CRY WOLF Blog

3:26:42 AM EDT …I can't believe it.  

I used to think that it seemed like opening weekend would never come, but now here it is… staring me in the face.  I’m not sure I’ll get another entry up before the film officially opens, so I just want to take a moment to say “thank you” to everyone who has posted a comment or just stopped by to read an entry.

From the get-go, this was so much more for all of us than just making a movie – it was a chance to make our dreams come true.  We’re incredibly grateful to all the people that supported us along the way, so I hope you’ll hang out for the credits at the end of the film.  I’ve talked a lot about Chrysler and Universal over the months, and how much I appreciate all they did for us, but the truth is every single person and company listed made an invaluable contribution to the film and we could not have made the movie without them.

And it ain’t over yet.  I wrote a paper in college about how a movie isn’t finished until an audience sees it, and although it sounds a little bit like some film school BS, I truly believe it.  Beau and I did not make this movie for us, we made it for you guys, and although the marketing campaign has been amazing, we’re still going to need people to spread the word if we are going to reach the widest audience possible.

So if you wouldn’t mind taking a second or two to send an email, encouraging some friends to check out the movie this weekend, it would mean a lot to me, Beau, and the hundreds of people who worked so hard to make this movie a reality.

Trust me -- they didn't do it just to see their names on screen.

All the best,
Jeff

PS speaking of making dreams come true, I was on the TODAY show on Tuesday and almost fell over when I saw Elle Macpherson and Donald Trump talking in the hallway.  Fortunately, I regained my senses and got Donald to take a picture with my phone.  



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2:59:32 AM EDT …and I’ve been talking for the last seven hours.  And no one told me to shut up.  Can you believe it?

We spent the whole day doing commentaries for the DVD, first on the film and then on the bonus features (deleted/alternate/extended scenes and casting tapes).  As I mentioned in my last blog, we are trying to put as much effort into the DVD as we did the feature.  Thankfully the folks at Universal Home Video are as excited about the CRY_WOLF DVD as we are and have bent over backwards to cram as many cool features in as possible (thanks for the comment xtremekornfreak – we’d love to do a second disc, too – but I think we are running out of time and money.  But what’s new?)

Beau Bauman (Producer/Co-writer) and Seth Gordon (Editor/Associate Producer) did the commentaries with me and a lot of stories came up that I had not thought about in a long time.  I figured it would be cool to share a handful of some of the fun factoids that we discussed.  Hope you enjoy, and maybe they’ll help you win some sheep over at the www.thewolfiswatching.com.

- CRY_WOLF was originally called LIVING THE LIE.  We changed the title after we realized that the script had changed so much during development that the old title just wasn’t appropriate.
- We saw hundreds of actors over three months before we found our cast.
- The character of Owen Matthews was written as an American, until we met UK native Julian Morris.
- Multiple scenes were written just days before production began, after we locked down some particularly inspirational locations.  Most notable amongst these is the stairwell sequence (you’ll know it when you see it).
-  Our production office was in a deserted slaughter house and my office used to be the CEO’s – and had blood red shag carpet that smelled like death.
- Our Editor/AP Seth Gordon would break off with a couple crew members to get additional shots.  We called this group “Seth’s small unit.”  This still makes us laugh.
- Originally a character was found strung up in the rafters of the chapel, now he’s found castrated in a confessional booth (simply because the chapel already had a confessional booth… and dangerously high rafters).
- Lindy Booth was recommended to us by Jeff LaPlante, a Universal Physical Production Executive (and one of our mentors) who was impressed by her work on their remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD.  She almost had to give upthe job when it looked like her immigration papers would not go through in time.  I didn’t know about this until after we finished the movie (that’s good producing).
- The teaser (which was on the ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 DVDs sold in BEST BUY), was something I thought of a week before production when I lost my cell phone.

Well it’s late and I’m beat.  That’s all I can think of right now, but I’m sure more will come to me later – while I’m lying awake, nervously waiting for the movie to finally come out.

All the best,
Jeff  

PS if you want to read an interview with Lindy Booth (Dodger Allen), check out http://www.campuscircle.net/
I’ve attached the cover art.




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1:28:17 AM EDT …my god, that’s soon.  Almost single digits… wow.

And yes, we’re still working on the movie (kind of).  I’ve been spending my days with the amazing folks over at Universal Home Video, trying to pull together all our extra materials.  Not all the additional features are locked in stone yet, but we’re doing everything in our power to jam as many cool bonuses into the DVD as possible.  Apparently we’re already over the limit for the disc, but we keep finding new ways to include more stuff.  

