25 Days of SFF: Day 5 – Top 5 Productions to Film

Recently I’ve done several poll on the SFF Facebook group to determine the Top 5 of lots of different things. For the 24 days leading up to the 25th Anniversary (and the day itself, of course) I will be posting a new Top 5 list each day, using the highly scientific and unbiased results from those FB polls. I’ll try to make these posts short but I’m pretty long winded and like to talk so…they’re probably all going to be pretty long. Enjoy? 

 Top 5 Productions to Film

Productions can be fun to watch but often they are much more fun to film. The longer a production takes to film, however, the more likely there is to be bad days and drama on the set. Despite that many people have fun filming TV shows as well as short films. I guess it’s not always the length of shooting that matters most it’s the people you go through heaven and hell with that make it worthwhile. 

 #5 – Is a tie between 

The King of Elflin’s Daughter and C² 

C²  

C² is a short film about a pair of bounty hunters who are trying to catch a forest dwelling magical trickster.  There were only four people involved in filming C² but it was a blast and a half for all of us. I wrote the script literally the night before we filmed it, or was it the very early hours of the day we filmed it? Probably both. I didn’t get much sleep that night, I remember that. Brittany Ann Whalen and Syndi Eller had travelled to CU to shoots two other short films. One was on Friday, the other was on Saturday, and since they could stay until Sunday I wanted to film one more. I hadn’t written it yet but I wanted to film whatever it turned out to be.

On Saturday I asked Dan Zangerl if he could film with us on Sunday. He said sure and asked for the script. I think I said something along the lines of “um…yeah…I’ll send it as soon as it’s written…maybe. I promise you can read it before we film it! Maybe.” I finished the script before we filmed (bonus!) and we did a quick read through at the Meadowbrook park, the location I had chosen to film because we needed a parking lot and a dense looking forest and it had both. 

 The trio of actors was so much fun to film with - cracking jokes, goofing off, ad libbing, dancing, climbing trees, and making up fake beauty products. There were some technical problems primarily due to my stupidity of not charging both batteries before the shoot. We ran out of power and had to go to the nearest restaurant to charge it which happened to be McDonalds. While charging the battery we took the time to read through the rest of the script and do some memorizing (shocking!). 

Unfortunately, the battery died in the late afternoon and by the time it was done charging and we could make it back to the location it was already dusk. We ended up filming the last scene at night and a lot of the later footage is dark and hard to see (damn my lack of lighting!), but that’s okay. We had fun and that’s what matters most.

The King of Elflin’s Daughter 

The King of Elflin’s Daughter is a fairytale musical made for kids. The story was inspired by the song The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Phoenix: Keepers of the Flame. I used several other songs from their album as well. I can’t remember why I insisted on calling it Elflin instead of Elfland but I did and now it’s done so oh well. It’s a bit of a Romeo & Juliet story about a fairy who falls in love with a mortal and the difficulties they face trying to be together. 

I’m not sure who voted for this one, but I’m glad to hear someone had fun filming it! Out of all the movies we’ve ever filmed (not counting TV shows, just the movies) it had the greatest number of shoots with terrible weather. The first day of filming was really cold and the actors had to wear clothes under their costumes to keep warm because they couldn’t wear coats. 

 There were some nice filmed days in the spring, but most of the other film shoots were not just cloudy but it was actually raining. At least one of the actors caught a cold from filming in the rain and I suspect there were more who did as well, I just don’t know for sure. Since we filmed some scenes in the summer it was also hot on set and there were lots of bug (damn loud cicadas!). So, what could have possibly made this movie fun to film? 

The people. As always, it’s wonderful to film with great people. The main actors were the ones who played the Minstrels: Annamarie MacLeod, Chris Hutchens, Jacob MacLeod, Nina Samii, and Rachel Anderson. Despite rainy days and long shoots the actors had a lot of fun goofing off and hanging out. They patiently practiced the few dances moves I made up on location and did a great job regardless of the weather. 

There was one day that was amazing to film, and that was the day we shot the Fairy Dance. It had been raining for most of the day and I almost canceled the shoot but decided not to since we needed a lot of extras scheduling so many people is not easy. We filmed the shots of the minstrels playing their instruments, then ran inside when it began to pour. Once the downpour ended not only did the sun come out but there was a gorgeous sunset! It was amazing to have double rainbows in the sky and a magnificent sunset as the backdrop for a fairy dance – it made it look truly magical. Thanks to everyone who endured the weather and dance their hearts out in the end. 

 #4 – The Destiny Trilogy/Mini-Series 

The Destiny Trilogy is three movies (duh) called Destiny, Destiny II, and Destiny III. Very original names, I know. Technically they each have a subtitle Chance, Fate, and Freewill, but I don’t often include those. I don’t know why. The movies were filmed over the course of 18 months beginning in the summer of 1996. 

I’m not surprised people picked this one as one of their favorites to shoot because it was the first (and the second and the third) movie we ever filmed. The original group of actors that had met during Finian’s Rainbow and expanded with Gypsy Wanderers played most of the main characters and new people were introduced to the group creating friendships that have lasted for 25 years and will more than likely last forever. There were many jokes that cropped up on set which have never been forgotten, and the longest running joke in SFF history – “Stir?” – began on the set of Destiny II. 

