page214

Trip of a lifetime won by Video Retailers

Twenty three video retailers were gieven the incredible opportunity to die in a Full Moon film on August 28, 1993. The intended victims were chosen from a promotional tour that Charles Band made during 1992. Names were drawn from a hat, and those who won were flown to Los Angeles, and given the opportunity to end their life in ture Hollywood style.

Victims and their guests flew in on Thursday and made preparations for their demise. A "Last Supper" was held at the Full Moon studios to give the guests and the soon-to-be-departed time for farewells. A tour of the new Full Moon studios was provided, and then a catered dinner was served. Dinner took place in an actual set from the movie SHURNKEN HEADS, the film retailers were dying in. Appropriately, the movie set chosen was the moruary.

On Friday evening, the retailers and their guests were shipped oout to a location in LA. They were put into make-up and sent through wardrobe to prepare for their night of stardom. After the 2nd Assistant Director had briefed them on their role in the movie the evening, the retailers were ready for their first rehearsal.

They moved onto the set and met with the director, Rick Elfman. He explained that their demise was to take place in a bus, and they were suppoed to be groupies to a preacher. He was going to be playing that preacher. After discussing their motivation, and the reaction shots that Rick wanted to get from them, the bus set off for a practice in motion. The bus toured around Los Angeles, swerving back and forth, while several police cars, and a support van followed it. The camera was placed in the middle of the bus aisle to get the full effect of the retailers faces as they died.

After one practice trip, the group was ready to shoot. But before they did, they had to smile for another camera. Entertainment Tonight and a local news station featured the group on their shows. The bus left and it took Rick Elfman only one take to immortalize the retailers faces.

Half the retailers were then let off the bus, while the director used the camera to zoom in on close-ups on the remaining retailers. After another trip around town, the groups switched, and another round of close-ups began.

With that finished, the retailers were feee to go for the evening. The job as extras was done: however, many chose to remain to see the final moment when they became history.

Full Moon was in the process of staging one of its most difficult stunts ever. To kill the retailers for the camera was one thing, now the bus had to actually suffer some sort of damage to make the retailers deaths believable. Full Moon had decided to put the bus into the Los Angeles river by having it run off of a bridge.

To facilitate shooting, two buses were actually used. While the retailers were being driven around town, another identical bus was being rigged for the stunt. The bus had the engine and all other mechanism removed so that it wouldn't pollute the river when it went over. However, this meant that the bus would need to be pulled into the river at a speed fast enough for the camera to believe that the bus was actually being driven. To manage this, an intricate pulley system which was attached to the bottom of the bus was devised. Cables ran through the pulleys, down the road, and into another pulley anchored in concrete near the launching point.

To complicate matters, a concrete ridge ran in between the road and the water. The bus had to get over this ridge in order to hit the water. To achive this the pulley system had to get the bus up to 40 miles per hour.

Because this stunt is a once in a lifetime feat, Full Moon paid careful attention to getting the shot on camera. Two cameras and their cameramen were placed out in the water on a barge to get the best angle. Several auxiliary cameras were also placed at different angles along the pier and in the water.

Everthing went off perfectly, the pulleys started moving, the bus picked up speed, and it sailed into the water, exceeding the expected traveling distance by 10 feet.

Once the bus submerged a team of divers began the complicated process of bringing it up. Floatation devices were used to help locate the bus, and then a series of cables and a large crane brought it out of the river.

Now the retailers were officially dead. They looked pretty good for a bunch of corpes.

Return to Behind The Scenes