MAN IN THE LAKE - Production Diary DAY 3

DAY 3: Monday, May 24, 2010

By the time we get to the third day of filming on the Southlan-Films production of the Friday the 13th fan film The Man in the Lake, writer/director Ron McLellen has already put together a preliminary edit of all the scenes thus far filmed. This is not unusual considering the amazing turnaround time we had when we filmed the Halloween fan film Return of the Sandman last year. It was interesting to be able to view these scenes prior to going out and filming scenes that linked to the scenes thus far filmed.

Today is planned to be a light day as we are going out to Roland Force’s property once again to film the scenes where the Sheriff (played by Jim Adams) encounters Ralph (Dave R. Watkins) on the side of the road and Jason Voorhees (this time played by Kyle Thrasher) drags Ralph into the woods and kills him. The scenes where the Sheriff chases after Voorhees and is himself killed were filmed on Day 1 but now we will be filming everything that leads up to his death. We are also scheduled to go back to the Pop Stop (from Day 2) and film the exterior filler scenes of Ralph riding away on his bicycle (which we didn’t have on the original day of filming). By the end of today we should have two whole sequences of the film done.

Adding Thrasher to the film is a big coup for the production. After having played the iconic Michael Myers in McLellen’s Return of the Sandman, Thrasher is even more adequately cast as Voorhees. There is a slight difference in body type between Thrasher and Nathan Standridge (who is also playing Voorhees). Standridge is taller but Thrasher has the bigger and more muscular body frame giving him the Voorhees look of Parts 6 & 7 of the original series. Despite two actors playing the role I doubt that the regular audience members will even be able to tell that the role was played by two separate people. For Thrasher, this role is also preparation for his return as Myers in the proposed sequel to Return of the Sandman tentatively called Revenge of the Sandman which will film later this year before McLellen takes a break from his fan film trilogy of terror.

The location of filming on the Force property should be familiar to fans of the Southlan-Films production Bad Land as we filmed on the same spots used in that film. It was a great bit of homage that made filming that much more fun. It was an extremely hot day and we were plagued by the presence of ants and various other insects but that didn’t stop us from having a good time killing Watkins’ character Ralph, in fact, killing him was more exciting than killing the Sheriff (shoot me, I like to see people die in a horror film).

Although today was a short shoot it was a very eventful one as should be on the set of a horror film. Now that some of the easier scenes are done we will be able to more on to the real “meat & potatoes” of the film, which is killing everyone else!