July 11th, 10pm-5am EST
First off, what’s with the names these days?
Second, I just want to state for the record that I was DONE. I was wrapped on the film, and I had plans to catch a ride to the Buffalo Greyhound station and hop on an early Binghamton bus. Therefore, I was the only one at the table who had any business—
Well, let’s start from the beginning.
We’ve finished shooting for the day. While we’re phasing out, the new cast is phasing in, and there are complications with keys and rooms and medications, as well as issues involving special effects. Greg is grumpy and busy, a bad combination. There seems to be a sense of crisis hovering around the production. (Just for the record—this sense of crisis was absent during the two days of shooting with the Flashback-tors. Take that, New Generation!)
I deal with this muted panic the way I always deal with such scenarios. I excuse myself. Sephera, Wil and I hop in her car and truck on over to the Irish pub, repeating our debauchery from the night before. You can’t blame us. The food is good, the drinks are cheap, and it’s not too loud, not too quiet—it’s juuuuust right.
Sephera and I chose pints of Killians, while Wil stuck to his Jim Beam and Coke, and we discussed the various crises that had suddenly engulfed the set. There was an actor, staying at the Actor’s House, and it was locked, and the actor didn’t have the correct key, and his bags were inside, and he needed his bags. We had suggested to the actor, through John Renna, the production designer, that they all just head on over to Sangria’s, a great restaurant right around the corner from the Actor’s House, and just hang low until Greg and company could get the problem solved. Sandra, Marcos, Carlos and Eduardo were already there, so they’d have company. This solution did not suit the actor, who it must be repeated, needed to get to his bags. There was talk about breaking a window, a lock, etc.

Sephera had wanted to swing by the Actor’s House and see what we could do to help. I took more of a hands-off approach, and suggested that we could help best by staying out of it, and not adding to the general angst. To contribute to the smooth running of the production, all we had to do was take care of ourselves, and keep our noses clean.
Yeah, right.
At some point, we realized that Kealan, my character’s new possess-ee, was just down the street at the FX lab getting de-slimed. We gave him a call and asked if he wanted to join us. About two hours later, he showed up.
Kealan is the guy that pubs were made for. Irish, engaging, talkative, and a drinker, he took things up to the next level. And the next five levels after that. He started chatting up the bartender, the owner, the patrons. Soon, people were buying us drinks, strangers became best friends. The owner sat at our table and told us jokes and anecdotes about Buffalo Bob. It was incredible, magical.
It was also 4:15 in the morning. None of us were in a condition to drive. All of us needed to sleep, none more so than Kealan, who had a full day’s shoot tomorrow—make that today!
After a few aborted attempts to get everyone out of there, I finally succeeded. We staggered back to Sephera’s car. I was elected driver, based on the fact that I could still form consonants. We drove verrrry carefully to the Actor’s House. About a mile away, Kealan pulled out his key at the same moment as I hit a pothole, and the key flew out of his hand. We pulled over in front of the Actor’s House and searched, but could not find the key. It’s probably there right now, lodged in a black hole between the seat cushions. Kealan knocked, but the other actors were asleep and didn’t answer. Now Kealan contemplated breaking in—the Actor’s House would have the distinction of having been broken into twice in the same twelve hour period.
Finally, I herded everyone back to the car, insisting that breaking into a house at 4:45 am was apt to be misinterpreted by the police (although I’m sure Kealan would be able to charm the officers out of using live ammo.) We got back to Greg’s at 5 am, walking in as Greg was waking up. He wouldn’t look at us—a bad sign. We got Kealan set up on some couch cushions in the costume room, and I dozed for an hour before figuring out my transport to the bus station.
That’s how we keep our noses clean in Buffalo.

