Fire & Brimstone

There’s a fire in Azusa right now. The smoke from it is drifting west, covering the valleys of Los Angeles in a haze of dark brown smog. It’s so thick and dry, doctors are recommending people stay inside and keep their windows shut.

It’s appropriate, then, that under this blanket of brimstone, we had the screening from hell last night.

I knew it was going badly a couple minutes in when no one laughed at a joke that always got a good reaction. “Calm down,” I told myself. “It’s early, people are still getting settled. They’ll start getting into it.” But another big joke fell flat. Then another. Then ANOTHER. Lines that got consistently good reactions didn’t even garner a smile.

There were times when the audience seemed to come out of it and get invested in the story, and there didn’t seem to be a lot of disinterest, but the faces were pretty stony. It was, to put it mildly, a massive disappointment.

But in another way, it’s a good thing that we had our asses handed to us. It brings us back down to earth, lets us know that we screwed up. That there are still things to work on. That we got cocky, and didn’t trust the story enough. That we were too quick to change things that were working.

Also, it helps to keep in mind that it’s not as bad as it seemed. While the discussion afterward was pretty brutal, involving suggestions that we re-shoot the ending and add lots of new scenes to explain things. But after sleeping on it, I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle of these two screenings. I don’t think it was as bad as it seemed last night, but there are issues we’re still having.

One huge thing we realized is that we can’t do an opening teaser. Showing blood and trauma happening to Charlotte puts people in one mindset, so they aren’t laughing and enjoying the scenes between Charlotte and Howard in the beginning. It’s a good thing to realize, that our original intention was best. We’re a slow burn movie, and to give away any hints of danger and plot really drags down the beginning. Lesson one learned.

Lesson two: the beginning is still too slow. People want the movie to get going faster, they want the story to start. That was mentioned in the first screening, and we didn’t really address it. Your problems don’t go away just because you want them to.

Lesson three: People want an explanation that feels true, as opposed to making sense. Everyone’s bugged by a reveal at the ending, because the character’s motivation for creating a huge conspiracy doesn’t ring true emotionally. There’s an answer we can put in, and it’s a simple answer, but we haven’t found it yet. We have to do that, or people will be unsatisfied.

Lesson four: help your actors. We know the performances in our movie are good, we saw it on set. Also, their performances worked really well in the first screening. But we went and changed things, and they didn’t work as well this time around. That is totally our fault. Our job is to pick the best performance and put them in the best possible light. We dropped the ball on this one, but I’m confident we have the footage to fix it.

Lesson five: if ain’t broke, don’t fix it. People were laughing at the first screening, they were enjoying a lot of it, and we changed a lot of things that should have been left alone. So now we have to figure out what was working before, and why it didn’t work this time.

Not say it was all bad. The audience really liked the second act, and there were several key sequences – the ghost appearances, the mystery – they were really into.

We just need to focus on the beginning and the end and get those working. As hard as it was last night, this is what the process is about. You don’t have to take every single note, but it’s important to listen. It’s important to track what’s not working, and fix it if you can. I feel like our movie is 80 – 85% of the way there. Last night, we showed a version that was 70%. Our job now is to get it as close as we can to 100%. We probably won’t ever have a perfect thriller that pleases everyone, but I’m confident we can improve it. Lessons learned.

SOME THOUGHTS FROM THE SCREENING:

“Not generally my cup of tea, but surprisingly good material for the genre.”

“First act slow, set up took too long; got way better in second act.”

“Engaging enough at the end, but not engaging at all at the beginning. Set up too stiff and slow.”

“Very good, creepy, interesting, good acting.”

“Solid script, good structure, competent direction, underwhelming actors.”

“Movie looks great – cinematography, direction, etc … I know how much it cost and it looks like much more.”

A New Opening

We’re doing our second test screening tomorrow night. It’s going to be another small group, probably around ten people. I also sent a copy of the latest cut to my cousin in Ohio, and she’s going to be holding a “non-industry” screening for her friends, who are all in their early twenties.

I don’t want to be over-confident, but hopefully there won’t be too many major notes. I’m sure there will be fixes -- there always are – but I’m hoping they will be small things. Fingers crossed.

