SIPHON: A Retrospect- Part 2 (Original Story VS What Made it To Film) or (Big Ideas vs The Reality of a $0.00 dollars budget)

Often times with most independent films you start off with an idea.  An idea in which grows and develops layers and substance, eventually gaining a life of it's own.  This idea/story is then transferred to a script format.  The script is designed to streamline the material for eventual translation to the big screen.  Some material is lost during this process as a script doesn't explain the thoughts and feelings of the characters in intimate detail.  As a friend once told me after viewing my first draft of the script for SIPHON; "Show through the actions, don't bog down the script with prose.  It's just directions, not a novel".  A difficult task considering that I'm a storyteller at heart, but after a few weeks and several working drafts later, the script for SIPHON was finished...for the most part.  The interesting aspect about a script is that it remains an ever evolving piece, especially when certain sections of the script end up not translating well to film.  This can be simply because of the writing itself, the available locations and actors, or usually in my case a lack of time and budget.  The biggest issue with my production was time.  Whether it was the time frame imposed by the Halloween date from the time we started (basically 2 months from late August to Mid October for pre-production, filming, and post-production) to the time restrictions of actors, locations, and crew availability, time more than anything else was my biggest hurdle on set.  Of course, when you're on a shoe-string budget, everything cost wise is covered out of pocket or given by the grace of kind folk lending their time and expertise to you in exchange for cheap pizza and beer.  Still though, when you don't have a studio behind you, you tend to have to sacrifice more of the story for a leaner product.  It's a tricky balance when attempting to translate story to film.  Below, I'll go through what the original story to SIPHON was going to be and what eventually happened to those pieces during the translation from paper to film.

Teaser Poster for "SIPHON" before a spelling was finalized.

Beginning Prologue:  When I originally began outlining the story arc for SIPHON, I wanted to start with the Graham family in the living room of their mill village home watching the news.  Lauren would make her brief introduction as she ducks out the house to take off with some friends.  Roger, whom is still in his work uniform from a local steel mill, absently watches a news story about a rash of bizarre murders in which people have been found in bed completely drained of their blood without any signs of struggle. His wife Claire would speak to him about the events of the day, even mentioning the news story before hinting for them to head to bed.  The story would jump forward to a few hours to the bedroom in which Roger and Claire would be asleep.  The killer would be seen silhouetted by moonlight in a veiled window of the bedroom before sliding the window open and unleashing the paralytic in the air. The rest of the scene would play out much like what we see in the film version with the exception that I wanted Lauren to return home the next morning while a barely recovered Roger crawls out of the bedroom, mumbling for her to call the police.  We would see Lauren standing there in disbelief as she calls out for her mother.  With the screen slowly turning black, we would hear Lauren scream, undoubtedly discovering her dead mother in the bedroom.  Unfortunately due to time constraints, only the bedroom scene with the killer attacking the paralyzed Roger and Claire made it on screen.  With the increased pressure of scheduling and limited access I had with my main actors due to their jobs, personal lives, ect, this original prologue was shortened significantly.  I felt the additional narrative would have help to explain a big of what was going on, including that the killer had been active before the attack on Roger and Claire.  Though, I attempted to fill that in during the main story of the film through radio bits.



 Main Story:   A great amount of additional material would have appeared during the beginning section of the main story.  It was my original intent to show the living conditions for both Roger and Lauren two years after the death of Claire.   I wanted to show them living in a small apartment space partially paid for by Roger working for the apartment complex as a handy man.  The rest of his rent and bills come from odd jobs around town.  Due to his tragic backstory with the death of his wife, I had a character by the name of Mrs. Abbot, the Apartment complex manager that was to take pity on Roger and Lauren by allowing them to stay at the Apartment complex for a discounted rate.  The story originally explained how Roger lost his home; with the death of his wife whom was working full time as a nurse, half of the household income would have dried up, leaving Roger to fall further and further behind with the mortgage and bills.  Since Lauren was only 16 at the time, she was unable to help supplement the household income.  Roger was to have been an alcoholic during the years between his wife's death and the main story, with him losing his job at a local steel mill.  While he is somewhat recovered by the beginning of the main story, his trades in an addiction to alcohol to an obsession with finding and killing the thing that took away his wife.  His own bedroom would contain newspaper clipping concerning the killer, a map of the killer's trail up and down the south eastern United States, a police scanner, and crumbled cigarette packs spread across his desk and floor.  The apartment would very much reflect a delicate balance between Roger's unkempt and disheveled personality and the counterculture personality of his  daughter Lauren, whom within two years has grown up to be a very intelligent but brooding teenager wise beyond her years.  She has almost assumed the role of the parent in this relationship, often taking on the responsibilities of cooking dinner for her and her father along with taking care of the apartment, making sure bills are paid, all the while maintaining her education.  I wanted to show the effects that the killer's actions have caused this family.  I was working towards even having Lauren in the beginning of the film going and picking up her father from jail for police chasing.  A detective and young cop would have been introduced during this scene, both whom would have been involved in tracking down the Vampire of Roanoke (one of the monickers the news media would have given the killer).  Having been deeply obsessed with tracking down the killer, Roger has become a nuisance to the detective and local law enforcement.  Though the detective is sympathetic to Roger and Lauren, often times only arresting Roger and keeping him in jail until the local crime scene is cleaned up or Lauren can come to pick him up to watch him.  Roger's brother would have been introduced in a phone conversation when Roger potentially believes after the latest murder to have pinpointed the Stalker's base of operation.  Roger's brother having previously allowed Roger to keep supplies and guns in a barn on some property he own, acts as a warning to Roger to let the police handle the situation.  Roger is not deterred.  Having linked several stories concerning stolen medical equipment to murders being committed within the relatively same timeframe, Roger believes that the killer is using the blood for some nefarious medical reason.  Roger's actions have heavily affected the relationship between himself and his daughter Lauren to the point that, much like Roger, Lauren has no friends grounding, only a few acquaintances.   Roger is able to convince Lauren to help him on this crusade with the promise of everything returning to normal after the killer has been dealt with.  Turning a blind eye to the truth, Lauren would choose to support her father, knowing that even if they captured the killer that the damage left behind would be too severe for her and her father to have a normal life.

