-And here’s my little (yeah right-HA!) recap on my three days of filming in Wellsboro, PA for the film “Zillafoot”-a feature film inspired by classic Godzilla / Ultraman films / TV shows from the 1950’s / 1960’s. I got this role-that of Dr. Mosku-specifically thru my close friend / fellow actor Cassandra Hayes-who had worked with writer / director Anthony Polonia in a previous film “Book of The Dead.” The thing that really sealed this for me was, upon reading the script, I could see that this could be done in “English Dub”-which is a term for how the voices sounded in many Asian movies from the 60’s & 70’s that were shown to English speaking audiences. Surprisingly, it was able to speak it quite quickly and easily-not to mention that I’m the only cast member who looks even close to Asian and I’m basically the comic relief in this so I was really looking forward to filming this. Filming in PA initially provided some challenges but they were taken care of and off I went. I arrived in PA Saturday night 5/3/14. Going into the mountains in a thunderstorm with high winds is not the most pleasant experience. Obviously, I got thru to the Polonia home. Initially, we were all a little concerned about the weather, but it was sunny on all three days of filming so…
-Sunday 5/4/2014-Call was around 10 AM this day. The Polonia’s (Mark, Maria and Anthony) have a nice place and were great hosts. The night before, I actually had to do ADR (before filming) on all of my lines. I guess that was to make this look more authentic in regards to doing “English Dub.” I told them that my aim was to do the lines on the filming days good enough so that no ADR was needed. However, a good chunk of the filming was outside and this first day was really windy so I would’ve had to do ADR anyways regardless. It was cool working w/ Cassie H. again and meeting / working with a whole bunch of new people. Then we went to a TV studio and filmed some footage there. Then a lab area, a hospital room and, later that night, back in the woods. We basically did a 12 hour day of filming. It was a lot of fun and I got a couple of my dialogue scenes out of the way. Towards the end I came up with this interesting noise to do while my character is running. He basically says “Hai” quickly & rhythmically over & over anytime he runs. It wasn’t in the script and I just started doing it, but it stuck and got some laughs so…I have to say, that was interesting having to do ADR for that 🙂
-Monday 5/5/2014. Call was around 11 AM this day. This day started out with use of the rental car I had and some green screen filming. Hope there are no pick up shots needed that involved the car-it was a Kia Soul that was from Florida. Then we did some filming around the house and then back outside again. Then we had to wait a few hours, did a few indoor shots and then go back outside for night shots in a forest. It wasn’t as windy as yesterday, but colder-even though the car said it was 52. Felt more like 22…This was fun cause I got to encounter one of the “sejin” and had to fight him off. Now again, I’m doing this in that classic style and as comic relief so this is quite different that what people normally see me do in films.Usually I’m the stalker, not the stalkee. At one point, as a joke, I did a classic “James T. Kirk” karate chop to the alien’s neck while yelling “Musku Chop!” They loved it and even kept it in. I have to say this is also the first time I have ever filmed a running scene where I’m holding the camera in front of me, aimed at me while running. I got all my stuff done-including the rest of my larger dialogue scenes, but the shoot was cut short cause one of the props got damaged before filming for today could be done. It’s OK though-they said they could get it later. This was basically another 12 hour day.
-Tuesday 5/6/2014-Call time was 9 AM. For this we actually traveled out to Elmira, NY to get the city shots needed.We had to do some “guerrilla filming” and actually had to go to several locations to get the shots needed. A lot of running this day, twice as much as the day before. I’m told that is common on Polonia films 🙂 My big concern was I’d injured my knee a few days before filming and what might happen, but I had no problems with it. The only problem I had was one of the buttons on my jacket got torn off the day before…and Cassie going down lanes that have signs that say “Do Not Enter” (HA!). The majority of the filming this day was running with shorter lines so it was done quicker. I think we were done by 1 or 2 PM. Then we all went out to a Friendly’s (yes-there’s still at least one still open) for lunch. I don’t know if this is the record for the quickest shoot I’ve done, but it’s up there.
-To sum up, I had a great time and it was great working with Mark & Anthony Polonia, Cassandra Hayes, Jeff Kirkendall, Brett Piper, Houston Baker and James Carolus. I’ve heard that it’s possible that this might be released before years end. Hope so! Pics can now be seen on my acting page on Facebook.
WAYNE W. JOHNSON 