.44 Reasons

Hat tip to Chris Merritt, Turner Mayo, and Tim Ros.
Nice execution. Click the image for a video clip.

Bring Me The Head of Jeremiah Jones

I'm looking into becoming a Muslim cleric so I can declare a Fatwa on the booking agent at the Jupiter. Everyone knows what a Fatwa is, right? First the offending individual shames Muhammad, or touches an unclean woman, or prays towards Boise instead of Mecca. After stoking the ire of denominational leaders, the individual is issued a Fatwa, then ostracized and shunned (if not hunted outright). Salman Rushdie has one; Osama bin Laden has one. And soon, so shall Jeremiah Jones.

It all started three weeks ago when our production staff sought to cement the movie's premiere date. Chris shot him emails, visited and called the venue repeatedly. And, really, the goal there was just determining whether April 20 was already booked. A simple YES or NO question. The reply could have literally been one character long.

Jeremiah made no indication that we were even on his radar. To be fair, I've since discovered that he prefers an AOL account to his work email. But then, why even have a work email? Why put it on the website, then not list the alternative one below? His later claim that he recieved no Chris Merritt emails, therefore, is moot.

Since Chris made no headway, I cast my line into the pond. Bear in mind, I'm still in Southern California, and Jupiter's still on the Tuscaloosa Strip, so I had to just call and hope he answered. I left a message or two, and he finally answered on my third try. (I'd obtained his private number through surreptitious means...) After an awkward, forced hello, he honed right in on what I was after, which told me he'd received the emails. He gruffly stated that April 20 was booked, then fell silent and offered no suggestions or counter-proposals. I could see that Mr. Helpful wasn't exactly teeming with ideas, so I arranged to call him back.

The next day, I raised him after a couple unreturned calls, meaning to book the thing for May 4. We set the calendar and discussed details, but he surprised me with a confoundingly excessive rental fee. I went ahead and made the book, but with the understanding that we'd talk further.

I related these findings to Chris, who found the figures baffling, particularly as he'd had ongoing contact with local musicians who'd used the venue in the past. We determined that I'd approached this all wrong, that I'd failed to clarify the profit potential. Once Jeremiah started "inventing" fees for sound considerations and trying to rent a room that should have been free, I stripped my proposal down to a bare bones presentation of the movie alone, no music acts. But my greatest weapon was having onboard two of the hottest bands in the Tuscaloosa music scene: Baak Gwai and Chinese Dentist.

Members of either band graciously offered to pick up where I'd left off in dealing with Jeremiah, essentially acting as a delegation. So, I called Jeremiah yesterday to set this up, telling him first that we had to renegotiate the terms. He responded in his flacid way that he couldn't wave the fees, that they weren't arbitrary numbers, and that the rental fee was what it was. Not good enough, I told him.

I wanted to make it plain that KW2 is a movie with a built-in following, that our track record should speak for itself. While in the middle of recounting our packed releases for KW1 and "Dude, Where's My Boat?" I felt a sudden surge of dead air on the line, even deader than his already vacuous personality. He had hung up on me.

Persistence is my strongsuit, so I called back. No answer. I tried again, but went ignored. After my fifth try he answered, pretending like nothing happened.

"I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn't just hang up on me."

"I didn't hang up on you..."

Didn't matter to me; if you're cut off in the middle of a civil conversation and they don't answer when called back (until being annoyed into doing so) that's still a hang-up.

I didn't care to argue the point. I simply tried to arrange a meeting with the delegation for some time in the next day or two, and that's when his volume really peaked.

"I don't have time to meet anyone. We got Kenny Chesney playing this week."

"We have time sensitive marketing considerations. You've kept us waiting long enough."

"Man, we got Kenny Chesney! Do you know who that is? You're asking me to worry about something going down in May, months away."

"Aren't you the one who told me you typically book shows 6 to 12 months in advance? Is this a business or isn't it?"

"Kenny Chesney!"

I wittled him down a bit, and he somehow found a way to reduce the trumped up fee, confirming our suspicions that he'd tried to fleece us. More than anything, he was clearly sick of being berated. He said he was trying to feed his baby daughter.

"This is rude. Do you know how rude this is? Bugging me when I'm trying to feed my daughter!"

"Let's review the definition of rude, shall we? In my book rude is not returning emails, not returning phone calls, and hanging up on someone when they're trying to make you money..."

We bickered another few minutes, then ended on a note of mutual loathing. He agreed to see my delegation, but on his terms, meaning I had two hours to get our players in position. The only musician available on short notice was Chris Johnson of Chinese Dentist (who also plays "Charles" in KW2). Johnson graciously obliged Merritt and I by meeting Jeremiah at the Jupiter yesterday evening.

