There were invitations too, so, you know, that adds a few dollars to the total I guess.

When I was high school having Murder Mystery parties – either creating your own or doing it from a box-kit – was what all the cool (theater) kids were doing.  I attended, hosted, and helped with several of them in the previous years, and my sisters did a few too.  But I took it one step further – I made one into a movie!

I made it into the most god awful movie of all time!

Around April, I started to plan the storyline characters and created a motley group, then cast it accordingly.  I made invitations for each actor that included a character description, suggested costuming, what their character needed to know and do, and a general plot (such as it was).  

The basic idea is that the family is gathering for their mother’s birthday at a dinner party held in her honor.  The main character that gets murdered is Florence Frumpy (played by Annamarie) – a very wealthy and grumpy old lady with more than one dark secret.  

Her son, James (played by Tanino), who’s full name is James Gay Continuity Frumpy (don’t ask, it’s an in joke from the Destiny Trilogy), is a struggling Broadway producer who needs his mother’s money to bailout his current project. 

Her daughter is Ione Aldat (played by Rachel) is a self-proclaimed psychic who claims to have been in contact with her recently deceased father – who died under mysterious circumstances (i.e. he was murdered.)  Ione is married to Owen Aldat (originally supposed to be played by Jacob, but ended up being played by Keith) who is a notorious gambler and needs the money his wife would inherit from her mother in order to pay off his huge debts or have his legs broken. (I must admit that I stole both names from the Champaign County Historical Museum’s Murder Mystery the previous fall, who probably stole them from someone else)

Also present are Frumpy’s servants – her butler and maid.  The butler, Spentworth, (played by Danny) is a dutiful, loyal, and often expressionless servant – and he has a painful past and a secret identity.  The maid, Fifi LaMiche, (played by Jill) is a flirty, sassy strumpet – who turns out to be the smartest and most devious character thanks to Jill – and she had a secret affair with the late Mr. Frumpy.  Mr. Frumpy promised to leave all his money to her and she is convinced that – rather than lying to her – the real will is hidden somewhere in the house.  She spends half the night searching for it, and ends up finding a whole bunch of other incriminating stuff.

And then there’s Ruby Redd (played by Jen).  She was mistress to the late Mr. Frumpy and had a long, not-so-secret affair with him, which actually led to his inevitable death-by-jealous-wife.  Mr. Frumpy promised to leave his entire fortune to her and was about to change his will when he died.  Ruby believes that he did change his will and the real will is hidden somewhere in the house.  She decides to embarrass Florence by crashing her dinner party and secretly looking for it.

The last two characters are the funny detectives Frank and Francewah (played by Kate and Rachel) who arrive on the scene in matching outfits and orange ponchos. They have come to arrest Florence Frumpy for the murder of Mr. Frumpy after receiving an anonymous tip and evidence.  The tip turns out to have come from Ione who had been told about the murder by the ghost of her father.  They find the body of Florence, then decide to question everyone and figure out who the murderer is.

Each character had a motive for killing Frumpy, and I made sure to instruct everyone to go into the kitchen at some point so that anyone could have poisoned her drink. However, I decided it would be super cool to not have anyone know who the murderer was – not even me – by drawing the murderer’s name out of a hat. Each person picked a piece of paper out of a hat or bag or something and the one with the X was the murderer. 

This was a terrible idea!  The most horrible, terrible, worst idea ever.  EVER.  Because when it’s all adlib with no script then the only way to find out who the murderer is would be for the murderer to confess – and that’s just not gonna happen.  So in the end, after realizing this, we had Rachel (aka Det. Francewah) interrogate (aka stare down) each suspect with a partially eaten chicken wing and I told the actors that whoever the murderer was to just confess or we’d never get done.

