Lots of Yig news!

The Yig cast and crew finished filming last weekend! (Okay, there’s a little extra snake footage to get, but essentially we’re done…) It was a pleasure to be back with the old gang, but really it was the newcomers who stole the show. Friday we were at a farm in Chaska, MN to film our exteriors and were joined by Kurt Schweickhardt, who was playing the character of the Okmulgee Man for us. Kurt is a tremendously talented actor and we’re honored he joined our cast. It was particularly fun as that made three Schweickhardts working on the film. In addition to Kurt, his son James is working with us as a Production Assistant and his daughter Amy is playing Zealia, Audrey, and the thing in room B116.

Saturday, we were at the Chaska farm again, working with the baby snake effects during the day and shooting the scenes with Michael LaFleur in the evening. Michael was playing the role of the Pawnee Man, and he delivered a fantastic monologue for us (and kept me thoroughly entertained). Many thanks to both Kurt and Michael!

Sunday we returned to Little Log House Pioneer Village to film a few cabin scenes when the ground is not covered in snow, and that was that. Time to start editing!

In other news (although folks following our Facebook Page will already know this), Richard Molby has been a photo-taking powerhouse on set. He’s got over 200 photos posted on his webpage. Here’s a small sample:

Craig VanDerSchaegen has a photo essay about local film productions on Minnesota Playlist which includes some some shots he took on the set of Yig. It’s a wonderful collection of images, have a look!

Thursday and Friday of this week were spent at Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church filming the scenes in the Guthrie Asylum. Thursday’s shots were again just Amy and I, mainly in Dr. McNeill’s office. Cheri Anderson has been handling the production’s art needs and provided an amazing array of artifacts to adorn the room. Serendipity pitched in a little as well, as there were already photos from 1920’s Oklahoma on the wall. An odd, but delightful coincidence for a church in Minneapolis!

Friday was an easy going day for me as Amy was shooting scenes from other parts of the story as Zealia (our clever name for our narrator character).

I must confess, filming indoors during daylight hours seems pretty luxurious by comparison to last weekend. Tomorrow, a new location to film the thing in room B116!

First weekend of blood, dancing, and space heaters is complete. As it turns out, being in a tiny log cabin in Hastings during the middle of a February night is COLD. Very, very cold. I stand in awe of the badass Yig crew and their ability to endure God’s punishing winter. Wow. Cold.

That said, it was an awesome weekend. The Little Log Cabin Pioneer Village is an amazing place and the cabin interiors looked great. The first night of shooting involved scenes with just Amy and me. Amy is incredibly talented and a wonderful person and was my stalwart accomplice in putting Yig on stage last summer. It was a treat to be working together again. Conor Timmis was in town already and hanging out. (He was in the heated staging area, not in the cabin, of course–the man is no fool!) It was a pleasure meeting him and a great honor to have him involved in our film. Conor is clearly the hardest working Lovecraft fan in show business and will probably be popping up in the majority of cosmic-horror films produced this year.

The second night was the big dance scene. (How many Lovecraft films have a big dance scene? Not many I suspect.) Many thanks to Amber Margaree Barnett for our choreography and to Scott Keever for the fine fiddle playin’. Scott is providing the music for the film and making a an appearance as Lafayette Smith.

Dawn Malicsi was on set that night as well and we shot the scenes involving her and Conor. Dawn is a wonderful actress and a best friend so I’m always happy to be working with her. After our second night of working til about 3 AM, I was looking forward our third day, which would be during daylight hours and shorter.

Of course day three also involved quite a bit of stage blood.

Every now and again I get a chance to peek at a monitor or see a little bit of footage. Paul and his crew are getting some gorgeous shots. The whole process has been very exciting and I think it’s going to be an excellent finished project.

Away for a while, but not forgotten. The Curse of Yig is back with all kinds of exciting news. First, the screenplay is done. Paul and I collaborated to adapt the story for the screen and I am incredibly pleased with results. When I first began putting Lovecraft’s work on stage my guiding principle was, “don’t lose the language.” Lovecraft’s pacing, grammar, and vocabulary are vital to making the stories work. Change the language and you’ve lost the story. So keeping it very true to the original has been very important to me.

On the other hand, I found some limitations to putting the story on stage that were much easier in the language of film. Specifically, I found illustrating the stories within stories could be achieved much more elegantly on screen. It is, in many ways, a story about a story. It’s an odd tale told in an odd way, but with Paul’s help, I think we’ll be telling it quite well.

In other news, I had a chance to go visit the location we’ll be using for the interiors of Walker and Audrey’s cabin. It is phenomenal. A small little home, actually built in the latter half of the 19th century, relocated to a small pioneer town in Hastings, MN. It was amazing. As we approached, we simply turned a corner and there was a whole town plucked out of the 1860’s and dropped in the present day. We were met by Steve who is taking care of us on the site. He is hysterically funny and could not have been more gracious. He’s a delightful gentleman. The next time my folks come visit me in the summer, we’re heading out there.

Cabin filming starts on Friday. We’ve got a full cast and crew ready and anxious to go. More updates, and hopefully some photos soon!

For the 2009 Minnesota Fringe Festival, I adapted The Curse of Yig for the stage as a two-person show. This film project grew out of that interpretation of the bizarre and compelling story. Over a series of these little blog entries, I’ll talk a bit about what went into taking the text from the short story to the stage, and from the stage to the screen.

Yig is an odd story among Lovecraft’s work. Several frequent hallmarks of his writing are absent: chilly claustrophobic locations, reserved intellectual characters, and, strangely, the words “written by H.P. Lovecraft” under the title. In his uncredited collaboration with Zealia Bishop, the horror is instead located in the empty desert of the territorial American southwest. The characters are farmers struggling to maintain their marriage while enduring the rigors of pioneer life. Nonetheless, the story still possesses the singular mastery of language and spine-tingling sense of the macabre that have garnered Lovecraft so many dedicated fans.

In adapting the text for the stage, I wanted to present it as a a two-person show, which I felt was necessary since it needed to focus so much on the characters of Walker and Audrey. The practical necessity of this led me to the decision to change the narrator’s gender to female. Having made this choice, I began finding all sorts of narrative and thematic advantages. With that one change, the story began taking a very definite shape for me. As the story never provides a name for the narrator, in preparing for the show I referred to her as Zealia…

Next up… My Barely Adapted Adaptation

The world of Yig is about to become interactive.