10/16/2011-ACTING-Double Day Filming With “Night of Something Strange”

Posted on October 16, 2011 by Wayne W. Johnson

10/15/2011-Once again heading down to location for some more filming w/ the NoSS cast & crew. On this trip I was with Rebecca K., Ron Bonk & his son Nathan. We actually arrived quicker than I thought. Course, I fell asleep on the way. We were back in Stevens City for the night before leaving for Goldvein early in the morning. Me & Rebecca got to sleep in the producers area-which was cool. Rebecca got the bed & I got the air mattress. Thanks to Rebecca for letting me have the AC on while we slept 🙂

-The next day (technically this is the 15th) we were on our way. This time we were at a volunteer fire station not too far from the gas station we filmed at before. Some of the people who have been involved have already finished up so we didn’t get to see everyone unfortunately, but still quite a number of cast/crew were here and it was great catching up with everyone. Then came the filming. Kinda strange that we were filming in the day time-since NoSS is usually done at night. I was basically the set photographer for this weekend-as well as acting. Good thing I did this on past NoSS shoots cause I still had a number of those past pics in my camera and they helped w/ any continuity issues we may have had.

-The day went by pretty fast IMHO. Night time is falling quicker. We had a new addition to the NoSS Zombie family but I can’t say who yet 🙂 After all that was done, it was my turn to get zombified. On the one hand, I’m used to it. On the other, it’s been over a month since I’ve done this. It’s always a kick when the process is all done and you’re ready to be filmed. Course, things were a little different. Most noticeably the weather. The last time I was in zombie mode, I was really warm internally-partially because it was warm & humid outside & partly because I sweat easily. So warm that the appliance (AKA the prosthetic AKA (to me) “Hamburger Helper”) was coming loose a number of times. This night, it was very cold out-and having cold blood poured on your arms amplified the effect. I was actually shaking for awhile-but you make due you know? I was on the ground for awhile this night so my arms were also covered in dirt, leaves, twigs, grass, etc. By the time I was done, it was around 3:30 AM. As usual, I can’t post any zombie / special FX pics till after the movie has been released. They were still shooting though till around 5:30 AM. We were all pretty much exhausted-and then it was an hour drive back to the motel in Stevens City. Me & Rebecca were roomies again and we both quick fell asleep.

10/16/2011-We arrived at the motel in Stevens City around 6:30. Me & Rebecca were roomies and we got in and quickly fell asleep. We had to be up by around 11 though. I got up and went to use the shower. To my frustration, there was no way that I saw to activate the shower! The faucet ran fine but no switch /handle that I could see to get the water to the shower head. That sucked. So I took a sponge bath-no hair washing-and went back to the main room. Rebecca then asked if I knew the trick to activating the shower in there. Apparently, at the faucet, there is a section right where the water is running out and you have to pull that. I’d never heard of such a thing-but I’m glad I know now-and so do all of you cause I took a pic of it and posted it in the album 🙂

-So I was back in the shower. Not as good as the one I have at my place but I’m not complaining. Just glad to have one at all. Still had a lot of the stuff that was used to paste the appliance on me from last night on my skin-and I’d spent 45+ minutes working on removing it in the bathroom of the firehouse last night as is. It’s not all easy street folks-but it’s all worth it.

-We got ready and then drove back to the firehouse again for more shooting. We started filming around 2 I believe and finished around 7-7:30. Everyone was doing a great job thru out this whole thing-the final cut will be intense!

-After a quick food stop, we were back on the road to CNY. Believe it or not, I barely slept at all. Spent most of the time talking to Becca & Ron. They took turns driving / sleeping. We arrived at around 3:00 AM and I got to my place around 4 AM. Pretty exhausted but glad that we’re getting closer to getting this done. Course, I had to be on the road for filming on another project 10 hours later so..Pics now up on my acting page on Facebook (non-FX / non-zombie).

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10/15/2011-BAND PRIMER-Being a 1 Person Band-Pt.1

Posted on October 15, 2011 by Wayne W. Johnson

-We all know it’s tough to be in the music business. Sometimes you can’t get people together just to jam let alone form a unit. And what if you’ve been in your scene for a long time, gone thru most of the players there, and can’t get into a band for whatever reason? What do you do? Many people just sit on their butts & just complain-turning bitter in the process. Many others quit. But there is another way. While you can-and should-keep working on improving your skills, you can also be a 1 person band-so to speak.