All of the material above was cut or couldn't be filmed.  Instead the film's main story starts with Roger and Lauren driving to pick up supplies, with a few news and story bits coming through the radio in order to fill in the gaps of information concerning the killer and how prolific this killing spree has become.  Much of the script and film from this point on remains the same, with the exception of two missing scenes that never made it on screen. The first scene would involve us watching Stalker pushing a stretcher down an abandoned corridor with an unconscious man strapped down to it.  Various tubes and medical devices would be attached to both the man and the stretcher, showing that Stalker has begun to kidnap live people to serve as replenishable "Blood Factories".  He would be shown carting this man over to a row of about 4-5 other people.  The person at the end would be a dry husk of a body.  Out of the 5 people, one person would be jerking about in a vain attempt to escape.  He/she would look over to the other bodies and finally see the husk of a person before the scream.  Stalker would then proceed to spray them with the paralytic agent before reattaching a feeding line to the person.  Stalker would then hover over the body before screaming in agony.   The second scene would be in the hideout again in which we see Stalker hovering over military documents, pouring over piles of information and marking names off a list.  The documents would have hinted towards an experiment called Project: Dry Rot.  We would see the siphoning glove and system laying upon a table, showing the container and suctioning device Stalker has rigged up for his nightly home invasions.  This would have also given us the first glance of how decayed the Stalker's body has become.  His hair would be all gone, as well as the skin around his lips and  partially around his eyes.  His nose and ears would be withered stubs.  Without eyelids, Stalker is forced to wear modified welder's glasses to protect his eyes.  Various semi-healed tears would be seen across all exposed skin.

Concept Art of Stalker: Unmasked by Mitch Rogers

These scenes were meant to show and explain the motivation behind Stalker's reasons for siphoning people's blood as well as his military background.  The only hints of these we get are the "dialysis" scene in the abandoned factory with Stalker before the arrival of Roger and Lauren.  

The rest of the film moves forward similarly to my original story, with the exception of having the Stalker being a bit more physical with Roger.  I wanted a scene of Stalker using the siphoning glove on Roger, either with him stabbing Roger multiple times in the back with the needles or possibly trying to siphon out his blood during the hallucination scenes.  I wanted to also add some additional radio dialogue at the end in the truck that Stalker has stolen explaining that the police have brought Roger into custody for the killings.  It would have added to the already dismal ending.  For better or worse, several bits of the material here never made it to film, but ultimately a leaner and still effective horror short was produced.  

Look out for Part 3 in which will focus on the music direction/score of the film as well as my plans for the film. Thanks for reading!

