Trivia about the film adaptation

Out of the original fifteen regular characters that have appeared in the original comics (from 2006 to 2010, as new regular character were added post-film), only seven characters appear in the film – Sam, Bailey, Kenzie, Ryan, Rachel W, Molly, and Nick.

The film had one major deadline; Bailey Freemire would leave for college in the middle of August. This caused the filmmakers to push her scenes out first, but even then production ran to the last-minute, and even required the finale to be re-worked slightly to suit the lack of time remaining for her.

The two most prominent comic characters in this film are Sam and Bailey. Incidentally, Sam and Bailey are the only two surviving comic characters who appeared in the very first comic written in the series. Kenzie is the only other comic character who has been in all four seasons of comics, but she was not introduced until about halfway through the first season. Ryan, Rachel, and Molly weren't added until the second season, and Nick's first appearance was in the third season (the season directly before the movie).

The script was intended to be primarily a comedy with drama undertones, but as filming progressed certain scenes had to be omitted or rewritten, and after a certain scene involving Sam, Nick, and Molly cooking a fancy dinner got cut, the movie could no longer be called a comedy, so it was then rechristened as a drama with comedy undertones.

All the school scenes were shot at McHenry County College, whose film club produced this movie and where Sam Shenberger, Travis Cooper, Carl Mohr, Shannon Asprooth and Antonio Clinton attended.

Bailey’s middle name in the movie is “Isabelle”. This is a play on words saying “Bailey is a belle”, with “belle” being the French word for beauty.

Even though they share the same first name (with the same spelling), the character Lindsay Parker was not based off the actress who played her, Lindsay Allen. This was an odd coincidence, since the characters Sam, Nick, Bailey, Molly, and Kenzie were all named after the people who played them. (Ryan and Rachael also named after real people, but not played by them.)

Ryan’s sister Rachael was included in every draft of the script. Rachel White (the original inspiration for the character) was offered the part, but she turned it down. Another actress was then cast to play Rachael, but she backed out right before principle photography began. Instead of recasting her, the character was to be written out, and most of her lines given to Kenzie. However, Shannon Asprooth later agreed to play the part after production had already started. Because Shannon had already appeared in a class scene as a different character with Sam and Travis (who plays her character’s older brother), the filmmakers made an excuse that Rachael’s IQ was high enough to put her in the same grade as Sam and Ryan. This became one of the very few changes the movie made that was retained for the comics.

Ryan White was unable to play himself in this film because he was living in Colorado at the time.

The comic characters Joel and Megan Nelson were in the original plot lay-outs, but were not included in any script draft. Sam Shenberger decided that for practical reasons (the Nelsons live in Wisconsin, the film would be shot in Illinois) they had to be cut.

In all six drafts of the script, Lindsay had an English accent. However, Lindsay Allen had a hard time doing it and asked if the accent could be changed to Scottish instead. Later, Sam Shenberger decided to drop the accent altogether, giving Lindsay an easier time to film.

Ryan is 18 years old in the script, but Travis Cooper was 29 years old at the time of filming.

Carl Mohr auditioned for the part of Ryan, but was cast as Jack instead.

Sam Shenberger wanted to avoid portraying the characters Sam and Bailey as being in love with each other. He firmly stated several times that the two characters in the comics are only close friends, like how in real life he is just close friends with Bailey Freemire. He eventually lost the argument and gave in that there needed to be a love story in the movie.

At one point, someone else was cast to play Lindsay. She was dropped from the project due to communication issues. As a result, this delayed filming for about a month and Lindsay Allen was cast last-minute to replace her.

Sam is shown drawing his comics right-handed. However, when he is seen writing in class, he writes left-handed, implying that he is possibly ambidextrous. This is actually done intentionally as reference to a running joke within the comic series where Sam is shown writing left-handed, while he also claims several other times to be right-handed.

Jack Weidman’s name was obviously a play on the insult “Jack weed”.

