When you’re an independent filmmaker, you have to pull in whatever resources you have available, since you don’t have the luxury of endless funds to realize your cinematic vision. So brings us the saga of backyard set building. The picture below is a jail set that was built for our 2014 movie, “Rage of Innocence,” and although it has served its purpose, I just can’t bring myself to tear it down yet.
We originally built a set in this spot back in 2007 for our Biblical parody film, “The God Complex.” As some of you know, the set was redressed again and again and used 11 times for that film. The video below shows the evolution of the set from that movie.
Of course, building sets in back yards and garages are nothing new here at Pirromount. The first set we ever built was a castle set in a friend’s garage for our 1983 comedy, “A Polish Vampire in Burbank.” Back in 1983, we were in our early 20s and very few of us owned houses. However, one fortunate member of our ensemble did own his own house, and he graciously allowed us to commandeer his garage for several months to build our castle set. We took particle board, cement, a few candles and a cobweb spinner, and created a nearly passable room from a Gothic castle.
Back in 2012, we went back to the garage that we had shot in 30 years earlier. The house is no longer owned by the friend who let us film there, but to my surprise, part of the set wall was still standing, as you can see from the video below.
