All language subtitles for Witchboard Commentary

hi my name is Kevin Tenny

I'm the writer director of the film you're about to see

and sitting to my left is Jeff Jofre

also known as Gerald Jofre as credited in this film

and I was the producer and next to me is Walter Justin

I'm one of the executive producers

and he was kind of

the guy who actually put the whole project together

for us really

it's interesting

I don't think any of us has seen this in probably

10 years

it was uh

the first film for all of us

it was my first professional writing

directing gig it was Jeff's first uh

producing gig

and definitely Walter's first executive producing

his first time putting together a film in any way

shape or form

so you'll have to remember and forgive as you watch

because it was the first film for all of us

it was actually the first script that you ever read

yeah and it was really fascinating

because I could see the movie with every page

and I remember Tony Cataine

um one day we were on the set talking

and she said what a great script it was

and because I hadn't really been in the business

reading scripts

as I've done over the last 20 years

um it really is remarkable that for the first read

that's the script that I got to read

and probably I'd have to say

there maybe have only been 10 or 15 scripts of

the hundreds and hundreds

I've read over 20 years that is that good

that was a movie that you could see it well

thank you I appreciate that

I you know

I've always said I'd rather be lucky than smart or good

and you know

and that was it

we were in the right place at the right time and

and Jeff and I we knew each other from film school

and when Walter and I got together

brought together by another guy new from film school

Roland Carroll who worked for you at the time

right Walter

yeah in commodities

and he introduced us and then

once Walter and I decided we wanted to make this film

together we brought Jeff in to produce

and we were off to the races

Kevin introduced me as he

as he mentioned to Walter

and we've been business partners ever since

we've all made other movies together since then

but Walter and I have made

worked on probably over 50 films since this time

and here we have our opening party scene

and you know what I'm just remembering as we sit here

this is actually like scene 13 or so in the script

right we had a whole big

you know 12 other scenes that open the movie

we saw the boat explosion with the little boy

why is that part

we saw Jim and Linda preparing for the party

we saw the spirit point of view floating from the lake

where the boy died to the house where they are now

and we said we don't need any of this

and we just opened with the party

although

I remember when we were showing this to distributors

I felt that the party scene was kind

of a very straightforward

dull scene and

I always wanted to stand up to the distributors

that were watching in the theater

and say honest

if you just get through the party scene

it starts to actually pick up please

well having had almost a year of test

marketing with the picture

because we had a number of false starts

with distributors who wanted to buy the picture

who actually some who did buy the picture

and had financial difficulties

paying for the picture before they took delivery

it was interesting to see it with audiences

and in a funny way I think

the slower beginning actually works for the film

because it builds on itself

and later on when it really gets going

it's um

I think it's a really nice surprise to the audience

yeah and

you know and I remember when

critic actually commented on the opening

because the characters were discussing philosophy

and the existence of

whether or not god or the universe is infinite and

and it set a tone for him right away

said this I already knew

I wasn't watching your average horror film

well after watching it so many times

while it was going through the editing process

I could see how you came to the conclusion

and we had this exciting boat blow up scene

which was probably the most expensive part of the movie

which we ultimately didn't use

which I remember Jeff telling me was a very

very brave thing to do or stupid either way

but well it actually worked out because the film

every time we screened it

and I remember the one screening room

in the Magnus Screening room in Times Square

when we were screening it for Cinema Group

the ultimate distributor

and all their board of directors

who would come in from all over the world

and arrange that screening for them

and I just got nervous and thought

there's no way that these 50

60

year old executives are going to appreciate this movie

without an audience so

we went out

and handed flyers to all these kids in Times Square

and said you're invited to a free screening

up at the fourth floor of the Magnus screening room

and they came up and from the very first frame of film

nobody was bored I mean

we knew after the first set of screenings

that this was a special movie

and it just continued through its opening weekend

and when we opened New Year's Eve of 1987

no is

I think we open wide in March of 87 right

New Year's Eve of 87

exactly was when we Cinema Group did the test market

I remember going over to Las Vegas

and seeing a line around the theater and going

man we are dead

cause I thought it was for the Eddie Murphy movie right

right I know

cause they opened

they opened us against everything like Lethal Weapon

oh Evil Dead 2 I mean

everything that could possibly be out that week was out

we were like oh my god

this little nothing film that no one's heard of yeah

well that

the Lethal Weapon opening was in April

when they opened wide but for the pre

for the test

that they opened in 18 theaters in nine cities

I think one of them was Vegas

and I think they were up against Golden Child

and I don't know a couple of other Christmas pictures

and here's this line around the block and I'm thinking

oh man no one's gonna come to see which board yeah

I get to the the box office and the ticket taker says

uh this is which board

and it was like are you kidding me

yeah we went into a pack theater saw it New Year's Eve

and that was really a thrilling time

oh I know

I remember going to Westwood and seeing the marquee

you know when I was still I was just like

what three months out of

four months out of film school

and seeing the marquee in the Westwood theater

and it was just very exciting

and it always played really well in audiences

especially these first scares

with the plan shed popping up

yeah and it always amazes me too how

how many people ask how we did yeah

the effects with the plan shed on the Ouija board

it's like the actors are pushing dummy

or there's a magnet under the table big

big expensive effect there

we saw Tony pushed it to yes

now push it to no

or tazlobower with a fish pole and a fishing line

that's right that's how we

that's how we pull it off their knees

when it does the big scare effect earlier

funny seeing Stephen Nichols in the suit and tie

and clothes that he's wearing

a lot of that stuff

after the original wardrobe set him up

he was not happy and so we had to go shopping

that's right to buy all those suits

and I thought well

if some of the supposed to be rich

he's got to be wearing expensive

exactly

which included at the time I owned a replica of a Cobra

all right right

which he drives in the film

exactly but yeah

it was like luckily you had money

cause we had to borrow from you

expensively to make him look rich

cause

the budget didn't support what he needed to be wearing

but yeah I mean

it ultimately it does if he was wearing some cheap

you know knock off suit there

it would look like

at the fact that he's wearing very expensive clothes

um help sell the fact that this

is supposed to be a guy from money

I love all these actors too

oh I know

Steven Nichols and Todd Allen

and Tony I think

did such a great job

and I also think Becca Boss and you

Kevin did a great job casting the film

well you know

that's funny when Tony came in

we had a lot of really pretty girls come in to read

who were talented and could act

and if you remember there was another actress

I actually liked a little better than Tony

but the one thing I noticed was that

with all these beautiful women parading in and out

all the guys in the office only

really drooled over Tony and I thought

you know what if

if these guys have seen like

you know 500 gorgeous women come and go

and Tony stands out for them

then she's got something

and that's what we want this character to have

yeah it was a

it's funny he's wearing one of my rings

he's wearing yeah

a bracelet that's funny

I found all that stuff about 2 or three years ago

really is sitting in a drawer somewhere in the house

it's amazing that

I think I have one of those boards somewhere

I always run into people who have them

it's like how did you get one

and I didn't get one you know

but I think Dennis

my brother who did the music for this

has one I know I have

one from which board too

that actually has the hand coming out of it from the

a dream effect

but I think that's the only one I actually

and then I think I have a promotional

which board that Cinema Group came out

gave out when they were promoting the film

yeah

but I don't know that I actually have one from the film

yeah we had a number of lucky little breaks

you mentioned tawny in the fact that

she was doing those white snake videos

and was kind of

but she wasn't actually doing them at the time

no did them right after we finished using her exactly

she became very hot

just before we released a film with her in it

that was a lucky that was a very lucky break

Steve had just started on days of Our Lives

as the character patch

who was only a recurring character at the time

but he was so popular they

he was a bad guy they slowly turned him into a good guy

and he became like

the most popular character on the soap

and both of them hit

just as we were getting ready to release the film

so we were in very good shape with the two actors

who started out being fairly unknown

and of course Kathleen Wilhoit

very unknown at that time

oh yeah

and she's and she's like a phenomenally

just a phenomenal actress and a joy to work with

she has an album out now have you

she's an incredible singer

yeah she's a really good singer

I mean she's a songwriter singer

and she's great at both of them

great voice incredible voice

and I know Jim Quinn was one of your best friends

and that was a you know

bit of a question you know

should he play that role

and what was he going to be like

and then he just embraced that role and oh man

I think became the spirit of the cast in so many ways

oh absolutely

he made that character

so much funnier than he was written

you know 90

a lot of the other humor like Todd

who plays Jim

I wrote I mean his

all of his smartass lines

I pretty much wrote them

and he did a great job delivering them

but I had written them the character played by Jim

his friend Lloyd pretty much just said

Lloyd sees that the car has a flat

Jim just went on a riff with it

and so

most of the humor that comes from that character

totally comes out of Jim Quinn's own demented mind

and I think it's what really makes the scene work

even though as you said

it's a tough scene to begin with

the humor always worked with people in the

when we would show it initially

and these scares um

I remember one of the distributors who first saw it

just kept going well

you're using all these cheap scares

I said yeah

but watch everybody in the audience

go for them go for them

yeah in fact

when we first I think locked picture

um

we would at the time

my office was backed up to a conference room

and there was a glass window between

and so

I used to love to watch the investors watch the film

and watch them jump and at the right moment

I would just knock on the window

right when the jump would be set up

and I mean it would put people right out of their seats

it was great

yes you're a sick

demented man Walter Dustin

this car is that's a funny story

the Transpo guys

I think that we use this uh uh

the car in two or three films

and on every single film

while the Transpo guys were sound testing the car

they would throw a rod or blow an engine

and we had no insurance for that

so every time I let him use the car