The very first thing our shaggy friend said: "I'm not dealing with Matt Stewart anymore." It was with that abrupt declaration that Chris Johnson became our defacto distribution manager. They spoke amicably on the details, finally agreeing to a number sure to please everyone. (And far below the "bargain" he'd originally tried to bilk us into.) Special thanks to Mr. Johnson for making the deal.

But my emnity for Mr. Jones has still not past. It didn't help when I learned he'd called my office asking for me, and he left a message using choice language. So it's with deep regret and apologies to Western religions that I must now transform myself into a ruthless fundamentalist cleric. In good time, I will have climbed the ranks of a small but faithful congregation, winning their trust and respect and maybe even... their love. When they're prepared to die for me, that's when I'll mobilize the lot and start drilling them for the unholy crusade in which they're about to partake. Look out, Jeremiah. I'm about to go Jihad.

Matt

Premiere Date Set!

At long last, we've firmed up plans for the long-awaited debut of "Killer Weed 2":

Thursday May 4th
Jupiter Bar & Grill
On the Strip/Tuscaloosa, AL
(range of 9 to midnight)

The venue is set, money has been discussed, and the movie will be ready in plenty of time.

For anyone who's followed the depressing string of changes regarding the premiere, you know this wasn't our first choice. The dates were changed more often than an Elton John wig. A brief history of rejected dates:

SUMMER 2005 - Some people may think KW2 is now a pleasant memory, completed and premiered at the target date still blotting the end of our website teaser. Not so. The teaser is a left-over relic from secondary photography; a very optimistic time when we had every reason to believe we'd be done in August, at worst. We should've known that shooting would drag out; that we'd think of ways to prolong the process and frustrate our principles. But the single biggest determinant in axing the Summer launch was Scott's sudden move to L.A. in September.

1/06/06 - Once Scott and myself were living and working under one roof, early January seemed a more than reasonable pick. Post-production was chugging ahead despite busy day jobs, and the 6th corresponded with the tail end of our holiday trips home. Alas, we concluded that our audience would still be on vacation. And, naturally, when the holidays sprung up, there was still a lot to do.

MID-MARCH - So when visiting Tuscaloosa, the usual reply to curious fans wanting to know "When?" was "Sometime in March." While this deflected a lot of questions, it was really just a stopgap answer until we could come up with something more solid. Not almost sort-of solid, but solid-solid. Like a good stool sample.

4/20/06 - Somehow, no one hit upon this date until Scott was perusing his "Girls of the US Senate" calendar one day (looking for Barbara Boxer's birthday) and it leapt right out at him. Apparently April 20th is something of a soft holiday for potheads. And given all the soft mush in their brains, it's likely the easiest date for them to remember. Sadly, the venue was booked that entire week so we went with the next best thing...

MAY 4th, 2006 - This seems like the best fix. It falls within dead week at the University of Alabama -- right between classes and exams -- and gives everyone plenty of notice. What's more, we have a few extra weeks to polish the film and arrange merchandising. This just got serious.

Matt

Grab Bag

Gore pickup for Scene 10. Shot in LA over Thxgiving.
Click here for video.













I had my cameo as "L.C." in the infomercial.

Check out "Killer War", the main KW2 theme,
by our man Joe. Look for more cuts from the
KW2 soundtrack over the coming weeks...

Busy times, indeed. Good times...

Dripping With Draper

Another busy few days here. Last night we shot a behind-the-scenes interview with Scott for the DVD doc, and it went painlessly. Scott took a list of talking points and responded to my prompts from there. May I just say that his insights were informative and well-spoken. No doubt his experience as an editor has turned him off to talking heads blithering uncontrollably for minutes at a time, then blindly stumbling towards something resembling an answer. Kudos.

I can't wait to hack into my existing edit and add his gracious contributions, which is why I spent today transcribing the dubbed tape and later digitizing the good bits. Problem is, they're all good bits. In the next week I begin splicing into my timeline and improving the movie tenfold.

One thing stood out as I shot it and watched it and typed it and rewatched it and dig'd it: Scott enjoys talking about our movie. He enjoys the sense of authorship and oversight. He likes shepherding Chris and I through the spiritual wilderness that is post-production. He likes the element of chance, "the jazz" as Mr. T would call it. And I think that's why I like Scott.

From our earliest collaborations with Bill Moses on, from the Hillbilly sketches on up through 'Dude, Where's My Boat?', Scott's never wavered when faced with a project that's at once time-consuming and profit-averse. He's never needed a reason to do it, which is why we make a perfect fit.