2:00 pm-9:00 pm EST

Around lunchtime, we started getting visits from the rest of the cast, people who would start shooting the main story the next day. Kealan, Jill and Lee all stopped by to check things out and meet us. This is the next generation of slime, my friends. They’re the actors that play the characters that our characters possess. Confused? Well, see the frickin’ movie when it comes out. I wish them luck and envy them—they get all the kick-ass scenes in the movie. The fights, the gross special effects, the slime oozing out of their pores. But they’ll have a hell of a time topping the work we’ve done so far.
Greg brought a few Slime City DVDs, and I was stunned by the number of people who wanted me to sign theirs. (I don’t think we hit double digits, mind you, but I don’t spend much of my life signing things.) It was a nice way to spend my lunch hour, pretending I was some kind of presence. One guy, Eduardo, had me sign three different DVDs.
Finally, it’s the last scene for us, the suicide scene. I dress up in my black outfit, with the disappearing and reappearing shoes, and sit down with Andrew so that we can figure out the knife. This is the knife gag (FX guys call their special effects “gags”) that I was shown by Rod the night I arrived, so there’s a certain closure going on. The knife itself is different, full of curves and holes—it feels almost organic, like bone. The tip comes off, so it looks like it’s really buried in my flesh, and the tubing runs up one side, so that when the knife touches my skin, the blood can flow. Andrew attached a whole set of tubes to my back, inside my shirt, nestled there with the sound guy’s wireless box. That’s a lot of shit to hide behind your back—but it was a fairly presentational scene, so no worries there.
While I worked with the knife, trying to familiarize myself with it, they brought in the rest of Flashback-tors and the extras. One of the extras, Eduardo, who had been a delight all day, gave us a bit of a scare when he sat on a prop cot, which ripped apart the second his ass touched it. Displaying strength and dexterity I don’t think I could match, he swung from the cot’s edge, upside down, by his knees, and easily let himself down through the center. This is a 58 year-old guy! It would have been a shame to start the last scene with a concussion. Good save, Eduardo!
When I began my speech, which starts as sort of an emotional farewell, one of the extras kept laughing, trying to suppress it, but laughing nonetheless. I guess I was too silly on the set.
While they shot the reactions to my speech, I got a look at the monitors. The black and white images looked incredible. While I half-expected the women to look that good, it still took my breath away. The huge shock, however, was Michael, the guy playing Roman the poet. The camera seemed to capture an anxious sadness in his features. It looked incredible. If the rest of the sequences look that good, we’re golden.

The knife gag went off beautifully. Then I was dismissed to get an appliance added to my arm that would simulate a deep gash. Andrew painstankingly stuck the latex wound on my arm, keeping up a great conversation while he blended the edges of the appliance into my flesh. I extracted a promise from him that he would be as solicitous with the other actors when he was taking the make-up off, and he assured me that that was part of the job. Great guy, Andrew. I got back on the set and fed the other actors their lines while the appliance dried. Then he poured blood on my wound, Greg got his shot, and I was wrapped, along with the rest of the Flashback-tors.
That was the end for me, but of course the crew and the incoming actors were just getting started. They had an early start on the train terminal set the next day, so they were busy loading up and getting out of the office building. There was a crisis at the Actors House and a problem with the slime guy make-up as applied to Kealan, and Greg was peeved. (He was using the letter “f” when he wanted to say “fuck” earlier in the weekend, but tonight abbreviations would not do—“fuck.”) There were some plans to visit a place called “The Snotty Fox” with Brooke, but we wrapped later than expected, and she was just going home to prepare for her trip back home. Sephera, Wil and I decided to go to the Irish pub we’d visited the night before. I bundled up my stuff, threw it in Greg’s car, gave everyone who wasn’t too busy a handshake or a hug (Greg doesn’t hug,) got in Sephera’s car, and we drove off into the Buffalo night.
And then things got interesting!