We did have a big revelation last week. Barbara came back from a vacation in Germany, and suggested we needed more of a grabber opening. She’s absolutely right. This is something we’ve been feeling since writing the script, and we’ve reached the point where it finally needs to happen. If we don’t hook people with something, give ‘em a little blood and mystery, it’s definitely going to hurt our chances at festivals. We read a blog entry recently that said if the programmers aren’t hooked in the first five minutes, they won’t put the movie in their festival. From their perspective, they need something that will keep the press in the theater for the entire film.

To test this new beginning idea, we’re taking a scene from the big ending flashback and putting it right up front. It’s bloody, it’s mysterious, and it definitely should pique the audience’s interest. The problem is, it wasn’t really conceived as the movie’s opening. We can ADR some lines to have it make more sense, but it will probably never be a full-on scene. And it may end up giving too much of the story's revelations away. We’ve been kicking around some ideas for a simple, easy-to-shoot new scene for the beginning, something that would just involve Abby, but first we’re going to see what the response is tomorrow.



The unfortunate part is, Barbara always loved the opening shot. It was meant to be a slow-burn, "Boogie Nights"-esque tracking shot that introduces us to the house and the main character. We’ll probably have to lose that now, but making movies often involves killing your babies. It's always tough, but these sacrifices almost always lead to a better end product. And it yet again brings home the lesson that when you have tiny doubts about something, pay attention. It’s usually something that, sooner or later, you’ll end up having to fix in some way.

Independent Light & Magic

Our movie has visual effects. It’s kind of amazing, given that we’re extremely low-budget, but the technology has gotten to a point where it’s unbelievably cheap and easy to do these shots.

It also doesn’t hurt that our good friend Hashi volunteered to do the VFX, and he is A: incredibly talented; B: incredibly quick; and C: incredibly deferring his pay. Here’s how awesome Hashi is: when we first met with him, we pitched an idea about seeing the blood vessels in someone’s eyes burst. By the time we ran a few errands and got home, he'd already sent us a video of himself bleeding from the eyes.



Once we saw that, we realized we could probably do ANYTHING. It wasn’t until we were in post, for example, that we got the idea to have our ghost fade in like the Cheshire Cat when she first appears. Hashi was able to get in there and, without plate shots, or motion tracking cameras, or anything besides a woman sitting at a piano, he was erase her, fuzz her edges, and have her vanish. It’s a great place to be for independent films.

However, there can also be too much of a good thing. When you can add anything anywhere, that gives you a rather large list of Things You Can Do that may (or may not) make the movie better. When we first started compiling idea for FX shots, we had plans to do tons of little digital things – add some blood here, a little spooky flare there –but we found that the more VFX we put in, the less punch they had. We ended up cutting the shot list way down, and the 10 or 15 shots we now have play much stronger.

For us, it all came back to the story. Even if you CAN add blood oozing from the walls, or green blobs square-dancing through the backyard, if it doesn’t make sense, it’s going to detract from the mood. The first time we see the ghost, she’s just a fuzzy outline. The second time, she’s more solid, but has a blank featureless face (my favorite visual effect in the film). The movie continues in this way, until we reveal her true identity. If we suddenly had rats jump out of her eye sockets or something, it would be random and distracting instead of scary.

So while it’s great that technology can literally create anything, we have to remember it’s just another tool we’re using to tell a story. And the things people respond to are the things they’ve responded to for 10,000 years: character, emotion, narrative.

Though it’s still pretty cool we can erase someone’s face.

FLASHBACK: First Test Screening

Here's some thoughts from our director, Barbara, pre and post our first test screening. Enjoy!


Pre-Test Screening Horror (14 July, 2009)

It’s 10:22 pm P.S.T. In 24 hours it will all be over. In 24 hours I will be convinced that “everybody hates me right now”. How am I going to sleep tonight?

As a director, there’s nothing more vulnerable than screening your movie for the first time to a bunch of people, whoever they may be. It’s almost pathetic how painfully excruciating the anticipation is, and I can personally only compare this to a visit at the dentist: You know you have to but you know it’s gonna hurt.

So you invite your closest friends to rob your baby of its virginity. You lay it out in the open and you ask them to point out all of its flaws. I might as well stand naked in front of everybody and listen to friendly suggestions of how an abs class may help out my tummy issues.

The irony is that you have to do it and you do it voluntarily and you do it with a smile. Because any screening is priceless. You do not want your film to get out there without having addressed any problem you can.

So I bow my head and listen to my friend’s advice of using airline vomit bags - which apparently allow me to be social before a screening, yet also comfortably safe. Thanks, David.


