The Making of Fluffy Part 2

Fluffy was filmed in the hot summer of 2004 in New Albany, Indiana, Palmyra, Indiana, Louisville, Kentucky, and of course, Mars. It was the third of three movies shot in collaboration between myself and artist/writer/actress/producer Natalie Gilbert. (The first film, "Open Doors" was never finished; due to a camera issue, half of the footage is completely unusable. Much of the second film, "God Told Me to Break Up With You," was unusable due to bad lighting, and one whole scene has been lost. Some of the better segments are now featured as smaller shorts on Righteous Insanity's website, "Denial" and "How to Pick Up a Christian Babe.")

The cast came together from a number of directions. Some were friends (Randy D. Pease was my roommate, and Jamie Bratcher the last remaining member of the Righteous Insanity touring company), some we had met while trying to produce an anti-violence film a year earlier (Marat Yerusskiy and Herschel Zahnd), and some sent in video taped auditioned specifically for Fluffy (Katy Wheeler, Carrie Faulhaber, and Paul Reynolds).

In addition to finding the perfect cast, we lucked into a number of great crew people. Jason Dixon had worked with us on both prior film projects, doing make up, camera, and whatever else needed doing. Sean Bailey was a long time friend who has become an excellent film maker in his own right. (He now works as a video producer at Northside Christian Church in New Albany .) Best of all, Natalie was able to connect us with our director of photography, Bob C. Cooke. A veteran of a number of independent film projects, Bob was not just the man with the camera; he was a true teacher and mentor to all of us wannabe directors on the set. He lit and shot every scene beautifully.

We started work on a Thursday night, shooting the barn scenes on Randy's family farm in Palmyra . Paul ("Gus"), Marat, Katy ("Kit"), and Bridget Filburn showed up in the post-apocalyptic best. Randy and Sean mussed up their own outfits and joined in the fun as "extras" in the barn, stealing the spotlight with their camera takes. Meanwhile, Bob introduced Jamie ("Trish") to her constant companion for the next three days: a Dirty Harry style .45 Magnum.

The shoot moved along quickly, with everyone pitching in to make things run smoothly. When it came time for the dramatic Fluffy death scene, Jason and Sean moved in with grape jelly and the stuffings from a Pokemon toy to do their magic. Paul took his mark and looked up at the dead Fluffy on the wall, and pointed out that if the Fluffy was killed just inches over his head, he should have "guts all over." So we covered Paul's head with Fluffy guts and finished the sequence. Paul and Marat were real pros, and we enjoyed the brief time they were on the set.

Having a little daylight left, we moved down the road to pick up a shot with Kit and Trish in the woods. We were barely able to get all the footage we needed for the sequence before a scary old man in a trailer across the street threatened us, insisting we shoot our --- movie some place else.

The next day, we took our act on the road, shooting the opening woods sequences in Louisville 's Cherokee Park . It was a beautiful day, and we weren't the only ones in the park. Listen closely, you can hear kids playing in the creek below. Bob contributed some wonderful props to the opening dialogue sequence, including a severed arm. (Bob is a frequent collaborator with zombie film maker George Bonilla, who also loaned us the astronaut costumes.) Katy Wheeler did an exceptional job with both the dialogue and the requisite running and screaming. Seriously, she ran all over that park and never tired.

Our next stop was a dance studio at Indiana University Southeast in New Albany , which for our purposes became NASA. Herschel and Carrie joined us for the NASA sequence, which was rather short in the script. Wanting to take advantage of an actor as strong as Herschel, we had the cast members ad lib a briefing on their mission to Mars. It was hilarious, especially with Herschel constantly reminding Randy (as "Dex") he could NOT eat anything on Mars. Sadly, the footage was ruined by a bad buzz the mic picked up off the lights in the room. But a quick shot did make it into the movie.

Jamie left us for part of the afternoon to attend her sister's softball game, so we headed to "Mars", i.e. New Albany Community Park . We shot Carrie and Randy's Mars scenes, then returned to my house to film the final few scenes with Carrie, who proved to be the best screamer in the cast. (She had earlier wowed all of us guys by speaking "Greedo" on the way to the NASA shoot.) Those who visited the old home on Ekin where Randy and I lived will recognize Audrey's House as the back part of the Ekin house.

We returned to the park to film Jamie's scene on Mars, as well as an early encounter between Dex and Trish. We only got a few shots before it started to rain, and we ended up cutting the rest of the scene. (Jamie throwing Randy WWE style is still in the movie.)

The following day as a short one that began with Leighanne Wilkins as Dex's daughter. Bob took over the shoot at this point, filming more footage for brief appearance than any sequence in the movie. It was well worth it.

We had planned to shoot Dex and his wife Amanda next; however we had a problem. The actress cast as Amanda had gone AWOL. Thankfully, the first person we called, Laura Elton, answered the phone and was available. While we were waiting, we went to work on the Dex and Trish scenes around Audre'y house (the back of the Ekin house) and Dex's house (the front of the Ekin house). Randy and Jamie, as always, had great chemistry together as they sparred their way through Jamie's final scenes. To be honest, she didn't want to do the part. She hates action movies, and she made that abundantly clear as we went through three days of shooting. I like to think her annoyance at having to play an action hero added to her growling portrayal of Trish.

After wrapping Jamie's last scene, Laura arrived. If you're ever on a film shoot and have to call in a last second replacement, you can't do much better than Laura. She stepped in, read the script, and nailed the character and the lines. That is, after we sent out to the grocery store for the one expense we had on the movie: a small package of ground beef. That's right. The entire $1.63 of our budget went for a packet of ground beef on the final day of shooting.

We had to reshoot one scene with Randy, who had worn the wrong shirt in a telephone shot earlier in the day, then we finally called wrap.

And then… the footage sat dormant.

Well, not entirely dormant. I had the footage converted from 8mm to DV, and Sean Bailey made an early rough cut, but it wasn't until mid-2006 that Fluffy was truly revived… when I got my hands on a camera and an iMac.

After a year of tinkering, Fluffy is nearly ready. It's not perfect; it may never be. The sound is rough in parts, and I couldn't get the gun flashes added in as effects shots. But three years is long enough.

So what's next? It's available on the DVD Holy Shorts from Righteous Insanity, and it's being developed into a feature film script. Will a longer, grander Fluffy come to light one day? We all had a blast making the first one. Stay tuned.