There are a lot of days when we film in bad weather - days so hot your eyeballs feel like they're frying, days so cold your hands might fall off, and rain pouring so hard you could almost drown on set. Each month we'll remember one of those horrible weather days and celebrate the survivors who braved the elements in order to film. Why would we want to remember those days? Because going through hell on set has a way of bringing everyone closer together when they can say they survived mother nature AND filming on a Yibble set.
Don’t Bug Out
Filming with Annoying Insects
When you film outdoors in the summer you bound to have some problems with bugs. When you film in Central Illinois near any source of water, you’re pretty much screwed.
Allerton Park is a beautiful, magical place with amazing gardens, statues, and lovely flowers. There’s also a river that runs through the park and a lovely little pond hidden in the woods but also somehow located near a parking lot. I mention all this because the number of mosquitoes at Allerton is INSANE.
During Pandora’s Box we filmed at Allerton quite a bit, but the worst day was when we filmed scenes for the final episode. The day was hot and humid and no matter where we were the mosquitoes were there, ready and waiting in a buzzing army of annoying little suckers. It was awful – and I wasn’t even in costume. I can only imagination how hard it was for the actors.
The worst part was when we were filming the final scene for the day. We filmed in a small, isolated parking lot that I did not realize was very close to the “hidden” pond in the woods. The mosquitoes were so thick you could see them flying past the camera and landing on the actors. As soon as the line was finished the actors were swatting away the bugs so fast they almost looked like new dance moves. We called that location Mosquito Island and I made sure to NEVER film there again in the summer.
We filmed at Allerton again for Pandora’s Box a year later, in a place called the Buddha Pavilion and Fu Dog garden and had the same problem with mosquitoes we had before. They weren’t as bad as Mosquito Island, but what they lacked in number they made up for in viciousness. By the end of the day everyone had multiple bites and Margaret had a particularly bad bite on her cheek. Ouch!
Allerton isn’t the only location where we had a mosquito problem though. We were filming scenes from Episodes 2 and 3 of Pandora’s Box at Lake of the Woods and there was a very picturesque river in the middle of a densely wooded area. Unfortunately the mosquitoes were crazy there and after filming that one scene we moved to a different and less buggy area to film the rest.
We went to Busey Woods for the first day of filming for Pandora’s Box and I guess I wanted to smell nice because I stupidly put on fruit scented body spray. Yeah, not smart. I came home covered in mosquito bites and cursing my own stupidity. We filmed there again the next summer. It had been raining a lot (and actually rained very heavily while we were filming later that afternoon) so the bugs were in full force and the mosquitoes were hungry. Margaret and Annamarie had to fend off the little monsters between shots and even the bug spray we brought wasn’t enough to keep them at bay.
Poor Edward had to do a death scene and lying on the ground in the middle of the hot, humid, and bug infested woods with his face covered in fake blood. The fake blood I used was a mixture of chocolate syrup and red kool-aid so all the bugs saw was a big buffet. Ed had trouble staying still and pretending to be dead with his eyes open because the bugs – especially the mosquitoes – were trying to devour him alive. As soon as the scene was done Ed got the heck out of the woods. He was probably glad that it rained soon after that!
I probably shouldn’t have filmed there again but given how much rain there was any wooded area would probably have been just as bad. Although it was near Crystal Lake, now that I think about it, so yeah, filming near lakes and ponds in the middle of a Central Illinois summer is just a terrible idea. 
Mosquitoes may be the most annoying pests at any location, but they’re not the only bugs that cause problems. During the filming of the King of Elfin’s Daughter there was a huge problem with cicadas. Apparently there are two main cycles with periodical cicadas – 17 year and 13 years. Every now and then the two sets of cicadas appear in the same summer and that summer was 1998, so there were a LOT of cicadas! The cicadas were SO LOUD it was unbelievable. You could hardly hear what the actors were saying in one scene were they were surrounded by bushes and trees full of them. 
The sound was more annoying then their physical presence, but they did start dropping from trees while we were filming at one point. Annamarie and the others even made one of them a mascot and named him Froedrick. He traveled with them while we filmed, but met a tragic end when it began to rain and he fell into a puddle and drowned. RIP Froedrick.
Then there's the problem of flies on the set. Most of the time they are just a little annoying, get swatted and eventually take the hint and go away. But during the filming of Twisted Tales’s Magic, Inc. they not only hung around the set, they tried to make a home in one of the costumes. Annamarie was wearing a dress with a taffeta underskirt and a chiffon overskirt. Whenever she walked across the grass a bunch of flies would travel up the dress and get caught between the two skirts. We had to continually lift up the overskirt and evict the flies whenever she stood up. It was annoying but also pretty hilarious. 
There were a lot of bugs on set when we were filming at the Spillway for Episode 5 and 6 of The Gift Bearer. If you’re outside there are bugs and that’s fine – it’s just something you have to deal with and work around. But some actors seem to attract them more than others. For some reason all the bugs wanted to hang out by or on Morgan Thomas that day and she had to deal with several fanbugs throughout the shoot including bees, caterpillars, and spiders. Annamarie and Brittany Ann Whalen had to deal with them to, but they were especially fond of Morgan that day.
The worst non-mosquito bug problem happened while filming flashback scenes for the movie The Gift Bearer: Time After Time. It actually ended up being a dangerous situation. Morgan and Brittany had to run out from a shed, slam the door, and lean against while someone (Drew Thomas) pounded on the door from the inside. They all had to stand inside (in the dark) while I set the shot and during that waiting time they discovered a nasty surprise in the shed – a wasp’s nest. Poor Drew had to stay inside, in the dark, and pound on the door hoping the wasps (who were startled by all the noise of course) didn’t sting the hell out of him. Oh, and it was also the HOTTEST day of filming ever for a SFF production, being over a 100 degrees the whole day.
To all those who have suffered with cicadas, were munched by mosquitoes, scared by spiders, and worried about wasps, I thank you and salute you. There are too many to list since so many people filmed during the hot, humid summers for many productions, but each and every one of you is a real trooper!
Here’s some bug spray and Afterbite, now get some rest in a cool and bug-free air-conditioned building!
Oh, and here’s some bloopers with bugs:
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