Post-Test Screening

I don’t know what the hell I was so worried about. I’m such a chicken.

Test screenings are one of these things that once you do them, as much as it may hurt beforehand, it feels oh so good afterwards! Really the dentist analogy keeps on going. You’re just so glad you did it once you walk out of that practice. My half-sister is a dentist and I just went to see her. She filled three holes (ouch!) but I left with a big smile on my face and super healthy teeth…

The screening went really well. People enjoyed the film. There were issues, but we were hoping to hear about them anyway.

I got so excited that I screened the film again for my entire family in Poland. That’s a lot of cousins gathered around the TV set. They all talked over it (“Is this your garden?” “Are these people dating in real life, too?” “What did she say?” “Is she insane? She doesn’t look insane.”) but in the end they claimed that it was the scariest film they’d ever seen. Families are lovely…

I’m more excited than ever to finish our little film and show it around. It won’t hurt anymore.

Coming Attractions

I’m working on re-cutting the trailer for "Fugue" right now. It’s kind of stressful for several reasons. I sit down to do some work, and I find myself making excuses, doing other things. Whenever I do this, it’s for one reason and one reason only: I don’t know what to do next. I’m feeling that way about the trailer for our movie right now.

A little backstory: I cut a trailer right after we finished shooting in mid-March. I wanted to show something at the wrap party, and more importantly, I wanted an excuse to go through all the footage and get a sense of the movie. So, it was helpful and fun to show the actors something, and all that, but the trailer never changed much since then. And while it gets good responses, it doesn’t get GREAT responses. And our goal is to get people so excited and revved up, they send the link to their friends. They post it on websites. Maybe that’s way too much too hope for, but hey – shoot for the stars and hit the ceiling, I always say. (And honestly – we know it can be better. We have ideas how to make it better. And as long as that’s true -- see below – we must keep working.)

Anyway. So I’m working on the trailer, and it got me thinking about what makes a good preview.

1) IT NEEDS TO TELL YOU WHAT THE MOVIE IS. Sounds basic, right? But I can list plenty of trailers that either don’t tell you what the film is actually about, or falsely advertise what the movie’s about. (Check out the latest trailer for Alice in Wonderland – Johnny Depp is all over it, but he’s probably only in a couple scenes. False advertising!)
So if you’re going to do this, you really need to know what you’re selling. If we put super-fast Halloween-esque music in our trailer, we’re giving people the wrong idea. Our movie is a psychological thriller, in the vein of “The Others,” and “Rosemary’s Baby.” So the vibe, music, etc. needs to reflect that.

2) IT NEEDS TO HAVE A HOOK. Everything’s been done before, but it’s good to tell people how your movie is different. Ours is basically a ghost story. The first minute or so of our trailer is about the basic story: young couple moves into a new house, but there’s some spooky shit going on. But then you need to give people the hook: our girl’s got a dissociative fugue. It means she’s erased her own memory. And then the question becomes, are these “ghosts” she’s seeing real, or connected to her fugue? We have other twists that come in the end, but hopefully this is what makes our ghost story different from others.

3) IT NEEDS TO HAVE GREAT IMAGERY … Every good preview is about enticement. You show something cool, or unique, or cinematic, and hopefully it gets people excited about the movie. Remember “Independence Day?” That shot of the giant spaceship blowing up the White House? It was iconic, it was memorable, and it made you want to see the movie. (Check the trailer for Roland Emmerich’s new movie “2012,” where a tidal wave crashes over the Himalayas. Dude knows how to craft a cinematic image.)
So this is also where you show what makes your movie unique. We’ve got a ghost in ours, but we show in the very last shot how ours is different – she has no face. Hopefully it’s something people remember, and hopefully it makes them want to find out why she has no face.

4) … BUT DON’T GIVE TOO MUCH AWAY!!! Three words: “What Lies Beneath.” They had a great third act twist: (SPOILER ALERT) Harrison Ford was actually the killer! It was a great way to subvert his image, but then they go and put that fact in the trailer, the poster, and it ruined the movie. You see this with comedies all the time, where they put all the best jokes in the trailer, then when you go watch it, there’s nothing to laugh at. (“Tropic Thunder:” “What do YOU mean, ‘you people.’” I saw it so many times, it fell like a lead balloon in the actual film.)
For us, we’re trying not to show anything that gives away the ending twist. We’re putting in images from the end, but we’re not explaining them. And they’re super super short. Which brings me to the last thing:

5) BE QUICK ABOUT IT. So many independent trailers try to put in the entire movie, or what seems like entire scenes, and it’s. So. BORING. Show us the goods, give us the vibe, and get out. Better to have people watch your trailer two or three extra times, than to click over to a new page halfway through. This is something I really need to focus on, because the first cut of the trailer was a bit ponderous. It’s sometimes tough to walk the line between tantalizing and just confusing.

