gregaronowitz

While I was busy finalizing puppets and props, @godzillag33k was working on getting us a new AD and line producer. Not only did she need to find a whole production team, they needed to be willing and able to show up and prep the show to shoot in less than two weeks. A friend recommended @gongfuman and his crew. Adam accepted the job, full well knowing we were in deep water, having no idea who we were, as he was just wrapping a project in the north west. I want to say Seattle or somewhere in that area. He and his team, consisting of UPM Mike Greene and 2nd AD Jeff “Bones” Fuller, jumped into a car the next morning and drove directly to New Orleans! They dove right into the madness and with overwhelming professionalism and a dash of miracle helped us get the production on track! Adam was an amazing AD, running a tight ship and keeping everything moving on schedule while at the same time not rushing me and helping me figure out how to get everything in my head onto the film reels! #labou #labouthemovie #filmmaking

Here’s @jon_atron with a fully painted #labou puppet. Criswell had finished up all the animatronic repairs, and I was hoping he could stay through at least the first few days of filming to make sure everything would function properly. But the Henson Creature Shop had just started Where The Wild Things Are, and needed him in LA right away. They called him as said, “Stop playing with Greg’s low budget sock puppet bullshit, we have a real movie to make!” That’s not really what they said, but it’s how imagined it at the time. Criz felt bad for having to leave, but he also wasn’t going to pass up a year of work on a huge project to wait around my set babysitting puppets. Jonathan took an interest in what Criz was doing as he stripped and rebuilt Labou mechanisms. At one point he commented that “it wasn’t as complicated as he thought”. Criswell was like, “You think you could do this?” Jonathan confidently replied, “Yes!” Criz told him to go upstairs and get me. I came down to the cage to find Criz packing up his tools. He pointed to Jonathan and said, “I’m leaving, but he’s the new me. He’s got this!” Soon Jonathan and Labou became as one, and he and @smiles_mechabre became the lead Labou wranglers for the duration of the shoot. #labouthemovie #filmmaking

I started painting the #labou puppets using tinted rubber cement. I went with a more frog like color scheme, cream colored belly with various shades of green and black spots on the rest of him. I decided to make his ears a bright yellow with pops of orange spots. The idea was that the Labou could hide in the foliage of the swamps, camouflaged in the tall grass or hanging moss, but still identify each other by the ears. To humans wandering through the bayou, they would just look like leaves and flowers. Designing the paint job on the first puppet was fun. Matching it on the other four was tedious! #labouthemovie #filmmaking

Here’s the #labou main puppet almost fully functional again. I had the foam skins run in a neutral color because I wasn’t 100% sure what the final color scheme would be. But I really love how cute he looks in this form! #labouthemovie #filmmaking

Since they were put on the endangered species list, it’s actually illegal to skin a #labou! But if you ever wondered what they looked like on the inside… #labouthemovie #filmmaking

If you are a fan of animatronic puppets, you have seen @criswell111 ’s work! From old school indie classics like Spaced Invaders and Garbage Pail Kids, to modern blockbusters like Five Night at Freddy’s and Predators, and of course all things Jim Henson’s! Not to mention that he went above and beyond to help me bring Labou to reality. John has been a mentor and inspiration to me for my entire career, which has spanned the majority of my life! Even when I was a teenager, he was encouraging me and pushing me to do more, never give up, and set my sights as high as they could possibly go. He made me believe I could create anything I could dream up, and it was very reassuring from a guy I just watched make a realistic flying bat from a latex glove, some popsicle sticks, and a rubber band! He has always had my back as I ventured into the I know world of directing and producing, and has helped me craft some of the best work I have ever done. I wouldn’t be where I am, or who I am, today without him! And today is his birthday!!!! He was never a fan of public accolades, but let’s let him know we are all a fan of his! Happy Birthday, Criswell!!! #labou #labouthemovie #filmmaking

It took some convincing, but @criswell111 made the trip out to New Orleans to get the animatronics fully functional again! I love this photo because it really shows how he felt about it!!!! John Criswell is the most magical genius I have ever known. We first met on the film SPACED INVADERS, which was second movie I ever worked on, but I often refer to it as my first real movie making experience because I was exposed to every art form ever imaginable. I was 18 years old, eager and impressionable. I knew OF animatronics, but only knew ABOUT what I had read in sci-fi film magazines or television specials with vague explanations of how Disney made theme park attractions. So to see firsthand someone bring life to a limp foam skin with servos and guitar strings was mind blowing and life changing. Criz invited me into his mad scientist world, and over the next decade taught me about movement, engineering, character connection, and dedication to a craft. I learned so much that I was able to bring many of my own creations to life for projects over the years, but when I came to the lead characters of my big breaks, like Doggy Cruger for SPD, and of course #labou, the title character of my feature film directorial debut, I knew I had to call in the best in the business! And then call him again to hop a flight south to help me out of a bind! #labouthemovie #filmmaking

So we are just over a week from shooting, and I have no Line Producer, no AD, and an animatronic puppet that’s not working!!! Stress is the only thing higher than the temperature in New Orleans that summer of 2005! Will we figure it all out in time!?! Stay tuned to find out! Same Labou time, same Labou channel… #labou #labouthemovie #filmmaking