-What does that mean? Basically, you know how to play more than 1 instrument-and not just enough to get by either. This is the 1st step in not being chained to the notion that you have to have a unit of different people to be a band. There are many examples of 1 person bands. Nine Inch Nails is one of the most famous examples. Lenny Kravitz plays all the instruments when he records new CDs (save for some guests he invites-but he basically does it all himself), and there are more…

-Now, before I go any further-yes, there are limitations to this. The most obvious one is live performance. Unless you are doing a solo acoustic guitar act, it is hard to perform as just 1 person. Not impossible though-there are people out there who are doing it. Just Google it to find out. But my main point with all this is that you don’t have to sit around waiting to be in a unit again before doing something productive.

-Case in point:CAROLINE BLUE-my band-has had only 1 permanent member since April 2010-and that’s me. If other people are needed for live performance, I enlist from the pool of musicians that I know. While not as busy as a full band would/should be, CB has released new music & videos since 4/2010. And I still promote the band too-exposing new people to the music I even manage-from time to time-to get CB into the movie projects I’m involved in. When it comes to recording, my close friend Mike Merrifield (Joey Belladonna Solo Band) usually records the drums. I do the rest. I might also bring in some guest musicians for stuff like backing vocals but it’s mainly me.Videos I either use musicians or sometimes even actors that I know. Sometimes I don’t even need to show a “band” in them at all-such as in our video “Stay” (Paid The Electric Bill Mix). I’m not saying all this to brag about what I do, but to prove the point that just cause you can’t find a band to be in doesn’t mean that you can’t still be productive in some way. While it’s great to be able to just focus on one instrument & have a steady band-things change. It’s better to be prepared for those changes then to be caught blind sided (like I was years ago) when you find yourself without a band.

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10/8/2011-ACTING-More Filming on “For Tomorrow We Die”

Posted on October 8, 2011 by Wayne W. Johnson

-This was a night shoot-the 1st one I believe-so I didn’t have to rush to get there. Not only arrived on time but even had time to eat dinner. I wasn’t able to wear some of my outfit though-mud was so into the zippers that I couldn’t get them to work. The weather was great-actually a little warm. That changed as the night wore on. There were a couple of campfires going and at times a lot of smoke via a fog machine. The trenches were still wet & muddy though so the boots got all messy again.

-The scene went pretty well. There were several sections to it and we got thru all of them. Pretty cool to see some of the effects. A couple of the guys had FX makeup on their faces-all bloody & stuff. Kinda reminded me a tad of the zombie makeup I wear in the film “Night of Something Strange.” It was a lot of fun-I was the 2nd to last actor finished-Josh had one more scene to do and it was done before I realized.

-I didn’t get the rental car back & home till around 4 AM but that’s OK-I love doing this. I have one more scene to do with FTWD and I’ve been told filming has been tentatively scheduled in Dec. for it. Looking forward to getting this all done. Hope you all like the pics-which are now on my acting page on Facebook.

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10/3/2011-ACTING-Double Day Filming With “For Tomorrow We Die”

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Wayne W. Johnson

-10/1/2011-This was a cold & muddy day-yet a short one. The trenches were flooded but were being drained. Nice & muddy though-nice how RIT FX made it look like real mud (HA!) 🙂 We mainly have this one big scene to do that involves a good chunk of the cast, a lot of extras and a big fight w/ one of the aliens-which I can’t post any pics of until after this is released. The wind started to pick up and a light rain was falling thru out. We rehearsed the scene a number of times. Then we took a small break before filming-only to find out that one of the mic’s was broke so we had to postpone the shoot till the next day. Hopefully it won’t be so muddy-we have to park in a field and it was a little tricky getting out. Also-somehow a long the way I got a really bad sore throat. Hope it feels better tomorrow-lucky I don’t have too many lines in this scene. Got a few pics…. C-ya tomorrow!

