Leigha Horton :: Greenroom
• • • • •

The first day of shooting for The Monster of Phantom Lake was yesterday, and thank god for digital cameras – they let one see how awful one is right away, so one has time to fix it. Yesterday’s shoot is in the can, but fortunately the rest of the scenes I can still salvage. The source of my dread?: the director did an overnight rough-edit of yesterday’s footage, and I look like a Janeane Garofalo bobblehead doll. Active listening, while generally appreciated in the real world, on camera makes me look like I have a bit of the Parkinson’s.

The highlight of the shoot was at 7:30, when the gorgeous 1955 cherry red Chevy convertible came rolling down the road in all its diesel glory. Hot damn, that was a fine machine – it was so clean and shiny and big and wonderful – and it was there for us to use. Just sitting in it had me all giddy and stupid and numb to the 96-degree weather and 86% humidity and the fact that my makeup was sliding off my face. That high quickly faded to horror, since the opening scene required me to get out of the car and lean against it, and the re-takes required me to get back into the car – with each re-take I proceeded to track tree seedpods and dogwood fuzzies and dirt and all sorts of nature garbage into the car, all over the light-tan floor mat. I tried kicking my shoes to get the junk off before climbing back in, but those evil little $3 keds are the stuff of housewives’ nightmares. I felt like such a chump when apologizing to the owner couple – they were cool, though.

So far, I have to say that the best part of this experience is getting to try things out – seeing what works and what doesn’t on film (as a character – usually I’m just an announcer-type in industrials) is a learning process, and I’m honored that these guys have faith in me to make it work. I hope to make them proud.

cosa numero uno: my first foray into audioville, Fringe Podcast #1, is officially available to the masses. One could download it from the Minnesota Fringe Festival website, and one could also download it directly from iTunes. Yes, we’ve hit The Big Time. Heck, on iTunes you can even subscribe to the Fringe Podcast via RSS feed (I’m writing like I know what this is) and get automatic updates when we post new ones. So fancy!

cosa numero dos: must. memorize. lines.

Filming for The Monster of Phantom Lake starts this weekend – a week earlier than anticipated – due to the oh-so-lucky securing of a 1955 Chevy convertible. Yes, the leading man gets to drive a snazzy car. Lucky.

Tonight was to be my night of hunkering-down and memorizing my lines before the weekend. But no, I’ve brushed-up on my procrastination ability instead – ‘tis a learn-ed skill that I have mastered well. So far tonight, I’ve sold some embarrassing CDs to the Electric Fetus, pampered my soon-to-be oft-used bicycle with chrome polish/rust remover, ate some turkey and crackers hoping it’d pass as dinner, talked to The Bean on the phone, actually managed to highlight my lines and make a scene breakdown before writing to the director to see if the shoot schedule is set in stone (so I can memorize the appropriate scenes each week before the shoots instead of all in one sitting), and wrote this entry. Alas, the hunkering is not going so well.

I can’t believe it – I got the part! You are looking at the new female lead, Stephanie Yates, scientific graduate student extraordinaire and love interest of WWII Veteran (don’t be grossed out, it’s set in 1956) and all around sexy mofo, Professor Daniel Jackson, in the Saint Euphoria Pictures film The Monster of Phantom Lake.

Oh, and by the way, I finished reading the script Saturday morning and realized that it’s definitely a throw-back to The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Not Swamp Thing. Well, maybe Swamp Thing, but I just remembered that I’ve never seen Swamp Thing. Anyway, it’s going to be a blast. The script is funny and well written, and the director and producer are smart and geeky-nice – so it’ll be just like working with MoCW or the old Scrimshaw Brothers/Look Ma, No Pants crew. I’m so excited, I’ve been doing the Horton Happy Dance. If you’ve never seen it, that’s probably a good thing because it’s ridiculous. Ask Reid Knuttila, he’ll show you.

I had my film audition on Saturday, and it went pretty well. The biggest challenge of the audition was just getting there – it was clear out in Mahtomedi – so far out there that even Google Maps couldn’t get it quite right. There were two very specific streets (Wildwood Road and this thing that goes by four names: Division St./Century Ave. N./Geneva Avenue N./East County Line Road N.) that I came to discover, after a good 30 minutes of driving around in Mahtomedi, are labeled as County Road numbers instead of their proper given names at major intersections. But only at major intersections. So for all intents and purposes, Wildwood Road is actually County Road 244, and is NOT to be confused with Wildwood Avenue or Old Wildwood Road. Same deal for that freaky road with four names.

By the time I put a few thousand extra miles on my car, clearly convinced that if I could even FIND the place, they’d have to cast me out of sheer awe for my incredible perseverance, I found it. I had a good laugh to myself after the audition when the producer mentioned that their afternoon auditioners were far more regular in showing up than their morning ones. Apparently their 9 am didn’t show, and the others were late. No kidding – If I had a 9 am audition (God help me if I ever do – ick), and I got lost in Mahtomedi, I would truly just say fuck it and go home.

Thanks to the locals of Mahtomedi for their patience and kindness in offering directions. Even if they never mentioned the bizarre Christian Name/County Road # phenomenon.