you lived to regret it yeah

I had to replace an engine

I know the transportation guy on the film

Vic Anderson

as much as he was responsible for that

he was always

whenever we would ask him to come and work for us

what he has well

are we gonna have to use the Cobra gang

because he would always have a hard time

keeping his guys in line with

and we have to drag it all over the place and

yeah it was

there was a towed up to it was a great guy

oh he was yeah

it was great

I didn't even know what a transportation captain did

I don't know if you remember it

but in the original budget

we did not have a separate transportation captain

and you know what guys

when you think about the film

that this thing was made for

like around a million

and grossed eight to 10 in theatrical

and did a ton of business

ancillary markets and the three of us were so clueless

we'd like had no I mean

you know

we basically knew how to make a film from film school

but we really didn't know all the really little

finite details

and the fact that we managed to pull this off is just a

a true a sign of dumb luck

yeah you're dumb luck

that is so true I mean

and I think we were really blessed again

lucky to get people like Robin Oliver and yeah

the Roy Wagner the DP

who had experience and knew how to move quick

and work on a small budget

and still deliver excellent work because yeah

we would have been floundering

like tadpoles in a MUD puddle otherwise man

yeah and I think at least with me Kevin

you know because I was making so many mistakes

they really never first one being yes

I'll work on the yeah

they were always respectful of

of how foolish I was but

but very good about

really telling me what I should be doing

things we had never Learned in film school

yeah in terms of having that big of a crew

and then of course

Walter being uh

there to uh

you know back us and uh

support us throughout the whole process

even though we were scared

yeah cheap scare always got people what

what do you think Kevin

why do why do some

in some films

people jump at scares and then other times they don't

you have my theory and this is just my theory

is that if you create characters that they believe in

and they like and they care about

and you've got a story that rings uh

true for them even

no matter how supernatural or far out you get that

you know if it's a character they don't care about

and he's being stalked or hunted

they don't care that's another great one

another big scare a

Todd had to act backwards

cause we put the axe in the wood

and pulled it out with a wire

and he had to go backwards

so if you look at those few seconds

and I remember we shot this on

at this location two different days

and so we brought the Movieola

to the location on the second day

to see what it looked like

going backwards

and all of us were so excited about how good it worked

yeah it was like wow

it looks great we just wrote

we just had him start out looking scared

and then pulled the axe out of the wall

and he had to go from looking scared

to looking like he was just standing around waiting

and then when we play it in reverse

the axe comes flying across

hits the board and he looks like he's jumping with fear

I used to love sitting in the screening rooms

with the distributors or the recruited audience

and just wait for those moments to happen

and they just worked every single time

but you know

your point about dumb luck

the fact we're all still here today making films

um I think

the reason we are doing such a thing

is because of certain choices

and the fact that we chose to work on this project

as I say it was the first script that I had read

but before we decided to do this film

you probably read another 10 more

and none of them

in my opinion

were as commercial or as much of a page Turner

none of them did I care about the characters

um this is interesting how

and I don't know who was responsible for this

but the way the Ouija board changes throughout the film

and gets more and more and more demonic

I thought it was really a great

yeah that was my idea

but you know

it's funny unless you actually pointed out to people

no one ever which I guess was the point

we just wanted them to kind of feel that

but we actually have three versions of the board

and like you'll see here the little cherub at the top

he's got like angel like wings and the moon and the sun

there's kind of smiley faces on

the two angels at the bottom have angel wings

and by the end of the film

the board they have bat like wings

so it's very subtle

no one notices it's a different board

it's not supposed to be a different board

but you're just supposed to feel when you look at it

but suddenly it's getting more evil and creepier

and so hopefully

it is working on a subliminal level

since no one notices the boards changing

we don't know if it ever worked or not

but it was just something we tried to do

to add a layer to the

a story into the characterization

and to also portray the board as one of the characters

since it really is in a way

the fourth character in the film after our three leads

I remember one of our earlier conversations

you making that point you said

I want

the board to be one of the characters in the film

and I

had no idea if you were gonna be able to pull it off

and it's it works beautifully

well yeah

I mean you know

it's funny a guy my wife works with

went out to dinner with some girl the other night

and just over dinner conversation

they were talking and you know

what are your five favorite films

she says which board

you know what it's like it's one of her five favorite

and I remember though

talking about ins putting the which board

all these inserts in and making it a character

those weren't in that first cut that we did

that I think was like 180 minutes long

yeah that we showed to all of the investors in the most

Walter

the most depressing day of my life up to that point

I know I kept telling him

I said guys

this is a rough cut I'm gonna change

I'm gonna lose stuff I just

everything's in the film

but now we know what we don't need

yeah I remembered too that

I mean Walter really loved the script

that's why you know

he was making it and so

he sees this hundred and eighty minute cut

without all the inserts of the

of the which board none of you

cause he hadn't shot those yet

and he hasn't been to film school because

and so he hasn't seen you know

he's never seen a film in progress

yeah not to mention

sitting through it with all the investors

people who gave him money

and I remember after the after the film

we went back to the office and Ron Mitchell

who was our supervising

producer and kind of our mentor through the process

that's right came back and told me Jeff

they're coming over to fire you

but I think it'll be okay and

and that was you know

what we everybody came back at

Walter as usual

kept us totally cool head

and we just talked about what we're going to do and uh

you know everything

you know made some sense to him

and so we just you know

stayed the course and

and uh

you know was in those subsequent meetings

that we made these tough tough decisions

like cutting out the boat explosion

and minimizing the David Rowe

and so forth that right

and losing

there was a whole backstory with Jim's other girlfriend

who committed suicide oh yeah

and you're right and she was

the actress I can't remember her name

who played the part

was beautiful and she did a great job

and we just totally cut her out because it was just

you know just more stuff we didn't really need to keep

we wanted to keep those story focused

and centered on these characters

and this Ouija board

you know thinking about it too

I think

cutting that out really brought up Jim Quinn's role

right uh

because it really made him the

the other character along with again

Kathleen Wilhorn right

who shows up later yeah

Zara Beth and is just phenomenal

what are we 21 minutes into the film and Jim dies

our first death

you really did a great job setting him up

having us care about him like him

and so when he does go it's not just a meaningless

it's not just the first father exactly

it's somebody you actually liked

I know we had people actually

when he got killed in the theater kind of go because

yeah this was a guy they were really into

and we just dropped a ton of sheet rock on him

and watched him go splat

before go ahead

no I was just gonna say you think about it

you know

Tony's always thought of more as being this look

this pretty face this great figure

but she really did a nice job for us here at her

you know and Stephen Nichols

they both

they have a lot of scenes where they're basically

playing to aboard

you know I mean

how how hard is that

you're sitting there

having a conversation with a piece of Mesa night

and especially her cause

she's actually got to confey

that she's getting

emotionally involved with this little boy's character

and that

she's actually starting to feel maternal toward him

and she does a very nice job of pulling all that off

yeah

as much as piece of people know her for a personality

and her celebrity

she really when you look at this in Bachelor Party

she has an amazing way of pulling off uh

you know a natural kind of young woman

but she you know she's a total babe at the same time

uh huh and that's true

you talk about bachelor party

where that part was basically straight woman

and yet she managed to still be very funny in it

and here she runs again and she's cute

she's funny she's scary later when she's possessed

and all through here she's very actually

by all the emotions she's going through

I love the false scares throughout as well

it's a I do have the audience on the not knowing

I'm a big fan of giving him a scare

and then doing something funny

or doing something funny

and then while they're feeling all safe

because they've been laughing

scaring them uh huh

but I I think you know

you can have false scares that uh you know

are frivolous but a lot of these false scares

like looking into the pipe

are actually advancing the story right

so you're following that story

is she gonna dig out the ring

what's gonna be there exactly

or is something gonna come out of that pipe

yeah right

but we're not just having her at the pipe

to see the scare we actually

she went to the pipe

and we do have a point for her to be there

is that she finds the ring

and you're right

the scare of where we think something's gonna come out

as organic to the scene

in that she was gonna go to that pipe to get that ring

regardless of whether there was a scary moment or not

we didn't we had

I can't remember

I don't think we had any scary moments that were there

just for the scare the scare was added to a scene

that would have been there

whether it had the scare or not

well I remember seeing that drain scene over and over

and after about the 10th time

I realized there was no way that toothbrush

at the angle she was putting it in

could have pulled that ramp

absolutely not

that's like there's no way from the angle

is the car was

earlier at the party scene with the flat tire

that Jim's character could look out the window

and seen the flat

it was on the opposite side of the window

the house

I suppose

you could have noticed the car was leaning funny but

but yeah

you always you know

you do what looks good for camera

and hope that you're moving so fast

the audience doesn't catch some of those things

I always remember your ham sandwich

Chad Hitchcocks Hitchcock was there yeah

that if they watch the movie

say it's great and then they go home and go to bed

get up in the middle of the night

start making themselves a ham sandwich snack

and then go wait a minute

that couldn't have doesn't matter

too late they've left the movie

it doesn't count

anything they figure out after they're gone

doesn't count unless they're a critic

and they write it in their column

well you remember

we got a lot of good reviews

but we got some bad ones too

but the one I will never forget is

some guy on the Orange County Register

who wrote the review

who stated at the start of the review

I haven't seen this film

and then proceeded to tear it apart

saying it must be bad because it was a horror film

although admitting he hadn't seen it

and then it had we had the time

we had all these great reviews on the ad

where we did get good reviews from the LA Times

