In My Footsteps Podcast Episode 261: Pee-Wee's Playhouse Turns 40, Famous Fictional Bands, The US Festival(9-23-2026)

 

The simultaneous success and failure of the US Festival. Pee-Wee's Playhouse hits the Big 4-0. Some famous fictional bands.

Episode 261 welcomes fall with a show featuring varying shades of GenX nostalgia.

It all begins with what could have been the next big evolution in music festivals. The US Festival had some of the biggest names in music and technology in the early 1980s. In many ways it was a resounding success, but financially it was an abject failure. What happened? We will look into the whole story.

This week's secret word is forty, as in forty years. Pee-Wee's Playhouse entertained and, yes, educated 1980s kids. From the mind of Paul Reubens, this mashup of many different types of entertainment took Saturdays in the 80s by storm. We celebrate the 40th anniversary of Pee-Wee's Playhouse this week.

The Top 5 is real, but none of the musical acts featured in it are. We are going to look at some of the most famous fictional bands ever. Fun fact: three of these bands scored number one hits.

This week, we also have a brand-new This Week In History and Time Capsule looking back at when the fictional cartoon band The Archies scored a #1 hit song.

To support me and the show, become a member on Patreon. 

Or you can support my work and Buy Me A Coffee!

Helpful Links from this Episode

• Buy My New Book, In Their Footsteps!
• Searching For the Lady of the Dunes True Crime Book
• Hooked By Kiwi - Etsy.com
• DJ Williams Music
• KeeKee's Cape Cod Kitchen
• MSFTS Community
• Kingfisher Hotels Cape Cod
• Christopher Setterlund.com
• Cape Cod Living - Zazzle Store
• Subscribe on YouTube!
• Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog
• CJSetterlundPhotos on Etsy
• Pee-Wee Park

Listen to Episode 260 here

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #139: The Cabin Movie Shoot Day 2

1. I began the fourth day of my time in rural north central Pennsylvania by downing an energy drink and trying my best to wake up quickly before exiting the motel room to head over to Wellsboro to meet the rest of the crew. I found it amazing how fast my body will wake up when I have fun and exciting things on my schedule. If it was a typical work day, my body would have been like a Ziploc bag full of oatmeal. Yet, there I was on that morning, very tired but fully awake because of the adrenaline that kicked in as soon as my eyes opened. Each filming morning required me to be at Director Mark’s house in the next town over from where I was staying by 8:15am. No matter what time I managed to fall asleep, I was alive and kicking by 6:30am at the latest.


2. This was the first day that we would all be heading to the cabin to shoot. We were lucky in that Mark knew someone with a cabin nearly in the middle of nowhere. They were willing to allow us to use it for nothing. We had gone a few nights earlier to clean the cabin to get it camera-ready. That day, we packed up gear, loaded the food I had bought at Walmart, picked up anyone who needed to carpool, and started the journey to the tiny township of Osceola. I thought Mansfield was small, with a population of just under 3,000. Nothing prepared me for Osceola. Its population is under 600. On each of the drives out to the cabin, we would pass by many dilapidated houses. These looked like if you got a flat and needed to ask for help, you’d be shot before your foot touched the grass on the edge of their property. In fact, there was one time when Mark had to stop to wait for another car to catch up. I was carpooling with him. I was on my guard as we parked in front of one of these sketchy houses. When a person stepped out onto their porch, I was ready to duck and cover. There were never any issues with anyone on the drives out to the cabin, but it felt like the threat was always there.


3. A daily highlight on my drives, not only to the cabin, but just around where I was in Pennsylvania, was the fog and clouds. The elevation in the area ranges from 1,000 to 2,000 feet, and so there were times, especially in the morning, when the fog and clouds would be right at eye level or just above. We get tons of fog on Cape Cod; the spring is the worst of it. However, I hadn’t seen it hovering just off the ground, the same with the clouds. I couldn’t get any photos while I was driving, but managed to grab one while on a drive out to the cabin on that first day of shooting. It won’t do justice to how cool it was, but it’s better than nothing. Mark told me that the fog/clouds and the heat lightning that I found so exciting were so routine that it didn’t even faze him. I guess it’s the same as how I feel about the summer traffic on Cape Cod. No, wait, that’s never exciting or fun.