So, shoes on feet, I drive Greg to the set. We got there at 7:30, parked on the street, and walked in to the set. This was the first scene, apart from Lizzie’s solo prepping of the ectoplasm, that we shot on this set. This is where I talk to my followers, and Brooke gets some more info on my cult, and drunks the famous elixir. This is where I give my mini-schpiel.
This little pep talk originally began as a whim. Greg had e-mailed me the fictional book cover that my fictional character wrote, “Flesh Control.” I asked him if he wanted me to write an inside jacket cover blurb, and he said yes. A few days later, he asked if I could make the blurb a spoken word piece, and he created a slot for it in the script. Greg is one of those cool directors who’s open to ideas from the cast. Of course, he also likes to bust your chops. When I got on set, he discussed the scene by saying “Robert wrote this monologue for his character—frickin’ actors.”
I wrote it, I edited it—now all I had to do was learn it. Fortunately it was pretty straight forward, and Greg figured out a way to shoot it that required only one set-up, a dolly shot on me, then across to my minions, then ending on Brooke and Michael so they could do their scene.
The extras arrived en masse at about 8:00 am. For they record—they were coool! They all seemed to be friends of Michael, and had all come in homeless attire. One woman really went for broke, wearing a pillowcase for a skirt and dirtying up her skin with a mixture of chocolate and olive oil. Some of them were ultra-methody, which can be irritating for those playing lead roles (I’m talking to you, Mr. Bale!) but you really have to admire it in extras.
Around 10:00 am, we started shooting. We were able to do a few takes, as the camera move was a little complicated and there were all sorts of details to wrangle. I didn’t mind doing the schpiel 5 times over—I just felt like I was getting stronger and stronger. The extras were all focused, making great eye contact—one of them even shed a tear, although I think she was trying to suppress a cough. They were quiet as dead slugs while Brooke and Michael performed their scene. The support we got from them in this key scene (the first time we see the “cult”) was huge.
Next on the agenda—the orgy scene.

July 12th—6:30-7:00 EST
It’s late, and I got almost no sleep last night, but over the course of the next few days I’m going to try to recreate this last day. I’ll probably chop up the bits as I post them, but what I’d love to do is get it all down on the screen.
Okay, when I woke up, it was about 6:30, and I didn’t want to get out of bed. I’d had a couple of beers the night before, but not enough to get me drunk, let alone hung over. Still, it was all I could do to climb out and put the pull-out away. I felt better after the shower. I’m sure those near me would agree.
I found my shoes. Funny story. After I failed to find the shoes yesterday, I called home to Abby, my wife. I told her that we had somehow forgotten to pack the shoes.
“That’s impossible!” she said, emphatically. “They’re in the plastic bag with your sandals.”
“I have the plastic bag with the sandals, and the shoes aren’t there” I whined.
“I put those shoes there. Did you look in your suitcase?’
“I looked in the suitcase,” I said, starting to feel my pulse rise. “They weren’t there. I checked everywhere.”
“Did you take them out?” she asked. “I could swear we packed them.”
“Look,” I said, “You’re getting upset, you’re getting me upset, I just called to tell you the shoes aren’t here, so, I have to go.”
“Could you check the suitcase again?”
“I checked—I have to go, okay? Talk to you later.” And I hung up. I cast a glance over back at Sherrie and Brooke, who were looking at me like I’d just slapped a puppy. “I just don’t see the need to go over it again and again when there’s nothing I can do.” They nodded, with a look that said “What an asshole.”
About twenty minutes later, I realized where the shoes were. I had taken them out of the suitcase and parked them by the rest of my costumes in the unoccupied room at Greg’s house. They were sitting there behind the door, to stay out of the foot traffic. Abby was right, we had packed the shoes, and I had taken them out of the suitcase. Later that day, I called her to sheepishly admit that I’d found them, and explained what happened. “I thought it was something like that,” she replied. My wife, in case you didn’t know, knows everything.