in New York Post

and he proceeded to quote those and say well

these guys must be idiots to

to say nice things about this movie

and all the time he's admitting he's

he never saw the film he went

even went so far in that article to talk about

somebody going to put up a Hollywood sign

up in the Irvine Hills which is where we live

uh huh and it

I was just so aggravated by that

it was literally I think

one of the first reviews I had ever seen in my life

on anything that we'd ever done

yeah and uh

I called him up oh

did you yeah

I'm sure he was glad to hear from you

but it probably said I appreciate the feedback

well what I Learned at that time is that

you know reporters

um you know

are like a lot of people in the entertainment business

they want to entertain

and they want to further their career

and so it's safer to be a dissenter

and well the I got to admit of all the reviews

it was nice to read the good ones

but the bad ones were the ones that were funny

because they would say funny things

while they were insulting the movie

and it's couple of times

I laughed out loud while they were insulting me

or my movie

but this guy was like you know

come on dude

at least watch the film before you decide to hate it

that's another shot that people ask

how do you do that shot you know

because you're up there and it's like

it was just a steady cam

but we put it on the top of the steady cam

the camera on the top

usually people put it on the bottom of the steady cam

so the shot the camera is about waste level

we just put it on the top

so it was up near the roof and people say well

I didn't see the the rail

the speed rail on the roof

that the camera must have been hanging from

how did you do that just a steady cam

just that's another case we had one of the

what turned out to be

one of the best steady cam operators

in the business working on this uh

on this film yeah

and I think he did it because of the challenges

of the spirit that were presented

yeah cause these were written in the script

as these very elaborate POV shots

and I'm sure he looked at that and said

wow that that look good on my reel

it certainly wasn't because of the money we're paying

no that's for sure

nobody got rich over this movie

but it was a great experience

I mean I certainly

you know I've always said

I used to I did a lot of other jobs

before I went back to film school

one of which was a construction worker

and I've always said my very worst day on the set

is still better than my best day on the site

it's like I'd rather be making movies in bad weather

with a crew I hate

than working with people I like on a construction site

this scene was always a bit problematic for us

from the point that we saw the hundred

and whatever it was minute directors first cut right

one of the people there

must have been part of the fashion police very

very upset with how Tony was dressed in this scene

and just gave me this earful the next Monday morning

oh really

about how nobody in her position

college student would dress like this for a funeral

and yeah it was

I had to do some heavy explaining

this character I think

also like the Kathleen

Wilhide character comes in later

Zarabeth Burke Burns

does a great job with his character

and he's great so great

he's so at ease he doesn't

cause this character you know

someone could come in and say wow

he's got a lot of funny stuff and really hammer it

and he doesn't he doesn't

so like he's just a guy talking

and that's what makes it he just sells the joke so well

because he doesn't push to sell him

he just lets him happen and he's

he's so nonchalant he's so natural

and again a joy to work with

I know this is gonna get boring to everyone to hear

but the cast really was a great joy to work with

they were all just terrific

easy to work with lots of fun

I think he too

on this

these these are your lines

and yet they come off so naturally

and I think he's such a a pro

just getting the most

out of everything that you have on the page there

yeah and I mean

and a lot of it is just even

not even you know

he's got the lines

but then some of his reactions are just so priceless

and that's not stuff I can write for him

you know he's either

either knows how to do it or he doesn't

you know and it's like

while he's being a buffoon

you still kind of get that feel that

this guy knows what he's doing too

I don't think so and that's all Burke

we were in Vegas recently

and I I was looking at the marquee of Sigfried and Roy

and I was thinking of seeing how

we mispronounce these as Sigmund and Roy

because I wanted to kind of like

not be not really up on what he's talking about

I kept thinking of the line that he uses

at the end of the scene nothing up my sleeve

nothing up my sleeve

but he does even that

he does oh

that's actually Todd that does

yeah you guys know

but he does it so in

Todd's

another example of someone who really underplays

and just comes across as very natural

you don't feel like you're watching him act at all

he looks like someone who's annoyed and and

and getting his hackles up

the trying to still maintain the nonchalants

while he's dealing with his detective

he kind of set a standard for me

as to how a lead actor acts in a movie too

in terms of not just in front of the camera

but he was such a supporter behind the camera

making things happen you know

I mean he would have been willing to

to move cable and I know that

like on successive films

I sort of yearn for that in some cases

where the you know

the leading guy you know

you just wanted to come in and help you well

you know you talk about that

this is reminds me of

remember him and Roy Wagner ended up having this like

great rivalry where they would

like make fun of each other

but he was teasing Todd with his ears

yeah he would look at Todd's close UPS and he go

oh my god look at those ears

during dailies go

where the hell did he get those ears

and then dad would go like

I thought we were getting a real DP

what's going on here well

the worst was when we were up in Big Bear

and we had to screen the dailies at a local cinema

and they didn't have a double system

so we had to listen to it silent

but the whole time they're just doing commentary

he's going

Todd's talking about how bad the lighting is and

and Roy's talking about how big Todd's ears

yeah I thought

seeing the dailies was always just a great time

yeah everybody was so

willing to uh

take criticism but also dish it out

yeah oh absolutely

no it was fun

this was a fun

fun experience because we

I think the fact that you know

knowing what I know now about how movies get made

I don't think I would have tried to do this

knowing what I know now I mean

the only reason we pull this off is

cause none of us was experienced

to know that it couldn't be done

we didn't know you couldn't do what we were doing

so we just went ahead and did it

but I remember we started showing the distributors

none of them could believe that when they saw it

they liked it and they said

this is a really good little film

how come we haven't heard anything about it

cause we didn't know how to promote ourselves

we didn't put any bits and variety

or that we were making this movie

we just went out and made it and it was a done film

and no one could believe that

we'd gone off and made this movie

and no one had heard a thing about it

until it was a done film

that's one thing while you mention about the hat

and how you had to explain it to the investors

but I remember you know

because we did have investors

who were looking at what we were doing

I think it made us

much more circumspect about what we were doing

making sure everything counted

and at the same time we had our own little internal uh

uh

screenings that we did

that kind of allowed us to see what

what was it playing like for different people

or I know you did and were able to feedback that

that information to us all the time

well I know that we had

we had cut some of the lines in the cemetery

because it was just a long scene

but before we cut it we had it on tape

and you showed it to some investors

and they all laughed at all the lines

and we said okay

we'll put them back

cause we had cut it for time and then thought

you know what this character is really playing well

cause we cut the thing about the bombs card

where he knocks in his head and says

you know no one's planning a bomb here yet

knock wood and and that just got such a great reaction

we said let's put it back in

remember Lee Hacksul our sound designer

who actually was also our production recorder here

had a hell of a time with this scene

because Tony was quiet

and then she'd go and it would blow her levels

so then she'd reset her levels and say

can we do another take

we do another taking Tony would go even louder you know

each time Tony got more more adrenaline

she'd go louder and louder

and Lee kept trying to bring the sound up to

the levels up

down to keep from just totally feeding back and

and going off the off the meter

but it took like four times before they finally got it

I think we might have still ended up ADR in the scream

I'm not sure I think we might have yeah

yeah occurs to me

I don't remember

I don't know that there's another example

at least that I know of where the

the sound mixer

production sound mixer also does the sound design

I thought Lee did a great job

she did a great job and I think she

she made sure that her her production sound was

was good when we got into the ADR

well yeah

no she was

she was great you know

she's a picture cutter now

she's working on the shield

I believe oh really

yeah so I mean

but Lee was a joy to work with and just a sweetie pie

and again someone we knew from film school

and yeah she did do a great job

and you know

and I I hate ADR in lines if you don't have to

so I'm I'm willing to try another take for sound

if they're not happy because I'd rather have it right

I'd rather have production sound be right

and not have to ADR but I'll say this

like several of the lines in here are ADR and you can't

I can tell ADR when I hear it in other films

and even some of my other films

my own films but in this one lead

it's Hurley in the mixer who

I can't remember the guy's name

but they just did a phenomenal job

because the ADR here is flawless

I think we also got to give kudos to your brother

Dennis for doing a great job with the music

and yeah you know

and again his first time doing a score

well you mentioned the three of us

our first project but how many people besides us

if this was their first film Dan

Dan Duncan the editor

and the editor

his first professional editing a feature film

who's now become like you know

the go to guy

for almost every production company in town

they go to him to cut their films

or if their film isn't working

they go to him to recut it and make it work

you know this scene here

we used one of the stills to create

our very first poster oh

that's right

which was the thing that we promoted it with

to the distributors

with her standing there in that nightgown

and the title that's used on this uh

cut here um

is the actual uh

which board title that the artist who created the

the original poster she used that

and what you did the painting for

yes I can write

it was like the like an old fashioned painted one sheet

like they used to do in the thirties

and we use this shot as well

this scene always gets fantastic

this scene always gets a humongous jump

this is probably the biggest jump in the film that

in the one where Todd grabs

let's not give it away well

hopefully anyone who's listening to this

has already seen the film

if you're watching this with the commentary before

you've seen the film without stop

go back to the start and watch the film without this

because you're ruining it Bozo

yeah that was a great scare

yeah really a beautifully shot scene

well that was a lucky break production wise

because I don't know if you remember Kevin

but we ran over schedule in the house

so we did a big no

no pulling up stakes yeah

going to Big Bear

but I remember when we move that scene I

I uh

could actually justify well

the rooms we don't need to bring back all the furniture

right well

just a dream yeah exactly

it's a coffin in the middle of the floor

yeah and luckily too

I think we didn't have in the budget coffins

