Right now I'm in the middle of directing my first film. I'm working with actors who are donating their time, and we're doing all filming in our spare time. Scheduling, as you might imagine, has been a headache. Actually, to be honest, it's been a nightmare. But when you do a film this way, for next to nothing, this is what you face. We've been incredibly lucky in that the people I've had to deal with have been amazing. The actors, FX, sound and production teams have been super human. These are people I am forever in debt to.

The film, Pain, is an action movie. So you've got guns, high-speed chase sequences, and all other manner of EXPENSIVE situations. The one constant problem is; HOW DO YOU DO IT for what little money you have to spend?

OK, before I get into that, let me tell you how this journey began. I moved to Tampa about 3 years ago to be with my girlfriend, Kelli. I'd been doing comic books for a long time, writing, illustrating and publishing. The storytelling format of comics and films are very similar. Most of my comics are just little films in my head. By the time I made the move I had completed about 20 screenplays, and did some looking around for an agent. No one was looking. No one was even NICE about it. So moving down here, I was harboring hopes of meeting some filmmakers, or wannabe filmmakers, and getting things rolling. Well, three years have rolled by and after a string of crap jobs in the sign business, my car getting stolen and our house getting broken into, here I am. I'm still with Kelli and I have met some kick-ass filmmakers, FINALLY, and things are moving forward. Things are going better than I could have planned, actually.

After meeting, Joe and I sat down and came up with an idea. It was going to be a short film shot on HI-8, just for fun. Just to get a feeling for each other's styles and to meet some other actors, FX people and such. I sat down and typed out the first 10-page draft of Pain. Took me about an hour. The entire thing was going to be filmed in my apartment and outside in the courtyard.

Right about this time I got involved with a local production company, Renegade Films, doing a horror movie with Tom Savini called Web of Darkness. Cool. I met with the director, Rick Danford, and I did some storyboard work for him. Nothing too elaborate, nothing special. A comic book version of the film was mentioned. My mind was busy trying to figure out ways to get MORE involved. Brinke Stevens was in town to film a small role, and maybe they would do some tattoo work on her, I could easily do this with some body makeup. Now, the first day of shooting was two days away. I began my search for body makeup but it was also a few days after Halloween. Do you think I could find ANY make up??? NO. I found some at Target. White and orange. Not exactly anything I could work with. In retrospect, I suppose I could have made something happen, but I didn't. I showed up on set empty handed, but nobody really cared. The first day of shooting for Renegade Films was a little crazy. There were TONS of people hanging around the set (at St. Pete's State Theatre) and they wouldn't stay quiet. After everyone was dismissed into the theater area (they were filming in the lobby). I just took off. I was there to watch filming, not sit in the other room.

So I shifted my attention back to my little film.

As Joe and I started meeting and casting people, and talking, things kept changing, the story kept getting bigger. Joe wanted to do a car chase on Bayshore Boulevard. I said "All right, but if we do a car chase on Bayshore, it HAS to end in a shoot out down town." So the ten pages became 45 pages in very short order. Enter one big hitman in the form of Neil Shower.

Right about this time, Rick Danford called me back and asked me to be an extra in a small scene they were filming at The Castle in Ybor City. "Hey, you got it." Joe was also busy thinking about ways to become involved in Web of Darkness, so he went to The Castle with me. While I was busy trying to look like a bartender flirting with a sexy patron, Joe was meeting people. Enter Paul Bigotti and Scott Semple, the producers of Web of Darkness. Joe set up a meeting to talk with them, really just to talk movies and get to know everyone. We also got to know Chris Polidoro at this time. Chris had been doing all of the makeup on Web with the assistance of Ben (sorry Ben, I never did find out your last name!) and both of them wanted to help us with our film too. We started meeting at a greasy spoon restaurant in Clearwater, and hit it off, since we all had similar influences and goals. Paul ended up volunteering his equipment, which he had been loaning to Renegade to make Web, and as soon as they were done there, Paul was willing to help us out with Pain.

Things were going really well. Joe and I started brain storming new ideas for Pain. We talked about having some girls in the movie, because at this point it was an entirely male cast. So, I wrote in two roles for some tough chicks hired for protection. We're not talking VIP here, more like Vazquez from Aliens. The script went from 45 to 60 pages and the search for two girls began. Enter Pati White. The second girl was not so easily cast. We went though about seven girls before we got to Elizabeth Rockabilly.