July 10th, 2:00-late EST
After the intro scene, we had a lunch break with a vegan, non-dairy, Kosher, pasta primavera, salad and garlic bread. It was delicious, and I forced myself not to eat too much, even though John and Greg exhorted everyone to eat as much as possible.
A quick word about John Renna—he’s a blast. He brings positive energy and good humor to the set. He’s passionate about the project. He’s going to play the Mayor in the movie, complete with a coat of flesh, and I can’t wait to see what he does with it. And here he is, working on the special effects and making sure we all have coffee and pasta as well. Greg has assembled a phenomenal team!
Now the big scene—where I tell my family that I’m dying of cancer. Bit of a logic problem here—Zachary is the master of flesh control, but he can’t kick the big C? Still, let’s just chalk it up to needing more time to control flesh on a cellular level, accept that he has terminal cancer, and move on, okay?
I really wanted to work up some tears for this scene, but was unable to. Sorry, Greg. Still, I resolved not to force it, and just played the action. It was a touching little scene. It was the first chance I had to work with Sandra, the girl playing Lizzie, my daughter. She was great—responsive and emotional and a blast to work with. There’s one moment where she asks if she can join the rest of the cult on their final adventure, and I say “no.” She starts crying in the middle of my sentence, and I get to talk through her tears. It plays so nicely. It felt good anyway, we’ll see how it looks. Greg is a little stunned that these bad guys of his are coming across so sympathetically, but I figure—if the cult all died for him, they must have loved him, and they must have loved him for a reason.
That’s it. A couple of shots of Sandra mixing up the elixir, and we’re done. We finished at 6:30, an hour and a half early. Not bad for the first day. After the shoot, Wil, Sephera and myself (the Greg tenants) decided to go out for dinner. We asked Greg where we should go for pizza and beer. He had NO IDEA. He finally offered up the Anchor Bar, where Buffalo wings were supposedly invented. The three of us (Greg stayed home with the fam) followed Greg’s directions and went to Anchor Bar. On our way there, we passed about half a dozen pubs and bars that would have been perfect for what we had in mind. The ride out took us about forty minutes. Finally, we got there, and it was a busy little tourist trap. Line at the door, clearly set up to fleece out of towners. It was ridiculous. Starving and delirious with hunger, Sephera suddenly remembered that the last time she was in town, John had taken her to an Irish pub. We called him, got directions, and went there. It was great! Just the kind of place we had in mind. Good grub, cheap beer and drinks. It was just five minutes down from Greg’s house.
My friends, if you’re reading this—buy a copy of Slime City, and see Slime City Massacre when it comes out—because Greg Lamberson needs to get out more.

July 10th, 11:00-2:00
Next up for me was the scene where I introduce Brooke to the rest of the crew. Brooke and Sephera had a scene before that, an emotional scene where Ruby (Sephera) invites Nicole (Brooke) to live with us, after the orgy. (Oh, so now I have your attention, do I?) Sephera was an enigma to this whole production. Greg knew her as a fellow writer and horror enthusiast. She’s a member of the Horror Writers Association, and received a Stoker Award for promoting horror in Toronto. But apart from non-professional theater, she’s not acted before. Greg took a chance in casting her because she looks the part. Well, I’m here to say, the gamble paid off. I don’t know if she’s the most believable Ruby, but she’s easily the weirdest. She has an incredibly voluptuous physique, with breasts that are nothing short of awe-inspiring. (She wore a very low cut Goth gown to the Stokers this year, and the slack-jawed attendees will confirm what I am telling you now. Half the crowd was scared she was going to spill out of her top, and the other half were hopeful she was going to spill out of her top.) She wears a permanent smile that seems warm, if a little demented, and her eyes get wide when she speaks, in this sing-song voice, like she’s talking to a retarded puppy. They shot the scene on some metal stairs behind a church. I couldn’t hear it all that well, but once in a while I’d hear Sephera’s lilting cadence, “Nothing is impossible. That’s why I’m here…” It sounded so nice, supportive, and evil at the same time. Finally, the end of the scene, where Brooke bursts into grateful tears and hugs Sephera. The tears were real. I think the crew was taken by surprise, to see actors of this caliber bringing it to the set on the first day. Bravo, Brooke and Sephera!
Now we get to move indoors. I know I said in a previous posting that Buffalo seemed a little depressed, economically. But that does NOT extend to its automobiles, especially trucks and buses and loud motors in general. Jesus! We even closed off the street, and we still couldn’t get it quiet out there. And it was summer, right? Why are there so many school busses rumbling around? Are the child molesters working in bulk?
The introduction scene was Michael’s first in front of the camera, and he did a fine job. Cast this man in your movies—just don’t let him drive. He was appropriately lecherous and pretentious as Roman, the resident poet. The night before during rehearsal, we had come up with some new lines to throw in, that add a little levity to the scene. Roman gets the last laugh as he leads Brooke off. Now all of us flashback actors have been in front of the camera, and we’re starting to find our groove. This scene felt better for me then the first, as I had more of an ensemble to play with. There is a subtext to the scene, and Sephera and I played with it a lot. Also, there’s a huge eyeball painting behind us, which adds to the general sense of weirdness. (As I think on it now, the eyeball will probably be more of a character in the scene than me. Damn you, Eyeball!)

