Hell yeah, it happened: I booked a movie!

It’s for a sci-fi (no, not SyFy) horror flick called Grey Skies – about a group of friends vacationing in a cabin in the woods when things start going wrong. Very, very wrong. Abductions, paranoia and screaming ensue in a suspenseful movie guaranteed to make you afraid of isolated spots far from civilization (if you weren’t already). I play one of the friends, so of course I get to be terrorized and abducted. The cool thing is that it’s not your typical slasher-type, gore-fest, but has fully fleshed-out characters and an alien threat that is revealed in clever, creepy ways. Most of the cast and crew met recently and I cannot be more excited to work with such a talented group, including actor/producer Stacy Jorgensen, writer/producer Mark Reilly and director Kai Blackwood. Oh yeah, and an amazing actor/producer you might be familiar with, Michael Cornacchia (aka The Cornfather). I can’t wait to see what happens.

Now, what this means for JEFbot is uncertain, since I’m flying out to Michigan in a couple of weeks for shooting through the first week of October. I figured I’d just take my drawing supplies with me and continue updating the strip from the set and/or wherever I’m staying. Unfortunately (well, fortunately, actually), I’ve been informed that I’ll be on-set every day due to a fast-paced shooting schedule and will need the nights for prep and rest. Doing quick, penciled strips of the adventures of jefbot making this movie, which I can then scan in from the set, might be fun. Or maybe I’ll do a run of guest strips if I can get friends and peers to help me out. I’m not exactly sure, but I’ll form a plan-of-attack in the next couple of days and will keep you informed.

Shooting a movie and writing and drawing JEFbot are my dream jobs, so needless to say, I’m not going to abandon one for the other, especially with all of you readers who have supported this webcomic and who I feel I’ve gotten to know over the course of doing this strip for the past two years. This site won’t be dark while I’m shooting this movie, is what I’m saying, and since the producers are fans of the strip and have given me carte blanche (well, mostly) to use Grey Skies as material for blogs and strips, it should make for some interesting content for the site. Let’s just hope the location has wifi.

One more thing: all you L.A. peeps should come by Molly Malone’s at 7pm tonight (Tuesday, September 1st) and celebrate with the Grey Skies’ cast and crew with a kick-off party featuring the hilarious, stand-up stylings of Amy Claire, Michael Cornacchia, Erin Foley and Theo Von, hosted by the comedy powerhouse known as Ric Barbera. It’s going to be a lot of fun and (as far as I know) there will be no anal probing (unless you get lucky).

Molly Malone’s Irish Pub
$10 cash at the door
575 S. Fairfax Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Twitter.com/jefbot
Twitter.com/greyskiesmovie

Blogging about my adventures as an actor on the set of the horror film, Grey Skies.

ALIEN LANDING ZONE

We just finished our first week of shooting and, although it’s been hectic and crazy like any other film set, it’s also been an absolute blast. Today the production gets a break though, and the Internet connection seems stable, so I thought I’d blog a bit about what’s been going on this past week here in Clare County, Michigan.

For the most part, they’ve been shooting this movie chronologically, so the first few days had us actors getting to the set early to shoot exterior scenes of our characters arriving at the house. The past couple of days had us getting to the set a bit later in the day though, to shoot night scenes and some interiors. Now that all the exposition about a group of friends vacationing in a remote cabin by a lake has been shot, the real fun can begin: ALIEN ABDUCTIONS!

We actually finished a few scenes a couple of days ago, where a group of us is searching the house for a missing friend with flashlights after the power has gone out, and we find out that the circumstances of her disappearance are… strange. I won’t spoil anything, but the way the aliens take us one by one is pretty cool and creepy. We also filmed a scene yesterday where my character, Brian, is taking pictures in the woods when he hears something that sends him running back to the house. It was one of those shots where the camera swoops around the actor 360° while they are getting increasingly freaked out, and being the actor in such a scene was a huge thrill. I haven’t seen the footage yet but I’m hoping it turned out as well as in my head.