we started pricing them and they were like

but the prop guy Bob Lucas had one

that's his coffin he had

he used to

he used to fill it with ice and put beer in it

barbecues

and anyway he let us use his coffin

he was a phenomenal fine

he was someone that was suggested by the art director

Sarah Burdock

who at the time was Jim Quinn's girlfriend

and he turned out to be just like a

you know a big

big plus he did so much on this film besides just props

you know that one of Jim's girls friends right

yeah one of his many women

you know Jim the lethario

the shot right before Tony scream with the ocean blinds

is such a nice one that that

one of the German and Scandinavian distributors

used it for their poster so did the British yeah

yeah

it's one of the posters that we have up in the office

yeah and then high shot

I think was the first shot of the movie yeah

we put that was originally from scene 11

which didn't end up in the film

which was the spirit point of view

from way up in the sky looking down

the house we sent the camera operator up there

and a big cherry picker

that house yeah

that house was actually uh in the Highland

uh uh yeah

we had to shoot it at angle so that you can see like

right right next door was a big street

it was like it's on wheels off

just off of Wilshire yeah

so you had Wilshire with all the LA traffic

and this is supposed to be Fairfield

and Northern California in a small town

so we had to

be very creative about how we showed the house

from what angles Hancock Park is where

yeah Hancock Park

I remember driving up the first morning of photography

and seeing this huge crane and all this yeah

production value and I was really impressed

me too I was like

well this ain't like my 4 80 way student film

but then that changed about what

24 hours later when Jeff said

well we fired the DP and that's right

we're a day

we're two days behind schedule on our first day

but the biggest drama on that first day was that

I had made this what I thought was a very uh

hip decision

to not have doughnuts on the craft service table

because it was a great croissant place

just up the block and I thought

you know let's have croissant and

you know nice orange juices and so forth instead of

you know the usual junk on

the grips and gaffers almost kicked your ass

the grips and gaffers said

if you don't get donuts on that table

within 15 minutes we're walking

and they were serious

so that was the last time I

I tried to screw with people's culinary habits

on the movie

and sometimes cliches are cliches for a reason

didn't I ask one of the prop guys to do the donuts

oh yeah

Louis Abernathy who

oh he was a special effects with Pazlo

yeah Louis Abernathy

who went on he went on to write um

Deep Star 6 yeah

and he's Jim Cam

one of Jim Cameron's good friends and starred in

in the Titanic he's in those opening scenes

that's right and goes to the abyss as well

good old Lou

what a character to what again

a great guy to work with lots of fun

really professional on the set

but fun and a great attitude

yeah and

and he and Tony like

hit it off he was like always

you know he brought a big memory

brought that humongous like

European poster from perils of Gwendolin that was like

as as big as

oh god yeah

as big as a cube van for her to autograph for him

and what a character I remember a few times

being crumpled up into the corner

basically about to break down

and him just giving me a big bear hug and said

you know it'll be all right

it'll be okay

well I mean

for all of us at first time

adventure like this everything meant everything yeah

yeah oh

I know it was life and death

every little thing was life and death

you know these guys are so good in this scene together

and it's because their styles are so drastic

and Steve is very

very intense and Todd's very laid back

and so the acting styles compliment each other

but it's great because for the characters

Todd's character of Jim

is supposed to be a very laid back

almost slacker type and Steve's character

Brandon is supposed to be this very intense serious

serious guy and so the fact that that's their acting

the way they approach their parts

um just

just played so well and

and these guys ended up developing a real

report together really friends

you know I still keep in touch with both of them

um our daughter

Steve has a daughter the same age as mine

and they've had sleepovers and play together

and it's just you know

it's just amazing cause you form intense friendships

and then the film's over

a lot of times you just lose touch with these people

and it's nice when you can actually keep in

keep in touch with certain people

I think Roy's style of lighting and camera work

too help here because I know that

even though there's some mismatching and lighting and

you know when you compare to what's going outside

that he really his speed really helped

oh absolutely

and also he got out of the actor's way

you know

created an environment that they could just really

get into the scene exactly

and he didn't you know

futs with them and I know they appreciate it

and made some of these things work

when you think about it you

Walter had mentioned earlier

the first EP was also a first timer

we knew from film school and about after the first week

we knew we were in trouble

he just he wasn't able to light fast

and his lighting wasn't really working

and it was too overlit

and Roy had been the camera operator on that

and I really thought that

the problems we were having with the set

not moving fast enough for my fault

and I remember standing there

and I turned Roy and I said

oh man

I'm so sorry guys

you know maybe I shouldn't have taken on a feature film

right out of films go

I'm glad I wasn't there to hear that

yeah and

but Roy but the nice thing was Roy said to me goes look

I've done like 80 films I gotta tell you

you're a terrific director

and one of the best I've worked with and

and your problem the problems on this set

aren't you it's incredible how supportive he was

yeah as I said

and I think to uh

to Richard's credit uh

the uh

the crew that he hired

cause it was more his responsibility to

to hire Roy and find uh

the grips in the gaffers right

I think he did a terrific job

even I think the studycam operator came from his

studying you know

who was out there and who was really hot right

and I think we had given him a four week prep

you know and I

I think he spent a lot of that time

really hiring a good crew

and I think it almost undermined him cause he had these

these uh

you know great horses underneath him

yeah who were just ready to burst out and really shoot

the kinds of things you really wanted to do right

and

you know he had to step aside

yeah and here she is

Kathleen Wilhoy who

that's so funny

we had like 40 girls come in one day to read this part

she was the first one she read

she left I turned it back and I said well

I guess we have to see everyone cause they're here

but there's no doubt in my mind she's the girl

and sure enough no one else came in

to change my mind for the rest of the day

she was just brilliant

yes brilliant

she's and again

just a sweetheart to work with

like Todd and

and Burke and Steven and Tony and Jim Quinn

the whole gang were just she could scriptwise to

she comes in at just the right time

yeah too

and I think Kevin

originally you had written this

that role to be a little more like

just a traditional Gypsy type

yeah and actually was Sarah Burdock

the art director who just

when she read the script said hey

this really good script

and we were talking and she said

but you know what why does the

she's just another Gypsy like we see in all of them

and I thought you know what

she is and she has a little flavor though

of Sarah yeah

in some ways you know

and I said what can I do with her

yeah I think I probably

probably based her a little on Sarah

yeah okay

well because Sarah used to run around in the

the really short shorts and the combat boots

and I think I thought

you know it

and give her kind of a just an irreverence

I think

Sarah had a few piercings that most people didn't have

yeah well

if it wasn't Sarah maybe Sarah had a few

but her whole art department was yeah

kind of the art department's always like

the most wild crew set members on this

set my wife still quotes that whatever happens

stay in your seats it's I I think as you pointed out

people come up to you and tell you

it's one of their favorite films

it still happens to us from time to time

I still hate people come up and say ttfn to me exact

and what I was gonna say is

most people wind up quoting the lines from Zarabel yeah

I hear that one

or the one that Jim said in the earlier scene

or he says so what you're telling me is

I'm living with Linda Blair

I hear those all the time

but yeah she she just did a great job

she was a nice comic relief and and just a nice

you know

for a character who's not gonna be around that long

she came in she made her Mark and she

she died magnificently as well

but uh again

here's a perfect example this scene is so nicely lit

Roy did this and I'm you know

and this crew could have said

you know when I told him

I wanna do this three sixty twice around the table

it's a three and a half minute scene

that we're gonna do in one take

with the camera just going around

and the room was so small

they couldn't the circle track would have been too big

so they had to do it on a dance floor

we had to lay down just plywood and they

had

that means the focus puller couldn't have exact marks

because he's on a track

he knows that at this point on the track

I'm exactly 13 feet 5 inches from her nose

so I just have to set the focus 13 5 but here

because they weren't on a track

as they went around

they would sometimes go in a little closer

sometimes come out a little wider

so he had to like kind of adjust luckily

he always had a couple of people in frame

so he could decide who to go to and

and pick the one

that was maybe gonna be a little easier for him

but still and I know that

because the fact that as the dolly goes around

it goes in front of a light

we had to have guys there ready to hold something up

to shield our shadow as we went past

and then lower it back down so the light was back on

the character we needed to be on when we got there

and it's very elaborate and we

I just remember this

we're in the middle of a humongous laughing jag oh

really all of us

these guys kept

every time she'd look at him go because of Jim

they would lose it and we like guys were burning film

cause it's like near the end of the take

it's like we've already burned two minutes

I said that's it

and everyone was laughing and rehearse

I said that's it stop it

we gotta we gotta get this

and we start doing it

and we're going and we're two minutes in

and I suddenly realize I'm gonna laugh

I think I just yelled at everybody

I just yelled at everybody and I'm gonna laugh

and I'm standing there and I know

I've got maybe two more seconds before I lose it

and just before I do Todd loses it was like

and I son of a bitch Todd

you did it you you you screwed up the shot

it was like and all I could think inside was

thank God Todd broke

cause it would have been me otherwise well

those were during your Mountain Dew days

oh yeah oh man

cases and cases of Mountain Dews yes

I had that no

my country I should have been arrested for uh

as a pusher yeah

oh my God

I would go to everyone say oh caffeine it's like

you know you can't do all that caffeine

you won't sleep at night so I'll sleep fine yeah

I used to do at least a case of Mountain Dew per day

when we were shooting yeah

so while you guys were up here laughing

I was down in the basement sweating bullets

because we gone through nine hours

and we hadn't put down recorded any scenes that day

but more importantly we're almost out of due yeah

exactly and there's the empty cans to prove it yeah

yeah exactly

that's what they did they just saved all my cans

and put them up there for the shot

well we actually

because we were featuring the cans in this shot

we got promo by Pepsi so we got all the pet

the Pepsi in the Mountain Dew for free

which is good cause the way I drink my

I drank Mountain Dew back then

we would have broke the budget just on that

I remember the old

that was the first experience I had with

product placement yeah

David yeah

