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The Athens 4 and the CarnEVIL!
(continued)

        Then comes the part where Ed explains the release the guy has to sign, that he puts his name and apparently the company address (since the two people above him on the list have the same address), and that the film company can actually use the footage in ANY of their movies (huh?), but don't worry because it won't end up in porn or anything.   Suddenly I'm torn between thinking "Sucker!" and so glad he showed up and I didn't have to do the shot for Ed. When the guy looks at the name above the line he's supposed to sign, he asks what she did for the movie. Ed said she was the cotton candy lady.   The guy says, "That's my mom." Wow!
    By now, it's perfect for Ed to get his final dusk shots and I'm freezing (the temps were hitting 80 on Saturday, but the storm that blew through Saturday night -- Ed said he got great lightning shots of the place, although the carnies were worrying that bad weather would drive away the last Saturday night of their business -- were bringing in lows of 30 degrees that night, and everybody was dreading breakdown, which would be fully kicking in after midnight.
    But the cell phone rings, and it's Ed's boss Dave calling in from L.A. In seconds, Ed volunteers the info that I'd volunteered showing fear in a reaction shot (this particular moment would have been the perfect time to have the camera on me for that), and Ed tells me that Dave wants him to shoot me.   Great. Thoughts of my image appearing in whatever movie these guys make for the next 50 years shudder through my brain -- but I promised Ed (in the name of Bruce Campbell, I will endure this, I tell myself), so I'm getting ready to react and the phone rings again.   Ed answers it and looks at me with a mocking scowl, and just as I'm dreamily wondering if Dave was calling to say cancel that, Ed hangs up and says, "Dave wants a shot of ME reacting, too!" And we both cruelly point and HA! at each other.
    Ed gives me an eyeline of the skull on the really cool SeaFarer ride behind him (aka the Jolly Roger, etc - the boat ride that swings up and down) to look at as reference of the monster, except that the ride's about the start, which would be moving my eyeline waaaaay up and then waaaaaay over and then waaaaaaay up...   I find another one and get ready, and Ed throws in that less is more on video -- big plays really big, so I have to play it down. Great. Subtle cheesy low budget horror is not what's been in my head all day. Let's go. So I'm bebopping along (no cell phone, no props, my hair looks like garbage) and stop and look up and fear! and run stumbling away.   Ed says that's great, but why doesn't he hold the release forms on this take. Fine. Perfectionist. I do it again, and Ed laughs and says he wishes I was holding a baby on that one. A couple more with higher eyelines (for the possible giant digital thing taking over the carnival -- I mean, CarnEVIL), and we're done with me.
    Moving down the carnival for Ed's take (far enough away that balloon guy doesn't see us and think we're reshooting his scene), and Ed kills some time taking a portrait shot of a carny he'd been dying to grab since the evening before (another carny cowboy who doesn't change expression EVER), and I point out he's killing the matching light time pretty effectively and sabotaging his reaction shot.   He laughs.
    Quickly we get some shots of Ed walking into frame with his still camera, reacting and running, and I proclaim again that I'm FREEZING. We freezingly walk back toward the gate, freezingly wait on Ray to tell him goodbye, and freezingly get back to Ed's rental car, where I'm still freezing, and I call Mark, who says Mike won't make it out for dinner, and we eventually agree on meeting at the Olive Garden because I want HOT FOOD NOW.
    When we meet up with Mark at the Olive Garden, Ed and I are pretty much tearing through food, assuring Mark he didn't miss much at the carnival graveyard and other stories, and Mark says, "GUESS what Mike's dream scenario would be at the auction!" And Ed and I both make lame guesses, both saying he got to keep the skateboard (Mike hates giving up some of his stuff, and he was starting to get attached to the skateboard), and eventually earning an angry eyeroll from Mark when I suggest Michael Stipe bought the skateboard (Hey! Friend of Mike's AND a celebrity endorsement!).   Finally he tells us that Mike got the HIGHEST bid price of anybody -- GUESS how much! Ed began in the low hundreds, and Mark kept chanting "higher..." $900!!! He said Mike was still kinda dizzy from the excitement, and I said, oh, yeah, he didn't need to be driving heavy equipment to and from Atlanta after something like that.
    After we were sufficiently stuffed (me egging Ed into a tiramisu dessert after he'd wiped out a couple of salads and a Tour of Italy plate), we went back to Mark's -- all fighting sleep at this point -- where I took a deep breath and signed the release form.   And Ed informed me that he was pretty sure the high angle shots were intended for "GiANTs" another horror movie (this one with ANTS) the guys were working on, and he was feeling pretty confident I'd be in that one before I'd be in CarnEVIL. Before we knew it, we were watching "The Raven" on Turner Classic Movies -- because, after a weekend of quoting "Ed Wood" while shooting CarnEVIL footage ("You're frightened!   You're not THAT frightened." "A safety? It's PERFECT!"), how could we walk away from Bela and Karloff in the same movie? Much playful commentary ensued, and eventually we haaaaad to wrap it up (I was ready to curl up under the Olive Garden table to nap, and Ed had an early flight out).
    Whew!

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