All of the scenes showing Sam drawing comics were entirely last-minute additions to the film. Sam Shenberger couldn’t justify the film being called “Sam’s Comics: The Movie” when the practically no one outside of Sam’s friends had even read the comics, so he improvised a scene where his character gets a phone call while drawing comics. Later, several more comic-related scenes were added to fully justify the film’s title. None of them were actually in the script.

When the script was first presented to the MCC film club, it was actually turned down. However, the script that was chosen as their spring/summer 2011 project didn't end up working, and they asked Sam to finish the comic script up. When Sam first presented the completed script, Carl Mohr made Sam rewrite most of the dialogue, saying that “nobody talks like this anymore!”

The actual title of the script is literally “Untitled Live-Action Film Adaptation of Sam’s Comics”. “Sam’s Comics: The Movie” was an abridged version of that title, and ended up being the final title. A title that was briefly considered was "Sam's Comics: Accidental Heroes."

CHRONICLER’S COMPANY PICTURES IN-JOKE: The model used for the character Jaller in CCP’s stop-motion series “Chronicles of the Chronicler” can be seen on top of Sam’s computer monitor.

CHRONICLER’S COMPANY PICTURES IN-JOKE: There are several Beatles-related moments in the film. Included are: A newspaper article titled “Beatles Vs Glee”, a yellow submarine on top of Sam’s computer monitor, Beatles Rock Band instruments lying around in Sam’s basement, Sam wearing a Beatles “Help!” t-shirt, Bailey’s phone number ends with 9091 (One After 909), and a drawing of main characters in an Abbey Road-like pose (Sam in that picture is even holding a pencil similar to the way Paul McCartney holds a cigarette). It's never stated aloud but Sam's middle name is "Jude" (Hey Jude).

Each character’s last names were changed from their original names so as to avoid the characters in the film from being directly associated with the real life progenitors. All last names were similar in pronunciation, but still different. This was another one of the changes that was retained for the comics after the film.

Sam Shenberger said that the hardest scenes to film involved Buster the cat.

First CCP film to be shot entirely in HD.

Sam Shenberger admitted that his favorite character in the film is Molly.

The ages of the main characters from oldest to youngest – Jack: 19, Ryan: 18, Sam: 18 Nick: 18, Bailey: 18, Lindsay: 17, Kenzie: 17, Rachael: 16, Molly: 13.

The character Joel Nelson from the comics had a very large role to play in the original intended script. When he was cut out, his storyline was kept in using Molly instead. Molly was originally meant to be in just one scene as a cameo.

The concept of having a younger sister who is sarcastic, negative, and mean to her sibling has been in almost every failed script Sam Shenberger has written, including Dianne in both “Summer’s Best Week” and “Gamma Squad”, Leah in “Secret of the Forbidden Lake”, Lydia in “Legend of the Black Arrow”, River in “Hollywood Grail”, and Siobhan in “Phoenix Fire” before finally making it’s appearance in the form of Mackenzie in this film.

The part in the picnic scene with Kenzie snatching the sandwich from Molly was improvised. Sam loved this idea so much that they did it in all subsequent takes.

The film crew was granted permission to film at a location (that will remain undisclosed) because Carl Mohr was employed there. They were told to be careful not to show the (undisclosed location)’s logo in the film. In the film, the logos are blurred.

The scene where Bailey meets Jack was supposed to have Ryan in it, but Travis Cooper could not show up to that day of filming, so Nick took his place and the filmmakers made an excuse that Ryan “had a doctor’s appointment”. Sam also parodies this fact by throwing in the line “He’s a no-show.”

Shannon Asprooth was originally cast to have a cameo as a classmate, but she later accepted the part of Rachael after Sam Shenberger promised her that she could punch Carl Mohr in the climax scene.

Sam is only shown drinking either water or Vanilla Coke in the film.

The scene with Sam and Buster after the first big fight was shot in April during pre-production, making it the first scene to be shot for the movie. It had to be refilmed because Sam Shenberger’s hair had grown quite a bit longer in the three months before principle photography began. Later, it had to be redone a third time when the set design had to be altered. Only one shot from this scene was recycled all three times: The shot of Sam’s feet running by while Buster sits there and watches.