For example, I know for a fact we’re going to be able to include two of the short films that helped us win the Chrysler Million Dollar Film Festival and get the opportunity to make CRY_WOLF.  The first of these shorts is our USC thesis film, THE TOWER OF BABBLE.  We submitted it for the contest initially, and it was put on line with twenty-four other short films so people could vote for their favorites.  Fortunately we made the top ten (thank god I’ve got a big family who like to go online and vote).  I’ve attached the poster artwork and below you’ll find a brief synopsis.

“Three stories.  Six people.  They’re all saying something different… with exactly the same words. In tHE tOWeR oF BaBBLe, the exact same dialogue is used in a gut-wrenching drama, a heart-warming comedy, and a tense police-thriller.  The words, repeated verbatim by each pair of characters, literally take on different meanings as the plots are intercut.  Just as the three pairs appear to have reached an impasse, hindered by their own tragic inability to say what’s in their hearts, the narratives fold into each other, resolving each character’s unspeakable dilemma. The image of a monkey at a typewriter frames the film, accompanied by a Narrator (Kevin Spacey) who suggests that while language might be finite, expression is infinite.”

The DVD for CRY_WOLF will also include the Chrysler branded short we had to shoot for the Extreme Filmmaking leg of the Chrysler Million Dollar Film Festival.  For that part of the contest, the top ten directors were flown to the Cannes Film Festival where we were given a lap-top, DV camera, and told to take a short film from script to screen in just seven days… and it had to include a Chrysler.  Needless to say, it was one of the most intense professional experiences of my life.  Again, we were very fortunateand some how managed pull together a clever little film that the judging panel responded to.   I’ve also included the poster for that short, and you’ll find another synopsis below.  

“In MANUAL LABOR, a frazzled father-to-be’s pregnant wife goes into labor in the middle of a massive parking garage in a foreign country, forcing him to do whatever it takes to get his wife to the hospital on time.”

But you’ll have to wait for all these until the DVD comes out.  Trust me, as proud as I am of these short films, they don’t compare to how proud I am of CRY_WOLF.  It’s a smart and scary ride, that I think classic horror fans will dig, and hopefully all the other savvy film-goers out there will like as well.  In case you missed the headline… it’ll be here in just 10 days.  Thanks again for reading.

All the best,
Jeff



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1:19:48 AM EDT …and it’s been a long holiday weekend, so I thought I’d hit you with a quick guest blog.   

Below you’ll find the rambling musings of Clay Tweel –  a recent college grad who started as an intern, was promoted to assistant location manager, moonlighted in the art and editorial departments, and is now an official “go-to guy” for any kind of job where we need someone we can trust.  Along with the actors, he was one of the only people on set who could make me and Beau feel old, but the guy could teach a class on how to endear yourself to a film crew in 22 days or less.

When I PA’d on THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR, I thought I could have done an awesome commentary track, since I was so low on the totem pole, I saw everything that went right and everything that went wrong.  I thought it would be fun to have a commentary from a “man on the ground” on every movie I made, and thought Clay would be perfect.  There might not be enough room on the disc (we are busting our butts to include as many extras as possible, like our short films and casting tapes), so Beau thought we should give him a crack at the blog.  As is usually the case with Beau (don’t tell him I said so), it was a great idea.  

Hope you enjoy – and I hope you’re getting excited (I know I am).  The movie is going to hit theaters before we know it.

All the best,
Jeff
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Hello everyone.  I’m sure if you have been reading this blog that you are probably pretty sick of all the attention the big names are getting.  Every time I look it’s some producer talking about “the struggle” or another department head commenting on how much Beau and Jeff “fight.”  Whatever happened to the every (wo)man’s struggle, in the fight of his/her life that is simply being part of an indie crew?  Well fear not up-and-coming assistants, mailroom clerks, cinema enthusiasts, and studio receptionists, I will let you in a few of my favorite secrets of the making of CRY WOLF.

I was fresh out of college when I heard that a small film was coming to Virginia.  When I heard that Jeff Wadlow was directing my ears perked up, as I knew he was from my hometown of Charlottesville; and when I heard that they were going to film primarily at the University of Richmond, my recent alma mater, I knew it was destiny for me to work on this movie.  The Virginia Film Office gave me the number for Jeff and some local crew, and I pestered the hell out of them until they gave me a job.

