The
Athens 4 and the
CarnEVIL!
(continued)
There was a
warehouse with an impressive
tool table
that ran down one wall (for them to work on equipment during the
winter), but that building was pretty empty. We walked the length
of the property, a red clay gully road sort of arrangement through the
woods, and saw the occasional piles of rusted stuff with the
less-occasional recognizable carnival ride pieces (it was getting
clearer why Ray offered to let them blow some of the stuff up if they
wanted to), and woods (which would easily look scary in a movie, and I
was thinking with the wrong guide, Ed and I could have been in our own
horror movie), and the creek at the end of the trail. Plus
a few old trailers and things like the haunted house trailer (Ed poked
around in there and got some shots of the alien in the tank, etc.) --
and I peeked in, since, y'know, it's the haunted house trailer.
There were also dogs (a scary looking pitbull-kinda-looking reddish dog
that was actually the sweet one, a nice Jack Russell, and a big mouth
tiny reddish scruffy dog) and a small horse with his little barn behind
the warehouse. Ed shot video of the place, and we headed
back. (I was relieved I didn't succeed in talking Mark out of
doing whatever he needed to do to visit the place -- not that anyone
talks Mark out of anything once he's put his mind to it.)
The drive back to the carnival conversation picked
up where we left off with personal production stories. Most of
Roy's involved getting around local enforcement (they'd hold up all
kinds of traffic for some Lee Majors' road scene, and when the cops
showed up to give everybody tickets, the cops were happy to put away
the ticketbook and be in the movie -- on one movie, they had the SWAT
team in from Alpharetta before they were finished filming).
His favorite was when they staged a spectacular car and truck wreck
(with some idiot local guy they work with actually driving the thing --
clearly while the real stunt coordinator wasn't around, since he kept
insisting on things like medical standby and the fire department), and
real traffic was backed up, and when a cop pulled up, their guy ran up
to the cop and told him how it was all staged and everybody was fine
and would he like to be in the movie and the cop sighed, "I just want
to get through." And the guy was like, oh!
Sure! Let 'im by, boys! ("'I just want to get through'" sighed
Roy -- then exclaimed, "What a great line!")
The drive also involved my
favorite topic -- carny food! Ed said while he was filming the
cotton candy being made the day before, Ray was going over a list of
new carnival food that was being offered -- the one sticking out in
Ed's mind being "hamburger on a stick." I announce that I
WANT THAT LIST! "How do you put a hamburger on a stick?" Ed
continues. I suggest it's wrapped around the stick like the
hotdog, and Roy agrees, saying maybe they dip it in the same bready
coating, too. "Oh, okay," Ed says, "And you can just put mustard
and ketchup on it same way." "And the lettuce and tomato,"
Roy jokes. I say the onions can just hoop around it.
I demand more.
The only other one Ed can remember is something like
chocolate covered freeze-dried strawberries. Like Raisinettes? I
suggest. He thinks more like the crunchy strawberries in cereals
these days, like styrofoam, and then they'll melt in your mouth with
the chocolate. He's thinking that sounds good. I
bring up the fried Oreos I saw at Perry, and that's a new one on
Roy. He used to like the funnel cakes and elephant ears, but
said, y'know, after a couple of days...
When we get back to the carnival, the wind is
kicking up again, the sun is starting to think about setting, the
temperature is dropping, and I'm definitely getting a corndog.
So we meet up with Ray, Roy disappears, Ed says
we'll just take another pass around the carnival while we waiting on
the balloon actor guy, I mention "and get a corndog," and Ray says,
"We'll take care of that now" and leads us to the nearest corndog booth
and signals the girl for two corndogs despite me saying I didn't mean
for him to treat. Mmmm.... He talks with us while we're munching
down on the PERFECT dogs, and he confirms the list of food Ed had
mentioned, saying the hamburger on a stick is a mystery to him as well
("It just said 'Hamburger on a stick'").
Ed grabs some more video of the carnival ("CarnEVIL"
Ed reminds me) as the sun is just starting to set (which shows off the
lights while still nearly matching the day footage he shot the day
before), and my job continues to be holding his paperwork (with the
valuable release forms). We're waiting on the balloon guy
for the reaction shot, and I suggest Ed use that time to shoot the
"plate shot" -- the point of view of the balloon guy, where the guys
back in L.A. will lay in the monster walking toward him. Of course, at
this point, they don't know if it's going to be a zombie monster or a
giant digital monster, so Ed has to shoot a couple of versions, eye
level and higher. (Ed's impressed that I'm thinking in such
efficient terms, and I remind him that I came out to L.A. originally to
be an AD, and he didn't remember that AT ALL. I said, yeah, and then I
saw where that led and said Bag that! and Ed laughed and
nodded.) We also note that the shot will include a host of
carnival attendees who don't appear to notice the monster, but that's
okay.
We're still waiting on balloon guy and, with the sun
starting to sink, the light's heading toward not matching. I tell
Ed he can shoot me reacting for a safety to match the lighting if he
needs to, Ed happily agrees, and thank GOD the kid shows
up. (He said he had hat hair and had to work awhile to get
rid of it.)
The kid (he reminds me of Danny Nucci -- and he
looks older than 12, but Ed ages people that way -- 12 or Methuselah)
has a thing all worked out -- he'll be walking down the street, maybe
talking on his cell phone, he looks up and sees the thing, says "I'll
talk to you later," runs and maybe falls down... (I'm thinking how long
do you think this trailer is?). Ed works with him pretty
quickly and very politely, suggesting he hold a prop (the guy grabs a
stuffed bear from the booth over, which draws sarcasm from his fellow
carny -- "That bear cost me $25!" Yeah - that and $24.50)(plus a young
woman walks over to talk to him teasingly and he pushes her away
because he's working -- later he tells us that's his mom) and I'm
thinking it's after a number of different angle takes, it's
disaster. Ed's fine (he's made worse), and I'm just cold
and ready to go.
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