For the second year in a row, we've rallied the troops to create a rocking Halloween Special just in the nick of time! Despite the epic-length shoots, bad directions and several buckets of blood later, we think the finished episode turned out quite well!
The Making of the
Season Five Halloween Special involved:
- 17 scripted pages
- 1 significantly improvised scene
- 2 hours of raw footage
- 7 shoots over 5 days
- 16+ hours of editing
Fun Facts, Scene by Scene:
* Initially, cast members Rick Hertzig (Glenn), Courtney Jenkins (Tabitha), Trent Wolfred (Pryce) and Ann Turiano (Caroline) worked with creator Justin Kownacki to develop ideas for a vampire-themed episode. When we couldn't agree on one specific script, each contributor wrote 1 or 2 outlines, the best portions of which were combined into one script -- primarily based upon Courtney's outline.
* The original script ran 17 pages and included a lot of screen time for Tim (played by Ryan Ben). But when Ryan's availability dried up due to a stage play he'd been cast in, the script was rewritten on the fly to excuse his absence.
* The episode opens with Dierdre (Lacey Fleming) taking photos in a graveyard. We'd been given directions to an "old cemetery" in Bellevue -- but, when we followed them, we wound up on the private property of a convent. There
was a graveyard there, but it was chock full of (deceased) nuns. Feeling this was a bad location for a vampire spoof, we drove on and found the graveyard you see in the episode.
* The "meat" Dierdre eats in the kitchen is actually wheat bread soaked with fake blood.
* The two angles of Caroline stumbling upon Dierdre in the kitchen -- Caroline's and Dierdre's -- were filmed 9 hours apart; Dierdre was not present during Caroline's angle.
* When Caroline wakes up in bed, she's fallen asleep reading a copy of
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins -- a work that seeks to disprove the existence of God.
* Liz was mauled by Caroline in record time -- actress Jennifer Koegler had tickets to see a stage production of "12 Angry Men" 20 minutes after that shot was filmed.
* The makeup for all 4 vamps was created by Ann Turiano. (Yep, Caroline herself.) That makeup also had to be recreated for 3 separate days of filming.
* When Glenn enters Affogato, he's greeted telepathically by 3 of the 4 vamps -- but not Dierdre (listen closely -- we never recorded her audio).
* If you look closely, you can see Tabitha and Liz looming in the window behind Glenn as the men plot their defense in the courtyard.
* The "go on three" exchange between Rich (Erik Schark), Leo (Will Guffey) and Glenn was completely improvised, several times over. The best portions were included in the finished sequence.
* Rick Hertzig (Glenn) spent the better part of a day whittling the handles of a hammer and a plunger into stakes -- on his own time.
* Liz's "burning" reaction to the holy water? Baking soda, food coloring and vinegar.
* Leo stabs Tabitha with the utility knife usually kept in the trusty STBD camera bag (which he also uses to whittle stakes in the men's room). Makeup artists Jim Schmeichel and Ashley Leshen took great care to keep the tool intact for future use, but it was errantly left in the camera bag and confiscated during a routine security check at the JFK airport in New York City the following weekend. Oops.
* Leo clubs Caroline with a hammer, but he makes impact with a dummy's head wearing a wig. Unfortunately, actor Will Guffey missed the mark on the dummy's head and failed to trigger the blood packet attached underneath.
* Leo then stabs Dierdre in the back with the same hammer -- which, in closeup, is actually a piece of cardboard with Dierdre's fishnet shirt stretched across it and a blood packet rigged underneath.
* Liz's scarred arm, the aftermath of the holy water burns, was a latex application created from scratch in the back room of Affogato and applied over 30 minutes.
* When Dierdre bites Glenn, she doesn't actually have vampire fangs. That's because she wouldn't have been able to get a grip on the blood tube running up Glenn's neck. Unfortunately, the tube was attached a little
too securely, and actress Lacey Fleming couldn't dislodge it with her teeth. This created an FX misfire, which led to the same shot being filmed two nights in a row. Footage from each take was used.
* When Leo stakes Dierdre with the
Mathis 4 Mayor sign, he's actually shoving the stake-tipped end of the sign post through another cardboard / mesh / blood packet contraption rigged by the makeup artists. (And the staking was actually performed by Rick Hertzig, as Will Guffey had already left the set.)
* For the wide shot, in which the audience sees the sign run through Dierdre from front and back, Lacey Fleming was fitted with a waist-only harness that supported the severed ends of a second, "prop" version of the sign. That harness prevented Lacey's full range of motion, requiring Rick Hertzig to help her to the ground even as Glenn himself was dying off-camera.
* The finished episode was edited over the course of 7 days, including several "bursts" conducted in the hallway at
PodCamp Boston 2 (and in the car en route).
* The music for this episode was graciously donated by local Pittsburgh artist
Paralyzed Circuitry and nearby label
High Noon Records -- the latter of whom came through with great tracks via email just as editing was wrapping up. Perfect timing!
Questions? Comments? Leave them below!
Labels: behindthescenes, fx, halloween, makeup, somethingtobedesired, stbd, vampires, video production, web series
Erik Schark (aka Rich on STBD) and Rick Hertzig (aka Glenn) each noticed this bit of news today: Something to Be Desired is featured on Yahoo video's homepage, in both the "Channels" AND "Featured Videos" section -- which we think is very cool.
