Blood, Sweat and Tears: Adventures in No Budget Movie Making!

The Making of “Red Asphalt”
by Brian Nelligan

The Story:
Red Asphalt is a short action film that I made to submit to the new reality show on Fox called “The Lot.” I also made this movie to experiment with my visual style and develop the story for a possible feature film.

I first came up with the concept for Red Asphalt in late January 2006 while on vacation from school and was excited about doing something so different from any of my previous films. Up until that point, everything that I had produced was comedy (8 movies in all) so making something based solely on visuals and with very little dialogue became an appealing idea. I would compare it to somebody being a writer their whole life and then one day just taking a wild stab at painting. I wanted to make a good impression on “The Lot” so trying something new seemed kind of risky, but at that point I felt like every indie film was either comedy or drama, just a lot of talking heads, so I just said screw it.

So here I was, a college student with no money or previous genre experience, diving head first into one of the most expensive genres to film for a national television show and the chance at a one million dollar development deal with Steven Fucking Spielberg. Did I mention it was only a little over two weeks until the deadline? How was I going to pull this off?

The Stunts:
I wrote the first draft in about two days and a final the day after. The climactic scene of the film involved the protagonist, Danny, getting tied to a truck with chain and being dragged behind it. Before I held auditions I wanted to be able to tell the actors that the stunt was already tested and completely safe so I started to experiment. (Now keep in mind that I’m a Junior at U.T. at Austin with a 4.0 GPA, magna cum laude, and the dean’s honor list.)

So I throw on a few old shirts, an extra pair of pants, some old shoes, grab some rope and tie it to the back of my car. I lie down, hold onto the other end of the rope, and then have my girlfriend drive and drag me down the street. (A task I’m sure that many a girlfriend would cherish!)

Well we stop after about ten feet and my back kinda burns. But no worries, I’m a guy, I can handle it. We do two more test runs of about ten feet before I figure we have enough footage and a good idea of how well this method is working.

I head back inside to change into my normal clothes and then I notice the first shirt is completely shredded on the back, the second has some big holes in it, but the last shirt is still in one peace. After I take off my last shirt my girlfriend gasps and tells me to look at my back in the mirror.

Yup, I’m bleeding. My whole back is red and my shoulder blades are all scratched up.

Time for plan B. The scooter.

It took us the better part of a day to build the scooter. Basically it was just plank of wood about three feet long, one foot wide, and one inch thick with four small wheels attached. We had to make very precise measurements to ensure it wouldn’t be visible from above when someone was lying on it. What we ended up with was a kind of bottle shape apparatus so the actor could have a headrest.

That night I had some friends come over and I convinced one of them to try it out. So we head outside and I have him lie on the scooter and hold onto the chain.

The first test run goes well, my friend was freaking out a little but no problems.

We’re about to do another run when a car pulls up to the house directly next to where my friend is seemingly chained to my running car. Well a guy and his little daughter climb out of their car watching us and at this point my friend starts screaming to them, “Help! Help me!”

What else can I do but drive away?

As far as I know no one called the police on us. And so a successful test run came only at the expense of a little girl’s shattered innocence.

Locations and Casting:
I had never done real location scouting. Before, it was always just a matter of who’s house or apartment we could shoot at…but for this movie I needed an interior and exterior of a warehouse and a lonely highway.

My girlfriend and I drove around south Austin for a couple of hours making a list of possible locations and found several exterior warehouses but I was beginning to think that a lonely highway was a thing of the past.

Finally, toward the end of the drive, we found a place that could work.

We were very, very lucky that a strip of road about two or three hundred feet long that connected the north and south bound lanes was coned off by a construction crew. However, we were very, very unlucky that it was covered in loose asphalt that hadn’t been tarred to the ground. (Just to skip ahead for a second, I ended up going to the road the day before the shoot armed with a shop broom and swept away about half the length of the road. Let me tell you, sweeping gravel with a shop broom over great distances is not an easy task.)

Location scouting also included trying to find a place to hold auditions. I just needed a quiet place with a small enclosed room. I tried to get a place on the University of Texas campus but they wanted a hundred bucks! Where the hell is my tuition going anyway?

So without a place to audition I went ahead and put up “casting call” flyers all over campus. I got a few replies, but not alot. Without my even knowing my girlfriend printed 120 flyers and stood and handed them out to people she thought would be good for the parts. She also got a few replies, but not alot.

By this time there was just over a week until the deadline and with no place to hold auditions I was starting to panic.

That’s when my girlfriend came to the rescue and saved my ass yet again.

She waited outside a study room in her dorm building for two hours to get a room and then waited there until I got out of class. I frantically called and emailed all the actors and asked them to come to the audition later that same day. (I can’t imagine how much they must have hated me at that point.)

At the end of the day we had three people audition. A couple of people emailed me saying they couldn’t make it so I held another audition the next day but only one of them actually showed up. At least it wasn’t hard to cast each part!

So with the actors cast and the stunts prepared we were forced to begin shooting even with one location unsecured. Time was running short and we’d have to be creative.

The fun was about to begin…!

Check back in two days for the conclusion to Brian Nelligan’s ON THE SET article on the making of “Red Asphalt.”