Task 1: Setting up the Production Office
The production office for CRY WOLF was set up entirely by three people: Jeff Anderson the production coordinator, Oriana Robertson the UPM/location manager and my eventual boss, and myself.  Unfortunately, independent films do not usually delegate much money for their production offices and this film was no different.  In a matter of three days, we turned a shutdown meat packing plant that smelled of asbestos, rotten meat and death into a fully functional networked production office that smelled of citrus death.  PETA is right, you can never get rid of the smell of tortured souls.  I’m sure it provided Jeff and Beau great inspiration for their last minute re-writes.  Once we were up and running, Oriana decided to officially hire me as the assistant locations manager for the rest of pre-production and principal photography.  I guess she figured that whatever I had inhaled at AAA Meats was probably going to kill me in a few weeks anyway, so she could afford to pay me until then.  

Task 2: Learning Locations
I am highly unorganized.  This meant I had a lot to learn about working in a production office.  What am I saying? I had everything to learn.  I had never dealt with answering multiple phone lines, filing, shrinking script pages on a copy machine to make “sides”, reading a one liner schedule or even negotiating hotel room rates.  Oriana schooled me in the way of the samurai location scout:  film crews are like monkeys, they should never be left unattended or in one location for too long before it is turned to ruin.  Cut your losses.  Ambiguity is the warm blanket that keeps people alive on film sets.  These are but a few gems she lived by, but they came into use almost immediately for me while on set.  The locations department has two jobs during shooting; keep the surroundings clear and quite while the camera is rolling and make sure the owners/inhabitants of the property are happy at all times.  

Task 3: Putting lessons into action
During the second week of shooting at U of R, I encountered a slight problem with some students.  We were filming a scene with Jon Bon Jovi and Julian Morris in a parking lot close to a few student dorms.  With all of the disruptions we had on campus life, and internet rumors, the studentsknew that JBJ was going to be around at some point.  Since there is no shortage of New Jersey license plates at the university, Jovi’s first appearance caused mass hysteria.  Kids were blasting their favorite songs out of their dorm windows or cars, or simply just screaming his name like he was on stage at Shea Stadium.  After a couple moments of shooting glares from Jeff, Beau, and the 1st AD, I snapped back to reality and realized it was my job to shut them up.  So here I was racing back into a dorm where I had been doing tequila shooters a year before, to politely tell hundreds of rowdy students to turn down their stereos.  As I raced from room to room, I was getting peppered with the same questions.  “Where is Jon Bon’s trailer?  Can I get Jovi’s autograph for cooperating?  How long is the Jovi-meister in town?  Where is he staying?” etc.  As a young jedi I relied on my training.  I played dumb.  I don’t know how long he will be in town (4 days), or where he is staying (Omni Hotel), or where his trailer is (W Parking Lot) or how to get his autograph (actually true).  And then I cut my losses.  I said it was cool if they still wanted to listen to music but they had to shut their windows.  Or if they wanted to watch the filming, it was ok to come down to the set, but they must be quiet.  Eventually, with the help of half of the production department, we got enough of the garden-staters to quiet down for the shot.

CRY WOLF is the first film I have ever worked on.  However, working on a small set like this with such skilled people afforded me various experiences.  My duties dipped into helping out a lot of different departments, from craft service to grips, but it was all new to me and thus, very exciting.  Everyone was willing to pitch in and help to get this movie made no matter what.  That’s what made this experience the most memorable for me.  Being a part of a community of people that work long hours, with little pay just for the sake of someone’s creative vision is something that I will always cherish.  I can’t wait to work on Beau and Jeff’s next project, because I look forward to joining that commune once more.

Clay     



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2:41:14 AM EDT …better respond to some comments.

As promised last blog, here’s some answers to the questions you’ve posted on the AIM blog page.  If you posted them on the www.thewolfiswatching.com, check out:

http://journals.aol.com/wadlowwolf/CryWolfBlog/

If you post some more comments or questions at the AIM site, I’ll try and do another round of responses in the blogs for next week.