These are the main ideas, but let me know if there’s something I missed. In the meantime, here’s what I’ve been watching for inspiration. This is how you tease a movie:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/district9/

http://www.apple.com/trailers/summit/thehurtlocker/

First Test Screening

Last night we had our first showing of “Fugue.” It was a small group, 12 people in all, and we (the filmmakers) were all varying degrees of worried beforehand. As I was driving over, I said to Juliane “I’m feeling a little nervous.” J: “If I were you, I’d be REALLY nervous. Not because the movie’s bad or anything, but because it’s a nerve-racking experience.” Me: “Great. Now I AM really nervous.”

But we didn’t need to worry – the screening went very well. People were interested, they laughed at almost all the right parts, and they reacted to a lot of the scares. One of the coolest moments for me was when we had a big death, several people actually said “Whoa!” The last scene got a great response, people yelling and making sounds.

The scores were solid. Everyone gave it a 7 or 8 out of 10. There was one six, but the person also said it wasn’t their kind of movie, and went out of their way at the end to say they thought it was well done.

The actors were very well received. Abby, who plays our lead Charlotte, got great comments: “Love her,” “I was with her the whole way,” “terrific,” “perfect,” and “well done.” Richard, who plays the boyfriend Howard, was also really liked: “good laughs,” “enjoyable,” “very likable,” “fabulous,” and “an absolute delight with charm and presence.” (I’m not making this stuff up, I swear.) The other actors were well-received, too. There were a couple of performance sections that people didn’t respond to, so it’s our job now to figure out what doesn’t work about those, and do some editing to make them play better. In particular, there was a comedic bit that strayed too far from the story, and people wanted that pulled back.



One of the things we were concerned about going in was the pacing. The movie is 90 minutes right now, and we weren’t sure if it was playing too fast, or too slow, or what. Turns out, people thought the pacing was pretty great. A few people thought Act 1 moved a little slow (we agree), but the rest of the movie they really seemed to be involved with. It’s amazing, too, how little folks need to understand something. We were worried people wouldn’t be able to follow what was happening, but not only did they track what was going on, they thought we could cut it back even more. Audiences are able to process information so quickly!

It’s also interesting to note that sometimes, people want and need exposition. Probably the biggest notes we got were about a big exposition scene in the middle. All this weird stuff has been happening, and a guy finally explains some of it. We were worried that people might get bored, so we shot and edited it in kind of a stylized way, but the audience didn’t really respond to that. At that point in the movie, they just wanted the information. Which is good, it means they’re connecting to the story, but we definitely have some work to do there.

Other comments:

“Great job. The camera work and lighting were fantastic. The production design was nicely layered. Very impressive.”

“It might not be my type of film but I think it’s full of great work. Interesting shots. Good story twists. Likable characters.”

“Perfect casting. Overall outstanding work, especially for the budget. Would definitely recommend it to horror fans.”

“A great ride. Daring. Not afraid of gore. Genuine scares.”

“Was in it for almost the entire time and identified with Claire (sic) and wanted to know what would happen to her.”

“This is a nice little movie with some neat ideas and a trick ending – if you can get the plot a little more cohesive at the end of Act 2, you’re GOLD.”

“The scares could be hit harder; it’s hard to make ghosts scary in daylight.”

“Choppy at times, lacks a stable drive, but possesses unusually engaging performances and shines during moments of pure tension.”

“Awesome job guys! What a beautiful, emotional, and scary (in a “The Others” kind of a way – very high compliment) film!”

“Really like the central relationships and funny moments work very well. Love the slow unraveling of the mystery.”

Needle Drop

I’m sitting in my office right now listening to movie soundtracks. Not for fun, though I have been known to do that on occasion. Nothing says “rock out” like the score to 2001: A Space Odyssey. But not today, no. Today I’m trying to find temp music for our cut.

