Mionic Man Movies

“Monica, do you want to make a movie with me?” I asked my sister 2 months ago. Radio/TV station KDHX announced a 3 minute short film contest in which selected applicants would get to use the studio’s filming and editing equipment to produce a film to be aired this summer. After submitting an application, I thought, “We probably won’t get in,” but lo and behold, an email came to me saying that we were in! Thus began the making of “No Lifeguard at the Gene Pool,” a movie about hillbillies.

Today was our first day of filming. Our ambitions ran high. The goal: to film all outdoor scenes in one afternoon. Since our film is a silent comedy with music over-dubbed, we thought we could pull it off. However, our first trouble began before the day started. All of our volunteer techies were unable to make the shoot. This included set designers and our lighting guy. No worries, right? We managed, but it definitely slowed the process. We miss you, techies! Hope you can make the next date (June 9th). Get well soon, Sharon! You are in our prayers.

Back to the day, our location was on a beautiful plot of land in Lake Saint Louis right off the boulevard. It is the perfect place to make this film. We have cornfields and farmland surrounding the area with hardly any modern houses in view. The land is owned by a youth pastor who has his place set up as a youth group clubhouse called “Josiah’s.” He also has two large sheds called “The Sharing Sheds” that I was unaware of their existence before filming. Basically, you can take things or leave things for people to take, and we found a baby crib and a scare crow that were both very valuable props for our film. Thank-you, Sharing Shed! Also, as we were getting started, one of our actor’s dads stopped by and threw two bundles of hay off his pick-up truck for us to use. What more could we have asked for… a perfect day with cool breezy weather, perhaps? We had that too.

Everyone in the film and making the film is still in high school with the exception of myself and our hillbilly mom actress, Julie Walton. Julie is a coworker and friend of mine who was born to be in the movies. She appears in the up-coming film “Ghost Image” in the out-door cafe scene. Julie’s transformation into the mom roll was amazing… talk about a character actor! We had to stuff her costume to give us the “old cranky lady” look, and she was a totally different person to see and watch. We got all of Julie’s scenes done today, I’m proud to say. Thank you, Julie Walton!

The beautiful and talented Margaret Osler is playing the roll of “hillbilly daughter.” She seemed to be something straight out of “HeeHaw” today, and is doing a great job. The scene where she skips along towards us along the white farm yard fence (which is made out of rubber?) was full of great improvisational comedy and had us all laughing for every take. Bonus Trivia Fact #46: Margaret and Monica collaborated on the original version of “No Lifeguard at the Gene Pool” nearly 4 years ago. It was just a song then (built entirely out of Garage Band loops), and now it’s the soundtrack to the film.

John Douglas, our star, has been working on a genuine farmer’s tan just for this film. If there ever was an actor that could play the part of hillbilly son, it’s John. Kentucky bred, I think something of this character must be running through his genes. After applying make-up, hair dye, and costume, John never broke character on or off film all day long, and folks, we were there from 3 to 9:00. While setting up, John would be “missing” every once in awhile and someone would ask, “Where’s John?” We would find him standing up at the edge of the drive waving to passing cars on the boulevard, or skipping and frolicking down the gravel road, or rolling in the dirt behind the Sharing Shed. It wasn’t a matter of calling “action,” it was just a matter of rolling film.

I stood in as the hillbilly father since our first choice actor had a commitment. I’m also producer, assistant director, and stand-in set designer. After applying mullet wig and a beard, I think I looked pretty red-neck! Darn tootin’. I’m Micah Liesenfeld, by the way (just in case you were wondering).

I am one-half of the film collaborative called “Mionic Man Films.” The other half is my sister, Monica Mogerman. She is the writer, director, stand-in set designer. I must say, Monica is quite the first-time director. You would never guess that someone finishing up her junior year in high school could hold her own on a film project, but she does, and does quite well. I could relax and puzzle over the technical stuff while Monica gave each actor the coaching they needed for each scene. As stressful as it was to direct at this level with minimal crew today, I think she did smashingly.

Our Costume/hair/make-up artist, Beth Wingerter also doubled as techie 2 and 3. Thanks, Beth! Our characters looked great today thanks to her talents. I fully expect to see her in more film credits after this one.

I also want to thank my Mom for sticking around and finishing up the half-made props that I ran out of time to finish last night… so thank you, Joyce Mogerman! Also, thanks to Julie’s husband, Mike, for being our documentary photographer and taking pictures of the wacky hijinks today as well as chauffeuring people up and down the hill in the car and to a restroom when needed. What a sport!

We ran out of light before we could do John’s frolicking scene (all of that frolicking today won’t go to waste, John… I promise). Monica, ever the visionary, was disappointed that we didn’t reach our ideal objective, but I’m actually super-pleased that we got as far as we did today. The fact that we operated camera equipment we had never used before, dressed and built the sets ourselves using actors as help, and filmed at a non-home movie level for the first time made for a challenging day. The gauntlet was thrown down, and we met the challenge head on. And nobody quit and walked out! We will have to add a third day, I believe, but that’s fine. We can do it.

By-the-by, we may be doing that make-up shoot this Friday (May 25th) or Saturday (May 26th) from 3 to 8 or 9:00 again. We could use at least 1 techie and one lighting guy. Our make-up artist can’t make this date, so if anyone would volunteer as our make-up artist stand-in (if you know anything about theatrical make-up) we would highly appreciate that as well. Any takers, please call me: 314.495.4616 or email me: micahnova@micahnova.com. This is strictly volunteer work, but you’ll at least get fed, I promise.

To view more pictures of the making of this film, visit:  HERE