Asked in interview why he works these silly movies, Scott said: "Every time I pull out, (Matt) pulls me back in." Well, I would remind my friend that it was he who pulled me in this time. But who am I kidding; he just beat me to it. We've always seized on a mutual gravitational draw, like two binary stars spinning in formation, each waiting for the other to burn out.

Matt

KW2 Headlines

Update time. A lot has happened in the last few weeks, including holiday travel to and from Alabama, but now it's back to business as usual at the Wm. Moses H.Q. in sunny SoCal.

Scott Draper spent a lot of time in December working with an old colleague to punch out effects shots, mainly keying backgrounds. A lot of technical mish-mash, and time-consuming.

Elsewhere, Chris Merritt and I were coordinating a run of custom stickers for advertising purposes. Special thanks to his parents for footing the cash.

Costume honeypot Karolyn Mayo singlehandedly sewed a miniature version of the Pope wardrobe. This of course is intended for our littlest star, the Pope puppet (Poppet), and my, does he look dashing.

Speaking of dummies, I'm in the middle phases of completing one more, marking a change of plans. I've scrapped my initial notion of reproducing all three principals/puppets in favor of a funnier (and easier) solution. For now I'm keeping the specifics to myself.

Otherwise, I've spent my time editing, and of course writing on other projects. If it was ever in doubt, the "very thin behind-the-scenes reel" (as I've called it in an earlier post) has slowly become this sprawling gargantuan love letter to everyone involved. So, yes, it keeps me up nights.

Scott is in the next room massaging the real movie with even more tender loving care. Something tells me he likes to edit naked.

He outsourced one scene of the film to me for rough editing, and I was kind of nervous I'd screw it up. Worked extra hard on it. Pretty much passed it over to Scott yesterday, and am glad to be rid of it. So far so good.

And the last item: KW2 illustrations are now 90% complete and scanned. It took me a day to do all this, if you count the scans I did for...

"8-Toe'd Joe & The Army of Toes!!!" -- That's right! Making its triumphant return in a special retouched second printing, it's my 2001 comic book all about the real-life 8-Toe'd Joe and Pope and their absurd encounter with the Toe Army as led by Der Fuhrer Toe! Details later...

Matt

Doppelganger Powers, Activate!

Thanksgiving went by in a blink. Chris Merritt arrived one day earlier, and we wasted no time strapping on the work boots. When we finally got back to the William Moses Office Park (my apartment), I barely knew where to begin. So much to show and tell.

Chris took his first look at the now complete Poppet head, saw drawings, read logs, watched splices, and, with due enthusiasm, viewed the rough-rough cut of Killer Weed 2.

See, editor Scott cobbled together the existing scenes and plopped them onto DVD for Chris to keep and review. Chris beamed as he watched it, his gaze locked into the screen, and at the end, when he finally turned away, there was a definite fire in his eyes.

Over the holiday weekend we set out to accomplish a number of things:
1) a sound effects recording session
2) filming the slicing open of 2 blood-filled prop necks
3) a Chris Merrit interview for the behind-the-scenes DVD movie

We did the sound effects first, going to the grocery store for food to stab, chop, slice and dice and otherwise mutilate. That was Thanksgiving Day. At the end of it all, we three looked around and realized we'd pulverized every piece of grub in the house. And so, we had to go back to the grocery store, and again brave the long lines just so we wouldn't have to eat gum paste for dinner.

The neck-slicing was less cut and dry, as the whole ordeal from inception was experimental at best. Chris and I spent the better part of Day 2 dressing the neck and torso, mixing blood and generally getting things ready. Come showtime, the three of us bickered over the exact approach and probably spent a whole hour just staring at it. All in all, the neck sliced nicely and the blood spewed freely and everyone seemed happy.

One other gore pickup made the list, albeit on short order. An early scene in KW2 features zombies yanking entrails from some unlucky schmo. Though not absolutely necessary, we decided to pad this with an insert shot of a ripped-open belly, complete with ghoul hands poking around inside.

Unlike the necks (which were the product of months-long work and makeshift science) the belly-rip came together in the fever of a single day. I simply made a layer of liquid latex skin; added crimson cotton muscle tissue; then blood-filled condom organs; folded the skin over; and voila: one gut burrito. Chris taped it to my abdomen. Soon thereafter he and some volunteers ripped into the sucker for the camera.

Chris Merritt's last full day saw us switch modes entirely, from KW2 itself to the featurette. He helped me organize segments along a flow chart by category (makeup, cast, etc.). From there we built a loose structure, enabling us to visualize it as a whole and acknowledge the holes. The purpose of the interviews is to plug the holes.

Chris and I dressed a one wall set and before long he was rolling off sound bites. The interview played like a formal conversation under familar tones. And a great way to spend my waning hours with Chris without actually having to be social. I find non-Killer Weed matters trivial, and I was tired of hearing about his man-rash.

