Reunion of the Damned
Dark Days and the Death of a Dear Boy

What followed the Crazy 8 debacle was the erosion of dreams. Langohr would soon find himself, a solitary tear on his cheek, looking through Craigslist for jobs and considering a return to his post-Film School temp job delivering packages for UPS. Stitt, too, shed a tear, a tear that streaked black ink on an immigration form about to disappear into a bureaucratic labyrinth which would doom him to great future misery. For Stephen Pickering, however, things were all-around ducky. He was now living in a shiny new house with a shiny new wife, in a magical far away land (Wisconsin). But for Stitt and Langohr, the dark days had landed.

Days passed, and days, days and more of them. Thomas Stitt found himself imprisoned - He was not legally allowed to work, nor could he leave the country (for re-entry would not be permitted). Somewhere in Calgary, a pale agent of the Immigration offices was busying himself with the collating of papers. An ancient alchemy presently forgotten by man was being stirred - One form, and the next, the ink and the paper and the fine print. This bored white collar didn't realize it, but when his stapler bit into that parchment, an invisible portal was opened several hundred miles away, in downtown Vancouver. At the corner of Beatty and Dunsmuir, between a telephone pole and a traffic light, Stitt walked and felt an uneasy tingle. The threshold to Limbo had been crossed and through some maniacal operation of Canadian bureaucracy, he was marooned. Unable to leave the country, and simultaneously unable to work within it. Shipwrecked.

Marshall Langohr was isolated in his own way. With no nice Canadian girl to help him immigrate, he was forced to return to Bainbridge Island, away from the film school group in Vancouver. Here, he would begin the process of dissolving. Not like alka seltzer, which is a process full of zest and excitement - More like a canyon. Slow, arduous, deep.

It wasn't rain, it was just grey mist, the pillar on which the Pacific Northwest's mood is built. In other words, it was any other day. An email arrived on this one, however - Stephen Pickering would be coming up to Vancouver for a visit.

Like an involuntary twitch when drifting to sleep, like a sudden crash of thunder during a snowstorm, like a faded book, like a photograph, like a smell - The Library Chronicles. This may be the only chance to continue the series - with Pickering so briefly in town, and Stitt and Langohr now at the helm, it was clear what had to happen. Pickering's un-named "dear boy" protagonist of the first (and so far, still only) episode would have to die, and he'd have to die soon.

All preparations were last-minute. The script was patched together in a wild flurry of email revisions between Seattle and Vancouver. It was at heart a hodgepodge of the Crazy 8 script for Prologue and old ideas discussed back during (and even before) the shooting of Episode 1 so long ago. Chocolate syrup was purchased. Friends and favors: called in. The day before the shoot, Marshall and Thom took a long trip to Value Village for supplies, where the first listening cube (a gutted car radio) and Scooter's costume were acquired. Shady arrangements were made to shoot in the film school's studio overnight. It was not a done deal, with the creators waiting even the day of the shoot for the phone call: yes or no?

The Yes came, and it was a secret Yes, an underground Yes, full of reluctance and stipulation. Necks were put on the line. And the crew moved out. They were no longer technically welcome in the film school. Even their alumni status had now waned, with the school leaving them bereft and scattered to the winds of industry. Going into the old historic bank building was like a miniature heist in a way, with the treasure being time - precious time.

During Episode 2, Marshall's character, with some difficulty, peels open a massive vault door, revealing an ominous black void and the eerie sounds of some nightmare place. And so it was with the fledgling series - Prized open at last, the foul air within exhaling in pained relief.

The shoot did not go as expected. The first one was done without a script, in a few hours, with zero planning. This one began to demand clearly more. The crew was now a bit more seasoned, a bit more skilled. Sets were swiftly erected. Shots were delicately lit. Three hours gave easily to four. Twilight to midnight. Alertness to somnolence. Stephen Pickering particularly was not prepared for such an undertaking, being surprised himself that a script was even necessary. He was itching to leave before his shots were even finished. A quarter past 2 in the morning, he took his leave, with Sam Kim standing in for The Dear Boy's shadow in the crucial murder sequence.

The rest of the night went slowly, shot by shot. One of the longest shots to set up was a quick cutaway to Stitt's body as the dead book junkie while the Librarian gives him a little kick. During the lighting (and re-lighting and re-re-lighting), Thom was only too happy to be lying down. Marshall, not so much, as 8 hours standing in pointed dress shoes will tend to affect the attitude as much as the heels. And so it went. Long, quiet hours, slight discomfort, and the crew gradually becoming more and more drunk on the late hour and lack of sustenance.

When all was shot (and after several false-finishes - "Guys, we didn't shoot ____." "Aaaw shhh..."), the crew waited outside Waterfront Station in the pale blue dawn as the drizzle came down. Even one of Vancouver's colorful downtown hobos hung out for a while, using his paper cup to scoop street-water and have a drink. The crew watched in a palor of amazement as he comfortably and casually drank this unusual street-solution, as if he were on a porch sipping lemonade on a warm summer evening, and not drinking street grime before dawn on a dismal city sidewalk. When he disappeared, he left the cup behind: Sure enough, the water was a pale yellow, a sediment of asphalt sitting at its floor. One might consider it mineral water.

Postproduction began right away, with Stitt editing. Without anything resembling an edit suite, he had to make do with what he could borrow and connect in his living room. The end result was a borrowed laptop and external drive, and his 27 inch off-brand flatscreen.

Voice Over and sound effects were recorded with an old phono mic and a cassette 4-track, including one indelible session in which Marshall Langohr played the role of the Unspeakable with a bowl of celery, lots of spit, and deep-rooted dementia. Anyone who claims not to have a gag reflex may be challenged not to exercise it in view of such a horrific spectacle.

An extra scene was shot (also in Stitt's apartment), in which Sam Kim plays an agent listening in through the tapped listening-cube. It was lit with a reading lamp and decorated with what can best be described as random crap. Dining table for desk, duster feather for quill pen, random machines for random machines.

When all was done, the edit finally finished, roughly eighteen ruined DVD-Rs discarded, and two hundred hairs pulled out of Stitt's head, the sequel was unleashed unto all the world. Mothers were excited. Old friends enjoyed an 11-minute distraction. What was accomplished beyond this, no one knows.

Actually, what happened was the filmmakers proved to themselves that they could continue, that they could succeed, that the series could grow. They knew they had something on their hands, though they didn't realize if they held something tangible or something imaginary - an impressive little friend that only they could see, a creation composed purely of the dark energy that makes up potential.

This question would soon find an agonizing answer. Darker days were still to come.

IN THE NEXT INSTALLMENT:
AGAIN!!