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"I may be missing something, but what exactly is a dallie?" Comment from shipwrecklost - 8/30/05 8:14 PM

JW – You didn’t miss anything, nobody would know what that meant unless they’d worked on a film set.  "Dailies," as referenced to by our director of photography, Romeo Tirone, are the tapes (or projected images) of the material shot the day before, un-edited and quickly transferred.  They are helpful to watch because you can see exactly what you’re getting and what you might need to do differently during the coming days.  For example, only after looking at dailies a couple times, did it become clear how best to light some of the up-coming scenes in CRY WOLF.  They’re called "dailies," because traditionally, you watched the footage the "day" after you shot it.  On our movie, we called them "weekly’s," ‘cause that’s how often we got to see them on location in Richmond, Virginia (shipping ain’t cheap).

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"i was wondering if i could get some kind of advice. i really want to act and write, but i'll probably never be able to afford a film school since i help my parents pay bills and buy food and everything. i'm confident in my ability to act though, but i'm not sure that will be enough." Comment from donavonbray - 8/27/05 12:05 AM

JW – My advice would be to spend every free moment you have working towards your goal.  It’s tough because no one is going to pay you to act, write, or direct until you are already doing it.  It’s a huge catch 22 (i.e., "I need to work to live, which leaves me no time to work towards how I want to live.").  It’s a difficult situation that seems to favor trust fund kids who don’t have to worry about money, but the truth is, those are the people that waste away in clubs trying to "network," never getting anywhere close to a career in film or TV.  Paris Hilton is the exception… not the rule.  There are literally thousands of girls who look like her who can’t get arrested.  I went out to dinner with one of these actresses a few years ago, who wondered why her career wasn’t going anywhere… she also sent her gazpacho back because it was cold.

In my limited experience, I’ve found that the people who succeed, are the ones who work the hardest, because they want it the most.  If you want some more practical advice, I’d say read as many great plays as you can.  You can get them all for free at your public library.  Put them on for your friends and family in your living room, or at the Park.  You don’t need a theater, sets, or costumes to give a great performance.  Research film institutes and theater conservatories you want to study at.  Most have one week or one month programs in the summer for people of all ages and experience… and they all offer scholarships.  And write something – every day.  Even if it’s just an idea for a movie.  What’s important is that you just keep being productive.  You can’t wait for someone to hand you an opportunity, that only comes after you’ve earned it.  Just get it done.  That’s all that matters.

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"Jeff, I am curious if you are concerned that the film separates itself from the standard teen horror fare that we've been subjected to for the last few years. It seems the formula is all the same: get a few good looking teens together, throw in a scary villain, suggest that one of them may be the killer, and there you go. From the "Cry Wolf" previews, the movie looks to be completely following the formula." Comment from canyousaydave - 8/25/05 3:44 AM

JW – I am VERY concerned about the film separating itself form standard teen horror fare.  That’s why we tried so hard to identify the genre conventions that we felt worked, while also isolating and riffing on the elements that had grown stale. For example, we realized that it’s fun to have good-looking kids and an iconic killer, but why do the kids have to do stupid things?  And why does the killer have to be funny?  We wanted our kids to be smart… too smart for their own good.  We also wanted our killer to be scary.  No bad puns and goofy faces here.  The wolf is supposed to represent pure terror, and when you see him you know he’s there for one reason and only one reason.  

Whether we failed or succeeded in our endeavor is ultimately up to you… but at least we gave it a shot.  I’d rather aim high and fall flat on my face than churn out another movie that doesn’t give audiences credit for being as savvy as they are.  

I also wanted to thank Cinediver for their response.  I thought your comments were spot on, and I could not have said it better myself.

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"Hi...this is lexie from yesterday...can u at least tell me what ur next movie idea is...i'm REALLY interested in this stuff!!!"Comment from mydemonicsoul131 - 8/24/05 8:39 AM

JW – Lexie, we’ve got dozens of them… and I can’t wait for CRY WOLF to come out so we can get to work on the next one.  I’ve learned so much for this process and am so thankful for the opportunity to have my first film receive such a wide release.  Whatever we make next, I promise we’ll invest as much energy and hard work as we did in CRY WOLF… ‘cause if you are going to ask people to go to the theater, it better be worth the trip.

All the best,
Jeff

PS Wasn’t sure what picture to include, but I found this mock-up I did for a poster long before we were even close to thinking about how the film might be marketed.  The final poster is way cooler, but I thought this image might illustrate the point I made earlier about "just getting it done."  This wasn’t for anyone, it was just a way for me to be creative and work out some ideas I had in my head.


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1:52:11 AM EDT …holy cow, that’s soon.  Wow.  I can’t believe it.  That’s less time than it took to shoot the movie, and trust me – we did not have a lot of time.  You’ll get a pretty good sense of how insane production was from the third and final blog from Romeo Tirone, our super-human Director of Photography.

