The Premiere of Gore-E-ography: The Making of Death Harmony

Thursday night I attended the premiere of Gore-E-ography: The Making of Death Harmony at the Florida Theatre. I'd been looking forward to this for a long time. Last year, I attended the world premiere of Anthony Kilburn's film Chiaroscuro Baby at the Florida Theatre and had an awesome time. It was through that event that I first met Anthony Kilburn, a great Jacksonville filmmaker. To read the piece about the premiere of Chiaroscuro Baby click here.

Earlier this year, Anthony gave me the chance to be in a music video some of his colleagues were making to help promote his latest film, Gore-E-ography. We shot the music video back in July. The whole experience was so much fun -- I got to wear a sparkly dress and roller skate around to a fantastic song called Open Skate: Zombie Disco. To read all about the experience and to see the music video click here.

In addition to being in the music video, I'd also added to my film acting experience by heading out to Riverside in August to be a part of a photo shoot. In the photos we took, I played the sister of the makeup artist in the film. I was made up to look like I had a tumor growing out of the left side of my face, and then my face was covered with zombie makeup. We took a gruesome family portrait, and several other funny photos. To read about that film shoot, you can click here

Okay, I know it's taking me awhile to get to the story of the evening of the premiere ... what can I say? I'm long-winded. Sue me.

So, I took my husband Jim with me to the premiere and as we parked right across from the Florida Theatre, I was teeming with excitement. I started grad school back in August, so I haven't been able to go out much, or to do much for my blog since then. So I was thrilled just to be out and about again. Not only was I getting a rare night out, but I would also see all the friends I'd made since getting involved with Gore-E-ography and best of all, I would get to see myself on the big screen. I had yet to see the photos we'd taken during that August film shoot, and I was as excited to see the pictures (and how they'd be incorporated into the movie) as I was about seeing the entire film.

As we walked up to the theater, we could see a red carpet and photographers outside, along with a fun looking crowd. The attire for the evening was supposed to be either black tie formal, or a zombie, ninja or vampire costume.

Oh yeah, it was an awesome crowd.

Oddly though, the crowd didn't seem near as large as the crowd had been for the premiere of Chiaroscuro Baby last year. Once Jim and I picked up tickets from the Will Call window, we headed over to the red carpet. "Take my picture here on the red carpet," I begged Jim, "and can you pretend you're the paparazzi? Maybe yell out at me a little?"

"I'll take your picture," Jim mumbled, rolling his eyes and laughing. Maybe just to humor me, a photographer from the Florida Times Union came up and snapped a picture of me as well.

After taking pictures, Jim and I headed inside and almost immediately ran into Jay Hagley. He plays "Chet the makeup artist" in the film. I also saw his mom standing nearby... she had been such a good sport during our photo shoot in Riverside. They'd covered one of her eyes with paper and liquid latex so it looked like she was missing an eye for the photo. She'd sat still for over an hour while the makeup was applied and then posed for dozens of pictures. She looked great for the premiere. "Much easier to see without the liquid latex over your eyes, right?" I laughed. In the middle of the lobby was a table with free wine and beer. Jim picked up a Sam Adams Octoberfest and I picked up a glass of Merlot.

Right near the beer and wine table was a table of Gore-E-ography merchandise like movie posters, and t-shirts that said things like "Team Ninja" "Team Zombie" or "Team Vampire". "See that guy over by the table?" I whispered to Jim, "That's Oliver. He made a comic book about the film, and I think he also illustrated the movie poster." Jim already knew that his job for the evening would be to a) follow me around and b) listen to my running commentary about the evening.

"Ohmigod, there's Bill Welch! He's one of the Mad Cowford Improv Players! This guy is hillarious. He plays the director of the film."

"Oh, so he directed the movie?" Jim asked.

"No, Bill Welch plays the director of the film inside the film -- Death Harmony."

"The film inside the film?! You lost me."

"I've been talking about this movie for months. Have you even been listening to me?!"

"Sorta..."

"Grrr. Okay. So Gore-E-ography is the film we are here to see today. It is a mockumentary, (like This is Spinal Tap, or The Office) about the making of a indie film called Death Harmony."

"So it's a horror movie?"

"No, it's a comedy. The entire film is improved. Mad Cowford is a local improv comedy troupe, and several of the Mad Cowford players (like Bill Welch) star in the film. The way this movie was made was that Anthony sat down several actors and gave them the scenario that they were making a movie, and he started asking them questions about themselves, their roles in the movie, and what the movie would be about. He used whatever the actors came up with in the interviews to make the rest of the movie. So what ended up coming out of the interviews was that Death Harmony would be about a marriage between a zombie queen and a vampire prince, with ninjas trying to break up their alliance. The whole thing was shot over two days of filming."

While Jim was lost in thought trying to piece together all of this, I dragged him over and introduced him to Bill Welch. After chatting with Bill for a minute, we heard some cheering and cameras flashing, so we headed back out to the red carpet to hear what the commotion was about. A limo had arrived, and some people were getting out.

