Taking Movies in a whole new Direction

(As told by Jon Sartain)

 I'm not sure but I think we made The Dust Devil around three or four years ago. It may have shorter. It all started when the Clemons took me to have Christmas with Sam's side of the family. I have never met them before but they are very nice people. Anyway, we were shooting some shots for Endangered Love 2, and then Wayne was thinking about making his own movie before he went back to college. We all pitched ideas back and forth. Wayne first suggested a fantasy adventure like The Lord of the Rings, but on a much smaller scale. I pitched the idea of a barber who cuts people's throats and make it a musical. I was unaware of the musical Sweeney Todd at the time. Wink.

Anyway, Wayne finally decided to make a movie about a killer vacuum. We all thought this was great because the simpler the more fun it is to make. And a complex plot would take too long and be too pointless. I tried to add some details to the movie such as the vacuum was government experiment gone wrong. But, I'm glad I didn't get my way. Because even for a movie about a killer vacuum, that was really silly.

After we got back to the Clemons' house, we went down to the cottage where Wayne and Quinn were staying. We decided to film there because Wayne was sleeping there, and I don't think the parents would appreciate us using a vacuum cleaner all night long. They would never get any sleep. Once we got Wayne's digital camera ready, we pretty came up with ideas as we went along, or improvising. I thought that I could come into the house and tell everyone I ordered a pizza and hope that they would pay for it. I thought that would add some of my humor that no one finds funny. Wayne had a Nintendo Gamecube in the living room. So when we weren't acting, we were playing Super Mario Bros. Actually, even when we were acting, we were still playing the Nintendo Gamecube.

Wayne held the camera the whole time. It was his territory. The first shot was Leila, Betsy, and Mary sitting around. Then the doorbell rings... I'm pretty we had an alternate opening then what you see in the final cut. I think Wayne deleted the first opening. I think it had something to do with all the girls talking about something. It dragged on so we shot it again. Although I could be wrong.

I remember now! It was the scene where we were listening to Leila say the bible verse which has something to do with dust. We re-shot that for some reason. Maybe we were laughing too much or something.

The fun part was shooting the death scenes of everybody. The first death was Leila, of course. All we did was have her hang on to something and scream. We turned the vacuum on for the sound. We would have someone pull her legs so it would seem she is being sucked into the vacuum. The next death scene was mine, of course. I was hoping to get offed quickly so I could handle the camera. But no! It was Wayne's territory. We re-shot my death scene so many times. I couldn't stop laughing.

Before I die in the movie, I watch Leila being sucked up by the vacuum. My facial expression for some reason caused a bit of a controversy. It was overreacting at its best. I was trying to recreate the expression from the boy from The Sixth Sense. But, I ultimately failed and I am still picked on about it to this day.

  The next death scene was Betsy's. I was playing Nintendo Gamecube during that time. So I didn't really know how they shot it exactly. I think it turned out well though. The final death scene was Joe's. I don't remember much of how they made it, but it turned out good as well. The vacuum left Joe's shoe behind. I wouldn't blame it, I think Joe's shoe would have poisoned the vacuum and would have destroyed it.

The finale was of course Mary standing there like an idiot. The vacuum was coming right towards her and she stands there. I think she wanted to recreate a Fay Wray style of acting. She didn't even realize it. The most obvious ending to the monster was that he was to trip on its own cord. It unplugged itself. Where's a battery when you need one? It should ended where it was actually part of Mary's imagination. There never was a vacuum, it was actually her that killed those people...

Just kidding, that would be an awful ending. The real movie ends with a classic line: 

"At least the house is clean."

I don't care what anyone says, I am pretty sure I made up that line.  

We edited this movie several different times. It gets better each time. Maybe for the 52-disc set Collectors Edition DVD, we'll have the perfect cut of the movie.

  Even though Wayne directed and shot this movie, I feel we all pitched in a lot and no matter what your title is, it's your movie. Everybody's a director. By the way, Wayne did a great job. I've heard great things from people about this movie. I am willing to preserve this movie for future generations to see how stupid we acted.

If anyone wants to tell their story on how they remember making this movie, just make a new paragragh stating "As told by (your name)."

Thanks for reading!

Jon Sartain

(As told by Betsy Clemons)

 We recently filmed  Dust Devil 2. A bunch of friends were coming over for band practice and we were trying to come up with some stuff for those of us who were not in the band to do. So a couple days before they came me and Joe typed up a script for Dust Devil 2. We had been wanting to do a sequel for some time and this would be a perfect opportunity. We new it would be quick and easy to do in one night. We basically took the same plot from the last one and wrote some dialogue for it. We wrote down the different things for each girl to do. We only had girls to work with so, we wrote a script where a family of girl’s car breaks down out in the country. They stop at the house where the last movie took place and the movie goes from there. We originally thought that the girls brother was going to be able to be in the film but he was busy that night so instead his sister Mary Morgan played his part.

 At first we all stood around and chatted., then we went outside to film. Our friends had come late and we ended up chatting a little longer than we meant to. So by the time we got outside it was a little darker than we had wanted it to be. But we decided to go ahead and do it anyway. That is why it is so very dark in the first couple scenes.  Joe did most of the filming, I filmed two scenes when Joe had to drive the car. I set up the camera and tripod in the center of the road turned it on and then Joe drove the car right towards me. It was kind of scary, but he was going very slow. The other scene I filmed was a boring side shot of the car driving past the camera. Oh yes I almost forgot I filmed his hitchhiker scenes.

 There were only two of us who did not have our faces in the movie, Me and Chris. I ran the vacuum and Chris was our Gofer. Basically our camera crew was made up of three people. But it was a really simple movie to do so we really didn’t need any more than that. I came up with most of the props. I had to find movies for the girls to watch, the food the girls cook in the kitchen and a few other little things like the car part. We didn’t do costuming, we just let everyone wear what they had brought themselves.

 One of the families had brought lots of  packaged fudge bars and cookies. So we ate those in-between takes. We used some of them in the scene where Rose is looking for something to eat and sees the vacuum. The first time we filmed that there were a bunch of tea cups behind her, and when she through the plate she hit the tea cups. She did not break any but I moved them and if you watch the movie carefully you can see the tea cups appear and disappear. She stepped on some of the cookies, so we didn’t eat them but just through them at each other.
 
 It was fun running the vacuum. I got to chase people with it and try to bang down a door. I also had to pull people that were supposedly being sucked up by the vacuum and that was not always easy. I had to be very careful not to get my hands running the vacuum in the shot. There is one time that you see my hand and that’s when Asia is being sucked up from behind the bed. You can see my hand pulling her down.

 We finished filming the movie at about 11:00. It was a pretty cold night so everyone wore their coats during the filming.

 Joe edited the entire thing by himself.We had the Premiere for it in June at Chris's house. 

 The girls we had cast had never filmed anything with us before. I think they did a wonderful job. They were all really fun to work with. I had acted on stage with a few of them before.

 Although the movie and the one we made before, (Dust Devil 1) are not the greatest things in the world, they are extremely popular. Apparently people like to watch movies about Vacuum cleaners that try to take over the world.
~ Betsy