All the best,
Jeff

PS Here’s a sequence of shots illustrating the big stunt at the pool.  This was the day when we were told for the umpteenth time, “we are officially in the toilet and not going to get the day’s work finished.”  Thank God for Romeo and our kick-ass crew, who would not give up, not matter what.  No stunt doubles in these shots, that’s our lead, Julian Morris.  I actually did the dive too, ‘cause I would never ask an actor to do something I would not do myself – plus I liked doing crazy stuff that annoyed our 1st AD (the guy who kept telling us we were in the toilet).

PPS I just realized that if you click the arrows underneath the pictures really fast, it's like watching some of the movie.  Cheesy, I know... but it's late... and I'm punchy.  I think I'll go play the game...
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 Cry Wolf  The Shoot
"Like running down a steep hill, on fire, with buckets of water on your shoulders, and not spilling any"

After four weeks of prep it was time to shoot.....

 Jeff, Seth (Editor and Associate Producer), Kristen (Script Supervisor), and I  would meet for breakfast and go over our shot lists and camera diagrams, altering them to the reality of the shoot day and we would come up with a working shot list for the day. Jeff would start every day with a walk through of the day's work, with the entire crew, this would let everyone know what to expect, put us all on the same page with the ability to understand the big picture of what we were trying to accomplish. Jeff always had a complete vision of what he wanted with the flexibility to fit it into the challenges of location or time. This is very important when you are trying to work fast. After we wrapped we would  look at dallies, these were always viewed on VHS on a crappy TV (not the best way to evaluate your work) Jeff always laughed as I continuously hit the TV saying "there is something wrong with this set".  I admired Jeff's ability to treat everyone with respect, he appreciated everyone on the set, it was not uncommon to see Jeff passing out water during Lighting setups. I feel that this was a large part of the success of the shoot because everyone wanted to give Jeff 110%, because he was giving 150%.

My Camera department was over worked and understaffed, what else is new. We shot this film using 4 cameras,  two MovieCam Compacts with Panavision Mounts, one Pan-Arri 3, and an old Mitchell camera fitted with a hand crank. We had the good fortune to have a steady-cam with us the whole time. Strapped  to that steady cam was the greatest operator I have ever worked with, Geoff Haley.  There were some complicated 360° shots that Geoff executed flawlessly, making it look easy. We shot with two cameras anytime we could, the Pan-Arri 3 was our specialty camera. We used it  in the Hydroflex for the pool sequence  and as a high speed camera (slo-mo) . The Mitchell Camera with the hand crank was loaded up with reversal film stock (more like old super 8) and we shot all the "Wolf" stuff with it. The hand crank/reversal combo, gave the footage a very stylized look.  The most creative stuff we shot with hand crank was also the fastest stuff we shot, always left to the end of the day with 10 mins to get what we needed.

 Most of the days were impossible,  8 or 9 pages was the average, and Jeff and I were always informed at lunch that we would not make our day, ("we are officially in the Toilet:") then some how by the end of the day, we would get everything we needed. When you are moving that fast you need a Lighting and Grip crew that understand how to move fast and still get what we need, Key grip Ray Brown and Gaffer Bob Spencer were a great support to me suggesting time saving solutions. There is nothing better then hearing Ray Brown say  "you know if you really want this to be a crane shot we can get it up and going in ten minutes".

The shoot drifted into nights and then back to days, this always have an interesting effect on the crew, we were all zombies walking around at 5 am on our night off wondering why we could not sleep. The more difficult things got, the tighter we became as a group . Every challenge was just another opportunity for success. It was this attitude that made this film transcend what it should have been (a disaster) and become what it is… the smart, scary, sexy movie hitting theaters nationwide on Sept. 16th.

(if you want more technical info about the shoot  send me questions in your comments )

thanks
Romeo




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9:45:58 PM EDT …and I am back on the blog.

I just returned from climbing the Grand Teton (the big mountain in the middle there) with my father and brother.  Although it was a tough couple days, compared to making this movie –  it was a walk in the park.

Many thanks to Beau Bauman, Producer and Co-Writer of CRY WOLF, for taking over the blog while I was gone.  He did an amazing job (much better than I do), and I’m sure you can all tell now why he is both my business partner and best friend.

For those of you who have missed a few entries, and want to know a little bit more about Beau, and our director/producer dynamic, I thought I’d offer my take on how we met and why we work so well together.