"Who's the guy in the suit with the long hair and those bright neon sneakers?" Jim asked.

"The guy surrounded by the cheering adoring fans? That's Matt Shuman. He plays the male lead in the film. Oooh! Look, there's Courtney Gardner, also surrounded by adoring fans. Love her dress. She plays the female lead in the movie. She was also in that music video with me. Also, she won Best Actress in this year's 48 Hour Film Project."

"The 48 what?" Jim asked.

"Never mind.. lets go upstairs and get a look around. I think there's some free food up there too." As we meandered through the lobby and up the stairs, we got a good look at a lot of the interesting costumes. There were some people who were really into dressing up for the big night. We saw some really great zombie makeup, complete with painted blood dripping from the corners of the mouth, as well as some long vampire capes. It was a great mix -- in addition to the costumes, we saw people in really formal affair. There were women in dazzling floor length gowns, and a guy in a tux sporting a cane.

"What's with the cane? Why do some guys think its cool sporting a cane with a tux?" I asked Jim.

"That's an umbrella," Jim told me rolling his eyes.

"What?! It is NOT," I laughed.

"Wanna bet? It's an umbrella."

"Yeah, it's pouring out tonight," I mumbled sarcastically.

"What's with this guy?" Jim, smirked, "is that a top hat?"

"That's Anthony Kilburn!" I screeched, excitedly, "He's the director!" We walked over to Anthony and congratulated him on the big premiere. I thought Anthony looked pretty calm -- if I were putting together a premiere for a movie, complete with live music, food and drinks, I'd be a mess.

Next we headed upstairs to get a look around the theatre. When we reached the top of the stairs, Jim suddenly burst out laughing and walked right up to one of the Florida Theatre ushers. "What's up man? What are you doing here?" Jim asked as he shook hands with the usher. It turned out that one of Jim's coworkers volunteers as an usher for the theater. At that point, they started talking about engineering, and their speech faded in my head into something sounding like the teacher from Charlie Brown "wah wah wah wah"...

So I headed over to the bar area where there was some free food to sample. The goodies included some kind of spinach and cheese pastry, chips and salsa, barbecue meatballs, and sushi. Soon Jim joined me and we had an awesome time wolfing down the food and watching the live band. They were really good -- they played fun party songs like "Word Up" by Cameo, and "Play That Funky Music" by Wild Cherry. It was impossible to listen to without wanting to dance. It made for such a fun atmosphere.

Finally it was time to head into the theatre. We got some good seats and settled in for what we knew would be a great show.

First Anthony Kilburn came out to huge cheers from the crowd. He thanked everyone for coming and then made a great speech. "This is what Jacksonville could be," he said passionately, "You guys are here, for a red carpet film premiere, for this little podunk indie film that me and my friends put together. That's pretty cool. Think about it guys, I'm just one independent filmmaker. I'm working with just a handful of actors and technicians. But what if the people of Jacksonville who are filmmakers and actors and technicians could band together to do things like this --world premieres at the Florida Theater... There's absolutely no reason why Jacksonville can't be the independent film capital of the world!"

"This film was an experiement. It started out because I was bored," Anthony quipped, to laughter from the crowd, "I wasn't doing anything, so I decided to make a feature film. I wanted to see if I could make a film without a script. Without a plan. Without any money... you know, the stuff most indie filmmakers do. So I got together with some really talented people and gave them this idea that we would be making a film called Death Harmony and that the film would just be really bad. At first, they all thought it was pretty weird. But by the second day of shooting, which was... the last day of shooting..." the audience roared with laughter, "By the second day of shooting, we were all convinced that this was more than an experiment, it was a feature film." From there, Anthony thanked the sponsors for providing the food and wine, as well as the cast and crew, and presented "The film that Folio Weekly said was not funny..."

Turns out Folio Weekly was dead wrong. The movie was hilarious. You could tell all throughout the movie that the actors were ad-libbing and improving and that gave it the unpredictability and bursts of unexpected humor that have made unscripted shows and movies so popular. All of the actors worked so well together, accomplishing something that even seasoned improv actors probably have a hard time doing. They genuinely supported each other without upstaging one another, using creativity to create funny moments while all the while appearing to be serious and passionate about their film.

It was great. I laughed pretty much the entire time.

When the last scene finished with huge cheers from the crowd, I was sad to see it end. As we walked out into the warm night (I can't believe it's still this warm this late in October), I thought of what Anthony had said about our great city and hoped right along with him that Jacksonville would see more indie film premieres and events centered around local films. I'm convinced though, no matter what happens with Jacksonville's film scene, Anthony Kilburn will keep making indie films, at least until some big studio recognizes his talent and dedication and snaps him up. Then we'll all get to talk about how we watched some of his first few films at the Florida Theatre. Until then, I can't wait to see what the next project will be.