Looking at the fog on the horizon traveling toward Osceola.

4. The cabin itself was an interesting character not only in the film but for my trip in general. I mentioned the obnoxious amount of stuffed animals inside, and not the cuddly ones kids have on their beds. We arrived and, first off, had to turn on the power. This would come into play a few times throughout the shoot. There was a breaker for the pump, which allowed us to have running water. Not wanting to overdo it, we would only flip the switch for short bursts periodically when we needed to use water or the bathroom. I was honestly fine with just wandering off behind some bushes, but I know that’s not for everyone. We unpacked the food and set up the props, lighting, and scenery we needed. Even though we were only there for two full days, it did feel like we were arriving at an Airbnb. There were a few perishable items we brought: meat, cheese, and bottled water, so we had to shove them in the fridge. Surprisingly, the fridge was full. We didn’t get too excited, though; it was mostly condiments and copious amounts of beer, which I am sure the cabin owners had counted. There would be some time to explore the cabin thoroughly, but once we had everything settled, it was time to dive right into shooting.

A pano shot showing how isolated we were.

5. It’s funny, regarding the trip in general, I can tell how busy the days were by just how many photos and videos I got. This day was the busiest by far, with the following day being only slightly less busy. It should come as no surprise that, since we were shooting at a cabin roughly a mile from anything that the cell reception was nearly nonexistent. I would get flashes of one bar of service, but it was never anything that allowed me to post any updates on social media. I was, for all intents and purposes, off the radar for two entire days. I still shot a handful of videos on this day. I even began uploading one to Instagram around 10:30am. By the time we left the cabin, which was close to 9pm, that story was maybe 30% uploaded. I ended up canceling that upload and throwing all of the footage up once I got back to my motel room and civilization.





6. Being that we had a small cast and a small budget, I had a feeling that I might end up with a role or two in the film. One came about by my own foolishness. I was checking over the script while still on Cape Cod, and on the first page, in the very first scene, I saw that there was a character that I never cast. It was another friend of Will, the main character, who is being given the lowdown about why he was quitting his job. Since I was pressed for time, I decided to just record those lines myself, so that was my first role. Secondly, I took on the role of an investigator near the end of the film. This was relatively small, so I wasn’t too worried about remembering lines. This role was memorable because it came with a costume. Mark’s son Anthony, who is such a sweet person and a very talented visual effects person, brought this hefty trench coat with him. I agreed to wear it in my role as the investigator. The trench coat was memorable for two reasons. For one, it was 85 degrees and humid, so wearing it was like having a portable sauna. Secondly, it was too big. I looked like a five-year-old who got into daddy’s clothes. All I could do was laugh when the cameras weren’t rolling, of course. I was so inspired by the incredible acting jobs that Cody and Jeff did that I took on some extra lines and lightened the load for Michael, who played another police officer. A funny thing that won’t come through in the film is that my character was interacting with Cody’s character in a scene. The only issue was Cody had to run home to let his dog out. So we shot my scene with me interrogating an empty chair off-screen. I got really intense too. I hope I scared that invisible ghost I was yelling at.

7. As far as my roles in The Cabin go, we save the best for last. My third role ended up being that of the mysterious creature that stalks the main character. Coming into the shoot, I don’t think any of us had a clue who would be in that role. I had brought the outfit for the creature from my own closet. Anthony had made the mask. So we had the creature costume but nobody to play it. I didn’t need to have my arm twisted too much to play the role. For one, it had no dialogue, just a lot of growls, grunts, and howls. Also, it was another perfect full-circle moment. When I used to make skits with my friends with my camcorder in the 1990s, I enjoyed being a bit of a stuntman. I would fall and throw myself around to make things look good. Granted, I was now 30 years older, but how much different could it be? The answer was very similar but also very different. I had to get made up in the monster garb, which included a horrifying mask with one tiny eye hole for sight. There were also copious amounts of blood to make me look as gross as possible. A fun little issue came after nearly every scene where the neck of the mask needed to be tucked back into the collar of the shirt I was wearing. I looked a bit like a cross between Jason from Friday the 13th Part 4 and Sloth from The Goonies. The setup was all good to go, but could I pull off being the creature?