SIPHON: A Retrospect- Part 1 (About "SIPHON" and The Villian "Stalker")

SIPHON was a short horror film I wrote, directed, and produced during the period of late August through mid October of 2014.  The film originally stemmed from a horror anthology called "Cinema Inferno" that was to be shown at a Halloween gathering put together by myself and fellow filmmakers Dan Fowler and Dal Kalsi.  Given each of our histories in concerns of working on independent films in some capacity (with both Dan and Dal having written, directed, edited and produced several of their own independent films in both collaboration as well as solo), I found myself somewhat of the underdog in the sense of my experience, at least mainly in the technical aspects of film production.  While I had co-directed and worked somewhat in the capacity as a co-producer on an independent dark comedy called "Bone To The Dog", most of my creative energies were put towards the actual writing of the script for the film as well as actor direction on set. Despite having some experience with editing, lighting, and shooting films, my education is somewhat on the amateur side.  Most of those responsibilities fell onto the shoulders of my friend, artistic co-collaborator, and technical wizard Aaron Pate, whom in my humble opinion is one of the most talented videographers I've met.  He was the man that brought to life the words on the page.  I would again ask him to go behind the camera for SIPHON, but this time it would be in a limited capacity.  For better or worse, SIPHON would be the first film I would be working on that I would have complete control over. While I did seek advice throughout the process of creating the film, from the initial script to the final edit/cut of the film, ultimately the finished product was a result of my decisions.  While the film has it's issues (in which I will go into detail further in this series of posts), ultimately I found the finished product rewarding. I wanted to take the time to go through the brief history of the project, from the initial story idea/inspiration, script writing, production, product, and finally what lies next for the project. Below I have a link to the actual film as well as brief synopsis about the film's story if you're not familiar with or haven't seen SIPHON yet.

SIPHON:  Starring- Mark Meekins, Leah Kathryn, Drew Nicely, Jennifer Carolina, Cody James, Clay Chapman

Synopsis: Roanoke, Virgina-1984: A string of strange murders in which victims are paralyzed by the employment of an unknown gas agent and drained of their blood in their own homes are causing the citizens of Roanoke, Virgina to descend into panic.  One of the victim's husband, Roger Graham, was subdued in his bed along with his wife by The Stalker's paralytic gas agent.  While paralyzed in bed Roger is forced to watch as the monster behind the gas mask drains his wife of her blood, leaving him for hours to stare at his deceased wife until the effects of the gas wore off.  Roger is left as a widow and single father to his daughter Lauren Graham whom discovers the ghastly sight upon returning from a party the next day.  Two years later, Roger and Lauren's quest for vengeance against the killer only known as "The Stalker" culminates as they track the killer down to his hidden dwelling/refuge; an abandoned factory.  Here this story will culminate to a horrific climax.

Part 1:  Inspirations for SIPHON's antagonist- The film's influences are many, but it was my hope that the concept and script for the film would be original enough to where the viewer would distinguish it as standing on it's own merit instead of merely being a ripoff of this or that horror cliche. If you've been a follower of my blog or if you're perusing through it now, you'll see that I wrote a two part post discussing the "Phantom Anesthetist" or more commonly known as "The Mad Gasser of Mattoon".  I unabashedly took parts of this true life story and adapted aspects of the Mad Gasser's  modus operandi into the concept of SIPHON's killer; known within the script as "STALKER".  Much like the Mad Gasser, Stalker used an unspecified gas deployed by an old model insecticide sprayer.  Though, unlike the Mad Gasser of Mattoon, I wanted Stalker to be more menacing.  Instead of paralyzing victims for unknown reasons and leaving them relatively unharmed, I opted instead to give Stalker a reason behind paralyzing his victims while leaving enough of a mystery behind it to where people would begin to ask questions.  Since Stalker was already apparently proficient enough in chemistry, since he was using a paralytic gas to subdue his victims, I decided that Stalker needed a reason behind his killings and his unusual skill set....as well as to add a terrifying way of going about disposing of his victims.

An antique insecticide sprayer used as a prop in SIPHON

I had been discussing with a fellow horror fan our dissatisfaction with how vampires were being portrayed in current cinema, lamenting mainly about how vampires were now being overtly romanticized and had been "defanged" of their true horror elements (I wont soil my post mentioning the garbage films and series we talked about.  You probably have a good idea which ones I'm speaking of).  I decided then that, while I was avoiding supernatural elements in my film, that I would take the concept of the vampire and tweak it to work within the framework of the film.  Stalker would soon become a man that, for unknown reasons, needed a constant supply of fresh blood to replace his own.  One scene early on I wanted to see make it from script  to film was that of an emaciated Stalker having to perform self dialysis with the blood of a recent victim, his own body in return pushing out black ichor while the fresh blood replaced his own.  Though, before I could have this scene in the film I needed to figure out a way for Stalker to quickly drain his victims of blood as well as for that method to remain both terrifying and somewhat in the realm of reality.  I had decided then that the apparatus would have to be something attached to him and also be fairly easy to employ. I had decided to design the apparatus to attach to one of his hands, with the end result being something reminiscent of Freddy Krueger's glove...though instead of being implemented as a slashing weapon, it's only purpose would be to stab and siphon an individual's blood.

Prototype of Stalker's glove

As seen in film

The actual needles on the glove are real needles borrowed from an antique cabinet of medical equipment from the 20th century provided by the Nursing Program at the university I work for. The tubing attached to the needles comes from a discarded assembly used to recreate veins within a static arm nursing students use to practice injections.  

