Want to share that we are again launching into what we hope is a great way to raise MUCH-needed money for some great charities, while building up funds to make “Harvest” in the spring. SO here is “Kittens and Kids”, which will help kids and animals by donating $1 to either the Make a Wish Foundation or Animal Lifeline for every $10 raised for the budget of “Harvest”.
Let’s get on it!
JB
We’d just done the first of our haunted houses, ending in November of 2009. I think at that time I felt a bit better about creative projects and such, but we still hadn’t put together a new movie in some time, and that was still weighing on me. At that time, there were about 70 different scripts I had wanted to put to the screen, but none of them were so exciting we just *had* to do them.
We had attempted once before to do a retrospective piece for our old video- we did a great bunch of interviews on the 10th anniversary of our first video material, but never really put anything together for the 1996 thing except for a logo for Cheezy Productions that said “Ten Long Years”. I don’t remember when, but I had started to conceive of an actual movie to feature a bunch of our old material. This led to several more different ideas and different drafts. VERY different from what we ended up doing.
The original drafts were meant to be more like a regular movie, with a running plot. The problem with those was that it was difficult to work in the old material with them. One had an evil scientist torturing me while the others were trying to find me, and another was like a road trip movie. Weird… It wasn’t until I had been watching some Southpark one night that it came to me. I was watching some of their “Fireside Chat” type bits between episodes on the DVDs, and I really liked that format. Like the audience would be visiting us as we showed them the old stuff. Sold.
I’m sure opinions and memories vary, but it seemed like there was some groaning and resistance when at first I brought this to the original folks to talk about making it. But it was like everyone was starting to come to a point where the movie things were able to come back to the forefront. Everyone was pretty quick to agree to contribute, and so we started, and the shoots were scant in 2010, but still memorable and fun.
First shoots were at Ed’s during early 2010, and they started in TONS of snow. The thing I remember the most about those shoots was that it was the first time we had new cast/crew member Matt Curtis with us. The shoots were… rusty and awkward, if I’m remembering this correctly. We spent the rest of 2010 doing a couple promos, one with just Ed and I, and another that included Kate. Just fucking around with the cameras and making stuff up was starting to be fun.
Uh oh… year two of the contractual obligation. We had a haunted house to do, but as it turned out, that was ok. It extended our weird “24th Anniversary” into a rather expected “25th Anniversary” by pushing Jiggery Pokery back to 2011. We did have one more shoot in 2010, and it was at my parents’ home, and we shot a whole mess of things, but again, it left me feeling a touch on the awkward side. We were better, but still not back to full strength. Jiggery Pokery was coming along.
Oh yes… how in the HELL did we concoct such an odd title? It’s not a very exciting story. Ed and I were sitting around work, and had occasion to watch an old film starring Vincent Price called “A Comedy of Terrors”. At one point in the film, the character played by Basil Rathbone awakens after being thought to be dead, and utters (among other dialog) “What… Jiggery Pokery is this?” and I liked the sound of the phrase, so since 90% of what we do in front of the camera is mischief, it was a good title.
The haunted house in 2010 was a documented mix of good and bad times (mostly good), but during it, Dan, Kate, and I had been talking about getting back to the movie once the haunt was over. Now, let me explain that during this time, I began to freak out and go ‘Full Asshole’ about people and their participation with it. I was sure the whole damn thing would collapse at any moment, but, shortly after the start of 2011, we met for the first time to get back to shooting. This alleviated ALL of my panic.
See… this was the first time we’d had two of our new, added cast members. Cheeko Camel (Who had been in “The Wait”) and Allie Yungclas joined us for the first time on the set, and the result was a bunch of better, smoother material. But here was the good part, it led to us immediately scheduling a further shoot- a big one- at Ed’s about a month later.
We rolled out to Ed’s, loaded with costumes, makeup, props, and all in a weird mood. It was weird because I don’t think some of the new folks knew quite what to expect, and we “veterans” were nervous because we hoped it would go well. We started the day at Matt’s house, and shot a couple bits there. We then made for Ed’s, and here’s where the magic came to life in a big way. First things first, we had material for a trailer to put on tape.
At a very cold, very gray parking lot, we shot the material for this trailer, as well as a ton of still pictures. This trailer was pretty special for us. Over a year before, we had contacted the agent for famous movie trailer guy, Don LaFontaine (The “In a world…” guy), to ask about doing a voice over for our trailer. Happily for us, we needed but to make a simple donation to a children’s’ charity in order for him to record what I’d written for the trailer. It was great, even if a bit bittersweet, as Mr. LaFontaine passed away a couple months after recording it for us.
That night at Ed’s was a series of sketches, bits, and shots that awakened a lot of magic in us- it felt EXACTLY like it had in the early times. We laughed a LOT, and it hardly seemed like 14 hours by the time we were done, but the entire crew was jazzed to have been there, and looking forward for way more. Way more would come in the form of a shoot at Meredith, where we would all but close out shooting on the movie.
That shoot at Meredith continued the magic, but it was coming down to where the editing was going on at the same time, in a rush to get us ready for a family and friends screening of it on the last day of April. The Meredith shoot corrected a few things we’d messed up, and took care of most of the rest of the movie. The last few things were finished off as the editing was really getting going.
Next up? Let’s talk live showings, and great things to come out of the Jiggery Pokery screening. Like… a second screening…
JB