MICHAEL CORNACCHIA AND I, ROLLIN' DEEP

Another cool thing is that a couple of reporters from Michigan newspapers have visited the set, one from The Morning Sun and the other from The Clare County Review. Both articles were featured in their respective papers, one of which had a picture of the cast (including me!), right there on the front page. I’ll try and post a picture of that next time I see the paper lying around the set. The article from The Morning Sun is online now, which you can find by clicking here. It focuses mainly on how husband-and-wife-team, Stacy Jorgensen and Mark Reilly, were able to get this film into production. When the other article in TCCR goes online, I’ll post about it here. Someone also photographed a bar with “Welcome Grey Skies!” on their marquee, and I’ve heard there have been other sightings along those lines as well, so it appears we’ve made a bit of an impression here in Clare.

NOT ALL MY FIRES WERE AWESOME

Other than shooting, I’ve mostly been rehearsing lines, sketching, writing and hanging out by the lake or sitting by the campfire which one of my roomies, Production Designer Kevin Parson, makes every day outside of our cabin. I’ve actually gotten pretty good at making fires, myself; there’s so much wood and dry kindling in the forest thirty feet away, that collecting and lighting it is fairly simple (most of the time). While I sit by the fire every chance I get throughout the day, most nights the cast and crew come over to hang out around the bonfire at our camp for some beer and to decompress after the shoot. Especially since we’ve transitioned to later call times, wrapping at 1 in the morning, then hanging out by the fire ‘til around 4:30am happens almost every night. Although I miss my 360 and PS3 and HDTV and DVR, I’m afraid I’m getting drawn into this lifestyle, and the transition back to life in L.A. in a couple of weeks might be a bit more difficult than I would have assumed.

For daily updates check out my twitter feed at: http://www.twitter.com/jefbot

FEARBOT

A lot changed during the second week of shooting including the weather, moving from interiors to exteriors and transitioning from day shoots to night shoots. This was also when the script moved on from the scenes where the characters arrived at the cabin during the first week, to scenes where the creepy, scary stuff starts to occur.

On Monday the 21^st, the clear, sunny skies we’d been experiencing suddenly turned dark and rainy, and my morning scenes were cancelled then pushed to later in the day. We also had a night scene that was postponed several hours due to fog. It’s strange: every few hours the weather seems to change here in Michigan, but except for having to swap around a few scenes here or there, we’ve been extremely lucky in that nothing has been completely ruined or scrapped by the rain.

GRAY/GREY, WHATEVER

On Tuesday of last week most of the cast and crew took off for neighboring county, Farwell, to let off some steam and to celebrate 2nd AD Ali Locke’s birthday at a bar called DJ’s Lounge. The drinks were cheap and the karaoke was rockin’, a combination which made for a fun, memorable night. Line Producer Brian Raider kicked things off with a heartfelt rendition of Celine Dion’s “I’m Your Lady” and I continued the festivities with Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy.” Later, costar Shelley Dennis and I tore it up with the Prince/Sheena Easton duet, “You’ve Got the Look” and Michael Cornacchia brought the house down with his belting of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.” My fellow actor, Jeff Lorch, and I ruled the pool table undefeated (a win from a scratch on the 8 ball is still a win) before we all called it a night and drove back to the set.

DA CREW

The next day we began our night shoots, going from 6pm to 6am, if I’m remembering correctly. It really wasn’t that hard for me, and I think much of that was due to the fact that I regularly stay up past 4am most Mondays and Thursdays finishing up JEFbot strips. The hard part was sleeping during the day, since I find sleeping past 1pm difficult, even when we wrap late and I don’t get to bed until 9 or 10 in the morning. Also not helping was getting sick with a cold that had been going around the set since our arrival, and waking up in the afternoon, burning up and sweating profusely. Not pretty, but it only lasted a few days.

The thing I’ve loved most about the night shoots has been the amazing sunrises greeting us as we walk back to our cabins, and the campfires Kevin Parson makes almost every morning for us to relax by once we get back. The cast and crew isn’t able to do as much partying by the fire now that we’re doing night shoots; it just seems wrong somehow to start popping beers at 7 in the morning and most of the cast and crew are too exhausted at that time anyway. While we’re all still having fun, the workday definitely seems longer now.

WE EVIL

Less than a week left to go, and I feel we’ve all gotten into a groove of working and living together now. I know this last week of shooting is going to zip by in the blink of an eye so I’m trying to enjoy and appreciate everything about making this movie while it’s happening. Unfortunately, I know this amazing experience is going to end way too soon.

For daily updates check out my twitter feed at: http://www.twitter.com/jefbot