Okay, I think I need to back up a bit.  So characters were created, invitations mailed, but we still needed a location.  I needed a nice house that wasn’t my own (it was too cluttered with costumes and stuff) that was available to invade for the night. Rachel Anderson – and her family – kindly agreed to let us film the movie there.  So the day arrives, and of course one of the actors can’t make it at the last minute, so I called around and found a replacement – which took quite a long time actually.  Keith agreed to do it but only if we were done in time for him to go see the movie that night that he had planned to – around 9pm I guess.  I assured we’d be done in plenty of time. 

Clearly I lied. 

Silly actors, we’re never done on time.  If I swear we’ll be done in two hours, then double that and bring a bottle of aspirin just in case.   So, I’m sorry Keith – you were pulled in at the last minute to a disastrous set and clearly annoyed that things were not wrapping up as quickly as everyone hoped. Sorry dude. 

WARING FOR FUTURE ACTORS:

 I will pretty much say anything to get someone to film with me at the last minute.  I even “sold my soul” to get another extra for a Pandora’s Box shoot (she had to “die” about five times while wearing black on a super hot day at a place with tons of mosquitoes so I think it was a pretty even trade).

I arrived on set early to plate up the food and get everything ready.  Then the actors arrived, we talked through the general outline and randomly chose the murderer – who of course turned out to be Ione - the person with the weakest motive – and started filming.  The first few scenes were okay, starting with a scene between the butler and maid getting ready for the party, then having each character arrive and interact with each other for a few minutes.  All of the actors were really into their characters – especially Annamarie and Jen, which is obvious when you see Florence’s reaction when Ruby crashes the party. 

After introductions, everyone goes to sit down to dinner.  That’s when things start to go downhill fast.  It’s pretty much a solid hour – or more – of people talking at a table.  People get up, wander off camera, wander back on, but most of the time it’s a static shot of people talking.  I had some great actors there – some real hams – who wanted to talk all the time, which is great but I mean all the time – not one at a time.  Everyone is talking over everyone else and you can’t hear what anyone is saying except in random snatches of conversation. 

A lot of the motives and secrets that are revealed aren’t able to be heard while everyone is talking, so the audience really can’t tell what’s going on and after about ten minutes of chatter probably lost interest anyway.  It’s painful to watch.  It really is. 

While filming Frumpy, however, I did discover that Jill is a genius.  She ended up finding a lot of the secrets stashed in places – including the will that leaves everything to Ruby.  Jill figured out that the best way to get her voice heard was to loudly proclaim she had something to say to someone then lead them off camera.  I would cut and film her blackmailing the other person.  It was an inspired thing to do because Fifi comes off as the smartest and most interesting character in the movie, in my opinion.

What’s also amusing is the fact that there are some really funny tidbits going on that, sadly, are hard to hear.  At one point Frumpy reveals her own will that leaves, among other things, $100,000 to Spentworth.  When Frumpy isn't really paying attention, James and Ione change the will by adding a decimal point, leaving Spentworth only one dollar. 

Anyway, Fifi brings out Frumpy’s “special” glass filled with a delicious wine just for her, and Spentworth brings out the birthday cake with lit candles.  Frumpy takes a few sips of the wine, blows out the candles, and then starts coughing.  She coughs and spasms and dies face first in the cake.  Annamarie wisely insisted on taking all the candles off the cake before her death scene, because a candle in the eye would ruin the scene…I mean…hurt the actor.  Which would be bad.  Very bad.  No ambulances please.

She falls off her chair while Spentworth tries to wake her up, I guess thinking she just fell asleep something, but after she falls to the ground, lifeless (and with a face full of cake, tee hee!), everyone starts screaming and for some overly dramatic and nonsensical reason the lights start flashing.  Suddenly there’s a knock on the door and everyone runs around, hauling the corpse, trying to find a good place to hide a dead body.  The detectives burst in, the characters drop the body and try to hide it by standing in front of it.  It doesn’t work.  But it is funny!

And now we get to address another issue about this production – me starving the actors. Rachel and Kate were staying in Rachel’s room, out of sight, until they were due to arrive.  The dining room was between her room and the kitchen, so technically they couldn’t cross the set to go get something to eat while we were filming, so they didn’t get to eat.  I also realize that Danny and Jill – as the butler and maid – probably didn’t really get a chance to eat much either.

