Sam's Comic Relief: June 2012

It was December 2010. I was working on two scripts for the MCC Film Club at the time, finishing up "Eleanor Rigby" and writing "Phoenix Fire". At the same time, I was also in the planning stages for "Chronicles of the Chronicler: Inika" (now "Lost World", but it was "Inika" at the time). I was also writing the last several comics for my "2010 comeback" series. As I was drawing them, ideas began to pop into my head, great ideas for future comics... but they were all too ambitious, all too hard to draw. As I tried, I was thinking "Dang, this would make a better movie than a comic." Thus began "Sam's Comics: The Movie."

I had ideas of At first, I didn't know if I wanted to submit my comics movie idea to the club, so I didn't write it right away. When January 2011 rolled around, I submitted "Eleanor Rigby" and "Phoenix Fire" to the club. When they asked if I had anything else, I told them about the comics movie. They were intrigued by my stories, but in the end they decided to go with another script. I can't say I could blame them, "Eleanor Rigby" was based on a copy-written song by The Beatles, "Phoenix Fire" wasn't finished, and "Sam's Comics" hadn't even been written yet. So the comics movie idea was shelved.

It was about March when Travis came up to me and told me that the film club had dropped the script they had picked for various reasons. He asked me to finish up either "Phoenix Fire" or "Sam's Comics" and pitch them to the club again. At this point in time, I hadn't done any work on either script since January, since I was working on filming "Inika". Given the choice between the two scripts, I decided to go with "Sam's Comics" even though I had not written a single scene of it, because I was still stumped on how "Phoenix Fire" should end. It usually takes me several weeks to a month to write a first draft of any script, but I wrote "Comics" in less than two weeks. Part of this was due to the fact that I was bored during computer literacy class (I learned nothing I didn't already know in that class) and part of it was that I wanted it written as soon as possible so that I had something to show this time.

The first draft of the script was over sixty pages (which I knew was unworkable), and had thirteen main characters, including comic characters Sam, Bailey, Kenzie, Ryan, Rachel, Nick, Megan, and Joel. Other new characters included were a villain named Greg Walker (named lifted from an earlier script I wrote called "Secrets of the Forbidden Lake"), a side-kick character named Aaron, and a trio of girls named Lindsay Smith, Emily Miller, and Whitney Parker. I had served as casting director on the film club's first movie project "Cerea", and knew that auditions are sparsely attended, so I could tell that even though more than half the characters were based on people I knew, there were way too many characters in the script. Logistically, Megan and Joel had to be the first to go. They were based off two kids I knew from church, but they lived in Wisconsin, so filming with them would be near impossible. This created a problem, since Joel had a significant role to play in the story, and Megan was part of his storyline (Joel in the script was upset with the way his older sister was treating him). At first I thought I would have to completely rework the story, but then I realized that he could easily be replaced with the comic character Molly (who was not in the script at that point) and that Megan could be replaced with Kenzie (who was already in the script, but had a less important role). As for the trio of new girls, I decided that there didn't really need to be three of them, and I condensed them into one character, and chose the name Lindsay Parker (combination of two of the previous names).

When I finished the second draft, I showed it to Carl, who was the club president. He and I sat down in the cafeteria at MCC and read through the first two scenes. Before he finished the second scene he looked at me and said "Sam, nobody talks like this." He particularly didn't like the way I used the out-of-fashion word "weirdo" several times, but I kept insisting that it was relevant to the plot. Carl also was confused by the way Molly was being portrayed, saying that this fifteen-year-old character had the maturity level of an eleven-year-old. This was partly due to how the script was originally written for Joel (who was twelve), but Molly was really fifteen. By the end of the meeting, I had agreed to reword certain conversations, and change Molly's age. This prompted me to change the age of several other characters to make them all similar in age. The way the script was written had all of them the same age as the people who inspired them were, so Sam was 20, Ryan was 19, Bailey and Rachel were 18, Kenzie and Nick were 16, and Molly was 15. I changed it so that Sam, Ryan, Bailey and Nick were 18, Kenzie was 17, Rachel was 16, and Molly would be 13.

