Writing Ded Moroz

Brian and I were fairly ambitious with our first short film, Lepus. We had 13 speaking parts, 9 deaths, multiple scenes and set ups. Before we shot it I pitched to him the idea of making it a trilogy.

In Lepus we had a man dressed as the Easter bunny killing people on Halloween. In Ded Moroz we will have a man dressed as Santa killing people at Easter. We are still trying to decide what the third killer will be but it is going to be set during Christmas.

Brian and I sat down for a while tonight to write about 10 pages. This will be longer than Lepus and the final installment will be the longest. The hope is that when it is all finished we have something that is roughly feature length.

All the surviving characters are returning. Some will live. Some will die. All we know for sure is that we are only half way there. We made each other laugh several times tonight while writing Ded Moroz. It was probably the most fun we’ve had writing together since writing Lepus. We love the characters. We love the nonsense. We love that we are making each one bloody and weird.

In Ded Moroz we are upping the body count. With nine kills in Lepus we wanted to go for at least twelve this time. We have plenty of fun ideas for how we kill people in this. We have already written six. We have plotted death #7 and know where we are ending the story. We just don’t know who else dies along the way.

We also know that Sheriff Cristos will be dressed as Jesus again. A slightly different looking Jesus from the first one. You’ll just have to wait and see what I mean. We also have people in drag, people dressed like reindeer, people speaking French, and God knows what else before we finish.

There are going to be more locations, more scope. We don’t want to rest on our laurels. We really want to deliver with this thing. Editing on Lepus begins in a couple days. During that time Brian and I will be sequestered in the editing bay with our friend and partner in crime, David Sabal. We may try and work some writing into our schedule during the week. Stay tuned for more.

In the meantime you can click here to see photos taken during the Lepus shoot. Enjoy.

Lepus Casting Update

We have made our decisions on three of the key roles for Lepus. I can’t wait to announce them. The others are very tough. We are going to have to watch the audition tapes a few more times to decide.

I am so excited to start shooting this thing. The people we saw were absolutely amazing. They all brought something very unique to the roles they tried for. We had a blast the other watching them perform for us. If I had my way I would put every single one of them in the movie somewhere.

One person who auditioned was so funny, in fact, that we offered him the role after everyone else left. We didn’t even want to wait. He was just so perfect in the part. It may only be four lines but you guys will want more after you see him. And, if all goes according to plan, we will give you more in the proposed trilogy.

Two of the others have already been contacted and offered their respective parts. Before we make any official announcements I want to have the cast set. Hopefully you’ll hear about it soon on http://facebook.com/RobotVampireProductions.

Lepus Update

We are slowly but surely making progress on getting Lepus ready to shoot by the third week of October. We’ve nearly settled on locations, most of the cast in place. Things are moving in the right direction. We may have found our Sheriff Cristos/Jesus. I don’t want to say anything yet but he sent me an email recently and is interested. He’s a local guy with a couple credits on iMDb and I think we’ve got him hooked. This character more than any other is the key. It needs to he cast just right. I think this guy may be it. The character would be the star of the trilogy we are planning with this short. Ded Moroz will be the second part. We have not come up with a title for part three yet. I like the idea of using other languages for the titles like Lepus being Latin for rabbit and Ded Moroz being Russian for Santa Claus. I want that to be a running theme with the trilogy. My niece Kelsee, who is playing the female lead, was forced to watch a few things that I told her would prep her for the movie. I showed her scenes from the season 2 premiere of Twin Peaks and the scene where Crispin Glover was dancing in the fourth Friday The 13th movie. She just gave me a weird look and said “Okay”. I don’t know if she fully understands the weirdness she’s in for. We shall know soon enough. Once we have a completed product I will post it here for all to see.