8. Yes. But seriously, we shot the initial monster scenes at night, and so with very little vision I had to basically use The Force to make my way around. This included crashing through a door, killing one person convincingly with no real way to see them, and then viciously trying to bash my way through another door. I was told that my performance terrified the others. Mark said as he was filming that he thought I was going to really break the door down, but he didn’t want to stop me. I left blood all over the cabin, some of which we wouldn’t find until it was time for us to pack up and leave. The initial crashing through the door was nuts. I went all out. Not being able to see much in the dark and with a quarter-sized eye hole made it easy for me to appear to be wild. I was throwing chairs, growling, and causing utter chaos. The only downer was one guy whining that I got blood on his shirt. It’s like, you’re acting in a movie; nobody forced you to come. Later on, as we were all leaving, we saw him pulled over in his vehicle, changing his shirt. He must have had a date that he didn’t want to know what he was up to. I would have another crack at being the creature the next day, but we’ll get to that when the time arrives.


9. Throughout our time out at the cabin, I tried to manifest a nature encounter. I saw a few deer, including one that walked into the front yard to eat apples. There was a rabbit that really seemed to enjoy hanging out in the back yard by the shed. Those were all well and good, but what I wanted was a black bear. Oh, I’m sure if I had been jumped by a bear I’d have regretted asking for it, but I never got the chance. I didn’t go all out and start playing bear calls on my phone or anything, but we were in the middle of nowhere in bear country; I mean, come on. A few times I wandered up into this clearing behind the cabin hoping that I’d sneak up on a bear foraging for berries. Yes, I did think to myself how stupid and dangerous it was, but damn it, I wanted photos of Yogi doing stuff. The closest I got to a black bear while in Pennsylvania came when I was walking the bike trail earlier in the week. I heard some noises coming from maybe 20-30 feet in the woods off the trail. I figured it was either a group of squirrels or maybe a deer. Mark said it was more than likely a bear since they like to forage for food in areas like that. I never saw it, so there’s no proof, but Mark lives out there and would know better than me. Therefore, I am considering it a near-miss with a black bear. In the future, the story will evolve into me fighting for my life against the bear, which is why I was unable to get any photographic evidence.


10. There were several hilarious moments during our shooting at the cabin. One that only became funny after the fact was as follows. It was broad daylight, but we needed to get some night scenes done. This required some lighting trickery, including shooting day for night, which will mostly be applied during post-production. A more practical way to make day look like night is to cover windows with something black. We had a sheet that would do the trick. First, Anthony and I tried taping the sheet over the window from the inside. This was a failure and included us losing the tape as soon as we put it down, despite neither of us moving from where we stood. It ended up being wedged between the mattress and the side of the frame. We even sent Michael outside to see if somehow we dropped it out the window. The next bright idea was taping the sheet to a pair of lighting stands outside and raising it up to block the window. The sheet was taped, but as soon as we attempted to lift it, everything unraveled, and the sheet fell to the muddy ground. Yes, the ground was soft and muddy, which made everything else harder. Finally, Mark found a ladder, and we were able to nail the sheet to the window frame. It ended up being like a scene right out of the Three Stooges. It took five of us about a half hour to get that sheet in place. We nearly forgot to take it down when we were leaving too. I could only imagine the cabin owners showing up and seeing a window totally blacked out. They’d probably have started wondering what type of movie we had been shooting.

Three Stooges Seal of Approval

11. Being on a tight budget, you have to become creative. I wish we had a more robust budget to use on props and effects, but that wasn’t the case for The Cabin. In the script, there is a scene that includes the main character finding the dead deer. Sure, we could have found stock footage of a deer to put in post. But what made more sense was grabbing one of the many, many deer heads off the wall and using it as practical effects. I grabbed one, which weighed next to nothing, and brought it outside to lay in the grass. It ended up working perfectly. Cody came around the corner of the cabin and spotted the dead deer, brilliantly shot by Mark. In the script, it is supposed to be all bloodied up, but that probably can be done in post-production. We just needed the one shot and then to get it back on the wall no worse for wear. My greatest fear was that I had hung it back up improperly and that it had somehow fallen off the wall and been destroyed. I figure if that had happened, the cabin owner would have called Mark, and at least as of this writing, I have heard nothing about damaged deer heads.

