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Realistically, this movie is not gonna be done before I leave, and it might never be completed at all. Two nights ago, we got to the Theatre Centre after sunset, ready for a night of getting down to business, and the door to the room was locked—both of them. It looks like they caught on to what we were doing or starting actually taking precaution due to the recent arrival of the summer session freshman. Classes are back in order, and we are running out of time. Now, we can’t shoot during the day and if the doors are locked at night, we’re screwed. I really do not like that a part of me was relieved to learn that we may never be able to get back in there and get the job done. Something about avoiding embarrassment or failing to meet (my own) expectations? I don’t know, but I am still determined to finish it. I’ll go back tomorrow to check the doors and see if there’s anything at all that I can do. Yet, we did not pack up and go home that easily.

We took the bus back to my room to get a few things, then got on another to go right back. On Saturday night (early Sunday morning), we had another idea—a much less costly, shorter form idea, the kind that could be done in one night. And so, in the bathroom of that same building that is trying to evict our guerrilla-style presence, where we house our props and equipment in a locker after every shoot, we got right back to work on something new. It involved me covered in the remains of my Publix Deli smoked ribs dinner and the fake blood I had already purchased for Dark Chamber, wearing nothing but my white Party City mask and my underwear.

While setting up and recording, it was touch-and-go for a while there. It was Monday, so faculty were still in the building. We’d hear voices or footsteps and scramble to hide, which would’ve done absolutely zero good because we had my clothes and the contents of my backpack strewn everywhere as set dressing. At one point, we waited silently in complete darkness for about 25 minutes to make sure no one would stumble upon us, resuming again at midnight. My hands and arms were still covered in bits of meat and fake blood that I didn’t want to wash off just to put back on again, and I’m still wearing nothing but tighty-whities. The shot had to be one continuous take with the only light source a flashlight, so it took some effort to get everything to fall into place, enough for us to be satisfied.

Maybe about two hours later, when we had finally got the take that we were happy with, as I’m scrubbing the shower floor to remove any trace of the stinking meat and blood, a janitor walks in. I just drew a diagram of the bathroom, which I’ll include, just to highlight how lucky it was that I happened to be in the shower with the water running. He was startled first by my friend standing by the sinks, and hearing the water running, did not venture toward the showers or the toilets. He cleaned the sinks only, then left. I never saw him. If he would’ve just peaked his head around the corner, he would’ve seen a box of bones and the start of a blood trail that I was working backward to expunge. My friend came over and told me we were no longer alone, so I asked him to go bring me someone’s body wash from an open locker to make it look like I was really showering. He left soon after. I couldn’t stop laughing at how incredibly dumbfounded this poor guy must have felt to walk into a bathroom that reeks of hours-old meat in the middle of the night. Aside from the eyewitness, we erased our shenanigans from the walls and floors as best and as quickly as we could. I shoved my stuff back in my bag, closed up the rest in our locker, put on a bathrobe over my soaked underwear, and we skated home. I edited the video yesterday and it’s basically finished, aside from whatever final adjustments we feel we need to make before publishing it. I’m no Fellini (in fact, I think I prefer Antonioni as my go-to Italian auteur), but the eight-and-a-halfth night of production was surely a surreal one—can’t be too mad at that.