So as soon as Kate and Rachel’s characters entered and declared that they were going to stay and figure things out, they immediately made themselves at home by grabbing some sodas out of the fridge, sitting down at the table, and digging in to the leftovers of chicken and cake - because they were starving.  I am such a sadist.

It actually turns out to be hilarious because while detectives chow down, the characters start trying to figure out what happened and who killed her.  They decide it was poisoned and wonder aloud if the cake was poisoned just as Frank/Kate is about to take a bite.  She pauses, then shrugs and eats it anyway.   It’s just pretty hilarious to me that while the other characters are trying to solve the murder, the detectives are having a feast, all because I starved the actors.

The movie dissolves into a blame game of who murdered Frumpy and everyone accuses everyone else, while the detectives couldn’t seem to care less.  Eventually I come in front of the camera to stop everything and we discuss how the hell we’re going to end this, because of course I had realized but this time what a stupid idea it was to draw the murderer’s name out of a hat.  

And of course I forgot to turn the camera off when I interrupted the actors so a few of them snuck off and took over the camera. 

Eventually we worked out the idea that Kate would reveal motives and secrets and then Rachel will interrogate everyone and the murderer would confess.  By this time everyone was tired and just wanted to go home, so we did our best to wrap it all up quickly.  In the end I stepped in front of the camera again in order to explain things that were very confusing and quite frankly not very relevant.  It rapidly becomes clear that there really is no way to end this mess other then to have the detectives arrest everyone and sort everything out at the police station, so that’s what we do.

The closing credits are filmed like the characters are getting mug shots taken in Rachel’s basement.

There were too many secrets to reveal that didn’t really matter and it was all over kill.  Some of the secrets I remember included Spentworth really being the long lost and presumed dead child of Florence Frumpy (from her first marriage I guess?), he was a pilot in WWII (wait…what?!?  That would make him like 70 when this movie was filmed!), known as Ace Frumpy (nope, not a first marriage then) who had made a mistake leading to the annihilation of his squadron, leaving him the only survivor.  As penance for his actions he disguises himself and serves his mother faithfully.  See – does not make much sense, and isn’t necessary.

Also revealed by Frank is the fact that Ruby Redd is actually Robert Redd who had a sex change and assumed a new identity, and is in fact Frank’s brother.  Again…say whaaaaat?  And of course the final surprise – that no one had a way to reveal except me and was definitely a jumping the shark sort of moment – was that Frumpy’s real will left everything to the child she had as the result of an affair and gave away, a choice she always regretted.  That child was Detective Francewah.  Seriously Yibble?  That’s lame.

If you thought Dream Chasers was confusing and had no discernable plot, then you have clearly never seen Frumpy Gets It.  And that’s not surprising considering that the only time it has ever been viewed publicly was at the premiere in July of 1998 – to an audience of about 4-6 people, and a third of the way through the 2+ hour production we fast-forwarded to the end.  As far as I know I am the only person who has sat through it and watched the entire production from start to finish – twice - and that’s only because I had to edit it.

Frumpy Gets It is basically one big joke.  The only reason I still include it in the official tally of productions is because it’s a great lesson in how not to make a movie and every company/group needs one movie that everyone groans or laughs about just from hearing the name.   

Despite the obvious disaster everyone realized it was going to be halfway through filming, it was also pretty fun (for those of us not being starved.  Which probably included me, now that I think of it, but I’ve gone through a lot of shoots not eating – often by choice - so that’s no real biggie for me).  It was great to watch the actors be so into their characters and most of them seem to have a lot of fun, and that’s all that really counts, right?

I have a great time making fun of Frumpy because it’s such a disaster.  And no, you can't watch it - even if you really really want to.  Not gonna happen.  You can watch the very short version which is only 3 minutes long if you REALLY have to see it, but trust me - it's more fun to make fun of it then to watch it.