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A Look Back with Director Jeff Miller:
For Pizza’s Sake is by far the most unusual production I’ve ever had a hand in. This story actually started with a script about an absent-minded engineer who locks his keys out of his car and finds out how not to get them back. It ended up as something completely different.
The reasons for it ending up so different than it started were that the story depended heavily on two things: weather (filming was to be completely outdoors) and permission to film on our desired location (an abandoned section of an airport in northern Michigan.) Both fell through on the morning that we were to begin filming: it was foggy, 40 degrees, and rainy. In addition, the Oscoda Town Council was afraid that we were going to make a film that depicted its town as backwards and derelict (it’s not - it's just filled with paranoid sociopaths,) so we had no location anyhow. Thus, we were forced to come up with a new location and a new script in just a few hours. Our location was quickly settled on - my parents’ cottage was about an hour north of where we were; it was stocked with food, had plenty of space to set up equipment, and it was empty.
Developing a new script wasn’t as easy as settling on the location. Ben Karl (spy), Rik Wambaugh (scientist), and I sat in a local Elias Brothers’ restaurant from about 6:30 to 9am coming up with the new script on the spot. This was actually really fun, because it tested all of our creative abilities to the utmost extent. What we did was we create a list of the props that we had at the location (furniture, food, etc.,) a list of the props that we had brought with us, and a list of locations within our area and ways we could transition between them. From this we created one hell of an entertaining story.
By 10:30am, we were on location and ready to shoot. We had our shot list, the actors were dressed, and we had our first setup complete. Lights, camera, ...click. Click ...whirr ...click. What the hell? A half-hour of investigation proved that the camera’s old, worn battery cable refused to do its job unless you held it and the battery in a position that even a Hindu deity couldn’t maintain while operating the camera (there were only Ben, Rik, and I on location here, and I was the only one not acting in the film.) So for the rest of the filming, we had to film at least two takes of each shot, though there was no dialogue and the action wasn’t difficult.
For the next eight hours Ben, Rik, and I worked nonstop to crank out the film. The only thing that we ate during that entire time was the single pizza that was actually used in the film. By the time we came to the last shot, which was a kind of a one-chance thing due to our having very little daylight and no extra costumes, we were bushed. So we set up the scene, the actors took their places, I took up the crane stance with the battery and camera, and there was action. Great action. Ben and Rik had perfect timing, and Rik landed just right -- too bad the camera cut out in the middle of the shot. Not too bad though, since we were able to jury-rig the scene for one more take, and I haven’t had anyone comment yet about the wet actor and dock in the last shot. Overall, filming Pizza was tedious but extremely fun. In fact it was so much of a rush to have finished it that we decided to drive the five hour trip back home on that same night, staying awake on adrenaline alone. Or maybe it was just the desire to get away from that location as quickly as possible. I don’t know. Either way, I haven't gone back since.
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