The Truck Scenes
This was a fun shoot. We're all in a jacked up 4x4 Blazer driving through the desert, in search of the Lost Dutchman's Gold. We're tossing character-developing dialogue back and fourth. People could not believe how well this scene looked and sounded. It looks like we used a car camera mount, but actually, we hung Terry's 110-lb. frame horizontally out the side of the vehicle. The trick was that I had to hold her legs, drive, remember my lines and make it all look natural. A lavaliere microphone was placed in the front seat for some shots, in the back seat for others depending on whom we were shooting.

The Cliff Scenes
Why did the man climb the mountain? O.K., Maybe we shouldn't have done this one, but damn it, it was there! Liz's Character has a harrowing fall, where she is left clinging for her life on the side of a cliff. Bungy's character climbs down to rescue her.

Simple enough, just break out the blue screen, right? Not quite. If the script were written the way it really went, it would go something like this:

EXT - CLIFFSIDE - DAY

Thirty minutes later, she was crying real tears so we had to pull her up. But, the shot looked great!

The Outside Barn Scenes
There's supposed to be a barn behind the trailer. A lot of interaction takes place between the trailer and the barn.

There was no barn, so I had to build one. That's right, a full scale false front. I pulled lumber off various demolition sights and went to work. I even drew up rough blue prints to go by. It took me a few days, but it came out great. Terry helped me paint it to give it a weathered look, and I landscaped a path that went from the trailer to the barn. Once again, the housing commission got all up in arms about us tearing up the desert and construction without a permit. They gave my parents one-month to get one, or they would be fined. I had a choice, finish filming by the due date, or pay for an expensive permit. I opted to finish in a month. The next problem was light. Almost all the scenes we needed took place at night. I knew, from a previous movie we had done, that low-end digital can look grainy as hell at night. We decided to film at dusk. This is the golden half-hour right after the sun goes down, and before it gets too dark. We could adjust the color later, during editing. For an entire month, four nights a week, we traveled thirty miles out, and thirty back, for thirty minutes of film time. I know there was an easier way, I just couldn't think of one. As it turned out, we got really lucky. On the final night of filming outside the barn, a heavy dust storm sent a microburst across the desert. We all ran inside my parents house. We stared out the window as the rain and wind ripped the barn from its foundation (it had none) and sent it wheeling across the desert forest, smashing everything in it's path. With a tear in my eye, I thought to myself, "God wants me to finish this film".

THE INSIDE BARN SCENES
If there's an outside, there's an inside. Most of the creepy stuff happens in the barn where the creature's body is stored.

There was no inside barn because there was no barn. A new barn had to be built, but this time for interior shots. Part of the agreement for using my parent's property, was that I had to leave things just as I had found them. True to my word, the trailer was gutted and moved, the lumber was gathered up from two counties, and aside from a few smashed cacti, the desert was returned to its natural splendor. We took the retrieved wood and rebuilt the interior of the barn in my garage, thirty miles away. This was actually fun. It made for easy control over sound and lighting, and created a good end to our filming because we could do it at our leisure.

EDITING
The editing was very time consuming for many reasons. First, I decided to remix all the sound through a digital recording studio program to clean it up. Then, sync it back to the video. While doing that, I made separate footage that had the vocals pulled, but left all music, background and sound effects. I used that footage to edit a no vocal, foreign version of the film.

Second, I didn't write any music until I saw how the scene looked and felt. It often took days to settle on something I liked. I've received many compliments on how well the musical score fit the movie.

Third, I hadn't finished filming everything yet. I had to break to film this or that. I didn't have the memory in my computer to edit everything at once, so I did it three or four minutes at a time, and transferred it to the master. If a scene was missing, I had to get it before I could continue.

Finally, I had to work a day job. Terry carried a huge portion of the load, but I still needed to work part time to fill in the gaps.

The entire movie, from the first day of shooting, to the last day of editing, took one year to complete and tapped out at about $10,000.

It's a damn good movie.

I have advice for first time filmmakers, who can't get their projects off the ground-

If the sled isn't moving, maybe you and the dog should trade places.

Ben Juhl has spent the last five years refining his craft of independent filmmaking. He is a writer, producer, director, actor, musician, editor and is the founder of Twilightshow Entertainment, in Mesa, Arizona. For more information visit the Twilightshow web site at: www.twilightshow.com.

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