that was a

it was the first experience we had with a lot of stuff

can you imagine that in those days

you could get product placement of beer

yeah so

on all these sets

where you shooting 12 or 14 hours a day 16

18 hours yep

people regularly finish work and drank beer

well

you remember that actually used to be what they called

they had rap beer rap beer

you had to have beer on the set

so that when the grips were wrapping up

they were drinking beer

and I remember the first day I saw that on the set

and they were going oh

where's our rap beer I'm watching

I think now this doesn't make a lot of sense to me

you're gonna let these guys drink beer

while they're loading heavy equipment

that's just like an accident

wait that's a lawsuit waiting to happen

but I guess that used to be a major tradition

they've stopped it since

but I remember thinking even at the time

this doesn't seem like a real smart tradition to me

let me tell you in Europe

when you shoot yeah

and I know you probably know this Kevin

it's not rap beer it's like beer for lunch

yeah wine

wine yeah

I craft services beer I shot a film in Lithuania

the vodka they drink I could

I just like they said here Kevin

have a shot

I brought it to my face and all my nose hairs exploded

just from the smell is like

I'm not pouring that down my throat man

these guys are like you know amazing

we're now about 50 minutes into the film

and I'm looking at the box

that's the uh

it's supposed to house the Ouija board

uh huh and remembering what horror

Jeff and I had to go through over that

cause you're afraid that you're gonna be

well we had gotten the Eno clearance on the picture oh

and

we started showing some of the footage to our lawyer

who casually said

do you guys have the clearance to use that board

and we said yeah

he said well

let me check this out

and came back and there was a question

so he casually said well

you're gonna have to use a different board

we'd already shot we said

well we shot half the film

well I think he also said we had to stop saying Ouija

exactly it's like

you know what

start preparing the papers for the lawsuit

because there ain't no way we can

that's what we said so

Jeff and I became experts overnight in what to

say to the

Eno Carrier

I think it was Fireman's Fund at the time

Fireman's Fund

Fred Leopold being kind of the overseer for them

and we had to prove

and Kevin had done a lot of research already

so we had to

really prove and justify to him that this was a

you know proliferation of use yeah yeah

exactly public domain because it was like

you know Kleenex had become a generic term for tissue

we Joe

what else would you call it

so again I think Walter

I mean we decided to keep moving forward and uh

you know uh

that we had enough reasons

especially since we're using different boards

including the blue board that's later

no that came in later

well yeah

that's one of these conversations yeah

made a concession that we would change the board

later on in the film

and we were gonna have a second board anyway

we said let's make sure

the second board is dressed totally different

for a second yeah

and that's where we came up with the green board

which I think worked well

but I remember people ask me

do you believe in Ouija boards witchboards

the only time I ever used it

I remember was after we sent our first round of

paperwork to Fred Leopold that I locked myself in the

my production office and I asked the Ouija board

are we gonna be okay

are we getting soon if so for how much

and then I knew I was insane

now here's the song Dennis wrote for the film

and then it was performed by a group

that was very popular at the time called Steel Breeze

that we used here and then again at the end titles

and I always like the song because the lyrics are very

you know they really

emote the feeling of the film without saying oh

we have a Ouija board doo doo doo doo you know

I mean it's about how your imagination in a dark room

can make everything seem scary

and and I just thought it was a nice

nice move this this was nice

you know and again

we use steady cam but on this shot

the stairway was so narrow

the steady cam wouldn't fit

so Roy Wagner ended up having to just do a handheld

running up the camera

hand holding it and to keep it that smooth

when it's handheld

you know a lot of people don't really appreciate

but that was some really nice work

because running upstairs with a handheld camera

can be very jerky

and he managed to hold it very smoothly

again was a very scary scene yeah

and again it's

90% is just her looking scared and making you scared

because she's so scared

and the anticipation of what's gonna happen

and she could be so funny

and then turn around here and just be horrified

and again I think

because we've created a character here that you like

when she dies it has a lot more impact

impact right at the right

yeah a penetrating impact

yeah that's exactly right

times after that dies in this film

you you've set them up to either be liked or disliked

and then it's somebody that actually you

you don't just feel like oh cool

someone else died you know

it's characters that you do care about

and do feel about one way or the other

I also like the fact that we set him up to be

pretty much a jerk at the start of the film

and by the end of the film

he's a really likeable character

as you get to know him

and you understand why he's being a jerk and

and the emotions that he's dealing with

that was my little voice over there

we'll be right back with the weather after this

I remember that was your Hitchcock

that was my Hitchcock yeah

my my voice

my voice cameo

and this is for all the girls

had Todd take his shirt off

and have Tony in the shower later

and Todd for the girls right here actually

remember we were mixing this and you know

we're doing the old fashioned back then on the

all the sound was on a striped film

on mag film so you have all the mag running

and then you'd stop for something

and we stopped like right there

and Lee are sound designer

and Dana to sell our sound effects that are both women

or like nice chest Todd haha

while we stand in there and freeze frame

I think this was one of the first scenes you shot

and one of the first set of dailies I saw

and I just was really

really impressed with how great this house looked

and yeah yeah

if and this was actually shot by our first guy

uh huh but I told him

I said whenever we have windows in a room

I wanna shoot toward them

cause

it looks better than shooting toward a blank wall right

and it makes it you know

then we're not on a set

cause you can actually see the outside world

and it just

and this house really was just a great fine beautiful

we how many houses did we look at Jeff

we must have looked gone to at least 40

it was actually an interesting part of the process

because looking for a Victorian house in Los Angeles

around Los Angeles was a a great adventure

you know we went to Monrovia

Altadena

right all around LA it got to the point where he said

hey we got more houses to look at

I would just cringe yeah

oh no

and the problem too was because we

had the spirit Prino point of view shots

that we're gonna travel through three or four rooms

we not only had to find a house that did what we want

but a lot of times you know you cheat rooms

they aren't really connected

but you have a character walk out of one door cut

you go to the other room that you wanna use

and he steps in

and you make it look like those rooms are connected

and this because the spirit point of view

actually went as one shot

through the rooms

we actually had to have them connected

and that made it very tough

we'd find a lot of houses that we're perfect for

90% of what we wanted

but the rooms didn't really connect

and we couldn't have done the spare POV shot

so that was what really made it tough

when we were looking for a house

and we really really wanted that

I mean

I remember you rejecting so many houses and I think

you know it was just um

great decision to use this one

but the time of course he hated me yeah exactly

I think this was the location scout for this house

was Jeff yours and my first argument

we wanted to come and see the house

being the executive producer so you set up a

location scout for this house

like I think it was on a Sunday Sunday

yeah I remember and I was fairly new to Los Angeles

and really live down in Orange County

didn't make many trips up

so I had no idea where I was going

or how long it would take to get there

so we were like an hour and a half late

we came with a whole entourage of people

I might have even had my in laws

yeah I had told the guys to be a little crew

it's a low budget film

there were more people in that location scouted than

we have a warrior brothers had been there

I know that was always the fair too

we always go in and the guy would say

oh yeah

we rent this house at the movies

but you know it's like 3,000 a day

and we were like yeah

we weren't paying anywhere near that

we say we couldn't afford 3,000 a week

yeah you know

and but we still was a big decision for us

I mean this is the whole look

yeah of the

of the and we were lucky

the guy took pity on us

and gave it to us for the price

cause you know

we basically went and said look

this house is great and we love it

but good old Gary yeah

but there is just no way

there's just no way we can pay it as

and we're not telling you it's not worth it

cause you're right it's worth what you ask

we just don't have it

but we really wanna do it in this house and

and we will be extra extra careful not to damage it and

and I think we I think we didn't do

and now we had very little damage

I think we were very ivoy and I've Learned from that

from then on I try really hard not to do any

you know make

I make sure I impress on the crew

do not mess up these people's home

well they had

always been pretty careful about renting this house out

actually and I think because of what we ended up doing

and also how we arrange the logistics

it's got used a lot more after we went in

yeah we

we were kind of set a good precedent for them

yeah trust other film crews

yeah and lower budget productions

and you know

I'm sure people

who didn't think they might be able to get this house

yeah got it

realize why seen films all the time

since I see it in films all the time

a lot of TV too yeah

a lot of TV especially

I saw it in an episode of Tales From the crib

where it was a haunted house and

but I really did love the fact that

that you you do look out the windows

you know these locations yeah

you know I just thinking though

if you remember

that wall in that door he's slamming on right now

we put those up that was just a big archway yeah

these rooms were really open to each other

in fact when

and we separated them with a fake wall in a doorway

so that we could have a separate bedroom from the

living room

later when we tear up the room

I remember Gary walked into that scene and freaked out

and nearly fainted

he didn't realize that they were our walls

yeah exactly

yeah cause we only

the walls are all trash and all

but it's only the ones we put up

not the real walls

I think we should take a moment to mention

the inevitable Rose Marie here

who was a joy to work with again and just a treat

you know I mean

we sat around I mean

I don't know about you guys

but I was raised on the Dick Van Dyke Show

and I think everyone on the crew would go up to her

and quote their favorite Sally line to her

you know and

and then um

more Amsterdam came to the set to visit her

and yes he

of course was great

okay here's the shot I hate the most

he throws it all the way out the window

and hits that little trash can

and if you remember it was written as a dumpster right

and the prop guy came to me that day and said

we just don't have in our budget for a dumpster can

it just be a series of trash cans sitting out there

like a lot of apartment buildings do

and I said yeah okay

he was such a great guy and he done so much for us

I said yeah

no problem and I hadn't thought ahead to well

there's that scene where he throws it out the window

and then we got to do that

and I was like oh crap

he's gotta hit a trash can from a second story window

so I said well

we just play it that these guys you know

they throw axes by each other's nose