From the second draft, came a third. By this time I was starting to counter the idea that Sam and Bailey were in love. For personal reasons, I did not want to go there with the characters. The story as originally written did not have a love story because it was about the friendship and trust between Sam and his two best friends, Bailey and Ryan. I wrote the third draft with Sam and the new character Lindsay falling in love. This didn't quite work out, and I never showed this draft to anyone. I was afraid that this version made it seem like Sam was cheating on Bailey with Lindsay, and it still didn't change the fact that Sam still rescues Bailey at the end, and according to movie logic, they should kiss. I continued to vainly attempt to write a way around it, but I could come up with nothing. It had to be Bailey in the end, and it didn't make sense for Sam to rescue anyone else with the same determination... not even Ryan or Kenzie (the other two I tried to have kidnapped). It wouldn't make sense that Ryan would get kidnapped (he's too tough for that), and Kenzie has too much spunk and was too cunning of a character to get abducted.

Once we got a draft of the script we were satisfied with, we turned our attention to casting. I offered the role of the comic characters to the people who inspired on them. Bailey, Kenzie, Molly, and Nick all accepted. Ryan was unable to play himself, as he would be spending the entire summer in Colorado. Rachel opted not to be in the film, afraid she wouldn't have time to commit to the movie. We started casting with the fifth draft (which was basically the same as the second, except with better dialogue). My friend Shannon Asprooth agreed to be my casting director, so we made a flyer for auditions, which were to be held on April 25th and 27th. Characters up for casting were the newly-renamed villain Jack Weidman, his follower Aaron, Lindsay Parker, and Ryan Whittaker (Rachel was not on the roster yet, as I had only just found out we didn't have someone). First day we had three people audition, including Carl for Ryan. Day two was highly less successful, with just Travis auditioning for Ryan. The week after auditions, I met with Shannon to talk about our choices. Two people had auditioned for Ryan, and no one had tried out for Aaron. Shannon and I both agreed that Travis would make a good Ryan, and after talking, Carl became or Jack Weidman. Shannon also suggested a friend of her's and Travis's as Lindsay, even though that person hadn't shown up to auditions. I had seen this person perform in a drama club play at MCC prior to this, so I trusted that she could pull off playing Lindsay. Travis contacted her, and reported that she was interested. Carl also managed to find me people to play Aaron and Rachel, so we had a complete cast.

First thing to do was to schedule a script reading, where the cast gets together and reads through the script and bonds with each other. Problems arose right away. The person cast as Lindsay was not responding with the scheduling we made. The script reading was postponed almost an entire month before I decided enough was enough and dropped her from the project. Without a Lindsay, we had an incomplete cast. I thought about it for a while, and I finally decided to offer the part to Lindsay Allen. I had only met her twice before, and didn't know her very well, but I knew she liked acting, so she was offered and she accepted. I was surprised by her enthusiasm for the project, and she asked many questions about it. I admit, I liked that she was asking questions, because some them were questions that needed asked and I hadn't thought of. So we scheduled the first reading. When I got there, nobody else was. Carl came shortly after I did, and eventually Bailey came as well, but that was it. We immediately scheduled another reading. This time, everyone came... except for the people Carl got for Rachel and Aaron. He informed me that the girl for Rachel had backed out. At this point, I just decided that Rachel was not that important of a character to the story and just wrote her out. We were running out of time, as Bailey would leave us in mid August for college.

We started filming on July 5th, about a month after I originally planed shooting. I thought we still had plenty of time, as the schedule I made only last for fourteen days, and Bailey was only needed for half of them. The first scene we did was the picnic scene at Four Colonies park in Crystal Lake. This location I had chosen, because I had filmed scenes for my previous (unfinished) project, "Indiana Jones and the Hollywood Grail" there. Nick was supposed to be in that scene, but he couldn't come to that day of filming. I decided instead of rescheduling (we were already behind) that we should run it without him. That day went very well, with everyone ready and willing. Molly apparently had not yet read her script (she couldn't make it to the script readings), but I was pleased with her performance. This day held our first big "instant memories" moment, when we were filming a shot where Sam asks Molly if she saw something, but a guy walking his dog pass through the camera's field of vision. I wittily quipped if Molly had seen the guy walking his dog.