@dave_blass_photography informed me that the main thing raising concerns was that our Line Producer and AD told him they were cutting the pirate ship scene! First of all, THEY don’t get to decide what stays and what gets cut. If they had concerns, they should have voiced them to me. If it was artistic or schedule matters, I could have helped navigate (ooh, a pun!) to something that worked for everyone. If it was financial or logistical, @godzillag33k would have added it to her ever expanding ring of juggling balls and drafted up some options for us to weigh. But they were being super weird, kind of laughing at me being “a kid making dolls” in the art cage, while secretly planning to overtake the production. I have no idea what their agenda was, because the movie couldn’t move forward without me and my team. Looking back with 20 years of perspective, I can see their concerns, I was trying to do a lot of things well beyond our budget. But I HAD a solid plan, a bag of tricks, an incredible team made up of a band of friends that I had done so many projects with, and a vision. Not like a “just believe and this will be great” vision. An actual, storyboarded, shot listed, sets already in progress vision. I’m sure many people were confused as to how we were going to shoot a whole sequence onboard a pirate ship without…well, a pirate ship! But they all trusted me and were excited to see how it would come to reality, not trying to cut a key scene from the film entirely! We never ended up sitting back down at the table. The two guys stormed off for the rest of the day, only to end up drunkenly pounding on my hotel room door in the middle of the night. They were screaming at me, yelling down the hall for Sheri, and claiming they had a gat and we’re going to take somebody out! It was pure insanity. I won’t lie, I was scared as shit (they were big guys, too) but I held my ground and told them I thought we would no longer be needing them on the production. I believe the next morning, Sheri officially fired them. I wasn’t there, I think I was puking in my hotel room. Directing is fun, kids! #labou #labouthemovie #filmmaking

With new help, things were going well in the cage. But upstairs, drama was brewing in the production office! This is kind of a long story with no visuals, so I’ll tell a truncated version. I considered editing it out, but it rolls into other stories, and I really do want to share everything so people can see what goes into making an indie movie. It’s not always good! While a majority of our crew were local New Orleans hires, we brought some key crew and department heads from LA. Our Line Producer and Assistant Director were two of them. Neither @godzillag33k or I had worked with them before, but they were recommended by a friend, came as a team, and were reportedly experts in scheduling and managing low budget films. We met with them in LA and they seemed excited about the job, so they were hired and met us in NO a couple of weeks before filming started. We had multiple meetings about how to tackle such an ambitious project. I had very specific ideas about how I wanted to shoot certain scenes, times of day for lighting, order of events for continuity and my workload to get stuff ready, etc. They would listen, smile, and say stuff like, “Sure thing, boss.” Everything seemed fine until @dave_blass_photography had an art department meeting with them and they started tearing pages out of the script, cutting locations, and eliminating scenes. I don’t remember the specific scenario Dave was discussing with them, but they had a new vision of how it would be executed. Dave said, “That’s not what Greg wants”. Their reply was, “Well, Greg’s in for a rude awakening!” Keep in mind, there was never any conversation with me about making deep cuts or changing plans. Obviously there will always be compromise on low budgets, but it has to be decided as a team and the outcome needs to still support the integrity project. When I heard about this, Sheri and I called a production meeting. It didn’t take long for it to turn into a screaming match, us being told the movie was impossible and we were delusional. People were sent to their offices like kids going to the principal. I was hoping everyone would cool off and come back to the table to figure it out. #labou #filmmaking

I knew I was forgetting some part of the story on that last post, which is why I even mentioned it! But luckily @jon_atron help me straighten it out! I actually met him first, and gave him a computer animation project (the readout display for the GPS prop. We’ll get to that again later!) and when he returned a week later, he brought @smiles_mechabre with him. I think this is the day I was remembering, because @billytombs was headed back to LA, Scot jumped over to the other building to help @dave_blass_photography , and the refinery still needed finishing touches! Tommy had interest in the model, so I threw him right into it. Their story continues, but we have to wait till we get to those parts! I’m glad I’m chronicling all of this, as it’s great to get everyone involve’s memories documented. A film production can literally have a thousand stories, from so many perspectives, it’s hard to remember it all. And in the midst of it, the little things may seem so unimportant, the jokes, the little mess ups, the last minute changes, but I assure you, 20 years later, every second you spent with your crew, every laugh you had with your cast, every scribble in the corner of your script or @polaroid of a set will feel like a precious treasure. Document everything, save as much as you can, and appreciate everyone around you as you march into the battle that is #filmmaking. Because trust me, even the best laid plans devolve into chaos when the clock starts and the camera rolls… #labou #labouthemovie

We were almost fully cast, but there was still so much work to on #labouthemovie. I needed more help. Most of the UNO students that joined our crew were with the production office, or assisting @dave_blass_photography with art department tasks, but I needed hands in the cage. I got a call from TG saying an acquaintance had a son interested in model making and #filmmaking, and a friend who were interested in getting involved with #labou. @jon_atron and @smiles_mechabre met me in the cage, and after a brief discussion about their interests, I put them right to work! If memory serves, I think I had them join in on the refinery model, especially because I think they were going to…architecture collage? They’ll correct me if I’m wrong. It was decades ago and lots going on, sometimes I’m fuzzy on the details! But what I do remember is that they both absorbed every task I threw at them like sponges, and before long they were both my left and right hand in every project on my list. We hardly left that cage for weeks! They helped me make molds, build models, engineer gags, cast props, and eventually work on the puppets. They went from being “interested in working on a film” to seasoned veteran filmmakers in a matter of weeks! I relied on them for everything, and I cannot tell you the tremendous weight they took off my shoulders knowing I could count on them, and they always came through! They reminded me so much of myself when I started, so eager and excited. Spending time with them reset my soul to that youthful, optimistic energy. I have so many stories to tell you about these two this year. Labou truly would not be what it is without them. To all the young people thinking about getting into film or entertainment but not knowing how you might fit in, just show up. Throw yourself into it, and you will find your place. You never know what could happen. These guys showed up hoping to get PA jobs and ended up as key players, department heads even, in the whole production. It was a crazy experience, it was half “just a job” and, I think I’m safe to speak for all of us, half “life altering in a way never to be forgotten”!