-10/2/2011-This day started out wet, cold & windy-just like yesterday. The rain did stop though & I was joking that wouldn’t it be something if the sun came out-and it did! Nice work for continuity huh? The trenches were still pretty muddy as you can see from the pics. It took awhile but we got the scene all done. This was a big fight scene w/ one of the aliens known as a “Beserker.” I can’t show any pics of him till the movie is out but as you can, most everyone who was involved got splattered in mud to some degree. I’m in the process of getting it off my boots as I do this-YUCK! 🙂

-Had a great time w/ the cast & crew. Excellent job all around. I have about 2-3 more scenes to do and I’m done. Unfortunately the day didn’t end well-I ended up getting to my car and it had a flat tire. After changing it, turns out the spare was flat too 😦 Gotta love it huh? More filming coming up next weekend! Pics are now up on my acting page on Facebook.

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9/18/2011-ACTING-New Trailer for “Stone”

Posted on September 18, 2011 by Wayne W. Johnson

-From Mad Angel Films-here’s a trailer for “Stone”-in this I play FBI Agent Pagano and you can see me briefly in this 🙂

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9/17/2011-ACTING-Second Day Filming on “For Tomorrow We Die”

Posted on September 17, 2011 by Wayne W. Johnson

-My 2nd day of shooting-and this was a long one. Only 2 scenes but the 1st one was long-basically a built up to where-in the end-I get killed. Sarge & Jabilo get into an argument in the trenches and I intercede basically laying into Sarge. The argument is escalating when I get shot in the head-as well as a few of the other extras. They try to save me but it doesn’t happen. It was fun to do, although as you can see from the pics, this trench area was not made for people over 6′ tall-and I’m about 6’3″ 🙂 In one pic you can see that-in order to deliver my lines-I basically had to be in a horse stance. Good thing I’ve been doing plyometrics via P90X huh? 🙂

-After all the angles & dialog were shot from me, Sarge & Jabilo-then came the time for me to get shot-or to put it another way, to show that I’d been shot. Basically I had to move my head like it’d been hit, go limp body wise while throwing myself to the right-all at the same time. We did it several times for angles and was told I did a good job “selling it.” Hope so 🙂 And no, I actually had no problem with body pain or anything . It just happens so fast.

-Then it was lunch time and, after that, came the FX. As you can see from the pics, I got a nice little chunk taken out of my head-proving that white helmets are nice target indicators (HA!) 🙂 So I was on the ground while various shots and angles were done.
-Then we had to clean up all the blood and stuff cause the next scene shot was at a time before the last one. We actually went to a place to get some lava soap cause the wipes weren’t taking off the blood. Then we shot the next scene and I think all the shots were done before the sun went down.-I had a great time. I always do, but it always even more so when you have a great cast & crew around you. I have next weekend off from filming here due to more filming with “Night of Something Strange” (NoSS)-a zombie movie-but will be back for more filming here the weekend after that. Looking forward to both 🙂 Pics are now up on my acting page on Facebook.

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9/11/2011-ACTING-More Filming on “Rise Up & Fall”-Plus 9/11 Tribute

Posted on September 11, 2011 by Wayne W. Johnson

-it has been over a year I believe since I last did filming on “Rise Up & Fall.” This is actually the 2nd film I ever worked on. Kinda funny cause it will be weird for me watching the final version cause there are basically 2 versions of me (1 a year apart from the other) in the film-and as anyone who has been following me since the start of 2011 knows, there have been a lot of changes in almost all areas of my life.

-Before we started filming, Brian set up the camera and then we all stood before it and gave our respects as well as a moment of silence in remembrance to all the victims & families affected by the 9/11/01 attack.

-It took us awhile to get to location-kinda funny how the location was up North and Brian got on the 81 South road initially 🙂 It was a trek and when we got there…well, you can see by the pics. You wanna talk about a wrecked house…

-The shooting went at a pretty even pace. There are some pics that I can’t show till the movie is released. Basically, in this scene there’s a gun battle. While I can show people shooting, I can’t (yet) post pics of effects or who got shot & killed. I will say it was fun to fire blanks from a gun-when it worked 🙂 It jammed on me a few times. I think there might be even some blooper footage of me doing the 1st shooting take and I’m shooting the pistol and nothing is happening 🙂

-This was my last scene to do in this film (unless Brian calls me back for something) and I know Brian has been editing the film as he’s been going a long so it won’t be long before it’s all done. I know he’s put a lot of time & hard work into it-as have all the other cast/crew for this-and I think the results will reward those efforts greatly. Special kudos to Brian for giving me the opportunity to work on this years ago-which helps set me on the path I am on now. I will post here when the movie will be ready for release & sale-keep an eye out for it!

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