Day three of production was the first time we had any real trouble. We had scheduled an all day shoot on a Monday, but when I woke up that morning, it was storming out. Not only was it storming, but it was one of the worst storms we had seen in years. We had to cancel that day, but we pushed to schedule for the next day. I managed to get Bailey, Carl, and Nick on board, but I never heard back from Travis. This day ended up being one of the longest days of filming, even though there were days where we filmed more hours. Because we couldn't get a hold of Travis, we had to film the scene without Ryan. While we were filming he texted me and told me that the power at his neighborhood had been down since the day before and the cellphone was for emergency use only. Without Travis, I told Nick to look at the script and memorize Ryan's lines. He had about twenty minutes to learn them, but I was amazed that he never messed up lines once, just his blocking (aka where he should be standing or walking to). On the other hand, Carl (who had possessed the complete script for months before anyone else), did not have a single line memorized. By the end of the day, Bailey and I wanted to kill him. We did endless takes of the scene where Jack and Sam are walking down the hallway talking. We spent almost an hour alone on that one shot (the proof can be told by watching the clock on the wall go from 5:15 in the first take to 6:01 in the last take). But nowadays we have a good laugh about it when we look back. Bailey and I have agreed to NEVER let Carl live that day down.

Day four we shot one of the scenes I was not particularly looking forward to filming: The Hilltop scene. This was the first time I ever had to memorize a monologue, and even though I wrote it, I still couldn't remember the whole thing perfectly. Molly hit her part spot on, and after we were done filming and we were packing up to go home, Carl turned to me and said "I think she's the best out of all of us." Getting a compliment out of Carl wasn't the easiest thing to accomplish, but Molly did without trying.

During the fifth day of filming, we were shooting the classroom scenes. Carl managed to get me some extras to play students, and through this, we managed to get a Rachel for the movie. Shannon was brought on to play a cameo as a classmate who helps Sam with math homework, but while filming Shannon agreed to play Rachel instead. This cause a slight problem, since we had already filmed a shot with Travis (her character's brother in the movie) in class together. To cover up this inconsistency, we made an excuse later on that Rachel is super smart and in the same grade as Ryan.

Filming progressed slowly, but steadily. We finally got to the last week that Bailey was in town... and we still had six scenes to shoot with her. To make matters more difficult, we only filmed with her two days that week, so it was two scenes in one day and four in the second... and we weren't even worrying about full scenes, we were just doing the shots she had to be in! Even through all the chaos, the first day of "crunch week" ended up being my favorite day of filming... go figure! And even more ironic is that fact that we were shooting the break-up scene that day. The thing I liked the most about it was the fact that it was just Bailey and I shooting that day, and we both knew what needed doing and we both understood the scene, so we did not have any chaos at all. Even when we messed up, we just got back up and did it again. It was such an emotional scene, and I have got to say she NAILED it. Even with all the laughs we had, she and I managed to get keep straight faces. AND the best part (most rewarding for me) was the fact that extraordinary eye contact was maintained, even though in all the close ups, neither of us were looking at each other, since when we did her close-ups I had to be running the camera, and when we did my close-ups, SHE had to be running the camera! We made it work, and I think it's the most effective scene in the movie.

The last day of crunch week was the deciding factor of the film's completion. If we succeeded and filmed all of Bailey's shots, we were in the clear. But we still had four scenes to shoot. It came down to the last scene of the movie, and we were down to the final shots, when all of a sudden, the camera battery died. So we took it in the closest building and plugged it in. While we were waiting for it to finish, it started raining. I started freaking out, I had no clue what to do, Bailey was leaving in two days, and we couldn't get her anymore after that day. As fortune had it, a stroke a luck came along and I realized all we really needed was one more shot, so when it stopped raining, we could go out and film it and Bailey would be finished. Buuuuuutttt.... when it stopped raining it was pitch black out. So I did the only thing I could do... find the nearest street light and film under it. So despite the fact that the rest of the scene being filmed in daylight, we found a way to complete Bailey's shots and finally, the movie was in the clear... or so we thought.