Matt

A Few Words On Nutrition

Woke up this morning feeling terrible, and it took me a moment to remember why. I determined that I must not have eaten anything yesterday, being far too preoccupied with KW2 matters. Completely forgot. I worked all day and night and nary a peep from my guts.

What was I doing all day?

In the morning I logged footage, Tape 051417, and wasn't that a blast. When I first started logging tapes 3 months ago, it was fun to watch the raw dailies because it was like finally being a part of the shoots. (As mentioned in the Production Report, I returned to L.A. after filming my few scenes.) But a man can only take so much rewinding and fastforwarding. I'm now intimately acquainted with every scene, every take, every mannerism and expression on record. And I took notes. Luckily, that was the last of our 18 tapes.

The next thing needs a little explaining. I ended my logging and moved directly into constructing a torso. When Chris gets here, one of the things on our to do list is filming a small gore supplement involving the slitting of duplicate prop necks. Correct, months back I scuplted these necks and fitted them with internal tubes from which blood should gush. The torso is simply a foundation for the necks, which are interchangeable.

Fashioning the torso basically meant combining found objects. The base is an applebox, the midriff a milk jug, and the rest is wire armature layered in bubble wrap. And it's scary convincing. Example:

Walked into my living room today and startled on seeing a short, hooded George W. Bush staring at me from the corner. In my weakened state I'd forgotten that Scott mounted the mask on the headless chest, leaving an eyeless and bloated Dubya looking like he just came from a Weezer concert.

So making the torso took a while, but not as long as you'd think. Working with metal gave me the itch to build another armature, so after consulting with Scott I shifted to creating a chimera. This is quite plainly a hood put over lights which, when combined with thick diffusion, soften shadows on actors. I made one way back early December '04 when we were starting production, but it stayed in Tuscaloosa. Since we're filming more than a couple gore pickups over Thanksgiving, and will continue to do so, I thought I'd better get a jump on it.

Well, what I must have got was more like a gravity-defying kung fu flying leap on it, because lo and behold, come 6 a.m. I was done. I'm not sure if it's because the new chimera is smaller than its predecessor or if it's because the wire is extra malleable or what, but it took 2 days less than last time.

Maybe last time I stopped to eat.

Matt

There's Something About Merritt

A lot has been going on. I've spent the last week or so alternating between the behind-the-scenes editing and Poppet construction. Editing's been met with a litany of obstacles, mainly software issues. A lot of solid sound mixing has been lost to export and playback issues. Countless hours wasted negotiating with the damn thing, lucky to get even 45 seconds onto these compilation tapes I'm making.

The compilation tapes, which are filled with raw outtakes, documentary footage and sweetened splices alike, will eventually be the source tapes for the actual DVD extras. Soon, all full composite tapes will be dubbed off and logged as a time-saver for Chris and I when it comes to the real-deal edit.

You heard right, director Chris Merritt's visit to our modest office/barracks begins next Wednesday Nov 23. He's chomping at the bit, naturally, since he has seen little to none of the existing movie. Scott's got the meat of the thing in-pocket, and the parts he'll let me see are nothing short of butt-shattering.

But although he'll lend a fresh eye and make some notes, where Chris may come in most useful is in helping me structure this behind-the-scenes garbage. By the time he arrives, I'll have done all the needed paperwork to make this thing cruise right along.

Matt

Red Team Go!

Post is humming along smoothly. I've passed the halfway mark editing the film, with a lot of the remaining tidbits consisting of shorter scenes and scenes that draw on material from KW1. All that remains then is to complete the matte work on the composites, render the effects shots, color time the scenes, and mix the audio. That last part is fun because it includes us recording foley effects in our living room with Chris Merritt over Thanksgiving. Send fruit.

As Matt has mentioned, our premiere date got thrown off a bit and we were forced to re-evaluate our time frame. The bright side of that is that it gives us some extra time to spend in post. I wish I could cut KW2 for a living, but fortunately for me I'm working a pretty grueling work schedule these days. Everyone involved in posting KW2 works in post-production professionally, by the way, which means they deserve mad props for sacrificing their spare time to make this a kick ass flick. I should mention Todd Beabout, who is the Combustion artist helping us do matte work. And who could forget Burke miles, motion graphics sensei and title sequence designer. And, of course, our very own Matt Stewart, who as you all know is tirelessly compiling making of sequences and gag reels to pepper the DVD with special features.

Who knows if Bill Moses will ever bother with a post-production addendum to the production report. Given the length of that depraved document, I can't say as I'd blame him. So I just wanted to introduce/thank the post production crew and update everyone on the progress. Trailer soon.

scott