EVERYTHING YOU EVER NEEDED TO KNOW
ABOUT BRIAN UIGA'S MST3K VIDEO PROJECT
(or, at least what he can remember)
Okay, so here's what we did:
- Jeff and I come up with basic sketches and choose the movie.
- I finish the bots and start on some props.
- Jim joins. Mikey Joins.
- Summer. All of us watch the movie over and over again on a cheap VCR, using its clock for a timecode. Meanwhile I spend $2000 on a set, and props, yadda yadda yadda.
- Filming. We get bad microphones that stop working immediately, everything breaks, everythis is horrible, heat wave, nothign is funny the 20th time when we get the special effects to work, all of the effects including the closing doors and sound effects (on a tape machine) are done by 9 people. We short out the breakers on the house five times shooting the electrocution scene.
More on filming-
The shilouette is in my mom's room, blue sheet backlit with 1500 watts of worklights. No AC, as it causes our microphones to hum louder. We pull 1/2 hour takes, about 8 a day. After a week we finish. By this time we've improved enough jokes to cover the entire movie, which we do. Very cramped. I sit in a chair, Jeff's curled in a ball on my left, lying flat so we can all see the monitor on the far left, Mikey has to guess when his cues are because he can't see. We all have crudely spliced headphones to hear the soundtrack. Later I make up a stupid plot twist to show why I'm wearing a microphone all the time. I wish we'd had a boom mike. Gypsy comes in in the last segment. She's huge, has to sit behind the seats. Then Jim puts on the sport coat and my sister screams as Dr. Who and Mel. Done.
The host segments-
Intro sung on a karaoke machine with a spliced tape of the theme song with no lyrics.
- introduction. No fun.
- Crow regenerates. Burning insulation abounds. Mics break.
- Crow in his cool bat monster outfit and Servo as the girl. Cool costumes. Fun.
- Ragtime. The best. The most fun. Jim had laryngitis, but Gypsy sounded ok, if incomprehensible.
- Servo's TARDIS. We attempt to recreate the opening of the movie. Filmed in 15 minutes as Mikey had to leave for the last day to prepare for school that weekend. One functioning mic, on me. The last joke is no good, I should have taken it out. Inside the hexfield was a 1/3 scale Servo I made. Cool.
Deep 13 was the best to film, Jim kept cracking everyone up with his Gremlins voice, and Jeff did a great job of playing the straight man. Local diva Amanda Dolan shows up as the mother. Fun. Fun. Fun.
The next day I tear apart the sets and leave the tapes for a few months as I go to college, and come back for a 48-hour editing binge, eating nothing but pizza. The next day I turn into a giant zit and explode, triumphant.
All in all, plagued with many problems, and I wish I'd cut back on the set and paid for some equipment so that one could see the detail on the set clearly. We used VHS tapes as masters. Big no-no.
Anyhow, it was an amazing experience, made me some great friends in Jim and Jeff (who I collaborate on scripts and comedy to this day), and I learned so much that helped me later with my adventures in campus TV that I consider the final cost of about 3000 dollars well worth it in experience.
These production notes were written for this website by Brian Uiga himself.