The one in the middle was used in the film.

12. After a long day of filming, you can get hungry. Sure, we had a lot of food that I got from Walmart; that was part of the budget after all. But finger foods like granola bars, donuts, bags of chips, and even peanut butter and jelly sandwiches don’t fill you up unless you eat a ton all at once. I had been picking at stuff when we had the chance, so by the time we called ‘cut’ to end the day, which was close to 9pm, I was starving. As I was in Mark’s car, being brought back to his house where my rental was, my wheels were turning as far as where I could go to grab something quick for dinner. I only knew a few places along my driving route back to the motel. One was a McDonald’s located maybe two minutes from the motel. I decided, why not? I was technically on vacation, right? Something exciting, but also troublesome for me, that I discovered was the fact that I could pay for my food through the app using Venmo. Not only was everything slightly cheaper than on Cape Cod, but now I could just click one button, and it was paid. I grew up in the analog age of the 1980s and 1990s. Most things I learned about now require fewer steps, which I don’t mind. I think if you grew up before technology took over, you appreciate the advances. If you are born into a world where everything is simple and convenient, you likely don’t appreciate it. I didn’t think about that much while enjoying my late-night dinner, though. All I could do was eat and hope that my adrenaline wore off soon enough so that I could get a relatively good night’s sleep before another full day of filming.

I became very familiar with this spot

In My Footsteps Podcast Episode 260: The Muppet Show, 1970s Music Fails, A Bus That Acts Like A Dog?, 2Pac(9-16-2026)

 

The debut of The Muppet Show. Some of the music fails of the 1970s. A school bus that acts like a dog?

Summer is ending, but the Gen-X nostalgia continues with Episode 260.

We start off with a look back to the debut of the original Muppet Show, which occurred 50 years ago this month. Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Gonzo, and so many more classic characters burst onto television sets and became cultural icons. This segment gives an overview and is only the beginning of the Muppet content.

A school bus that acts like a dog? What sort of acid trip created that idea? Who knows. What we do know is that this is the main plot behind the odd 1970s educational short film The Big Yellow Fellow. We will review this insanity and see if there are any valuable lessons to be learned. 

The 1970s had some amazing music. From Led Zeppelin to Pink Floyd, all four Beatles' solo work, and more. This week's Top 5 will have none of them. Instead, we will look at some of the biggest musical fails of the 1970s. Lots of bad music and bad choices abound.

There is also a brand new This Week In History and Time Capsule looking back at the life and career of iconic rapper Tupac Shakur 30 years after his death.

To support me and the show, become a member on Patreon. 

Or you can support my work and Buy Me A Coffee!

Helpful Links from this Episode

• Buy My New Book, In Their Footsteps!
• Searching For the Lady of the Dunes True Crime Book
• Hooked By Kiwi - Etsy.com
• DJ Williams Music
• KeeKee's Cape Cod Kitchen
• MSFTS Community
• Kingfisher Hotels Cape Cod
• Christopher Setterlund.com
• Cape Cod Living - Zazzle Store
• Subscribe on YouTube!
• Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog
• CJSetterlundPhotos on Etsy
• 9/11 25 Years Later

Listen to Mixtape #5 here

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #138: The Cabin Movie Shoot - Day 1

1. This was my third day in rural North-Central Pennsylvania for the shooting of my feature film debut, The Cabin. It was also the first official day of filming. I had arrived during the late afternoon on Tuesday after driving 450 miles from Cape Cod. The next day was mostly spent laying low and exploring a little. By the time Thursday arrived, it was all systems go. Unlike a typical ‘vacation,’ I had to be awake and out the door as if I was going to work. Mark, the director, wanted all of the necessary cast to be at his house by 8:15am. For me, driving from Mansfield to Wellsboro, the next town over, took roughly 15 minutes. Luckily, it was pretty much a straight shot on Route 6. The drive ended up being a regular occurrence, so I got used to the amazing hills. You really could fly down some of the hills. I know I got up to over 60mph at times. I have no idea how people drive up them during the winter months. The hardest part for me, besides just waking up at 6:30am on my vacation, was fighting the urge to pull over and get photos of the beautiful countryside scenery. It was literally all around me. It was especially hard when I passed a beautiful fountain on the green near Mark’s house. It took me until my last day in Pennsylvania before I finally got my photos and videos of that location.