Sam wears an Ohio State t-shirt in one scene. This was for two reasons: Sam himself was born in Ohio and Bailey Freemire attends college in Cincinnati.

Bailey Freemire’s last day of filming involved shooting four of her scenes back to back with little to no rehearsing.

Rachael’s famous line “Son of a butthole!” was not even in the script. It came about while filming the scene at the Freeberg’s house in the beginning of the movie. In one take, two kids walking by the house started shouting at each other, and one shouted “Son of a butthole!” Shannon Asprooth in particular found this hilarious and wanted to use it in the film, and Sam suggested it be used during the climax.

Due to scheduling conflicts, Bailey Freemire was unable to do some of her own vocal overdubs. Sam Shenberger enlisted the help of Sarah Kusz, whose voice sounded highly similar to Bailey’s, to finish up her lines. Sarah was later added to the comics in 2012.

During the main titles, Travis Cooper’s name appears as the music does a drum fill. Travis in real life plays drums.

Auditions for the film were highly unsuccessful. Only four people actually tried out, and out of those four, only Travis Cooper was cast to the role he auditioned for. All the other roles had to be given to whoever the filmmakers could get.

The teacher lectures about the Civil War, namely the Battle of Gettysburg. Sam Shenberger chose this topic while writing the script because he once lived in Pennsylvania, not far from Gettysburg, and therefore had some knowledge of the battles prior to writing the script.

This movie contains four actors featured in MCC Film Production Club’s first film, “Cerea” (Carl Mohr, Travis Cooper, Shannon Asprooth, and Sarah Kusz). It also features four actors from Chronicler’s Company Pictures’ first feature attempt “Service Project” (Sam Shenberger, Bailey Freemire, Mackenzie Freemire, and Molly Freemire).

The movie making process went through two stages according to director Sam Shenberger; Pre-production hell and principle photography purgatory. Filming lasted a grand total of five months, and editing lasted two (simultaneously with filming).

The entire film was shot in Crystal Lake, Illinois except for the interior woods scenes. Those scenes were shot in Cary, Illinois.

Lindsay Allen’s first day of filming involved shooting her character’s final scene for the film. Her footage from that day does not appear in the film.

Sam Shenberger was in a lot of pain while filming most of the climax scenes, as he was severely out of shape and threw every once of energy into the fight scene, resulting in him hurting himself accidentally several times. He hurt his foot while filming the woods sequence and could barely run filming the climax scene the following day.

In the script, Lindsay had a major role to play in the climax. However, as she lived the farthest away from Crystal Lake than anyone, she was hard to get on set towards the end of filming. As a result, her part was completely written out.

The Sam-Bailey relationship was not in the script, but kept growing larger and more prominent as filming progressed. Ironically, it first appeared onscreen during Bailey Freemire’s last day of filming.

Even though Ryan and Rachael are brother and sister, the two of them are only seen on-screen together for a matter of seconds in one shot (the first shot of Sam and Ryan in class).

In the script, Ryan was a major character and Nick had a small supporting role. When push came to shove, Nick Kopp had to step in during certain scenes and take Ryan’s place, making Nick’s character more prominent than Ryan’s.

Several members of the cast and crew had other projects running at the same time as production for this movie. Sam Shenberger had been working on “Chronicles of the Chronicler 3: The Lost World”, Carl Mohr was writing and filming “Fischer” during principle photography, Shannon Asprooth was directing a drama club play at MCC (which Sam Shenberger was also in), and crew member Robb Chase was working on the script for “Killer Conscience”, which was shot shortly after this movie wrapped (Sam and Carl have cameos in this short). Also, the MCC Film Club shot promos for the MCC Student Senate as well as a small Home Run Inn Pizza commercial. Both of these projects starred Sam, Shannon, Carl, Robb, and Antonio Clinton.

The first several scenes take place over the course of one day. However, that same period was filmed over a period of eleven days.

First Chronicler’s Company Pictures film to include swearing, even though it was not in the script.

