Cravenomena

On the day of the dinosaur attack, I scanned the skies nervously.

The forecast was for scattered showers, and already it had sprinkled a few times that morning.  There was also a capricious wind brewing, and I knew that would play hell with my makeshift bluescreens.

I was standing in the parking lot of the Dinosaur Journey Museum in Fruita, waiting for my small crew and cast to arrive for the shooting of a commercial to promote the annual “Dinosaur Days” festival.  I had taken the job on a pro bono basis when Miffie Blozvich of the Museum of Western Colorado called me to ask if I could help that year, and I was more than eager to comply.  Are you kidding?  I had wanted to shoot a dinosaur attack all my life.

Count me as one of the thousands of 1960s youngsters permanently changed by the oeuvre of stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen.  How many times have I watched Gwangi rampage through the Mexican village as James Franciscus frowned and Gina Golan’s bosom heaved?

Now, on a summer day in 2007, I was going to be able to fulfill a dream of enacting my own primeval carnage — if the weather didn’t interfere.  We had previously arranged to borrow several members of the museum staff to portray panicking extras, and I had also enlisted a few of my actor friends from the Cabaret: Peter Ambrose, Emily Erkman and Ben Dial.  Additionally, I had invited my beloved nephews Max — then seven years old — and Griffin (only two) to be a part of the craziness, which just made the job that much more delicious for me.  (Eventually, Griffin got shy and wouldn’t cooperate for his shot, so Max stepped in for more than he was originally slated.  Did I mention Max shares his uncle’s interest in leviathans run amok?)

I had bartered to have Paul Varecha shoot the footage for me on his Panasonic AG-DVX100, assisted by his brother, Craig.  Paul used to be my superior at KKCO, but had left the station when his family sold it to Gray Television in 2004.  I had always enjoyed collaborating with Paul, and his camera permitted us to shoot uncompressed, which meant my bluescreen footage would key correctly, so I designed an animation for a project of his in exchange for his acting as my director of photography on this production.

The shoot took much of the day, but thankfully, it never fully rained, although the wind proved occasionally troublesome.  I was using blue Ultimatte cloth alligator-clipped to a 12′ x 1″ dowel rod for the shots I knew I would be keying, and we had to enlist Emily and my sister-in-law, Julie Broughton, to hold down the bluescreen cloth occasionally when the wind was gusting.

All of my actors brought great commitment to their shots, especially Emily, Ben and Peter — the latter of whom provides me with my personal favorite moment in the commercial.

That’s me who gets munched at one point in the commercial; I skinned my knees getting that shot.  But of course it was worth it.