so obviously they they pretty accurate

and then I figured if anyone had a complaint

you know screw them we already had their money

there's an hour into the movie

what are they gonna do

speaking of people visiting the set

we had a number of interesting visitors

including OJ Simpson the one and only

that's right cause he was dating Tony at the time

and would come to the said

he got locked in her dressing room one time

by accident

and was all panicked because he couldn't get out

and we had to get some of the crew guys to come over

and like

Jimmy the lock for him

I thought he went through the window actually

I don't remember the I might have yeah

I think he had to go through the window

I think

I think he was pretty freaked that the National Ropa

National Inquire was gonna show up with that photo

and start taking photos of him

didn't he bring a little puppy for

he bought her birthday

he bought a little poodle for Tony

and she had her red handed hair

and she handed the puppy the same color

so she would bring it to the set and they would

it be a little redheaded puppy

and and because he was like trying to be discreet

when he would call her on the set

he would always you know

say Ralph tell her Ralph's on the phone

that was OJ's code name

I took a few calls from Ralph

those were the days before cell phones

we had one phone yeah

that's our crew that's right

well the funny thing was he thought

you know he thought he was being

you know being discreet by calling himself Ralph

he didn't know Tony was running around saying

oh yeah

that's OJ I'm dating OJ Kevin

wasn't this actress in the film that you did at the USC

that's right she was an actress I'd worked with

in one of my student films

and she did a really nice job for me

and again just a doll to work with

her name is Judy Tatum

and we had the small part and we actually

she got her sad card on this

wasn't it The Book of Joe that she was in

yes you're right

she was the reporter in book of Joe

I remember

and the Book of Joe was actually your student film

from USC

which we use to show investors that he is a director

knows what he's doing

this is a nice moment here

again Todd

you know had to totally sell it

but uh

and I think they really cared for one another

you know by this time in the yeah

in the film I mean as

as as yeah

as people they might have even been dating

though I couldn't swear to that

but you never know you better not swear to it

no I wouldn't swear to it

well this was the shooting schedule for

for but they were actually fairly long

yeah and they were both free and single at the time

so if they were dating it's okay

they were both free agents at the time

he's actually wearing a jacket of mine

which I found in my closet

really about a week or two ago

that's funny this is bear

does it still smell of his Cologne

oh yeah

Big Bear

we actually went up and shot in Big Bear for a week and

oh I remember now here in LA big

for those who live in the West Coast

Big Bear is like a big resort

it's a lake but we had

we had a reaction on some of the East Coast

when he says that's why I'm going to Big Bear

and I got a big laugh and we found out later

Big Bear was like a Piggly Wiggly

and so be so it sounds like Jim

Linda's in trouble I'm going to the Piggly Wiggly

and we couldn't understand why they were laughing

it's like what

Big Bear's not that funny sounding name

you know and then we were all freaked

oh god

so every time it plays in one of these Midwest towns

it has a big Bear market

they're gonna just laugh at the line

so you just never know you know

you write it and it's it fits for where you are

but you don't know how it's gonna play other places

well I think in this day and time

if we did a movie right now

that would have been flagged by clearance

and we would have called it a different place

than what we actually went to

yeah maybe us to

to mix up you know

in case we use somebody else's name or phone number

that actually lives in Big Bear

that's right they always give you that stuff now

but again we were so naive

we didn't know we didn't even know about these services

let alone that this is something that most movies do

to this day my wife

Marcy

gets upset with me because she actually likes Big Bear

and I can't go up there

because it represents so much anxiety to me

so it's one it's one resort that we can't go to near LA

good thing we haven't shot at more around here

yeah I wouldn't be able to leave my house

this was an interesting night that yeah

just as a matter of fact we shot

we shot our hundredth roll of film this night yeah

and remember and everyone brought up champagne

they said we broke our hundredth roll

and a bunch of the crew people said

when we rap we're gonna stay here and sit on a grave

and play with the Ouija board and drink champagne

do you want I said

you gotta be kidding that's like

you know asking someone who's working on jaws

if they wanna go for a midnight swim in the ocean

like no

I don't think so you know

I don't believe in this stuff

but I ain't taking any chances man

you guys knock yourselves out

I'm going home to my nice

warm bed and my non supernatural life

I remember getting yelled at by

I don't know maybe it was a critic

maybe it was the guy from the Orange County paper

when I talked about he said yeah

isn't that really stupid

when the guy jumps over the wall

I mean who would go into a cemetery

and what could have been him

he didn't see them exactly

we know what's so funny is we ended up shooting this

the wall was actually way down the ways

cause it was all metal gate where they were parked

and I just wanted to do it in one shot

I wanted Todd to say oh

I wanna go in and then walk behind

the car and go over the gate that was

that you could see in the background of the car shop

but it was a metal gate with spikes

I said I'm not climbing over that

what if I slip and I said

oh don't be a wuss

look and I climbed over and I slipped

and the spike went right through my pants

and just like miss my family jewels

and I said okay we'll go over the wall

it was like hanging on this thing

and like this close to impaling myself

you know and I thought okay

there you go Todd was right

the only time by my dad on the whole film

that he was right and I was wrong

many women asked me if that was a phallic symbol

and you put that there on purpose

oh they

that the gravestone gravestone

I don't even remember

I know we brought some and others were actually there

I can't remember which ones are ours

and which ones were real so I couldn't tell you

to tell you the truth I don't even know if that's ours

or if that was already there

cause they had some great headstones that were actually

at this cemetery

was this was like in Pomona or Glendale

Glendale yeah

Glendale

and we cut a break having the wind be so calm that yeah

cause otherwise that fog would have just blown away

yeah and it's the same cemetery where we shot the

other scenes right

the daytime scene yeah

the daytime scene Jim's funeral

and we had a massive one of the ways that they

I think the lighting is so good as

instead of just using a condor for uh

the HMI light we got it on a Chapman crane

so it's really really up there

so it really feels like less directional

yeah it's yeah exactly

it really feels like natural moonlight

I thought this was such a smart

thing that you did in the scene

by following him uh

rather than Jim yeah

uh Steven

cause he's such a tense guy and well

you know my thinking was not just that

but if you follow Jim you know

he's the lead and you're only

you know an hour and eight minutes in

he's not gonna die yet but

the secondary character could very well be killed here

right

so I figured if you follow the secondary character

the audience is really gonna be scared

cause they think this is this could be it

this is could be where he buys the farm

because he is the secondary lead

whereas Todd they would have known okay

we might get a scare but nothing's gonna happen to him

I like how both the guys

especially Steven in this scene really are vulnerable

oh yeah

he told Steve throws himself

he doesn't worry if he's gonna look foolish

the guy is supposed to be scared

he goes for it he looks scared

and doesn't care if he looks stupid looking scared

he's like this guy's ready to crap his pants

so I'm gonna play him that way and

and just great and again

a perfect foil for Todd

who's more of a lack of days ago lay back lap on

and then Todd even out laughs at him

Todd I know came to me and said

my god he's

he's like so going when he gets scared

that I'm almost wanna laugh

and I said then do it

cause that's the whole point

your character

would laugh at his character for getting scared

you know so

and then display so natural

like these guys are really believable

and this of course you know

I think I think

this is just a nice scene to have

in this kind of movie where normally

they wouldn't have a scene like this in a horror film

and it just really cements these two characters and

and finally you

you know you know that Steve's character isn't a jerk

he's a nice guy he's just

he's dealing with a lot

he's dealing with the girl he loves being with

his best friend

and feeling that he's been betrayed by both and

and trying to maintain a cool atmosphere

like I don't care when in reality

of course he cares

he cares very much and it just eats away at him

yeah it is a great scene

and you know

these guys just play it so perfectly well

there were a number of

and when I say criticisms I

I've sometimes you hear those more than anything

obviously the film

film was hugely successful and many

many critics loved it and more

yeah but it's always the bad ones you remember

but I find it interesting that

like the comment about going over the wall

or they would never do that

well that's what makes it an interesting film that

you know a character would decide to do that

yeah it's

it's within his character

and you know

this scene here too

people might you know

I've heard well

it could slow the film down

but I mean

I love that both

you and Jeff

were really brave to keep these scenes in the film

and not succumb to well

you got to pick up the pace and yeah

cause we were getting a lot of pressure

about losing this scene exactly

but I think it's uh it's

it really makes the film work even better

I think that's one of the benefits again

of the fact that the film's editing came out

of showing it to real people

instead of distributors you know

in terms of the the people that were around us

and seeing that

the oceans were working for your general audience

so we knew I think

that gave us the confidence to stand up

and say to the distributor

now we wanna keep the scene

because we'd seen it play with audiences

and we knew the scene worked

whether they you know

theoretically maybe it shouldn't work

but it did

we knew it did because we'd seen it with an audience

that helps so much those audience screenings

I mean how many did we have

a lot just people that weren't even in the business

no just

just screening for people left and right

then in various stages

I remember sitting at the mixing board

where all we had was the music track

and the production sound and then I would

I just had Dennis do extra stings for the scare

since we didn't have any sound effects

and then I would just crank it up

when I knew a sting was coming

to make the audience jump

and you know

of course those are the days before avid and Pro Tools

so oh yeah

everything all this was cut work print

although Dan was looking dirty and beat up

yeah then and

but at least we had a print

yeah we could go show it unlike exactly

if you're making an independent film these days

you don't often have anything other than the avid cut

yeah to show

which is a little bad quality VHS yeah

you know doesn't really impress

there is and

you know there's a lot to be said

for seeing something on a big screen

yeah it's

it really does helps out this was a really good scare

too this is one of my favorite scares in any

film that we've ever been involved in

and maybe any film I mean

I think of the scene in the omen

with the head bouncing off the glass

after it's been severed right right

right when it slides off the truck

and I mean this is a really

really scary scene you're in the basement of a hospital

and yeah

it's just creepy and it's quite