The climax was shot over a period of five days. The exchange between Sam and Jack at the very end was filmed on three of those five days, each time with a different actor as Aaron.

You can’t really see it in the movie, but Lindsay Parker actually has one of the other two missing arrowheads hanging from her wristband. This was meant to be a major plot point in the movie, but when production ran over-long, Lindsay’s role had to be shortened, resulting in this sub-plot being dropped.

The ending of the film is almost completely different from the ending of the script.

The climax alone totaled around 645,480 frames. It took over 10 hours to render.

The house seen in the film severed duel purposes. The exterior and first floor were used as the Freebergs’ house, and the basement was used as Sam’s drawing studio.

The day after filming ended, Sam Shenberger got his hair cut short. When Shannon Asprooth first saw him with short hair, she did not recognize him.

The blooper reel at the end of the credits was originally seventeen minutes long. It had to be shortened to 8.

The film features several locations that were used in previous Chronicler’s Company Pictures projects as well as locations used in Carl Mohr’s previous films, including the basement set for Sam’s studio (Sam’s “A Day in the Life”, “Chronicles of the Chronicler”, “Holiday Greeting 2011”), the Freeberg’s house (Sam’s “Rain”, “Holiday Greeting 2009”, “Holiday Greeting 2010”, “Holiday Greeting 2011”), The Old Abandoned Storehouses (Carl’s “Fischer”), the woods (Carl’s “Backwoods”, “Thaw”), and the park (Sam’s “Hollywood Grail”).

It was actually very cold while filming the scene in the woods. Sam Shenberger and Carl Mohr would put on jackets in between takes to warm up, since they had to wear short sleeves in the scene. (Sam accidentally forgot to take his jacket off in one shot.)

Several of the film’s best lines were either not in the script or just plain old improvised, including “Dang it, I hate it when these things happen”, “This would be real easy, but this would be more fun”, “Tomorrow’s gonna be one hell of a day”, and “Bro, you got beat up by a girl!”

Shannon Asprooth was 19 playing a 16 year old character. Both Nick Kopp and Mackenzie Freemire were younger than Shannon (Kenzie being 17 and Nick being 16), but played characters who were older than Shannon’s character (Kenize playing 17 and Nick playing 18).

Sam Shenberger took a year off from drawing comics to make this movie. In 2012, when he started drawing again, he made the decision that the movie and the comics are two separate entities, both reflect each other, but neither depend on the other. Post-movie comics do not have Sam and Bailey in love (one comic has Sam outright saying he does not love Bailey, they are just friends) and Jack Weidman, Lindsay Parker, and Aaron are not included. The only thing introduced in the movie that was carried on was the changing of the character's last names.

In 2012, Shannon Asprooth and Carl Mohr were added as regular characters in the comics. It was debated for a while that Carl would be added as Jack, but eventually, Carl was added as himself. Sarah Kusz was also added.

SPOILERS ALERT

(SPOILER) On the day that the final scene of the movie was shot (also Bailey Freemire’s last day of filming before leaving for college), the shoot was nearly completed when the camera’s battery died. While the crew was waiting for it to charge, it started raining. When the rain stopped, it was dark outside. Since Bailey’s final scene was incomplete, the shot of her and Sam about to kiss had to be filmed in the dark even though the rest of the scene had been shot in broad daylight. Carl Mohr then had to take the footage from earlier and make it dark to match the one shot.

(SPOILER) The character Lindsay had a vital role to play in the intended script. When scheduling became a major issue, her final scenes in the film had to be cut, resulting in her role being severely diminished. In the intended script, she was actually a ninja (which carried the weight of the comedic side of Sam's Comics)

(SPOILER) The idea for a main character to possess a valuable arrowhead necklace and not know that it was valuable was actually a central storyline for an unfinished script Sam Shenberger wrote in 2008 called “Legend of the Black Arrow”. This script also featured characters with personalities highly similar to those of the three Freeberg sisters and Nick.