I lived in New York for a year after college, working as a production assistant on movies such as THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR and THE BIG KAHUNNA.  During that time I applied to the Peter Stark Producing Program at the USC School of Cinema Television.  I always knew I wanted to be a director, but I felt like I had already learned a lot about practical filmmaking from my film major in college and my work experience in NYC.  I wanted something a little more specialized, and Stark was just that.  Little did I know that the best thing that would come out of my years there would be my partnership with Beau, but I’ll get to that later.

Although it’s called a “producing program,” Stark is really the study of filmmaking from the top to the bottom (i.e. this is a budget, this is what a marketing executive does, etc.), as opposed to the “director’s program,” which is filmmaking from the bottom to the top (i.e. this is a dolly, this is what a gaffer does, etc.)

On my very first day at USC, while walking out of the Stark office, I bumped into Beau.  I don’t remember how we first started talking or what we discussed, but we quickly realized that we had similar backgrounds and shared an interest in making both ambitious and accessible films.

Needless to say, we should have started working together right then and there.  I’m not sure why we didn’t… I think we both thought we could do it all ourselves (pretty naïve, huh?).  It was close to a year before we finally made a movie together, as we spent the majority of our first two semester making our black and white 16mm films on our own.  

My 16mm short was a noir-western re-telling of Poe’s THE TELL-TALE HEART and Beau’s was aJames Bond parody.  Although both shorts were a success by film school standards, let me assure you, neither one is something we’d like a large audience to see anytime soon.

Beau likes to make fun of my film, because despite a successful execution of a pretty ambitious shoot (night photography in the desert with firearms, horses, campfires, and authentic western props and costumes) the final product was far from accessible.  Don’t believe me?  I’ve got two words for you… “suicidal cowboy.”  Yeah, I know.  I’m a jackass.

Beau, on the other hand, made a short that was the definition of accessible, as it was an audience favorite for its title alone (007th GRADE).  Although his film was hilarious, I don’t think anyone would call it particularly ambitious as our Professor described the aesthetic as “home-made.” (Nothing personal, buddy)

Fortunately, we quickly discovered that by working together as director and producer, we could help (or maybe the proper word is “humiliate?”) each other, so that we would never make the same mistakes again.  I can’t speak for Beau, but I would compare making a movie without him to climbing a mountain without a rope… it doesn’t end well.

If you don’t believe me, I’ll send you a copy of my 16mm film.  It clearly could have used a good producer... fortunately, CRY WOLF has a great one.

All the best,
Jeff   

PS In a blog very soon I'm going to try and answer all questions that have been posted here (on the aim page), so if you've got 'em, put 'em up now.


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1:12:24 AM EDT … and I’m already addicted to the game.

The Cry_Wolf game, that is. Officially, it’s actually called “Cry_Wolf: The Game”, and if you haven’t played it yet I don’t know what you’re waiting for. The game actually just went live this week, and I definitely encourage you to check it out.
Just go to www.crywolfgame.com. Now. Read the rest of the blog later. And make sure you’re logged onto AIM before you start playing. It’ll change your life. Kidding. Well, sort of.  Truth is, it can be kind of addictive.

Cry_Wolf: The Game is an online multiplayer game based on the in-person game the characters play in the film -- which is based on the party game, Mafia (which Jeff wrote about a few entries ago). You follow all that?  More simply put, it’s a lying game. It’s extremely faithful to the game that’s played face-to-face in the movie – it’s still a game of bluffing, suspicion, and accusation – but online. You’re thrown into a chat environment with a handful of strangers (or friends), and you need to figure out who’s lying.  Best liar wins.

It started with our obsession with Mafia (or our version of it, “Cry Wolf”) while making the movie. During rehearsals, we played it with the cast to get them familiar with the game and with improvising in character (they had to play in character, and were eliminated if they ever called each other by their real names). The cast usually asked to just keep playing the game rather than rehearse the written scenes – and since we were having as much fun as anyone, we usually obliged.  We knew the game was special, and wanted to spread the word… but didn’t know how else we could get other people playing it. Should we invent a board game?  Send out the rules to high school and college campuses with a viral email?  Or better yet, was there a version of the game that could actually be played online?