yeah exactly

it says these long dark hallways

Kevin you should

I think I had brought in Phil Loops and

who played Malfoy yeah

to be a second ad he was not an actor

but he just had a great look

and we said wow

yeah cause you brought him in for something else

he was a still photographer or something

yeah and he wanted to be at

you actually wanted to be an assistant director on the

on the film and

and then was did you just see him and decide

I think so I just saw him and thought

oh my God

this guy would be perfect for Mal Fader

cause he's cause he's big and he's

he's he's so big and intimidating

he's a big intimidating guy

but you know

we don't have to make him up

look creepy or freaky cause I always hate that when oh

if you're ugly you're evil

if you're pretty you're not

you know

and he was a guy who wasn't strange or weird looking

he was but he did

he was very intimidating I

think what we did do was our makeup guide

um

whose name I is totally escaping

but another guy knew from film school

John Dutro John Dutro

John Dutro he made just a prosthetic forehead for him

so that he was always frown exactly

so that is his brow was always knitted as a perfect

it was perfect so he just kind of

and I think

maybe he gave him some teeth that were a little longer

so they kind of have a fangy look so that they just

and other than that it was just Phil and it was

you know

and Phil like towers over me and I'm like 6 foot 3

so I mean just

you know town Phil just had a great imposing presence

and this scene I just remember the art department

it said because we had the scene where

this is where the kid died on the boat

and what we did was we shot this scene in the place

this dock was really all beat up like this

and then to shoot it 30 years earlier

they totally repainted and built the place up

the guy who owned the dock

he made out like a bandit

cause he got this place all fixed up for him

so that we could have it looking brand new

for the boat explosion scene

and none of that got used

but but they did a marvelous job

because the dock all cleaned up

looked gorgeous and we

had some old car from the 50s

and that the father and son drive up in

this board is this scene

is one of the few scenes that are shot on a stage

the actual hands on the board

right in this scene

in both the daytime exteriors and the interiors were

right almost

almost all the hands production

almost all the hands on the boards

were shot on the stage afterwards as pickup shots

we cut the film

without having the close UPS of the board yet

and then

and then decided where I wanted the board close up

and when I wanted to go in really close

and all based on how the rest of the cut was working

didn't we shoot the scene with the Linda's beheading

the last scene that we just saw with the uh

wasn't that shot

in the parking lot of the Red Fox Building

what the

I know that that but that's the accident

oh no that's his actually the head in this

yeah that was actually not the parking lot

I think it was up on the roof

because we couldn't see it

we had this have nothing but blue sky in the background

so we went up to the roof of the Red Fox building

where you kill Lawyer Jeff's production offices were

yeah and we shot the close up for the axe

actually hitting his forehead

was up on the roof of the Red Fox building

I saw that prosthetic head somewhere recently

oh yeah

yeah with the big axe

big axe in the hole in the old noggin yeah

remember the axe was on this device

so that it would always hit the same spot

yeah so that

so that we could set the camera close on that forehead

the axe would hit exactly where it had no

you know

no swinging it with a hand and having the guy miss

go off frame or something

it's just funny that stuff you have to think of and do

to get something that looks like a very simple shot

it's like it's not that simple though

when you're in that close on something

you have to hit exactly where you need to hit

remember those were the days before digital

oh yeah

there was no such CGI oh yeah

all they had was blue screen

and it always looked bad because

they'd always had matte lines around the characters

so you never wanted to use blue screen back then

so yeah

all of these effects are practical

we have one optical at the end

and that was Tazlo and Louis

yep and they did a great job

they sure did and a company called Motion Opticals

actually a guy named Jim Stewart

I believe who Taz

I think introduced us to that's very possible

and again Tazlo was someone we knew from film school

it done special effects on book of Joe

he blew up the car and oh yeah

film book of Joe he also did a very famous USC uh

I don't know if it's a student film

but where he blows up the old

they did a miniature of the old building

yeah blows it up was really impressive

yeah Kevin

didn't you write this script while you

wasn't this like a student project

that actually one of the classes I took at SC

was a screenwriting class

and you had to write a feature screenplay

and this was the screenplay I wrote in class

so this was my very first feature screenplay

and I wrote it as a class assignment in USC

did

you get a lot of feedback from students in the class

about the script

or was it something you wrote and you were working on

and you didn't get a lot of feedback

not a lot but the girls in the class hated it because

you know they were all

you know everyone in film school imagines themselves

the next Roman Polanski or something

so that I was writing something that was a horror film

about a Ouija board and had people getting beheaded

and access the forehead they weren't too crazy about it

but a couple of people did see that well yeah

but the characters are really strong

and this is really you know

and I had I had several people uh uh

Melissa Xellano who at the time

Melissa Martin she's a producer now and TV producer

but I remember

she read the script and said

it scared the hell out of me

she goes I think this is a really scary script

and that's the kind of stuff that's nice to hear

you know I think while you saw immediately the hook

I think you really like the script

and I think you know

recognized how other people would really see that hook

and get interested in it yeah

we felt I mean

right off the from the first read

I mean having

uh played with Ouija board as kids

mean it was a game that we got in the Midwest

growing up for Christmas somewhere in the uh

mid sixties

Parker Brothers game you know

was that's even advertised

yeah that's why

you know I wrote it because I had

I actually lived in a Victorian apartment

before I moved to LA to go to USC

Victorian house that have been turned into apartments

kind of like in the script

and a friend brought apart

brought a Ouija board to the party

and we played with it it was very creepy

and while I was sitting there

I thought man

I'd go see a film called Ouija

knowing nothing else about it

just Ouija and as a matter of fact

that's what the script was called

in the whole time we shot the film

we were caught it was called Ouija

yeah

that was the quid pro quo with the insurance company

that we wouldn't use Ouija

in the title in the title

but when we change the title to which board

it took a long time for me to get used to calling it

which board I mean

it was

cause we've been calling it Ouija for three years

you know

and you came up with a name which poor too

didn't you well

because in the script in the party scene

he actually says

that the Ouija board used to be called a

which board but we cut it

because we thought this party seems too long

and you know

that's interesting little piece of information

but it's not Germain to the story

so we lose it then we ended up after the film was cut

mixed and done changing it to which board

and I thought oh jeez

it would have been nice if we kept that line

where he says they

they used to be called which boards

what we did instead was in which board to

I have the guy tell him

tell her that they used to be called which boards

got it in part 2 but in Part 1

it actually been dialogue at the party that we shot

and cut out and then change the title to which board

and I thought that sucks we had a line

we actually says they used to be called which boards

and we don't have it in the film

I think this is one of the most effective scenes

the use of the 9.8 millimeter lands

the crane at the end with the hot head

which I remember gave Bill Wright fits

trying to get all that equipment out here

on the budget that we have

Bill was our production coordinator

he was our production manager uh

cause Leslie Lair I think was our production manager

or was she the production coordinator

I think she uh

she was the coordinator

and Bill was the production manager

Leslie who's now a novelist

and who was also the production accountant on the film

yeah and

and then the music too

which is a mixture of Lee's sound design

with Dana Desell sound design and

and music and music

and then an obscure piece of French music called Bohore

something by Ayana Xanakas

I think he's Greek

actually one of the first music concret guys

but yeah so it was like a

you know

just a Hodge podge of stuff to get that spirit POV

isn't that really Steven Nichols

yeah in that water

I mean and it was freezing

it was Steven like Steven's gotta act dead

and it's like all he want you to be

he's so cold there that just before we do the take

his teeth are chattering he has to like

stop shattering and just lay there like he's dead

and he's frozen he's just dying

it was so miserable for him

and on any other budget of course

he would have been shot from behind

would have been somebody else a stunt guy had some

some merely nobody yeah

matter and said we stick the actual actor out there

but yeah these guys were troopers though

I mean there wasn't anything we asked him to do

that they wouldn't do

this is a shot it was kind of difficult

end of the day oh yeah

it was

and then going from the close up that high was just

yeah tough

it was just a tough shot but

you know

these are the kind of shots that people remember

and that really helps sell the whole spirit

point of view stuff you know

who was responsible for

the childlike voice in the background

that kind of um

Danny to sell who was

that was great yeah

what she did was she took

when we had while we had um

the gal played Zarabeth

Kathleen came in for her ADR while we had her

she just had her do things like ah

like that Dana did and then Dana just took those tracks

and what she do is

she lay three of them on top of each other

slightly off so that it created like an echo effect

and just lay them in every now and then on the

on the spirit povs and it just yeah

it gives you the willies just

you know makes the hairs go up on the back of your neck

this was a nice shot again

something that was just didn't Richard do this

yeah and the crane was breaking down

as a matter of fact

that's when I was pretty sure we were gonna replace

Richard

we were having all problems with the crane not working

and he came over to bitch

that American cinematographer wasn't there

to get a picture of him with the crane

I'm like

I'm worried about whether we're gonna make this shot

before the 10 o'clock curfew

when we have to shut down

and you're

you're worried that you're not gonna get your shot in

American photographer I think I told Jeff that's it

haha I think one of the problems with that shot too

that was so difficult uh

it is the crane had to be on the grass of this

you know natural location

so getting the crane on there getting it yeah

flat and then uh

you know getting it out there was really difficult

I don't think he had ever done anything I know no

none of us had but I guess my problem was though

that his priority seemed really out of whack

you know he was and he said things before to me like

you know this is just a stepping stone to better films

you know it's like

you know that's a true statement

it's true but still you gotta

you know you gotta tackle it

this is the film you're doing right now

you got to do this one to the best of your abilities

not kind of just say well

I'm just doing this

so it'll bring me better opportunities

you know that's

that's a plus if it happens

but right now you're doing this film and let's do it

well I think that's the key

it's I mean