July 10th – 6:30-11:00 am EST
The first day of shooting was a huuuge success. We got a great cast, a capable and swift crew, and Greg is using them all very well. I think we’re off to a rocking start.
The day began at 6:30. We had to be on the set at 8:00, and we all needed to shower. There was Greg, Wil, myself, and Sephera Giron, the actress playing Ruby, my character’s wife. Also, Tamar and Kaelin needed to get off to their day gigs, work and day care. So organizing the shower parade was in itself quite the accomplishment.
Greg, Wil and I left the house  at 7:40, got to the set just before 8, and found a couple of people waiting for us, including Sherrie, a make-up person hired by Brooke to make sure the HD format isn’t as cruel as it usually is. Tall, with grey/white curly hair, a thin frame, tanned all over, she looks like one of those Sedona earth mother types, but she’s kind, fiercely engaging, and bragged about a severed green limb in her trunk, so she and I became fast friends. Greg opened the door, and one by one, the cast and crew began to arrive.
I realized with mounting horror that I had left my shoes back at Greg’s. I wasn’t going to be in the first shot, but the second shot would require shoes, not the sneakers I was wearing. I tried to call Sephera at Greg’s house, but there was no answer. With guilt gnawing at my intestinal lining, I told Greg. He turned away, grabbed Michael O’Hear, the AD (also the guy playing Roman) and dispatched us to the house. Unfortunately, Michael had no clue how to get to Greg’s place. He wrote it down haltingly on a piece of paper. (A quick aside—no one in Buffalo seems to know how to get around in Buffalo. Greg got lost a couple of times the day before—it’s his friggin’ home town!) Michael and I got in his car, and drove out. I paid careful attention to where we were going, how to get there, etc. Michael’s a nice guy and all, but perhaps the slowest driver on the planet. We were going down this road, a main thoroughfare with a 40 mph speed limit. We didn’t crack 25, never got out of 2nd gear. It wasn’t the traffic—Michael drives with extraordinary caution. The conversation was great, as the man knows theatre and horror. I just wish his gas pedal foot knew acceleration.
When I got to Greg’s, I couldn’t find my shoes. Eeek! So I grabbed some flip flops and sandals and headed back. Forty minutes later, they were just finishing squeezing off the first shot, with lovely Sandra playing Lizzie. (Last one cast, first one shot—it’s always the way.) I was in time. Greg okayed the sandals, and my character is more beat-nicky than ever.
The first scene between Brooke Lewis and I was quick. It had to be. We were shooting day for night, and the sun was creeping out over the building, reducing our shadowy stage by inches every minute. Brooke was awesome. Just the right mixture of tramp and child. Me, I don’t know. I felt stilted and awful next to her. I didn’t want to do the bad-guy bombastic thing, and I basically played the action of winning her trust. Be kind, engaging, then call her on her shit, and let her make her own mind up. We could have done it a couple more times, but we were losing non-light. Hopefully, Brooke and the writing will make it fly.

