Tanya is especially curious to see why the hermit is constantly carrying around an old wooden barrel The kids follow him one night to an abandoned graveyard. They watch in wonder as he places the barrel on the ground and a ghost makes a smoky appearance.
The Indian spirit – played by Randy Sawyer – was an on-location, in-camera effect. This meant creating a ghost, surrounded by smoke, (oil-based smoke machine) without any post-production assistance. To make it a bit trickier, I had to shoot it as a ‘day for night’ shot, matching the density and colour of the reversal shot of Tanya and Dexter – which was a ‘night for night’ shot.
The ghost effect (difficult to see in these small stills) was made with a beamsplitter, a partially silvered mirror which is both transparent and reflective. The mirror was placed in front of the camera, on a 45 degree angle. Randy was placed off to the side against a hanging black cloth, so that his image was picked up by the reflective part of the glass and superimposed – as a ghost – over the bush immediately in front of the camera. Both Randy and the set were lit separately by two quartz lamps with blue gels, balanced in such a way for just the right ghostly density. A counter-matte was placed against the lens to flag any unwanted image from the mirror. The beamsplitter therefore picked up both ‘sets’ simultaneously, and the effect was complete. This is known as the Schufftan process (after the German cinematographer) and was used extensively during the silent era, and by Hitchcock, before the invention of the optical printer in 1933.
The story takes a little turn when two bad guys (played by Jeremy’s dad, Jim, and Jason, my nephew) come from out of hiding to collect a projector, a battery pack, and a transparent screen. They are responsible for projecting the ghost image which in turn has hoodwinked the hermit into making moonshine in return for eternal life. The kids realize the hermit is even more deranged than they first thought, and feel a bit sorry for him. The next morning, the bad guys leave the island – taking the barrel – in their little boat. The kids decide to borrow the hermit’s boat, and return the barrel of moonshine to its rightful owner.
The hermit thinks the kids are stealing his boat and jumps from an outcrop, grabbing a stray rope just as the boat takes off. I wanted to show the hermit crawling up the rope as the boat was traveling full speed and then climb onto the transom, but even with knots in the rope, the crawling idea was impossible (and I knew it was unbelievably corny anyway, so was happy just to let cutaways of Tanya fill in the blanks). As I was being dragged behind the boat, the force of the water pretty much ripped off what remained of my beard and latex face – which is why we waited until the very last to shoot this scene.
The shot where Jeremy hits me across the face with a paddle just before my watery demise was done on land, which is why you can see the motor raised a bit…but the reversal shot is real. Leaping off the back of a moving boat was a cakewalk thanks to all the waterskiing I had done; falling hard into the water is all part of the process. But I was completely exhausted from the two week shoot; you could see it in my face in the outtakes. However, the stunt was successful, and I only had to do it once.
As we all know, filming action sequences are time-consuming because of all the bits and pieces that have to be shot; it really is like a giant puzzle, and to make it exciting, the cutting has to pick up the pace. The camera should creatively bring the viewer inside the action. We had the camera inside the boat, above, below, on the bow, racing alongside in another boat, etc…whatever it took to make a comprehensive sequence. I like to make storyboards – simple little thumbnail drawings of the action – so that one can see how it’s going to make sense in the cutting room, and that none of the pieces of the puzzle are forgotten, otherwise post-production becomes a living Hell.
Those last few stills with the boat in long shot was actually me driving with a wig and blue shirt to double for Jeremy. The previous boat shots (with NO conspicuous driver) was me lying down under the bow. ‘Deathtrap’ will always remain my favourite boat for the way it could skid sideways and scare the bejeezuz out of people. Definitely over-horse powered and probably should have been illegal. (I didn’t tell Jeremy’s father that when his son drove the boat during close-ups).
Meanwhile, back at the campfire, the storyteller tells the kids that the boat magically jumps out of the water, and doesn’t crash into the bad guys’ boat after all. This was a tricky little montage to make convincing, short of actually jumping the boat off a ramp, which I wasn’t prepared to do; if I had decapitated my nephew with the propeller, my sister probably wouldn’t have forgiven me. Instead, I placed a small photograph of the yellow boat on a large piece of glass, anchored my nephew in the little fishing boat close to shore, and passed the glass quickly between the camera, and the anchored boat. I did so between 50 and 60 times, then in post-production, chose the take with the most realistic trajectory and rendered it in slow motion. (This effect cost between one and two dollars, so I was starting to go over budget). The still photos look a bit off in scale, but when seeing the boat in motion, with screaming propeller for audio (I think it was actually the sound of a vacuum cleaner mixed with a blender) it is completely convincing. The shots of the boat taking off and landing – on either side of the glass shot – was me driving like a crazy person, after having adjusted the engine to make the boat leap in and out of the water.
Tanya and Dexter are rescued by a seaplane, and the storyteller turns out to be – surprise – Dexter five years in the future…recounting his own story to the kids around the campfire on Moonshine Island. The older Dexter is played by Aidan Fisher, who luckily looked quite a bit like an older Jeremy Nasmith.
The older Dexter recalls: “As I was looking out of the plane, I saw something…strange.” Cut to: The Indian Spirit – no longer a projected image on a shyster’s screen, but a real entity. The younger Dexter sees the Indian spirit as the plane is taking off.
While setting up the shot of Randy Sawyer, I heard a seaplane (not the one we had been using) coming toward us. Sure enough, it had just landed and was entering the frame. I couldn’t believe my luck…this was something that wasn’t staged. Frantically, I tried to set up the amber light to illuminate Randy’s chin (to match the sun in the background) but didn't have time so just quickly pressed ‘record.’ (Notice in the closer shot the light is there - nicely tying him to the light of the distant hills). After the plane left the frame, we all had a good laugh; talk about putting the money on the screen – without any money. The natural colours of the sunset, Randy’s reaction to the plane, and the fact that he absolutely looked the part, made for a beautiful ending shot.
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