The actual tubing and manifold displayed above could easily be recreated with a few items from a local hardware store, but luckily I had accessed to this dismantled unit.  I found the merging of this tubing system with the glove interesting given their original purposes of recreating veins while in the film they're being used as artificial veins as Stalker siphons blood out of his victims.  The idea of a somewhat proto-biomechanical mechanism was appealing.  While not completely merged permanently within the physical biology of Stalker, the siphoning mechanism would act as artificial veins providing him with a way to circulate in fresh blood and out the poisonous ichor his body was producing.

The actual attire of the Stalker would be influenced by a back story I created for the character.  I knew from the beginning that I wanted the film to be set in the 80s as I've always had an affinity towards the horror films of that era.  Given the cunning of the Stalker and his proficiency in both chemistry and medicine, I decided that a military background and back story might help to explain both his skills and eventually the malady that forces him to drain the blood of others and replace his own poisonous blood with theirs.  As a fan of conspiracy theories and such, I've spent a great deal of time studying about the U.S. Government's testing of biological and chemical agents on their own populace, especially soldiers during war.  Several secret experiments on servicemen during Vietnam, including supposedly drugs used to alter and enhance the performance of troops during prolong missions, have been rumored and whispered about by both former soldiers and conspiracy theorists. Evidence of such experiments have emerged from declassified documents over the years, but the true nature of the experiments and results are unknown.  Chemicals ranging from 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate (BZ) to Sarin were used by the military on their own personnel in order to gather data of their effectiveness before being used on enemy combatants.  I decided that Stalker's background would be as a survivor of one of these experiments.  He was at one point a member of the U.S. Chemical Corps and after being exposed to an experimental agent, he would be the only survivor initially.  However, the chemical agent would have profound effects on his body, eventually turning his own blood into a poisonous sludge that he must constantly remove and replenish with healthy blood.

U.S. Chemical Corps uniform from 1950s

His affliction would also have slowly weakened his body, so thus the need to paralyze his victims before draining them of their blood.  The Stalker, while not as physically built as the typical horror movie villain would need to use his brains instead of brawn to survive. The gas mask Stalker wears serves several purposes.  Obviously it protects him from his own chemicals when he's using them, it obscures his face from detection, and finally due to the constant dialysis he must perform on himself, it helps to protect him from sickness caused by a compromised immune system.  The military trench coat is only there to hide the malformed condition of the Stalker's body....as well as to obscure any features since the budget wasn't there for any heavy practical make-up effects.  Unfortunately most of this back story never made it into the film due to time and financial constraints, but for anyone interested in the reason's behind Stalker's motives, there ya go.

Concept artwork of "Stalker" by Mitch Rogers

Since the film takes place initially in 1984 and moves ahead 2 years to 1986, I wanted to show in the film how much the malady had taken a toll on Stalker.  Initially in the film we see a somewhat healthy Stalker with hair and fairly robust figure, but by the scenes in the abandoned factory 2 years later, we have a more gaunt (and bald) killer covered in gauze as well as needle marks from constant dialysis.

Stalker (1984)

Stalker (1986)

I chose two actors to play Stalker in the film, the 1984 version being played by Clay Chapman and the 1986 version being played by Drew Nicely.  Obviously their physical characteristics were important to show the progression of the Stalker's transformation over two years.  Even something as simple as having one actor shave their head and applying some medical gauze gives the illusion of a much more decrepit and gaunt figure, despite (in the case of the 86 version of Stalker) Drew's normally healthy body type.  With some simple techniques, you can easily give the appearance of sickness and malformed structure by modifying movements and posture.  Since Stalker is caught off guard by Roger and Lauren later in the film, we see that the killer has modified his domain to serve his needs, including an access point that he can inject a hallucinogenic compound into the buildings still functioning air system to help slow down any potential intruders as well as an alarm system if the building is entered.  The Stalker is very much a creature whom uses his environment to his advantage.  The wounded animal is often more vicious than a healthy one, especially when they're clinging onto life so readily.  Ultimately I wanted to create a villain the film that encompassed some of our own most prevalent fears: Isolation, Powerlessness, Morality vs Instinct.  While the film touches on some of these, enough of the fear factor of the character makes it onto screen.  While the story isn't as fleshed out on film as in my initial script design and back story, he still remains a terrifying presence on screen. 

New Beginnings

So, I've been pretty neglectful with keeping this thing up to date, so I wanted to apologize to anyone who's been following this blog.  My goal for this year is to do a minimum of 2-4 posts a month on this, ranging from topics of the paranormal, horror flicks and the obscure...along with a few short stories and project here and there of my design.  Here's to a productive 2015 and hopefully I'll see more out of you guys as well.