Production In Action

So here we are at Part 2 of Action Figure High. The year was 2005, and this movie almost wasn't a reality. If not for the well timed visit of Peter Bond in the last week of that summer this movie never would have happened.

Peter's visit coincided nicely with my freedom from museum responsibilities. We had just wrapped up camp, and were in the process of disassembling my home for the summer. With that out of the way I was free to worry about such things as filming.

Now granted I wasn't the driving force behind this particular movie. Cam takes full credit as the advocate and champion for this one. Having filmed some demo clips with his still camera he was able to sell me and Peter on a Team America style movie.

We had no idea as to a story, and our cast of characters was limited to the few franchises Cam possessed action figures of. The best decision we made during this pre production stage was going to the dollar store, and the Salvation Army store in town. Here our cast suddenly expanded and diversified, and with it so did our story potential.

At the dollar store we bought the most. Thor made his controversial origin here, and it won't be till we started filming that my pushing for him was accepted. The treasure discovery though was that of Wolfman Jack. I found him on the stand, a marine/soldier figure sprawled with crouch projecting. I laughed so hard picking him up and telling the guys we HAD to buy him. Best find ever.

There were also a bunch of unused purchases. We acquired a whole set of pirates who in the end were never used. Their mermaid love interests fortunately made it into the dance as Landos backup singers.

At the S Army we found things like R2's car, and Thor's dad. The treasure there was my discovering a giant blue fuzzy toy. It was creepy as all *%&$, and not "cool" by any means, but I saw in it a great potential as our villain. One that could be exposed to fire with no regrets.

A quick sidenote I claim credit for these great discoveries (Thor, Wolfman Jack, and Pooky Wooky), but don't get me wrong this isn't a ego trip. As you'll see this was probably my only big contribution to the pre-production. I also picked most of the stinkers that either didn't make it into the movie at all ($ wasted) and or were cut from the movie (my VERY regrettable Fing Fang Foom character). I was just along for the ride on this movie for the most part. This was Cam's masterpiece...

His debut movies tale continues with Part 3 soon... Enjoy Part 2 in the meantime!