(SPOILER) There were a total of seven complete sequences that were omitted or replaced after the first draft of the script. 1) An alternate opening scene where Sam has a dream that turns into a nightmare, 2) A short exchange between Sam and Bailey that established their friendship 3) A volley ball game, 4) Sam and Ryan sneak into the Freeberg’s house and hide in Bailey’s closet to avoid being found, 5) a longer dialogue between Sam and Ryan before Sam discovers that Ryan believes Jack, 6) Kenzie and Molly discover for themselves that Bailey has been kidnapped and 7) Sam’s “inspirational speech” before the big climax.

(SPOILER) The script called for Jack to have a cowardly side kick named Aaron who later turned against Jack and helped Sam and Lindsay to capture him.  First Max Geraci (who appeared in Carl Mohr’s “Backwoods” and “Fischer” movies) was cast as Aaron, but he was non-committal.  Then “Thaw” star, Antonio Clinton was cast but he too was non-committal. After that, Tim McEstes was brought on and had even filmed one scene with Carl Mohr and Lindsay Allen before he had to back out for various reasons. Then Andy Abraham was cast. After that, the role became open once again, and Antonio Clinton came back to finish the part.

(SPOILER) Carl Mohr wanted to have Sam and Bailey kiss at the end of the film. When this idea was first pitched, Sam Shenberger flat out refused, not wanting to have a relationship between the characters. He insisted that the relationship between the two characters was strictly friendship with nothing serious. Once filming started and Sam got a good look at the footage that was already shot, he reluctantly agreed that the film needed the love story to make it stronger.

(SPOILER) There were several scenes in the shooting script that were never filmed due to time constraints. Included were: A short scene introducing Nick’s character as a class clown, a scene where Jack Weidman first begins spreading rumors about Sam (cut because production fell behind with Bailey Freemire’s schedule), a montage sequence showing the gradual downfall of Sam’s credibility, a scene where Sam conveys his disbelief that everyone believes Jack to Lindsay, a scene in which Bailey and Jack have dinner together while Sam, Molly, Nick, and Kenzie have to cook it (cut because of scheduling issues), a sequence where Molly and Ryan talk after Sam and Jack’s first fight, a scene showing Sam being confronted by a ninja - who turns out to be Lindsay - that tells him that Bailey was kidnapped, and a scene after Lindsay tells Sam that Bailey is kidnapped in which Sam gathers Nick, Kenzie, and Molly together before leaving to rescue Bailey.

(SPOILER) Due to scheduling conflicts, Shannon Asprooth was unable to be there when the film’s final moments were shot. This is why Rachael is not in the finale.

(SPOILER) A detailed back story for Jack Weidman was written in the script for Lindsay to explain, but it was long and wordy, so it was trimmed down to give Lindsay Allen an easier time to memorize. This scene ended up being dropped when production ran over-long.

(SPOILER) Bailey's blue hoodie was actually a stroke of luck, because Sam made Bailey wear his own jacket in one scene to hide the fact that she was not wearing the same shirt as in a following scene. Because the rescue scene was filmed in late October and Sam Shenberger didn’t want to run around outside wearing just a t-shirt, he wrote in that Sam wears Bailey’s hoodie so he wouldn’t have to freeze. That later proved to be a good way for Jack to realize that Aaron had betrayed him, as Jack would recognize the hoodie from when he ransacked her house, and realize that Sam must have brought it with him.

(SPOILER) Three scenes in the movie were edited so that they still work with the story, but were actually unfinished during principle photography. These scenes are: Sam and Nick talking about how Sam plans to ask Bailey out (unfilmed footage would have had Kenzie and Molly coming in the scene), the picnic scene (Sam mentions seeing something in the trees, later revealed to be Lindsay, but her part was never filmed), and the scene at the end after Sam has rescued Bailey (Bailey has her back to him with her arms crossed, Sam starts apologizing, but Bailey coldly keeps her back to him, seeming not to forgiving him. Sam would turn and walk away, dejected, but Bailey suddenly turns around and runs after him and jumps on him in a hug. This had to be reworked to compensate for how the filmmakers ran out of time to film the scene).