It’s great to be back in Austin working on the creative side of the movie – rather than moving around strips on the production board and trying to figure out how the hell we can get everybody to the right place at the right time. Yesterday, I met with Chase and Craig to go over the details of sets that need to be built and overall production design. The conversation ranged from corrugated metal to which of our friends we could convince to be on the cover of a fake porno magazine. There was also an extended conversation on how best to make a fake Cheetoh’s bag.

We decided to head to Bastrop to check out the warehouse where we’ll be building the sets. Finding a warehouse or studio space has been one of the most difficult aspects of this project. On low-budget movies, you normally don’t build sets. It just isn’t in the budget. I now realize that it’s not really the cost of the sets themselves, but the building you have to find to build them in. My dream was to shoot at Austin Studios, but it just wasn’t meant to be financially. Days and weeks of phone calls later, we finally found a place we could afford (thanks Eric G.). However, the building is in Bastrop (about 40 minutes outside Austin) and it definitely lacks a few important things – like sound proofing and air conditioning.

But, it will put a roof over our heads and give us some space to work. We are going to hopefully minimize some of the downsides by shooting at night, keeping the cast and crew to a minimum and bringing in lots of orange shag carpet and other sound-dampening materials. The big upside is that the building will actually match the exterior location pretty well. We’re planning on using the corrugated metal walls as a design feature. And this movie takes place in the summer… in Texas. People will be sweaty, so we’ll just make that a part of the production design.

Chase spotted this couch on a trash pile behind the building and immediately zeroed in on it. He and Craig grabbed it and it has officially become our first set piece. This movie will be all about scavenging whatever we can get our hands on. In the next week or so we will be putting out the call for donations of assorted odds and ends. Because of the level of detail we want to bring to this world, there’s no way we can do it the traditional Hollywood way – so we will be begging, borrowing and stealing.

We also found this shelf of bones. These are most likely left over from another movie that shot here. Or possibly they were left behind by a serial killer that is prowling the streets of Bastrop. Either way, I took it as a good omen and a nice foreshadowing of the grisly things that will go down in this warehouse very soon.

The Spider Babies Director’s Journal is reprinted from the official website of writer/director Christopher Sharpe.

I feel very nomadic lately. I don’t even have a permanent place to call home at the moment – instead I rely on the kindness and couches of family and friends. When this is all over and I have a permanent residence, I will owe lots of couch-surfing time to so many people. The reason for all the traveling is that the Spider Babies cast and crew are scattered across different cities in Texas and Oklahoma. I am putting lots of mileage on my sad, abused Honda Civic. Yesterday, I paid a visit to Jacknife Ruby on my way back to Austin. She has already completed a ton of work on the costumes – but I was even more excited to see another production wall. At every stop I make, it seems like there is some kind of collage-style wall, each wall reflecting a different aspect of the movie. I snapped a few photos.

Originally, we had planned on bringing in Jacknife for just hair and makeup on the girls. But she is way too talented to use in such a limited capacity. Over time her role has grown to encompass hair, makeup and costumes for the entire production. She has taken the ball and run with it and the results are going to be amazing. Here’s a preview of Polly’s bikini!

We’ll have a lot more for you to look at in the weeks to come. Meanwhile, check out this interview with Jacknife Ruby.

The Spider Babies Director’s Journal is reprinted from the official website of writer/director Christopher Sharpe.

Sam and the Production Board

Our kick-ass A.D. Samantha Albert writes some stuff on the white board in the production office. The clumsily drawn chart is all my doing, though, and tracks who we have coming in and for how long. We’re getting hotel reservations and transportation locked and finalized.

We held yet another audition this Saturday and the results were pretty disappointing. The people who showed were great, but out of the 50 or so people we invited (after looking at head shots), only 7 showed up in person. There are still a lot of small roles to fill. I will save up my rant for a day when I have more time.

The other bad news that we got hit with on Saturday is that our lead actor and all-around awesome guy E. Jason Liebrecht got hit by a car and has a broken leg. Needless to say, this complicates things a little.

The Spider Babies Director’s Journal is reprinted from the official website of writer/director Christopher Sharpe.

Pre-Tribulation Rapture

I spotted the above mini-van while driving on Route 66 scouting locations yesterday. We took it as an interesting omen.

One of the interesting things about location scouting is that you always run across interesting things that you weren’t really looking for. On this trip we stopped by historic <a href=”http://www.fortreno.org/” target=”_blank”>Fort Reno</a>. The kind and informative lady that was worked at the place gave us lots of information about the land rush, ghosts, some guys getting hanged in an elevator shaft and the fact that the place was once a World War II POW camp for captured German soldiers. With visions of Abu Ghraib in my head, I was relieved to find out that they did things quite a bit different in the old days.

At Fort Reno, the prisoners didn’t have it too bad. During the day they actually served as labor for the local community doing things like construction, farm work, shoe repair and even working for bakeries. But this was far from slave labor… the employers paid the government which then paid the prisoners an hourly wage. They even had their own canteen where they could buy cigarettes, luxury items and up to two pints of beer a day. The canteen made a profit which was in turn used to buy things like radios, gramophones, magazines and other things to be used around the camp.

So even though these Germans were prisoners of war, the whole thing was handled in a way that was pretty damn humane and also financially benefited the local community and the federal government. The farmers got cheap labor, the government made some cash, the prisoners got cigarettes, beer and magazines. The situation was so beneficial that a lot of the local farmers who hired the prisoners kept in touch with them long after they returned to Germany.

The Fort is also supposedly haunted by all kinds of ghosts. It’s a little spooky during the day time, I can only imagine it’s pretty scary at night.

Speaking of scary, I spent quite a bit of time walking around this junkyard. It’s so big that I got lost in it and literally could not see the road we came in on. The pictures don’t do it justice.

Junkyard Location

Junkyard Location

The Spider Babies Director’s Journal is reprinted from the official website of writer/director Christopher Sharpe.