2. I arrived thinking I’d be late, but I was actually earlier than most. Those of us who were there exchanged some small talk. I might do a lot of public speaking for my books and record weekly podcasts, but still deep down I am an introvert. Initiating conversations is not my strong suit. This is exacerbated when I am surrounded by people I don’t know. Mark, I had met a few times, so I was at least comfortable around him, but most of the other cast was new to me. As the shoot went on, I got more comfortable with everyone, but that first day I spent a lot of time being quiet, listening, and speaking when spoken to.


3. This shoot was a full-circle life moment for me. When I was in high school, I spent my savings on a Sears camcorder. I wanted to be a filmmaker. In those days, though, it was a lot of very loosely developed skits that I performed with my friends. There were no scripts. It was ideas like I thought I was a dog, and my friends took advantage of that with hilarious results. As a writer, I am all about symbolism. My plan for the first day, and more specifically the first shot, of The Cabin was to have something that tied it back to those camcorder days of the 1990s. A few years ago I found the red flannel shirt I used to wear all of the time in high school. It still fit, and didn’t disintegrate when I washed it, so I brought it along. I did get a smirk or two when I put it on, as it was humid and in the 80s when we were filming, but I didn’t care. I didn’t even take a photo of myself in the shirt on the set. The moment was only for me to symbolize that I had not given up on that high school dream, and in a small way, I had done right by my teenage self. I sat on the stairs in my red flannel as Mark yelled ‘action’ to begin filming The Cabin. It was a simple scene of the lead character coming home. Cody, the actor who played Will (the lead character), walked through the front door and past the camera. Nothing explosive, but I made sure I was rolling with my own camera as this scene played out. It was a seminal moment in my life. I did, however, take the flannel off not too long after since it was still a hot and humid summer day.


4. Nature was everywhere in Pennsylvania, even in the backyards of a typical neighborhood. I mentioned in the last blog about the deer that enjoyed sleeping in Mark’s backyard. On this day it was time for the groundhogs to shine. I mean, it is the home state of Punxsutawney Phil, the world’s most famous groundhog, so of course they’d be everywhere. There was one that was hanging around a shed that we would end up using as another cabin for the film. I wanted a photo of it, and doing so through a window wasn’t going to do. I gently turned the back doorknob. It clicked ever so faintly. That was enough for the groundhog to scurry under the shed. Damn survival instincts kicking in. I eventually did get a photo of it, through a closed window.

It didn't want to stick around for a close-up.

5. The first morning of shooting was exclusively at Mark’s house. It was easy to have it double as the main character’s house. We took care of a lot of miscellaneous scenes that required me to do a lot of reading lines. Before leaving Cape Cod, I had recorded a series of scenes for the film with friends acting in the film. They’d all have been interacting with the main character, Will. Little did I realize while recording those scenes, where I did the lines Will would say, that I’d in turn have to do the same thing on the opposite side once I was in Pennsylvania. I had to read dozens of lines for Cody to keep time as Will. My voice started getting hoarse, which was pretty funny. I said to Mark after that there was a reality where we could layer my voice as Will speaking to my voice as each of the four characters that I recorded while on Cape Cod. I guess if our budget had been that small, it probably would have been close to that situation. Me as every character, just with different clothes and wigs. I found myself apologizing to Cody many times during the shoot for the long strands of dialogue he had to read. The joke I made was that The Cabin was just a remake of Cast Away, except instead of Wilson the volleyball, the sidekick was a pocket recorder. Cody really was 75% of the film, and he killed it in every scene he did.


