Yes, NIGHT VISIT had its LA premiere last weekend at Shriekfest. So where is the blog about it?

Well, it's October, which is always an exceedingly busy month for me. For this reason, I have not had the time to write my usual blow-by-blow account of the event for you here. Suffice it to say that Denise Gossett, Todd Beeson, and the entire staff made it a wonderful, if not exhausting, weekend and I got to share the screen at Raleigh Studios with many talented filmmakers. I have posted some photos from the festival on my website for you to view HERE!

I have been nominated for a 2007 Cult Radio A-Go-Go! "Craggy" Award for Best Indie Film Maker / Artist / Entrepreneur of 2007!

For those of you who don't know what Cult Radio A-Go-Go is, it's an online radio station run by the super-cool father/daughter team of Terry and Tiffany DuFoe. They have had me as a guest several times on their Saturday night show, where they interview horror and cult celebrities.

To vote for me, go to the following link:

http://www.cultradioagogo.com/awards.html

There is a scene in the film where the attacker teases Lynn with a knife against her skin. After discussing this with her at length prior to shooting, I felt she would be more comfortable if I performed this action. The prop we were using had been dulled considerably but was still a real knife. Even though David was both an accomplished actor and stunt performer, I didn't think he would want to do this.

The night of filming, I donned the black sweatshirt and gloves, straddled my star, and ran the semi-sharp blade across her bare skin. Naturally, I took great care not to cut her. Afterwards, she said it was a truly frightening moment for her, even though she trusted me completely.

I understand Dario Agento frequently plays the hands of the killer in closeups in the movies he makes. There are some things a director just has to do himself.

It was Friday, August 10, and I was headed for Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I would not only attend the world premiere of Scott Phillip's GIMME SKELTER (in which I appear), but test-screen my new short film, NIGHT VISIT.

My shuttle arrived early, as always, and got me to the airport hours before my flight. The days leading up to this had been fairly stressful, so I christened my journey with a few cocktails at the airport. While sitting at the bar, I chatted with CGI artist Tom Capizzi and his girlfriend Marcy, who were bound for Las Vegas. Later on, I was waiting in the terminal and realized I was sitting next to actress Julie Carmen, who played to sultry vampire in FRIGHT NIGHT II. Since I know a lot of the effects artists who worked on that picture, I introduced myself to her. She had fond memories of the production and chatted with me for a while before we boarded the plane.

I was met at the Albuquerque Airport by Billy Garberina, who is the producer and star of SKELTER. He was picking me up instead of Scott, who was still preparing for the screening. Billy was hard to miss, wearing pink pajamas and a red velvet smoking jacket. He offered to take me anywhere I wanted to go. I opted to go straight to the house I would be staying at. On the drive there, he questioned me about distribution for independent features. He has a feature of his own called NECROVILLE, which is nearing completion.

The house in question belongs to one of my oldest and dearest friends, Patricia Rogers. We met as teens back when we both lived in Florida and have remained close ever since. She lives with her husband, Scott Denning (not to be confused with Scott Phillips), in wonderful old adobe home filled with antiques, nestled on a rural piece of property in the community of Bernalillo. It was Pat who introduced me to Scott Phillips many years before when he briefly moved to Hollywood. Now, appropriately enough, he lives in the house next door to her on the same property.

After settling in and saying "hi" to Mr. Phillips, who was understandably nervous about his premiere, Billy and headed back into town to drop off my short at the theatre before grabbing some dinner. The venue was a cool art house on Central Avenue called the Guild Cinema. The owners, along with local entertainment newspaper The Alibi, have been tremendous supporters of independent film. Several years before, we screened my movie THE HALFWAY HOUSE there.

Cast and crew were already gathering out in front of the theatre. I ran into sexy starlet Elske McCain, who decided to accompany me to dinner up the street. We were joined there by another good friend, Dayna Hawes, who shot stills on my last movie and was currently living in Albuquerque. We were disappointed the place did not have a full bar so we fortified ourselves with some local brews before heading back.

The lines were now quite long in front of the Guild and the 10pm show was completely sold out. A few doors down, star Gunnar Hansen ("Leatherface" from the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE) was signing autographs in a gelato shop. I stopped by to say hello. I've known the man for a long time and, even though we had no scenes together in the film, it was nice to be involved in a project with him. He greeted me warmly. I also saw some of my other co-stars – indie fave Trent Haaga, Sarah Lee Turner, Kurly Tlapoyawa, local sci-fi writer Bob Vardeman, and Ashley Bryce (who murders me onscreen).

Once the audience was packed into the theatre, Alibi staff writer and fellow cast member Devin O'Leary called me and the other "guests" up front to introduce the movie. This was interrupted by the entrance of Israel "Izzy" Wright, in full Green Beret uniform, who had flown in to surprise the director. (He hadn't been able to work on SKELTER but had been a frequent contributor to Scott's other films.) After the happy reunion, I made my announcement that this was the first public screening of NIGHT VISIT, which was still a "work in progress."

I was relieved when the crowd reacted favorably to my short. I was more uncomfortable with my performance in GIMME SKELTER. I gave up acting decades ago to pursue a career behind the camera but, ironically, I get asked to do cameos all the time. Fortunately, I get stabbed to death before the opening credits so I was able to relax and enjoy the rest of the film. Since I had never read the entire script, it was as fresh to me as it was to everybody else and was filled with good performances and wonderfully quirky writing.

After the first show, I got a lot of nice comments on both my short and my acting. I managed to refrain from saying I thought I looked fat onscreen. The audience was smaller for the midnight show but we gave it the same rousing introduction that we had earlier. After the second screening started, I said my "goodnights" and headed for home. It had been a long day.