with everything in life if you focus on something it

gets better and yeah

and it's like and Roy Wagner

who had already done 80 films

and a lot of them low budget

you know crap oh

things that I know he wasn't crazy about

and you know

and let's face it when he shooting this

he probably thought

this was just gonna be another low budget

crap film he was doing

but he still came on and shot that thing

like he was doing gone with the wind

he did not slough off he worked his ass off

and he he tackled it like

like he would at 20 million

30 million 40 million dollar film

and he just gave it his all

he brought all his expertise

and his experience and his enthusiasm to this little

itty bitty budget with a no name cast

and a no name director

and one thing that helped too was having uh

they were called grips from hell

yeah Pat Daley

Tommy West Charlie Norcross were phenomenal

yeah

and they created all these devices that allowed us to

you know mount the camera in places that yeah

cause you know

it's

one thing for me to come up with some creative shot

but then I handed over these guys

they're the ones who have to actually build the device

that can give me the shot

I want

speaking of special effects

Tony is a special effect all by herself

and again you know just

I wanted I knew

you know in

for these kind of films you have to have nudity

it's part of the

you know when you only got a million dollar budget

and you're not selling big

incredible match shots

then a pretty naked girl is a good selling point

but I wanted to have

it be more than just a reason for her to be naked

and I thought if we do this with its sour attacking her

it you know

we we get our obligatory nude scene

but it's actually again

serves the story as well well

you also

you're just feeling for her going naked through this

whether she's a male or female going through that glass

yeah you know

so you're cringing at the same time

well so

you know being naked is just a very intimidating thing

you're very exposed you're very uh susceptible

you're very um

almost victim like

just from the fact that you are naked

so being attacked

at a point when you're already that vulnerable

I think just makes the attack all that more terrifying

because you are naked and already very vulnerable

before the attack even took place

yeah and then capping it off there with

speaking of bad bad shots yeah

yeah that's our one day for night shot

where we had to put in the black sky

and the Starry Night yeah

and you know

for like 500 bucks yeah

200 bucks and looks like every penny we spent on it

but you know

hey you know

considering

that's not too bad to have one kind of cheesy shot

you know whole movie

especially a movie that you know

again was a smaller budget

that's a creepy shot where we just

you know

rack focused on him at the end of that shot of the POV

and it really sells that he's kind of

you know he's possessed her now

and that night for day shot is part of Kevin's of

the lock off yeah

this is the scene that where Gary Walk

the owner of the house walked in

I didn't realize those walls were fake walls

that we had put up on top of his real walls

and thought what did you do

and it's like don't worry

those are our walls

they're just sheet rock up in front of your walls

so we could trash them

I remember though

that when we finished the film

I had been

so concerned about not making a cheesy horror film

that I was worried then

that we didn't have enough scares

that I'd worried so I

that I'd concentrated on character development

and we saw it with the distributor who came in

and I mentioned my concern to him and I

was sitting next to him

and when she jumps up with the axe there

he grabbed my arm and almost landed in my lap

and afterwards he said

I said because I told him

come in and I said look

if he if the films got five good jumps

I'll be happy and he said

you got a lot more in five

and it was like that's good to know

because again

we had concentrated so much on

the character development

and the story that I'd been afraid after we were done

that maybe I hadn't made the film scary enough

yeah that's always a problem

I mean it's the same with comedies

you're making the movie and you're following the script

and you have this thing every day of well

we got our pages but is it funny

and yeah

it's the same you know

with this

we got the pages and we got some good performances

but at the end of the day

is it scary Ospecia

this kind of scary

you were not relying on special effects

or blood and Gore you know

and not a lot of comedy too

once you got out of the Jim Quinn and Zarabath

once they died I mean

it's a very serious film and right

that's what I wanted to slowly just get

as we got further along with the story

just got darker and darker and darker

so that we kind of just present you with more and more

scary stuff

Tony did a really nice job here too

so did Todd Todd had a hard part here and a hard cell

was there a lot of tension shooting the scene I

I I seem to recall her

and I think it is of another scene

well it was tough

I mean just trying to not

not that there was tension between any no

no there was

because we we

we put a whole grid up on the ceiling

and lit the whole room so that they could go anywhere

cause I didn't wanna have them worrying about staging

that they could I wanted to be really raw

and then Roy shot this whole scene handheld

and that's back with those big

old Heavy Aerods or Panavisions

whatever we were shooting with

but they were huge cameras

and he had that thing on his shoulder for the whole

you know half a day we shot this scene

and you could tell by the end of the day

his back was shot but

you know

but I think it really added to have that

you know that

that handheld motion

where the camera can whip back and forth quickly

and even when it's standing still

there's still just enough motion in it

that you feel tense

especially since it hadn't been used really

except in that zarabel scene

right well

even that wasn't handheld

it was still on a dolly it was just not on track

yeah this is completely handheld

the only other time we did handheld shots at all

were spirit point of view shots

so this was the only sequence that was done like

completely handheld

put it down just to give it that little extra tension

put it down

and I guess we're coming up to

one of the bigger cheats in the film

where he gets blown out of this window

but then

we actually did the shot of him coming out the window

at a at a park right

uh that was the very last shot in the film that we shot

it was the last day of shooting

was him going out the window

I remember planning that shot

we got there in the morning

and Roy had taught me how to do a grid of

you know laying out all of your different departments

and how much each was gonna take and

you know being able to really calculate

how long it was going to take you to arrive at

you know the

you know shooting scene

and I remember doing that as we arrived that morning

getting everyone's information

and realizing we didn't have enough hours in the day

yeah to do this one shot

we were there at we were there at sun up

but everyone was saying well

we won't be ready till sundown

and we literally got that shot

just as the sun was about to start setting

we scream through it

get there to get it in fact after it's set

I think yeah

I think we just opened up the lens full on and

and caught what remaining little sunlight there was

I think another interesting thing about the scene is

it's the first

coming up is the only real optical we have

with the wichport spinning towards us

and to do that shot Tazlo had created this

this little litho of the Ouija board

and so I remember looking at it over the weeks

and when we had a screening

I decided well

let's make tickets out of this

and remember sending the tickets down to Walter

and they were so excited because

you know look like this mini Ouija board

and that's what started you know

this this whole process of oh let's

you know make a promo campaign

the whole promo campaign

one of the people who worked with us at the time is our

was a guitar player and he had a guitar pick

all right and I pick that thing up and went

oh man

this is the planned shet to this little Ouija board

became the whole campaign

yep

so just a little

little moments of luck and brilliance mixed together

so obviously

the shot was intended to be in very bright daylight

yeah shot after the sun was setting

yeah and there

there's my Fierro the first new car I ever owned

that I was able to buy because of this film

in a

haha everything I don't have

been like 10 years old that was a brand new 85 Fierro

this is a really nice moment to see

one of our investors in the film saw the

you just came on the set and read the script

and there's Leslie Lair's dad

yeah that's right

that's right um

and she uh

the investor Donna Reynolds

a good friend uh

said that her daughter designed wedding gowns

well that's right

and did wedding planning so

she and her daughter did all of the bows

and bridesmaids and the wedding dress

exactly and then went on to do the wardrobe 4

9 out of the demon that all the kids costumes

exactly and you know

we should mention to the girl who did costumes on this

did a really nice job because

you know in a budget like this

you just find clothes that fit the characters

but for Tony

she made almost all of Tony's clothes from scratch

and on a no budget whatsoever

and she did a really nice job

you know giving Tony a really nice

interesting look

that really did set her character apart

this is you know

and she did it all from scratch

and did a really nice job

then our final big bogus

cheese extra cheese on your pizza here

a lot of people hate that

I love it yeah

you gotta you know

a big pepperoni right in the middle of all that cheese

yes we're ahead

warp factor cheese

unless you know Robin Jones

who just did a great and Chris Medic and Terry Edwards

Terry was a great guy too

Leslie Becca Becca

who pretty much

at one point or another did every position

you know something on every casting location

yeah she was great

Bill Wright who again

we knew from USC and there's the grips from hell

those guys the Tommy and Shane were just great

just you know

a really they really helped us man

because we were all pretty much first timers

and the effects oh

Louis A

John Cork another great guy who

who wrote a terrific film

um a sissy Spacex

Whoopi Goldberg film

it was a terrific film that he wrote

Bob Lucas the prop guy

just did a great job Meryl Green was the costumer

she did a really nice job

Sharon Mcgonagall worked with her

and also did a really nice job

well again

thank you very much for sitting through the whole film

obviously a second time

because if you listen to this whole track

then you

this is your second time sitting through the movie

I we appreciate it

and Jeff and Walter again

it was a

it was great to sit here and watch it with you guys

again and we live a lot of it

and remember

things that I haven't thought about in 10 years

yeah

it was really a pleasure to sit here and talk about

and think about and I also

you know would say too

even though I got the producing credit on this

it would have been more I think

accurate

for Walter and I to have gotten that credit together

and I also think Becca Boss's role in many ways

she was you know

producing it right there with me the whole time

and uh

I just thank all the people who were

were there for me during that film

uh both above and below the line who really taught me

uh taught me a lot about the film business

and a lot about life and uh

and uh friendship

it really was a great experience

and um

Jeff said at one point during the making of this film

that if we're all still friends at the end of this

um we'll probably have a very successful movie

and here we are today nearly 30 years later

all friends watching the film again

and it's not 30 years later

let's not ages too much haha

isn't it 85 well

half close half full to my right

half empty to my left

shoot me now but it's great to uh

to watch this and uh

with you guys and and see it cause it's

it still looks great so uh

to those watching thanks a lot for continuing to do so

cause you helped us get it to this point

that's right and again

30 years ago man

I forgot I directed this when I was 12

good night folks