6. The highlight of the first shooting day was our journey out to the Grand Canyon Regional Airport. It was a 10-minute drive from Mark’s house. We were lucky enough that a man who worked there was allowing us access to his Cessna plane for some scenes. It was a hot midday when we arrived. The scenery was amazing with the elevation. I was smart and put on some sunscreen, figuring that with my luck I’d get burned and then be miserable for the rest of the time there. We waited probably 15 minutes, wondering where our man was. We had knocked on doors and looked in windows, but it felt like we had been forgotten. Then, from a distance, we heard a motor. It got closer, and we spotted a red motorcycle. It pulled right up to us, and slowly the driver pulled his helmet off. It was a man in probably his mid-70s, definitely a surprise. His name was Skip, and he was the one who was gracious enough to allow us access to his plane. Not knowing how long we had, I was a madman, shooting as much video and photos as possible. I made sure to chat with Skip so that he could be included in the behind-the-scenes extras on the eventual DVD. It was another surreal moment as he pulled the Cessna out onto the airstrip and allowed us to begin shooting our scenes. I hung back and let Mark direct and Cody and Jeff act. It was weird at times because we were all there because of something I’d written, yet I’d often stay in the background and let the people with experience do their thing. Not everyone at the airport knew what was going on. Some guy in a pickup truck came barreling over to where Skip was standing and asked what was going on. They seemed to be fine with it, and we were allowed to keep filming, but momentarily there was a bit of panic as we thought we might have our time cut short. In all, everything went off without a hitch. We got all of the shots we needed. I got to get photographed inside the Cessna. There was even a plane that landed while we were there. I got that video and have sent it to Mark for possible inclusion in the film. We left the airport feeling enthused about the project, and it had only been a few hours of shooting. There was a lot of daylight left, though, and we had another location we needed to get to.

In between takes at the airport.

7. The Cabin is not Mark’s first rodeo. He has directed more than 100 films in his life, many of them shot around the Wellsboro and Mansfield areas of Pennsylvania. He knows where to go and what to look for as far as locations go. It was my first rodeo, but I was lucky to have Mark. I put my total trust in him as far as bringing much of my original vision for The Cabin to life. So when we left his house in the mid-afternoon to go shoot at Hills Creek State Park, I knew nothing of where we were going except that Mark said it was perfect. The spot he chose was the Beaverhut Boat Ramp, about a ten-minute drive from his house. Naturally, being a rural area of Pennsylvania anyway, this location was deserted. It was meant to be a stand-in for a secluded lake in Northern Canada, as was in the script. This was one of a few areas where the echoes when the actors would yell were mesmerizing. The sun was dancing in and out of thickening clouds, and I hoped that my sunscreen would hold on. It ended up being an eventful shooting location.

A perfect setting.

8. Cody, being the main character, was in nearly all of the scenes. With the film taking place over nearly two weeks, there were a bunch of wardrobe changes. We also tried to shoot all scenes in the same area at once, even if they took place on different days in the film. This meant that Cody had to change clothes repeatedly. At Mark’s house, or even later at the cabin, he had a clean and sanitary place to change. At Hills Creek, it was either change out in the open or hide out in a pretty putrid outhouse. I know how nasty it was because I had to use it at one point. I am sure it was checked on every now and then, but it felt like if I dropped anything on the ground in there, I’d have just left it behind rather than pick it up. It wasn’t as bad as some porta-potties I’ve seen in my life, but it was not a place I’d wanted to have needed to sit down in.


9. Just a friendly reminder, if you’re going to turn over something in the woods, be it a rock, log, or a canoe, be prepared that there might be something living underneath. For one scene in the movie, we needed Cody to act like he had just canoed across the lake. Luckily, there were a few overturned canoes on the shore. Unfortunately, the one that we chose had occupants. When Cody flipped it right side up, he immediately recoiled. Slithering around under the canoe was a pair of garter snakes. Now, honestly, these are small. The pair were probably only between 2 and 3 feet long. Cody doesn’t like snakes, so he was not happy. I, on the other hand, was practically falling over myself to get photos and videos. I knew they were harmless, and I didn’t intend to hurt them, so it was a win-win. In an interesting twist, one of the snakes had milky blue eyes. I thought maybe it was blind. After researching, I found out that it was because it was getting ready to shed its skin, and fluid builds up around the eyes to allow easier shedding. I didn’t try to pick the snakes up or anything. I have done that in the past to freak out other hikers. This time it was just filming them and being surprised that they stayed around the canoe despite there being a bunch of people around. Maybe they had eggs buried under there?

