Eat My Shorts, Part 1: Making Mona

Aspiring filmmaker makes a short film - Mona's Voice, writes about it and offers the whole thing for download right here.

Time for something a bit different. We at Kikizo will now hand over to our friend Carl Johnson, to explain the story behind his first short film - which you can download for free below and watch!

"My name is C.J., and I'm an aspiring filmmaker." When I say this I feel like I'm admitting a giant character flaw in front of a group of 12-stepers. After all, guys like me can't really be filmmakers can we? I live in Middle America, come from a blue-collar background, and live on a gravel road. I can't make movies, it's not allowed. Or is it? I guess whether or not I can be a director depends on whether or not I can entertain you....

Some of the earlier scenes in Mona's Voice

With this in mind I decided to do a series of short films and share them with the readers of Kikizo. My buddy Adam Doree was a bit hesitant, but eventually gave into my insanely generous bribes and allowed me to write the article you're reading now. The idea is for me to give some insight into the creation of my shorts, then let you download and decide for yourselves whether or not they're any good. Feedback is appreciated.

I wrote "Mona's Voice" over a two-day period and had my 12-year-old niece Patricia in mind for the role of Mona. As talented as I hoped Patricia was, I really had no idea if she could pull off what I had written. Patricia is a sweet, clumsy, carefree little girl who's big for her age. The role of Mona would have her be a dark, obviously disturbed 14-year-old with a shady past. An evil twin of sorts.

Mike Thompson as Mona's father

We started by doing what all the 'real' filmmakers do. We watched movies. Whenever I saw a character trait I had in mind for Mona, I would point that out to Patricia. I talked to her about acting, immersing herself into the world I had written, and the importance of believing what you're acting. I gave her the 5-page script to read the night before we started shooting.

Since I work full-time during the week I decided to get the filming done over the weekend. I gave myself Friday night, all of Saturday, and Sunday morning with the afternoon off. To keep track of the shots I needed and what would be best for each day, I broke the script down on a project sheet. Friday night was the big fire, Saturday was the beach and the journey to the river, Saturday night would be the interior shots of Mona's old house, and Sunday morning would be the interior of the foster home.

"I came to the conclusion that burning things is really fun."

Friday night was important. The fire I was filming took place during the crucial dream sequence, so I knew I had to make it visually interesting and believable. It was certainly going to require more than a campfire. I ended up spending a few hours building a wall out of old scrap wood, then soaking it in fuel oil. I had a fuel sprayer handy for making the fire more massive while it burned, and I had Mike Thompson (the actor playing Mona's father) work the sprayer. I also had a friend on hose duty in case the fire got out of hand.

We shot the fire scene in about an hour. It was an absolute blast. I came to the conclusion that burning things is really fun. The wall of fire was convincing enough for what I needed, and the 9' wall of fire totally illuminated Patricia. It looked great. As for Patricia's acting, she surprised me in the scene by crying real tears, something I hadn't expected her to achieve. I was proud.

I felt lazy on Saturday. Mike was playing videogames and invited me to join in. At least half of me felt like accepting and slacking the rest of the day, but I had a job dammit, and knew I had to press on. The script described Mona's activity on the beach simply as "We see Mona walking along the banks of the river on sand with bare feet. She seems at peace here." I knew I needed to do more with that, so Patricia and I used what we happened to find on location to fill out the scene. Within three hours or so we were done with all of the day stuff, so I took Mike up on some Soul Calibur action.

Some 'behind-the-scenes' pics of Patricia and Carl.

Saturday night was fun. We had more fire. That night was the interior fire scene, the brief fireplace explosion. We soaked a fireplace full of gasoline, and kaboom! It was really excellent, and only briefly singed the carpet. After the explosion we finished the rest of the dream sequence within an hour or so, and all that remained were the foster home segments. So... we played Soul Calibur.

Sunday morning was all about "real acting." The Foster Mother played by Carol Middaugh was the only character in the short that delivered live dialogue. All of the other dialogue was recorded a week or so later on my PC. For some reason Patricia was having a strange malfunction that morning, and would randomly look directly into the camera during a shot. She would also come into a shot looking the wrong direction. I think she was tired of acting. It was Sunday, so she wanted to go home and play with her friends. I understood. By the time a few hours passed Patricia had pulled both scenes off admirably, while Carol proved she could make a convincing mother-under-pressure. Shooting was over. We played Soul Calibur.

Two weeks later the additional voice recording had been done, and my first cut was complete. I showed it to friends and family, found some things I didn't like, and corrected them before doing this article. The final product of this labor is Mona's Voice, a nine-minute short psychological film about a foster girl that - well, you'll just have to click the link below and start downloading...

Carl Johnson
It's better in my head... it's busy in my head.

To be continued with the following features:

- Eat My Shorts, Part 2: Single Player Accident
Film - Single Player Valentine

- Eat My Shorts, Part 3: Divine Conclusion?
Film - Moment of Divinity