See we’re doing a little test screening next Wednesday, and the movie needs music. Even though this is a feature, and even though we have our composer Dana already working on cues. Because when we screen it for a handful of folks next week, we want it to feel like a real movie. We want that viewing experience to be as close as we can get it to what the finished film will look like, even though most of the people coming are film professionals. We’re doing this so we can truly see what’s working. If a cue is in there that’s not right, or it gives the wrong feeling, it makes it much harder to tell what’s not working in any given scene.

Another great thing about putting temp music into your cut is that it gets you thinking about the voice of your film. When we were first slapping cues in, it was amazing to see what felt right with the picture and what didn’t. I love the score to The Mothman Prophecies, but when we put that behind our little indie scares, it was way too big. It made al the sublety of what we were going for look forced and ridiculous.

Barbara picked out some great soundtracks, and a couple of them have been really helpful in determining the vibe of Fugue. One of them is First Snow, which I haven’t seen yet, but the score is fantastic. (It’s by Clint Mansell, who just did the excellent score for Moon, and often does Darren Aronofsky’s movies.) It’s very moody, filled with dark tones and glass orchestra stuff, but spare. And that really plays well against what’s going on in our story – a woman mostly on her own, trying to figure out what’s going on her head.

The other one that’s really helped is the soundtrack to Dreamcatcher. I have seen that movie, and apart from the weasel/toilet scene, it’s pretty bad. But the score is perfect for what we need – it’s filled with make-you-jump stings and lots of different musical flavors – searching mystery stuff, creepy Ligetti-esque atonal builds, dark flashback-y string sections.



But there are a couple sections that we still haven’t found the right pieces for. There’s a big (for us anyway) fight scene at the end of the movie. It needs to be intense musically. The most intense part of the whole story. And it needs to be scary. I’ve dropped in a couple tracks, but the orchestral stuff is still too enormous. It actually detracts from the scene, makes it less scary. Makes it cheesy, even.

And it brings back something I said earlier about honesty. There are plenty of pressures in movie making, and it takes such a long time, it would be easy to just slap something down. But we’re all listening to that little nudge at the back of our heads that tells us it’s not right yet. That the perfect, elusive track is still out there.

And yes, it’s only temp. But I feel like once we find the right temp track, it will help us explain to Dana how that final fight needs to play. It will give us a talking point. And all that will hopefully make for a good ending scene, as opposed to a mediocre one.

So I’m sitting here, listening. And I’m totally open to suggestions.

The Best Policy

Things are moving along with post-production. We’re deep into the fine cutting, meeting a couple times a week with our awesome editor Stephanie to look at scenes. As mentioned before, the first cut of the movie was two and a half hours. We’re aiming for a tight, fast-paced 90 minutes. Which means we’re doing a lot honing. A lot of taking out the air. And a LOT of trimming lines.

The writers out there might be upset to hear this. You sweat over a great monologue, write 12 drafts of it, and do extensive research on so you’d get all the details just right. Then the actors come in and reduce the essence of it to a well-chosen glance.

But guess what? This is a good thing. Film is a visual medium. It’s about emotion, immediacy, drama. Words can very easily get in the way of all that. If you can accomplish the same thing with less, great.



They say a film is written three times: when you write the script, when you actually shoot, and when you start cutting. This is especially true in our case. We’re adding a whole extra layer of style in the editing – flashes, jump cuts, weird audio overlaps – that we didn’t even dream about when we were working on the script.

The best thing you can do when you enter post production is forget everything that’s come before. It’s easy to go into the editing room and have a vision of what the movie should be in your head. But a lot of times, that doesn’t gel with what was actually shot. Don’t worry about what your intention was, or how tough things were on the day – try to look at your footage as if you’re seeing it for the first time. Really be honest with yourself about what works and what doesn’t. Forget what your “goals” were and pay attention to what the actors are actually doing. A lot of times, you’ll find you have something much more subtle and cool than you planned on.

And again, that’s good. Film is, at its best, a collaboration. It’s a bunch of people getting together and hopefully coming up with something better than any of them could have done on their own. And the best way to do that is be honest about your footage. If something’s not working, or it’s not necessary to the story, cut it. It will make the movie better and your audience will thank you.

A Number One-Sheet

One of the things we’ve been dealing with recently is the creation of our poster (or “one-sheet” as they call them in the biz). We’ve been talking about it and kicking ideas around for about a month, and Juliane (the very talented production designer) is knocking some rough ideas together over the next couple weeks.