I wasn’t quite sure how it would work (and my initial idea for a game called “IM A Killer” was rejected by Jeff merely on the grounds of being a pun), but then Seth sat down and figured out the nuts and bolts of it.  We pitched it to AOL, and they loved it. They saw the film before anyone else, and hired Klear Games – an award-winning game development company – to build the game. It’s actually pretty amazing that everyone at AOL/AIM (esp Rebecca Kilduff & Christine Loredo – who were with us from the very beginning) had the vision to pursue this partnership long before we had a distribution plan or release date for the film (and kudos to Klear for building such a cool game). They took a gamble, and I sincerely hope they believe it’s paid off.
 
I’m not going to bore you with the rules here, but when you get to the game, I’d recommend clicking on “read the instructions” before jumping right in. Or, there’s also a flash tutorial that Jeff narrates (that even has some strategy tips thrown in) if you want to really get a leg up on the competition.

And if you happen to find yourself in a game with me (screenname OliverLtL)… I’m not the wolf. I swear.

Have fun playing,
Beau

OH! I almost forgot… the studio just also updated our website (www.crywolfmovie.com). I actually think it’s one of the coolest movie websites I’ve ever seen… and not just because it’s for our movie. Most movie sites have a simple nav bar, with the usual drag down options; but with the CW site, even the act of navigating through the site itself is part of the experience.



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10:04:45 PM EDT … And someone pointed out that I promised on Monday to make my next entry “sexier”

But then yesterday I gave you Seth...  Sorry.
If only I had a sex life of my own to write about… Uh, different blog.  What if I just post some pix of our attractive cast, that should suffice, right?

Anyway, of course I didn’t mean the blog would literally be “sexy,” merely more interesting. Although Cry_Wolf is sexy. And smart. But perhaps most of all, scary.  (gotta cover the three s’s) I think the inherent sexiness of the movie is a definite crowd-pleaser, but that kind of came naturally thanks to the chemistry of our cast. And the smarts of the story is ultimately what will set this film apart from typical genre fare (we hope). But most of all, people will probably come see the movie to be scared. And that was something that took some work. So taking a page out of the Lindy Booth playbook, I think I might just answer a question I often get asked: “This genre has such a varied history – what were your influences?” Below, you’ll find me pontificating about the horror genre, as well as our influences in that arena…

While writing the script and making the movie, Jeff and I watched and re-watched every modern horror/thriller we could get our hands on (in fact I’m pretty sure I still owe some late fees at Blockbuster).  The list included, but was not limited to the likes of Psycho, Jaws, Halloween - basically anything that scared us silly growing up… but we noticed that the genre had gone through certain cycles over the last decade or so.

Freddy and Jason movies (not Freddy vs. Jason, btw) gained then lost their audience, Scream reinvented the genre by adding self-awareness and deconstruction, but that soon turned into straight-up parody with Scary Movie, then the hardcore slasher made a comeback with the remake of  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre… so where does Cry_Wolf fall in that company? Well, ideally our film will be the next step in that evolution. There is zero campiness in the movie, no wink and no nod, and it plays it totally straight all the way.  However, there is no doubt that these characters have also seen all of those movies.

There were certain things we liked about these genre touchstones, certain things we loved, and certain departures we wanted to take. So we basically laid out some ground rules:

Our scares were going to come from pervasive paranoia, tension, and from “boo moments" 
In referencing the paranoia we talked a lot about 70s films like Three Days of the Condor and Marathon Man – where there’s a strong lead the audience identifies with, who has no idea what’s going on, and the audience puts the pieces together at the same time the hero does. For the “boo moments,” I know Jeff studied the films of John Carpenter and Wes Craven a lot (as well as Alfred Hitchcock, of course), and worked really hard to ride the wave of the audience’s expectations… ie, a boo won’t mean as much if you see it coming, or if it comes too deep out of left field. The sweet spot for a good boo is a tricky thing… but I think we hit it quite a few times in Cry_Wolf. 

We were going to be rooting for our characters, not against them.
Jeff often said he wanted this to be more like Jaws, not Jaws 2 (sorry I’m stealing all your best lines, Jeff. But that’s what you get for going out of town).  The major difference to him was that in Jaws you’re rooting for the people, whereas in Jaws 2 you were rooting for the shark. Take House of Wax (the recent remake), for example… A fun film. I especially enjoyed the work of our good friend Jared Padalecki. But that’s a different movie than Cry_Wolf specifically because you went to see Paris die. Warner Bros. publicity even had “See Paris Die” t-shirts made up. You wanted her to be killed in as gruesome a manner as could possibly be conceived. And for the most part, the film delivered.  But if you want our characters to die, then we haven’t done our jobs… We hope that you’ll like them, want to spend even more than 90 minutes with them, and it’ll be tragic (although inevitable) when bad things happen to them.