 Through hot days and cold days, long days and short days, day shoots and night shoots the cast bonded together (not literally of course – we didn’t use superglue on the set or anything, although I did use safety pins once to style Annamarie’s hair) and made memories we will talk about 25 years later. With each movie we added more actors and gained new friends. 

You may wonder about the whole Mini-series thing and why I count the trilogy separate from the Mini-series even though most of the footage is the same. That’s because NOT all of the footage is the same. When I decided to turn the trilogy into a mini-series to air on PCE-TV in 1999 I took the opportunity to film scenes that I didn’t get to film at the time of shooting the trilogy. There’s also a casting change with a new actor as Tartarus as well as random footage of two toy ships used to show the ships fighting instead of the Muppet Treasure Island I used in the original edit of Destiny III. 

 #3 – Goddess Anonymous 

Goddess Anonymous is about a support group of diminished deities - mostly forgotten goddesses trying to figure out how to get more worshipers. Although there were not as many people who filmed Goddess Anonymous as there were in the even one of the Destiny movies, let alone all three, the people who were in GA voted so there. 

 Again, it does not surprise me this one made it in the top 5 since it’s one of my personal favorites to film as well. I wrote the script in one afternoon and we filmed it in one evening. All the cast included actors I have filmed with many times before and one that I hadn’t filmed with in years: Nina Samii. I hadn’t filmed with Nina since Eidolon in 2005 and we filmed Goddess Anonymous in 2012. It was so great to film with her again!

There were no fight scenes, just a few arguments, and no blocking beyond sitting at a table, standing up and sitting down, and passing around cupcakes so it wasn’t a long shoot. We began filming around 6pm and finished around 10pm, so that’s pretty short y’all. We packed those four hours full of singing and dancing, mistakes and mayhem, cupcakes and crack ups, and running jokes including comments about carrot chips, sex changes, and Shoobie and Boobie. I think we had more fun filming it then anyone will every have watching it. I mean it’s fun to watch, very cute, but the bloopers reel is three times as long as the finished film. 

 #2 – Dream Chasers 

 Dream Chasers is a prequel to the Curse about Maria Sanchez before she became Maria Sanchez. If you’re easily confused don’t watch this show. As confusing as it is to watch it, it wasn’t confusing to film it – well no more confusing than any film shoots are. The cast was really close – sometimes literally like when the actors had to perform in the snow without any coats on and between shots literally hugging each other for warmth, or when we had to drive over an hour to a location with six people in a five-person car. 

 

It was filmed between November and December of 2002 and it was a really bad time in my personal life because I ended up having a mental breakdown halfway through filming - but for once my breakdown wasn’t caused by filming! Filming is part of what got me through those rough six weeks. There was a lot of drama off set, but very little on set. 

The shooting schedule was intense – it had to be to film 8 half-hour episodes in six weeks – but it never seemed like a chore. Most long running productions like TV shows and two-hour movies have at least one day where I don’t like filming but Dream Chasers never did. I loved the cast and the cast loved me and each other. There was a lot of love on the set.

Even on days where the weather was bad and we were rained off the set we still found ways to have fun by roasting marshmallows indoors over candles and trying to turn body length pillow cases into sleeping bags. There was a lot of laughter, some crying – mostly from me when I damaged Brittany’s muffler by backing over a big rock (sorry Brittany) – and we did actually shoot some useable footage as well. Even when freezing our butts off we still had fun. 

 #1 – The Gift Bearer 

Most of the people who voted where in The Gift Bearer so it’s not a surprise it gets the top spot. Although there was a LOT of drama on the set, it was also a production where a lot of the actors became close friends – sometimes too close when half of them started dating each other, but we were also part of the same organization, SPC-TV, and a lot of us spent the vast majority of our time with each other so that’s not really surprising. 

 One of the things that made filming the Gift Bearer so fun were the amazing locations we filmed at and the road trips we took to get there. We even went to the Parthenon in Memphis, Tennessee which took several hours to get too. Filming in the Parthenon was gorgeous and unforgettable (until we got kicked out, but I dress a guy in a skimpy skirt, no shirt, and gold wings since he thought he was Cupid so I prepared for that to happen). 

Other locations we went to like Fort Massac and Fort De Chartres were also wonderful places to visit and film and the cast had lots of fun. Luckily Fort Massac was right next to a large town so grabbing lunch would have been easy, but I made everyone pack a lunch so we didn’t have to leave the set. Unfortunately Fort De Chartres was an hour away from any town that had a grocery store, let alone a fast food place, so when we ran out of video tape and the actors got hungry we had to send Brittany and some others on a rescue mission.

Despite the drama, the weather, and other problems like the fact that the actors and I were done with filming long before we were actually done filming, we still had a lot of fun hanging out, goofing off, and occationally shooting some lines.  We had even more fun wearing costumes. Well I had fun making the others where costumes. I am a sadistic costume-lover after all.