Seems like a long time to spend on one image, right? Why not just grab a still from the movie, or a photo from set, plop some credits on the bottom, and be done with it? We could do that, sure. There are some fantastic posters out there that use just this philosophy. “The Exorcist” and “The Shining” both come to mind.

But we’re putting a little more time and thought into it because for us, the poster is extremely important. It’s the first thing anyone encountering our movie is going to see. It’s the first step in our conversation with the audience, our sales pitch, the first impression. We don’t have stars, we’re not based on a graphic novel, so the first thing people see about “Fugue” is going to form their whole opinion. Is this something they would want to see? Is it something they’ll remember? Something they’ll want to take the time to actually seek out? Put it another way: would you show up to a first date in a burlap sack and expect to score some sweet lovin’? Exactly.

So we find ourselves having deep, involved conversations on what our movie “Fugue” is exactly about. What is the theme? What audience are we trying to reach? What story are we telling? What can you expect?

In the best case scenario, a poster can actually build buzz for your film. Recently, there was a low budget indie called “Order of Chaos” that generated a lot of online talk simply because they had a striking, original poster. That’s what “Fugue” is aiming for. We want a poster that will make people stop, that will disturb them, that will leap out at them from their computer screens.

Here’s some examples of thriller posters that we really like:






What do they have in common? First, they’re professional-looking. The pictures are high quality, the fonts are well-chosen, and the design is interesting. I also think a good poster isn’t too cluttered. If you can’t sell your movie in one striking image, then what are you selling?

Finally, the ones we like seem to have a twist on them. Something that stops you, grabs your attention. They force you to look a second time. As bad as the movie was, I loved the “Silent Hill” poster. I couldn’t stop staring at the missing mouth (although it had nothing to do with movie, which kind of pissed me off when I eventually saw it. Again, be honest about what you’re selling.)

So that’s where we are: racking our brains to come up with that one, awesome poster. We have some good ideas, and hopefully we can put them out here in a few weeks to get your take.

Flashback: Day 2

Sorry the updates have been a little scant recently. We are still plugging away at the editing, trying to create this crazy jagged style that we'll be using to show the fractured state of Charlotte's brain. It's tough to figure out, but cool. At least that's the hope.

In the meantime, here are Barbara (the director) and my thoughts from the second day of shooting. Enjoy!



25 January, 2009

Second day of shooting, and the sun was out for most of the day. First up was Scenes 29 & 30, Charlotte carries plants up to the backyard and hurts her foot. Scene 29 went off without a hitch, even though we had to have Charlotte drop (and break) a clay pot.

Scene 30 was a little tougher, because Charlotte has to step on a pot shard and cut her foot. Barbara bought strawberry and chocolate syrup for the blood, and for some reason, I was tasked with creating blood packets for the foot stunt. Despite having no effect makeup experience ( besides the crappy “Lethal Weapon” knock-offs we made in high school), I was able to rig a ketchup-packet thingy to hold the blood, and that would shoot out when Abby stepped on it.

At least, that was the idea. We tried a few different methods, getting strawberry syrup all over the patio, but we eventually got a variety of blood takes. Then Abby knocked together an awesome foot cut in a few minutes, we poured more blood into it, and got some very realistic-looking close ups.

I just re-read that paragraph, and realize how crazy this is: our lead actress made cut for her own foot. Without anyone asking. What an awesome group of people we have working on this.

BARBARA’S THOUGHTS:

Thank you again to all of you for coming out this weekend and making a movie! It's really happening. There is footage. Yes, it looks and sounds good. (There may be a tad too much of it, but I have no AD to tell me to cut down my shots. Which is awesome! For now. It's just drive space, right?) Abby can do no wrong. And she creates her own special effects scars in between takes! Do I feel lucky? You bet.

Highlights of the day: Why am I forcing that pregnant girl to hold a bounce board?! Strawberry Syrup mixed with Chocolate Syrup make great blood. Unless it's all over your face and seeping into your shirt. Sorry, Abby! And my cat Emmie being patted by Aymae on the head and Matt on the back was probably as spoiled as she'll ever get. What's the best ways to slide down that hill without killing yourself?
I'm looking forward to the next time we all meet and maybe some dialogue scenes for a change. :-)