It’s 9:20 pm :: The credits for Liars and Lunatics have finished rolling. The lights come up. It’s time to… mingle (again). It’s also time to talk photos and chat it up with cast and crew until the party’s over. Grab another glass of wine. Oh those truffles look pretty good…
P.S. Got some photos from the gala that you’d like to share with us? Send them over our way. We’ll see about adding some of your photos in a post next week…
Over the next few posts, we will be putting a host of photos taken at the Liars and Lunatics premiere on October 26th. All the photos were taken by the amazing Melissa Moeller, our official gala photographer. (Thanks for all the great shots, Melissa!)
We’ve decided to break up the gala into some time frames. Thus, we begin… at the beginning. It’s 7:00 pm.
That’s right. It’s time to mingle. Get a drink. Grab an hors d’oeuvre. Mingle, mingle, mingle. Oh, and don’t forget to snatch a good seat while you’re at it. The movie will begin shortly…
P.S. There’s more photos to come. Stay tuned…
Today is the one year anniversary of the beginning of principal photography for Liars and Lunatics. And this scene is the very first thing we shot.
Let’s see, that would be Scene 24…
“EXT. Hospital Gardens — Day”
We were getting a bit behind schedule. We had to contend with a nest of wild parakeets making a bunch of noise that morning. And then the sun decided to come up over the edge of the building a little faster than we had anticipated.
So, instead of going to the close-ups, we decided to move inside and go to our next scene. It was a bit of a rough start, but the rest of the day went well. We eventually came back to do the close-ups. Can’t remember now whether it was later on that same day or if we stuck it in on the next day.
{{ photo :: James and Frolick walking in the Hospital Gardens. }}
The camera never lies… right?
Well, according to our production stills, apparently we did quite a bit of pointing during the film shoot for Liars and Lunatics. And we didn’t even realize it until we noticed a common thread in some of the photos.
“Hey you! Don’t you mess with Super-Jay!”That’s right, he can see through brick walls with his x-ray vision. Don’t let the Hawaiian lei fool you.
Or, maybe it’s just Joe Halsey, tired out and ready to go home at the end of Day 10.
“Objection, your Honor!”Prosecutor Dubious is at it again in the courtroom…
That’s his job. To object to everything and anything. And Carson Grant does quite a job in portraying this “bad guy”. Pointing fingers and all.
“You there! Sit down, or else I’ll have to take you in…”Michael Kricfalusi takes his position as Bailiff very seriously (although, that might be because he’s also the 1st AD on the film).
And here she is!The infamous one behind all the stills. Yep, Thea’s the one who caught all the pointing fingers in the first place. (Hmmm… if she’s in front of the camera, who’s taking the picture????)
Yet another pointing finger…Rumor has it that there are at least two Moon Brothers in this photograph. Maybe three.
There’ve even been reports that if you look carefully, you can see four of them. Or five, or six, depending on the source you talk to. But, then again, maybe not. We never listen to those rumors anyway…
A year ago, we were all sitting around a large table. The finalized scripts of Liars and Lunatics were in our hands. Yes, this was the first time the cast and crew were to meet each other…
Except for one exception. The one actor who was missing was Karen Lynn Gorney (who played the Judge). She couldn’t make the date we chose due to jury duty!
Can’t remember who read for the Judge. It probably was Kim Wiley, our production designer.
Besides a read-thru of the script, we took advantage of everyone being there to do some costume fittings. Being an indie film, most costumes were to be provided by the actors. So our costume supervisor Blaze talked to each actor about what they needed. For those actors who brought some clothing possibilities in, we even did some camera tests.
{{ photo :: Blaze Kelly Coyle with her trusty ironing board. }}
June 2006. A time when we were finishing up our auditions; hoping to have everything finally cast for our feature film Liars and Lunatics.
Monday, June 12th :: We originally auditioned Heidi Azaro for a different, but asked her to come back at a later date to screentest for the role of Mother Parrot. (She got the part…)
Wednesday, June 14th :: We first auditioned Maya Serhan for the role of Paige… just an initial interview. We had her come back in later to screentest for us…
Friday, June 16th :: We first interviewed Karen Lynn Gorney for the part of the Judge.
Wednesday, June 28th :: We still did not have our James!. Then, we had this guy named Joseph Halsey scheduled for the last day of auditions (that’s right, June 28, 2006). After his initial screentest on the 28th, we were hopeful. But since this was the last day, we asked him to stay to read in callback with some of the actresses up for Paige and Frolick. As it turned, he was the one we ended up casting…
Hair and makeup… Makeup and hair… What would we have done without them? Here are some photos of the good-looking people that populated the set of our feature film Liars and Lunatics.
“Here Fumbles. How about a little powder?”There she is… The amazing Blaze. Our super-duper makeup and costume wizard!
Blaze Kelly Coyle helps Myron Buchholz (Fumbles) with some touchup before filming his scene.
“Looking Good!”Amanda Short admires herself in the mirror as she waits for her next scene as Avie Malvideo.
Disco’s not dead…At least not as long as this guy’s around.
One of the background actors strikes a pose on his way from wardrobe. We were filming the hospital hallway scenes… hence he’s wearing pajamas!
