Today, Jim O’Neill, John Ferguson, Devin, and I were all videotaping a commercial project for Senior Comp. The commercial was for a product we made up originally called
Murder-Be-Gone, later renamed
Abra-Cadaver. The product’s function was getting rid of a dead body after you’ve killed a person. It was a spray. The whole idea was pretty funny.
The scene we were taping was of me crossing the street (actually a portion of the maze of parking lot in the town house division behind Cove Landing (the tower that Finkler lived in). Then I stopped in the middle of the “road” to tie my shoe. Then it cuts to Devin in his boxers (no shirt or shoes) and that gold plastic $ necklace you gave me. Oh yeah, he also was smoking a stogie (something I was unaware he did until today). Anyway, he gets into his car and starts it up mumbling something about going to the liquor store. Then he revs the engine and it cuts to me saying, “What the heck?!” then back to Devin, who looks in his rear view mirror (the camera zooms in on the mirror and he gets his crazy eyes) and Devin yells, “Oohhh yeah!!” and begins to back up. Then the camera pans back to me screaming, “NOOO!!”
We then cut to inside Devin’s truck blasting “In Da Club” as he backed over me, stunt doubled by a speed bump. After that, it shows Devin really excited in his car as he gets out. He is excited that he killed someone. Then once he sees what he has done, which would be Jim (another stunt double) covered in fake blood, his whole mood changes and he tries to move Jim. This does not work. Then my other friend John jumps into the shot and says, “Excuse me, sir, but did you just kill this man?” and John goes on to explain and demonstrate Abra-Cadaver to Devin. We just used some simple stop/remove for the special effects of Jim vanishing. After that we shot John explaining more about Abra-Cadaver to the audience.
Then, just as we were about to leave, four squad cars pulled up, lights flashing sirens blaring. The cops yelled the following to us. “Drop it; get on the ground face down, hands where we can see them. No funny stuff.” It ends up that someone in a surrounding house thought that we shot or ran over Jim and called the police. About this time, the four of us have collectively SHAT ourselves. Devin and I are lying on the ground hand-cuffed, and Jim and John are across the lot kneeling and hand-cuffed. Oh yeah, and Jim is STILL COVERED IN FAKE BLOOD, hilarious. The police un-hand cuffed Devin and I before they made their decision. So after we all explained ourselves, the cops decided to take us into the station to be booked and ticketed for Disorderly Conduct. Incredible. They even re-hand cuffed Devin and I as they arrested the four of us.
They took us over to the station still hand cuffed in four separate squad cars. We all got out and were put face against the wall as they opened the doors and everything. Then they put us in the booking room. I’m not sure if you’ve been in there before, but it looks like this.
IM me at FREESTYLEFATASS if you would like the map I am explaing.
The black dots are where the three of us non-colored people were sitting, the red dot, of course is bloody Jim. We were first put against the mug shot wall, where they did not take our pictures, but instead took all of our belongings from our pockets. Then they uncuffed our writing hands and recuffed us to hooks in front of the stools. Then they proceeded to question us about emergency numbers, drug use, etc… the best questions asked of us, however had to be the ones concerning suicide. The first was, “Have you ever attempted suicide?” and the second, “Do you feel like doing it now?” In case you didn’t notice, this question begs for sarcasm in the worst way possible. It took every bit of self control in my body to not say something stupid or funny. Instead of saying something stupid, I looked up into the sky for about ten seconds and then said, “No.” John noticed that I had done this and laughed. I felt good. Then, I caught Devin’s eye, then John’s eye, and then looked back and forth to get both of their attention. Then I motioned them to look at Jim with me in the holding cell… or the drunk tank as Pat just informed me of its title. He was sitting there with the most complacent “I have accepted my fate” look on his red, hilarious face. We all giggled at the same time. One of the older (cooler) cops looked up and said, “What, did you all just look at Big Red over there at the same time?” I replied, “Yes.”
About twenty minutes into the booking process, the cop that cuffed me and drove me to the station (he seemed to be in charge of the operation) came in and said, “Well guys, upon further investigation of your situation, we have decided that we’re going to un-arrest you and let you go. At this point John looked at me as if to ask “Is ‘un-arrest’ even a word?” I just gave him the shut up look. Either way, we were let go, never to use fake blood in a residential area again.
As soon as they let us out of the station, the camera went back on to a shot of John and the other three walking through the police car parking lot. He was explaining what had just happened to the camera and demanding an A from our teacher, Mrs. Ennis. Jim was still red. And it was fucking hilarious.
I, too, can get into stupid trouble because of a video camera.
