Ashes of Man: Part II

Stranger Things Studios’ film, Ashes of Man, continues the tale of nuclear apocalypse in this second installment.  Part I left off with the unnamed “Wastelander,” in his desperate attempt to survive, murdering a rural couple in cold blood in order to wait out the Armageddon within their fallout shelter.

Part II follows Wastelander as he scavenges the wastelands for necessities.  Meanwhile, and elsewhere in the ruins of the Twin Cities, another man finds himself hounded by a far more tangible and terrifying threat.

Visit Ashes of Man’s Main Page to find links to the other installments, as well as the trailer and the behind-the-scenes outtakes.

*Spoiler Alter: I recommend you watch Part II before reading the director’s notes.

DIRECTOR’S NOTES

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Never film in the winter.  As Minnesotans, we’re raised to believe that “It’s just the cold; no big deal.”  That only really applies for that time span in which you leave your house, to the moment your car warms up.  It doesn’t apply to standing around for hours in zero degree temperatures, unable to escape the wind chill because that’s where we’re recording.  And the temperatures always seemed to tank the day of filming.  Go figure, right?

It doesn’t help that to depict a world of nuclear winter, there can’t be any human activity.  Well, in the dead of winter, that means you have to film in that short window between when the sun gets up, and when the human race gets up.  It’s a lot colder that time of the day, and waking up in the dark at 5:00am on your day off isn’t a dreamy prospect either.

The most impressive day of filming in that respect was when I was woken up by a text message half an hour by before my 5:30 alarm was to go off.  It was one of my actors asking what time we were suppose to meet that day (7:00am).  He then went on to inform me that he had yet to go to bed because he had been partying all night.

Despite my immediate concerns, he assured me that he would make it to the set, regardless of his condition.  I don’t know how the hell he got there, much less stayed awake.  He looked like crap.  Hung over.  Probably drunk for all I know.  Ready to play the perfect bum.  We filmed that day in the back of a public park with a fake gun and a shopping cart that didn’t belong to us.  We were fully ready to bail in the event park security showed up.  It never came to that, though.  Filming was done nervously, and in record time.

Other parts were not.  The garage scenes were filmed on three or four separate days.  They were all filmed in roughly the same amount of daylight, mind you; the night time filters were all done in post.

Fortunately, Paul was the only actor necessary for the shoots, which made scheduling a lot easier.  Of course, he picked up a part time job in the middle of filming, but that’s why we tried to do his scenes first. 

I couldn’t have found a better actor for “Burlap” than Paul.  In fact, I didn’t.  Paul found me.  I didn’t know him all that well, so I was pleasantly surprised when I received an email from him saying that he would love to lend his acting talents.  He is very natural and comfortable in front of a camera.  There were times during filming that I forgot to call “cut” because I was alarmed / disturbed / shocked / impressed with what he was doing on screen.  A lot of the moments where he is losing his mind is Paul just improvising.

He wasn’t acting when he woke with a start inside the garage, though.  I told him I would go outside give the signal to let him know when to jolt awake.  The thud you hear in that clip is my body slamming into the side of garage, and the look of terror on his face - hilarious as it is - was genuine.

~ Jonathan Strong