Ol' Blue Eyes

10. Our time at Hills Creek was almost finished when we got an unexpected guest. A few vehicles had passed by on the nearby road, but none had ventured into the parking lot. That was until a park ranger came rolling down in his white SUV. I knew enough to keep my mouth shut and let Mark do the talking. The guy was friendly and curious. He even said we didn’t have to tell him what we were doing. Mark was open about us shooting a movie. The ranger said he was new to the job but thought it would be wise to reach out to someone in charge to make sure it was okay. Mark said he would, but that was just to make the ranger feel like he’d done his job. When he mentioned that the film was a script I had written, the ranger started asking me questions about my work. I was surprised that I still had a few old business cards in my wallet. I gave him one, but as of this writing haven’t heard anything from him. The other funny part of this interaction was Mark explaining that we were going to be shooting much of the movie up at a remote cabin. He even gave the ranger the road it was on, inviting him to come on out and see. For the entire time we were at the cabin, a running joke we had was whether the ranger would end up showing up. He never did, unless it was long after we left. I mean, we didn’t say how long we’d be there. Sorry to him if he showed up later and the place was deserted.


11. It was getting close to 5pm on the first day of filming, but we still had another location to go to. This time it was the university in Mansfield where Mark worked. He was able to set up an abandoned laboratory to look like a hospital room. This was necessary for a few scenes near the end of the movie. The irony of this location was how close it was to the motel where I was staying. It was literally a 3-minute drive away. This would have been amazing for me when we wrapped shooting for the day, if not for the fact that we carpooled. After we got done, I had to be driven all the way back to Mark’s house to get my rental car and drive back basically to where I had just been. The scenes in the abandoned lab were fun. It was a battle finding outlets for the lighting, but everything seemed to work out for us during the shoot. As producer, I spent a lot of time managing the script. This meant that as the actors were going along, if they needed a line, I’d provide it. A lot of the shoot consisted of me asking Mark what I could do to help. This was all new to me, so I needed to be coached. For one scene, an actor, Michael, was playing an investigator. He had a lot of dialogue explaining some in-depth plot points. He had some trouble remembering all of the lines, which was understandable with how long the speech was. In order to put him at ease, we set me up in his line of sight with the script so he could just read the lines without it looking awkward on camera. This university location was another where I didn’t really have time to stop and soak it in. Luckily, I got a few shot videos of the laboratory, but those were interviews for the DVD extras.

A creepy vibe

12. When I am on road trips, one thing I enjoy is visiting stores that we don’t have near me on Cape Cod. I find them as exciting as attractions you’d find on TripAdvisor. I’ve already mentioned Sheetz. Another such place was Weis supermarket. There was one right on Route 6 on my drive back to Mansfield from Wellsboro. Needing something for breakfast the next morning, I stopped in. No, it wasn’t anything game-changing as far as a grocery store. I actually ended up stopping in a few times. Their flavored seltzers were good. I looked through their à la carte section, energy drinks, and barbecue sauces. Why the last one? Because many years ago my all-time favorite barbecue sauce, Cattlemen’s, was discontinued at every local store near me. I hold out hope that maybe some obscure market still carries it. Thus far, I haven’t found it anywhere. Now, to be honest, I can order it off Amazon, and I have several times. But I like the potential excitement of finding it in the wild. Much like with Sheetz, I got myself a few plastic bags with the store logo on them. Yes, I don’t spend loads of money on souvenirs; I just get plastic bags.

Yes it was an exciting visit

13. The first day of shooting ended with me returning to my home base motel well after 9pm. I had my Weis seltzer and stopped by McDonald’s, which was only a few minutes from where I was staying. No, it wasn’t the healthiest eating habits while on this movie shoot. Then again, it wasn’t the point. My entire reason for being in rural Pennsylvania was to film The Cabin. It wasn’t to hike, or run, or sightsee; it was for the movie. It kind of took the pressure off me as far as extracurriculars went. I didn’t have to feel bad about eating terrible, or needing energy drinks to get me in gear early in the morning. None of that mattered. If I ended the day feeling good about the work we all got done, then the day was a success. I could always amp up my diet and exercise heading into the fall. I wasn’t always going to have an opportunity to produce a feature film based on a story I wrote.