Once Bailey left, things didn't necessarily become easier. School had started again, and it was almost impossible to get everyone together again, and we never filmed another scene with Kenzie, Molly, or Lindsay again because of scheduling issues. I hated when I had to almost completely write Lindsay out of the rest of the movie. I had put so much on the line to film with her, since she lived about an hour away from Crystal Lake (where the majority of the movie was shot). I kept trying to schedule a day where we could go and finish her scenes on her own turf in Sycamore, Illinois. When I first mentioned this, Carl thought I was crazy, but he saw my reasoning (this was during a period where he and I were butting heads on a semi-regular basis). Things kept happening whenever I scheduled the Sycamore shoot, and eventually we just ran out of time. It was the hardest decision I had to make in the filmmaking process to can the Sycamore shoot, effectively cutting Lindsay out of most of the film. It still pains me to this day, because Lindsay was truly an awesome person, and a strong young woman the likes of which I've never seen. I was honored to work with her. But the movie had to go on, and the story still worked without her.

Filming the big fight scene was another milestone. It was something I was looking forward to as well as dreading. It was really hard to write a fight scene in the script, but it was even more difficult shooting it. Not so easy when you don't have a clue what you're doing. Carl and I were literally making it up as we were going. My brother John told me that he was very impressed with how the fight looked so coordinated. It all came down to editing, because if you had been there that day, you'd see just how clueless we really were! (evidenced by this picture below when Carl attempted a flying kick)

It came down to the end, and we running out of time. We had put off filming the scenes with Jack Weidman's henchmen because no one was committing to playing them. The script called for at least two. Aaron was also a problem because we originally had one of Carl's friends cast. He backed out. Next we cast Antonio "Heavy" Clinton. He too backed out. Then Bailey dragged her then-boyfriend to play the part. He backed out. Carl brought in another one of his buddies. He backed out. Finally, Carl worked his magic and we got Heavy back for two days to finish the part. I think Heavy did a great job, he gave much more depth to the character than I had written, and depth is good.

It got to the point where I had to start editing while we were still filming. It got very frustrating since certain scenes had only been partially filmed and couldn't be edited until it was filmed. Another big problem was that we now needed the help of special effects to convert the climax scenes from day to night, so as to mask the fact that Bailey's final shot was shot at night. Another problem that came up was the fact that we were short two of Bailey's lines with the chance that we may need to do ADR (additional dialogue recording) for the picnic scene since we didn't have the boom mic working for us then. Luckily, we did not need ADR for the picnic scene. We still needed the other two lines, though. I enlisted the help of my friend Sarah Kusz, whose voice sounded highly similar to Bailey's.

From left to right, Shannon Asprooth (played Rachael), Gabri Zmich, Sarah Kusz (Bailey's voice mail), and Sam Shenberger (played Sam). All three of these girls were added to the comics after the movie.

Carl was the only person who had access to the special effects editing software, and of course that was the final thing we did... in the last week before release. We spent long hours in the MCC media center together putting the finishing touches on it. Carl and I had long since gotten over our differences and were once again enjoying our time together (stressful though it may have been editing), and we enjoyed the thrill of success when it was finished... the day before release. Yay procrastination!

I had taken an entire year off from drawing comics to make this movie. The following January, I began a new season of comics, and I had more tough decisions. Should the comics after the movie continue in the same thread? In the end, I opted "no". I decided to view them as two separate entities, both reflecting the other, but neither depend on the other. A later comic parodies this fact by having Gabri asking Sam why he and Bailey aren't dating like they were in the film. The other big decision I had to make was whether or not Carl should be added as Carl, or as Jack Weidman. In the end, he became Carl. One later comic had Ryan referring to him as "Jack", but it was just for a joke. Shannon was also added as herself, and Sarah was as well.

All in all, I learned so much from this experience. I met a lot of awesome people while filming, and got to become closer to old friends. It made me appreciate just how much work really goes into making a movie. You can watch documentaries about making movies, but I didn't know just how much making a low-budget (or literally no-budget) film would be similar to Hollywood productions. From the initial ideas, to the writing of the script, to the casting, to the shooting, to crunch week, to post-production, to the premiere, I have had one of the greatest experiences of my entire life, and I thank everyone who helped make it possible. It was a long, difficult journey, but we made it through and I loved every second of it.