Another morning with the Curling IronAllison Lane curls those golden locks. Every morning, she arrived on set to get down to business… making sure her hair’s just right.
(Looks like that mirror needs to be shined up a bit.)
A little powder for Bruce…Thanks to Amanda (dressed up in her costume for Avie), Bruce Nicholls is looking good as Philosopher Hume.
His forehead must have been a little too shiny…
Send in the Clowns?Is that really a clown helping out on the film crew?
Yes, believe it or not, it really is... One of our techies seems to be getting into the spirit of things for the costume party scenes.
Or, then again, maybe it’s just someone who likes to wear brightly colored wigs…
It’s been a year to the date since we had our first meeting with Karen Lynn Gorney (John Travolta’s co-star in Saturday Night Fever). Yes, a year ago, we were hoping to secure her for our feature film Liars and Lunatics.
After our initial contact, we began to email back and forth for some days. We had forwarded a copy of the script. In fact, we had just written a new opening voice-over which was intended for her character to read.
At the time, she was performing in an Off-Broadway show, so we had to work the interview around her performance schedule. Finally, we settled on Friday afternoon on June 16, 2006.
It was a hot June day. We arranged to meet in the Regency Room on the 2nd floor of the Salisbury Hotel in Manhattan. However, when we got there, we discovered that the Numismatic Society (they collect old coins) had already booked that exact same room!
Fortunately, we were able to get another meeting room on the 5th floor. But there was still one problem, we had no way to contact Karen Lynn Gorney about the change…
Well, we dealt with the situation by stationing one of one of our people (our Production Coordinator, Maria) at the elevators to meet Karen and bring her to the new meeting location. When she stepped off the elevators, Maria had to explain the mix-up. And by that time, the elevator doors had already closed again. They waited and waited for another elevator to come. None came. Finally, Karen said, “Aren’t there some stairs in this place?”
And so the two of them walked up to the 5th floor.
Introductions were made with Roberto Munoz and our casting director, Michael Kricfalusi. We discussed the script. We discussed the role of the Judge. We also discussed the new voice-over which we wanted her to read.
The voice-over which retells the struggle of Jacob wrestling with an angel (nothing literally to do with the movie’s actual plot, but full of symbolism, symbolism, symbolism). Karen mentioned having a painting on her wall of this very scene of Jacob wrestling with the angel. So we discussed that, too. (Funny. We’re actually now working on a new screenplay right now about a character named Jakob.)
As for the end of the meeting? Well, the rest is history…
We had a great group of background actors work on this film… We needed to fill our courtroom with an audience. We required patients, nurses, and doctors to walk the halls of our mental asylum.
Here are just some of the faces that populate the world of the feature film Liars and Lunatics…
“Come On Down!”In come the background actors to make our courtroom come alive. That’s our Second A.D. (Michael Kricfalusi — the big guy in the blue shirt) who’s ushering everyone in.
How many times did we have to reposition everyone before we had what we wanted?
“Let’s Get this Last Shot”Maya Serhan (Paige) is surrounded by a host of the background actors.
Wait a minute! Why is she so happy? This scene calls for Paige to look bored and uncomfortable…
“Writing their Masterpiece”Our background actors often had to wait patiently for their next scene in the hospital hallways. And while they were waiting? They talked it up with their fellow background actors. And they were given paper and crayons to write…
It seemed that every time we had to film the asylum patients, they were supposed to be writing on pieces of paper with crayons (apparently pencils are too dangerous in an asylum).
But the question is, what were they writing? It’s anybody’s guess, but perhaps they were writing their grocery lists… or maybe they were working on their thesis… or could there be a Shakespeare among the group writing their next masterpiece?!
“Another Day at the Hospital”The background actors prepare for another take in the hospital hallways. That’s right, they got their paper and crayons in hand…
Just waiting for the director to call “Action!”
“Wanted: Two patients and a nurse”Our key costumer, Blaze Kelly Coyle, doubles as a nurse at Logous Psychiatric Hospital. She and two of our background actors walked up and down the front stairs at least ten times before we were happy with the take.
Principal photography for our indie film, Liars and Lunatics, took place in August 2006. One of the most difficult scenes to shoot was one featuring Staples and James… filmed up on a rooftop patio. But because of nearby LaGuardia Airport, we were having trouble with the sound. It was also a very emotional scene.
It didn’t turn out as well as we’d hoped. So, the next day, we did the same scene again. This time in the Boiler Room on location of the “Hospital” scenes. We decided to use a yellow ladder we found there as a prop for James.
Later that day, we used the yellow ladder again… this time for Staples and Frolick. Although the script did not call for a ladder, we decided to use it in this scene because, as Allison Lane (Frolick) recalls: “We were having technical difficulties.”
The joke became, that if we encountered a problem, all we needed to do was bring out the yellow ladder!
{{ Photo above left :: Joseph Halsey (James) and Patrick Mitchell (Staples) try to concentrate on a very intense scene in the boiler room. }}
{{ Photo above right :: Joseph Halsey (James) and Allison Lane (Frolick) have a playful moment on the ladder. }}