We needed an iconic killer.
In Scream, there’s a great homage to Nightmare on Elm Street… Henry Winkler looks in the hall for the killer, but all he sees is the janitor mopping the floor – wearing a red striped sweater. As soon as you see that sweater, you automatically think: Freddy Krueger.  And from the very beginning, it’s been a goal of ours to create that kind of icon of fear.  My personal dream is to walk into a Halloween party later this year, and see someone dressed in a camo jacket and orange ski mask, holding a hunting knife.  So Jeff and I sat around and asked ourselves, Okay, what would scare us? First thing is something that covers his face – but anyone can buy.  Then there’sa weapon… ice pick, fishing hook, chainsaw, blades for finger nails? … Nah, we’re trying to keep it grounded, so what’s something anyone could get their hands on? Well, what’s more frightening than a long serrated hunting knife? Very little. The mere thought of one of those things puncturing my skin gives me chills. And you’ll notice in the movie, when Owen and Dodger create The Wolf, they pretty much have the same conversation Jeff and I had while writing the script.

Anyway, I just realized I’ve been writing for a while, and I could go on forever about making this movie (because making this movie actually did take forever) but if you post some comments of your favorite scary movies, maybe Jeff will share his when he gets back.

Thanks for reading,
Beau



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1:29:06 PM EDT … and Big Seth has got something to say.

Seth Gordon has been on this journey with me and Jeff since we made the short film Manual Labor in Cannes as part of the “extreme filmmaking” leg of the Chrysler Million Dollar Film Festival. A man of many talents, he was the DP and title designer on Manual Labor, the editor and production designer on the presentation piece Living the Lie - the precursor to Cry_Wolf, and is the editor/associate producer/storyboard artist/graphic designer/title designer, and the arbitrator between most producer-director conflicts on Cry_Wolf.  Actually, the easiest way to describe Seth’s role in our dysfunctional little triangle is that he does anything, (and almost everything) that Jeff and I do not.  Which is a lot.  Quite simply, we could not have made this movie without him.  And below he writes about one of the many creative gaps he filled… storyboarding.

Seth sent some storyboards from the library scene (which Jeff actually also referenced on 6/9), and I’m also attaching some color “mood boards” that Seth worked on with another very talented artist David Reinsche, as well as a shot of Seth with the cast watching him either do a rough (pre-avid) edit of a scene or check his email…

All the best,
Beau


As the eventual film editor of Cry Wolf, I was lucky to be involved from the concept phase of the script as the lead storyboard artist. Storyboards are like panels from a comic book drawn to help a director plan a film before everyone is on set -- some directors think of them as the first edit of the film. In the case of Cry Wolf, we had so little money to shoot our film that we couldn't afford to ever go back to a location if we missed something. So we used storyboards and camera diagrams to aggressively pre-plan our shoot so we could get everything on the first try.

One of my favorite sequences from the film - the library attack - was almost entirely pre-planned in this way. The creative and original concept behind the tension in this scene was that the light fixtures in the Westlake library stacks would be controlled by timed motion sensors. This happened to have been the case in my college library, so I had some first-hand experience discovering a long forgotten book in some dark corner of the windowless thirteenth floor, only to find myself in pitch black darkness if I failed to move after a minute or so. When the lights are off, the stacksbecome a very scary place, full of thousands of dusty volumes; when the lights are on, it means someone must have just walked by. Hopefully that person is someone you're not trying to hide from.

To accomplish this set up in Cry Wolf, we coordinated with gaffer Bob Spencer and his team of electricians to rig a series of fluorescent lights to turn on (and later off) in sequence as Owen and Dodger first arrive in the stacks. Later, when the two think they spot the killer - and in true horror-film fashion follow after him to hopefully learn his identity - the lights turn off behind them, eventually leaving them in the dark. The pair figure out how to use the lights to their advantage: they wait some time, hoping to spot the oncoming killer by the string of lights he can't help trigger as he hunts around for them. Their plan works, with one hitch: the lights turn on and seem to show the exact location of the killer, but unfortunately he seems to be headed directly their way...

I would like to tell you what happens next in both the storyboard and the email but, um, it'd be best if you go see the movie.

More to come,
Seth



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