July 9th, 11:00 pm EST
The rehearsal went really well. The new woman playing Lizzie is beautiful and rock solid, and everyone else is great as well. We have what I regard as the emotional heart of the movie, and we all seem to recognize it and accept the challenge. We added a couple of lines to the current script, including a goofball joke involving Norman Rockwell and what I regard as the sickest line in the movie, where a proud father introduces his daughter to the weekly orgy. I’ll talk more about the scenes as we shoot them over the next couple of days, but tonight I feel great. I think we’re gonna have a great shoot.
It’s difficult, when you’re as jaded as I am, to start to believe that maybe you’re in a real gem. I don’t kid myself that any Oscars will be handed out, but with so many mediocre to bad low budget films out there, this one aspires to be a few slashes above, and right now it actually feels like it will meet that goal. It’s got action, blood, guts, gore, apocalyptic vision, flights of foul fantasy, and at the core, a simple story that tugs at the heart strings. Oh, please let it not suck.
When we got back to Greg’s, he started throwing away some of the Chinese food that he’d had with his wife and kid. A nearly full tin of sesame chicken, he was just gonna throw it away. I made him pull it out of the garbage (it had only been in for a few seconds) and put it in the fridge. I would eat it later. I also had half my sub from lunch.

July 10th, 4:45 am EST
The phone rang in Greg’s house, waking me. I heard the message over the answering machine. It was John Renna, production manager, asking Greg if he wanted to come over and check out some effect they had put together. Greg didn’t answer—I think he slept through the call. It just doesn’t stop, does it?

July 9th, 11:33 pm EST

Okay, that whole “closing of the eyes” thing didn’t work. We had more errands to run– putting out more fliers to the residents, checking the special effects work, picking up Greg’s wife from work and his daughter from day care, (she was in a much better mood coming back home than she was earlier this morning,) picking up Brooke Lewis at the Doubletree (fire free,) and driving us over to the restuarant, where the 5 of us “Flashback-tors” could hang, get to know each other, and over to a 7:30 rehearsal that was supposed to last until 9:00. Although the day seemed to go smoothly from my perspective, Greg got increasingly stressed as the day went on, letting out deep sighs and saying “I’m never gonna get to the schedule.” (He was right. He never got to it.) He was accomplishing a lot, but there didn’t seem to be enough hours in the day. I think he’ll feel better after we shoot. I think we all will.

While visiting the FX guys, Andrew, a young guy with red hair, a wispy beard/goatee mix and piercings all over the mouth area, but personable as all get out, showed us a weapon he had created involving a simulated hip and femur bone, wrapped together with wire. A very cool looking thing, it felt heavy in my hand. I couldn’t repress the urge to get all Kubrick-y with it. Andrew encouraged me, saying “No, go ahead. If it breaks, we’ll make another one.” He set a cardboard coffee cup with the lid still on  upside down on a tree stump and told me to take a whack. I raised that thing up high, brought it down hard on the coffee cup– barely denting it. I tried  again, putting more weight behind it. This made all the difference– I dented it a little more. I swatted that thing around for a good five minutes, and could not crush that coffee cup. It would skitter across the lawn, and I’d scurry after it, put it back on the stump, swing, miss, run after it. Finally, I said “Well, I’m bored,” and handed the bone-weapon back to Andrew. Personally, I blame the cup, which had a lid and was doubled up, keeping the air inside and making it difficult to smash. As if to console me, Andrew took a swing, missed the cup entirely and chipped the hip/club.

A quick word about Wil Keiper, a great guy who manages and writes for numerous websites, most notably horroryearbook.com, and is sharing the downstairs with me. He and I took the task of notifying the heighbors that the street would be closed tomorrow because of us. Most of them took it well. One took the news poorly and started to scream at the top of her lungs, cursing Wil to some  horrible fate. If Wil should meet a horrible fate– you heard it here first, folks.