Tuesday, June 10, 2008

I'll Bring My Own Rope- The Blog Post...


Well here it is Homeskillets, the official post. Let's begin from the beginning...
The Beginning...

It all started when Brad Rosen approached me at the showing of Little Women, and told me about "this project" he had to do for AP world, where he would basically cover the history of the world from zero BC-the present. So I spent probably a month thinking of funny ideas. The need to film the movie slowly approached and I hadn't heard anything new about the project. Last Monday (the 2nd I believe) Brad told me how the project actually was, basically scraping the original concept.

As he walks and talks me down the hallway, he explains a film putting Suddam Hussein in the position of an elementary school gym teacher. And as he goes on to explain some of the scenes I slowly realize this is quite possibly the most controversial project I've worked on to this date. I slowly realized that we'd need to do 2 cuts, the school version and the "Unrated Brad Rosen Cut."
Filming:

The film was originally set to shoot on Wednesday the 5th, but we got extremely rained out (see my post about that day). So we had to reschedule filming and due to my conflicts, we'd be set to film and edit the movie on Sunday.

Begin Sunday: As scheduled I arrived at Deer Crossing Elementary School, and wait at least 15 minutes for Brad, who's harboring the rest of the cast (minus Mandrew) in his car. So when he shows up we get to talking, and eventually get to filming. We started with the firing line scene so we could get the idea of using guns at an elementary school out of the way. Well so much for that, because at one point a black car drove by in the parking once, and slowed down, but then went on their way. BUT they came back minutes later and practically stopped, (keep in mind at this time we were up by a wall, the camera out, 3 men with fake shotguns and an AK-47, with 3 of us up against the wall with black pillow cases over our heads), now that probably wasn't exactly where we were when the drove by the second time, but I guess you get the idea.

Anyway, we keep filming, and bust out the blood for the executions, and as time goes by things are going good. Well it wasn't long before the heat sat in and we needed drinks, BAD. So we begin to head over to Brads car so we can go to the Hilltop convenience store and pick up some liquid refreshments. Well, as we're about to pile in Brads car, I spot a cop car drive around the corner, and I'm like "Hey I think I just saw a cop car, wait for it... waait for it." it comes around down the street, and I'm like "good thing we finished with those guns." When low and behold the cop pulls into the parking lot right behind us, we're all outside the car at this point.

He gets out and approaches us and is like "so what are you boys up to?" His name was officer Atkins, he was a young cop who was pretty cool about things. We told him we were filming a movie, and he said he had gotten reports about some kids who looked like they were filming a movie, but they had guns out, and such... so he asked to see the guns. We showed them to him and explained how they were just your average airsoft guns. He explained how in such an event we need to be careful just because they look like the real thing and if it was night time, and we weren't calm about things it could have become a hostile situation, but we kept our cool the whole time. He was actually pretty laid back about things, he took out the AK, and told us how he could have mistaken it for the real things, as it fell apart in his hands. At which point I was like "Yeah, if it would stay in one piece" and he goes, "well the real ones far apart pretty easily too. I was stationed in Iraq (at this point I was fighting of giggles given our movie topic) for a while and the Iraqi's used these and they were always falling apart because they're made by the Russians." No Joke, that was his response.

Anyway everything gets all smoothed out and we're cleared to go, so when we're beginning to get into Brads car, Office Atkins pulls up and is all like "Are you even old enough to drive?" And Brad responds "Yeah, you want to see my license?" which Atkins would reply "Yeah, I've gotta see this." it was pretty funny... So we go to the store, get some drinks, and head back to the school. We wouldn't finish filming until around 3. There's not much more to say about the filming, but you can see most of it in the movie, and if you get the real version that's not edited I put on some special features with some shots of some conversations during filming and such events.

After all was said and done, we'd go to Brads house to grab gas chamber scenes, the music he wanted for the film, and film the opening sequence.

Editing:
Let me start off by saying that editing is much more fun when you have someone to do it with, because that way you find out what's funny right there, and you have collaboration on what you want things to look like. So we edited from about 5:45-8:30, we finished the uncut version around 7:45, throwing together the scenes music and sound effects. Then we had to begin work on the School appropriate version, for which Brad had recorded some friendlier words. Then I would go through the uncut scene by scene, find the cuss words, take out the scene, re put it in up until the cuss word, put in the 1 second clip with the cuss word, mute the clip, put on the appropriate voice over, and such, getting done around 10:30, Brad and Shane had to leave around 8:30 because they still had other homework to do. So there I sat into the late hours making the movie appropriate. Once that was done It was time to set up the DVD, so I did, the first copy was done at around 12:30, so I decided that was good for now, and I went to bed. The School appropriate version, may not be as funny, losing some of it's crude humor, and such, but had that element of watching a PG-13 movie on ABC family, where the censorship is just ridiculous at times, giving it it's own bit of humor.
Special Notes
  • While the situation and scenes were already planned out, the dialog was primarily ad-libbed.
  • We got sunburn while filming.
  • I know there was more but I can't remember them...

THE DVD

I only have a few more things to do for the uncut DVD, there's maybe 2-3 more special features I have in mind, so they will be taken care of. You can get either the Uncut, or the "Huggable Version" (or both if you want). I'll keep you updated on how to get them... I think Shane might have been talking about charging for them, while at the same time Brad wanted the whole movie on Youtube. I think a nice compromise would be free DVDs but not putting the whole movie on Youtube, but that's just my thoughts, that or the DVDs could be pretty cheap just to cover DVD costs. I don't know, we'll find out what happens, I'll keep you updated.

And Now The Moment You've All Been Waiting For...

I never brought this up did I? It's a special surprise and in a way making up for not putting the movie on Youtube, But you do get not one but 2 trailers! So without further adu, The Theatrical Trailer of I'll Bring My Own Rope...



Yes, I know you're hungry for more, so why not swallow the REDBAND trailer (not intended for children under the age of 17)...


That's it for now I hope you folks enjoyed!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah guys!!! Brad brought this into our A.P. World class and we all thought it was hilarious. I even own a copy (but am sad to say I only own "The Huggable Version"). I realize this is probably creeping the fuck out everyone, but yeah. Some random kid has found this blog. Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for the laughs and put the unedited version on Youtube if it isn't already! See you guys!- Ryan Dye

Kevin Cole said...

If you want an unedited copy, you can have one once I finish putting it together. I'll leave away for people to contact me, and then I can mail them out or something...