SO, the script stayed where it was for a while. We did some rehearsals and had a few small production meetings. There were bits of the story that kept yelling at me. The nature of the story had changed, and some things didn't make sense. I sat down and put another polish on the screenplay. This added two new characters and about five more pages. Things were tightening up. We cast one of my co-workers, Glen Lace, as a shady, information dealer, and Paul Bigotti had spoken to Mike Ricker, from 98 Rock, about playing a role in our film. Now, I had only known Ricker from the radio. I didn't think he would work at all. Then we met with him, and my mind was changed instantly. Ricker would work perfectly. He'd been playing a DJ-turned-vampire in Web, and wanted to do more acting. The role we offered him was that of a gun-toting bodyguard. One day of filming.

So here it was, our first day of filming. The timing involved was pretty good. Kelli and I had just found a nice house to move into, and we still had a week left on the apartment, so we moved anything I didn't want in the film to the house. Joe and I built a pretty bad wall extension for a stunt, and before we knew it the apartment I'd been living in for two years was the set of Pain.

Chris and Ben showed up on set with a MASSIVE air compressor, a fake head and two mirrors. I had NO IDEA what the hell they were thinking, but they had been. I knew I was going to like working with these guys.

The first two days of filming went really well. I was expecting the worse, but got the best. We filmed about 26 pages worth of the script that weekend. It went by so fast and smoothly and everyone did an excellent job. Over the next few months, I also ended up pounded out a comic book prequel to Web of Darkness for Rick, hung out on their set a few times, and got to chat with Tom Savini. Things were also moving ahead on Pain, and our planned next film, Somewhere in Pittsburgh.

The next few things we filmed for Pain involved a meeting at the Ybor City Diner, a car chase down Bayshore, a torture scene and an office scene at Red Onions (thanks again, Peter). Then it happened. Our first TRULY bad day of filming. Of coarse it turned out to be a very big blessing in disguise.

We had scheduled the filming of our big shoot-out at the James Joyce Pub in Ybor. We had four actors, about twenty extras and a crew of about five people. Joe and myself showed up at 5 p.m. to start setting up. The doors were locked. No one was there. Megan, one of the owners, had promised Joe she would be there after picking up her daughter. Joe called her, and it turns out she had delegated the job to one of her bartenders. According to Megan, "No one had the keys." We had spent three days preparing for this scene. So for the next two hours we tried to get one of the owners to come down and let us in. It was devastating, embarrassing and simply RUDE how they brushed us off. We had an entire production standing on the sidewalk. Joe was very angry, mostly because he considered Megan a friend, and she had let him down and blown him off. I tried to put a positive spin on things, telling Joe, "This is happening for a reason, trust me." Meanwhile, I was ready to burn the place down, and I had no concept HOW this could be happening for a reason, but it wasn't the end of the world, or the end of the film. Just a set back. We talked about going to a different location then and there, and filming the scene anyway. But it was written entirely around the pub, and we'd created all this FX work especially FOR THIS LOCATION. It was all for nothing.

In the end, it worked out for the better. Craig Kovac, a friend of mine, had been working with me on the weapons, providing some guns and blanks. Craig, on a side note, had done something amazing. He'd built a firing replica of Deckard's pistol from Blade Runner. It's an amazing piece of deadly art, and a WHOLE other story. But anyway, Craig was SURE he could get us a better location. He was a native, and he knew people. By the next day Craig had gotten us a KICK ASS location: The American Victory, a big ship docked behind the Florida Aquarium. YEAH! That was going to be our location for the shoot-out.

THAT WAS GOING TO TAKE SOME REWRITING.

The screenplay became 145 pages. Yes, that's correct. The story, which had started out a 10-page quick short to be filmed in my apartment, had become a MONSTER. I rewrote the screenplay as fast as I could. Took me a few weeks. Now we are left with about six days of shooting, maybe seven, with three of those on the ship. Several characters have been added, one of them being Too Square's own Eva Dark.

So, the shit that went down at the Joyce did happen for a reason after all. I let Craig know he had become an Executive Producer, which I think made him pretty happy. Damn if he didn't earn it. And in August, Joe, some of the crew and myself are heading up to Pittsburgh to make a vampire movie. I could not have planned it better.

On a personal note, I love directing. It is simply one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life. I always had a strong feeling that I would love it, and be good at it. I love telling a story, but I wasn't 100% sure that working with actors and producers and the like was for me. I'm sure now. Everyone that has gotten involved with Pain has made it a better movie. That's what it's all about. It's who you know. It's having friends, and using the talents of those friends without trying to take advantage of them. I want this experience to be something fun and worth while for everyone involved. I think we've done that, and more.

Noeland Collins