I slept as late as I could on Saturday, considering Pat was co-hosting a big barbeque for the cast and crew. I was feeling a bit off that day, probably due to lack of sleep combined with a negative reaction to the altitude, heat, and humidity. (Who would have thought they had a monsoon season in New Mexico?) I was fairly useless helping to set up for the party but Scott's girlfriend Jen was on top of things.

People began drifting in around 1pm. I was a bit relieved that everyone seemed as exhausted as I was from the last night's festivities, so I didn't feel totally out of place. There were many people there I recognized but, given my terrible memory for names, I will have to ask their forgiveness for not mentioning them all. Gunnar showed up with his lovely lady friend Betty and stayed a while. He could not be at the screenings that night but signed numerous posters and photos before departing. Trent came by late because he was shooting another movie in town.

After the party broke up, I rode into town with Dayna and had a nice dinner, this time with martinis. I introduced the first showing with the rest of the gang, watched the movie a second time, made another intro for the midnight show, then bugged out. Apparently, the rest of the cast did the same.

Pat fixed a big breakfast for everyone Sunday morning. Afterwards, she and her husband offered to take me sightseeing. The two of them are wonderful tour guides who are well-versed in local history. We took some desert dirt roads past old ghost towns to Madrid, a quaintly-restored mining town that had been used as a location for the recent film WILD HOGS. We drove through atmospheric Cerillos, which had been used in John Carpenter's VAMPIRES, before having a late lunch in Santa Fe. For some reason, every time I go there, it starts raining.

Returning home, we realized no one was around to drive me into town for the final 10pm screening on Sunday night. Instead, I was able to spend a relaxing evening sitting on Pat's patio, drinking wine, smoking cigars, and catching up with her. Scott Phillips came by later to say there was a good turnout for the last showing. I decided not to stay up most of the night to watch the meteor showers because I had to fly back to LA the next morning.

It was a couple of months ago when my filmmaker friend Scott Phillips emailed me about the premiere of his new indie feature, GIVE ME SKELTER. (Last year, he had flown me out to New Mexico to play a role in the film.) I told him it sounded like fun but my schedule probably wouldn't permit me to go. He really wanted me to be there so he offered to buy my plane ticket. I couldn't say no to that.

Once I agreed to attend the premiere, it occurred to me it would be a good opportunity to preview my short, NIGHT VISIT, which was still in post. I proposed the idea to Scott, who thought it would be a cool way to open the show. Now, I had a real deadline to meet.

I shot my film in March – on St. Patrick's Day to be precise – and, months later, it still wasn't finished. It had been the busiest summer in memory for my FX company, Total Fabrication, and I had very little time for anything else. Unlike my previous films, this was purely a labor of love that had to worked around paying gigs. My original intention of learning Final Cut Pro and cutting it myself went by the wayside when I realized it would take forever for me to complete, especially without anyone tutoring me. I roughed in the first sequence by myself, then called on Aaron Cohen to finish it with me. Of course, this meant I now had someone else's schedule to coordinate with.

Once Aaron was on board, we got most of the editing done in a day. (After all, it was only a three-page script.) However, there were titles and other final touches to be added before we could lock picture. After each time we got together, there were days - even weeks - in between. In the interim, a local festival deadline was approaching that I wanted to make. There was no way to have the music or sound mix complete so I had to submit the piece with a temp score.

When we had the film ready to go, we had further scheduling issues to contend with. My composer, Mars of Dead House Music, was on vacation for another week or so. He lives in central California but I had worked with him via long-distance before. While awaiting his return, I proceeded with the rest of the post sound.

A talented pair of filmmakers, Brian and Laurence Avenet-Bradley, had recommended a guy who worked on their films to do my sound. They gave me his phone number but, because of all the technical details I wanted to cover, I initially contacted Mark Fletcher via email. Our communication was clear and concise, so I knew he was a good choice for this project, especially given the impending deadline.

I wrote Mark about the possibility of needing to record some ADR and asked him if he had a place to do it. It was then he informed me he lived in New Jersey! All this time, I had never phoned him so this came as a complete surprise to me. Nevertheless, thanks to this age of internet, FTP sites, and AIFF files, it was still possible for him to do the job even though he was on the opposite corner of the country!

While Mark dealt with fixing a few glitches in our production sound, along with adding sound effects, ambiences, etc., Mars came back to discuss what I wanted for the music. I had temped the film with Bernard Herrmann's score from SISTERS, which was very powerful and orchestral. We agreed that my film needed something that was equally intense but, at the same time, more simple and intimate. Besides, there wasn't the budget or time for a full orchestra.

After listening to his first pass and giving him a few notes, Mars came up with the intriguing idea of adding a vocal track to the main theme. There wouldn't be actual lyrics but more of a haunting lullaby. I liked this a lot. He further suggested that since my star, Lynn Lowry, was also a singer, she should record it herself. I was pretty sure she'd agree to do it but there was less than two weeks before the preview. The compromise was Mars would use a vocalist in his area, which would be used for these initial screenings. Once I got back to LA, there'd be time get Lynn to do a final version.

I got the score from Mars, sent it to Mark, who returned it very quickly. There were a couple of minor things I wanted to change but felt they could wait until after the preview. Something else I ran out of time to do was the final color correction. Mike Su's hi-def cinematography was excellent but the naturally warm skin tones he got didn't quite suit the dark mood of the piece. The plan is to run the film through Magic Bullet for the final output. The few shots I was able to test this process on look awesome!

Aaron and my producer, Roy Knyrim, helped me get my DVDs burned within a day of my departure for Albuquerque. NIGHT VISIT was ready for its first public showing. Look for my next blog to find out how everything went.