The Summoning V

The Summoning was filmed in a two-bedroom apartment on 12th and Hemlock. Three people were living in the suite and they completely cleaned out the living room for the filming. This meant that couches and whatnot were crammed into a small kitchen, hall and bedrooms. It was a super hot day, made more hot by the fact that for the purposes of lighting, the windows were shut tight and cardboard was taped over them. A fan was brought into the room but of course we had to switch it off for sound recording purposes whenever the cameras were rolling. This isn’t news to people in the film industry, with a similar deal for having to scrub any shot where a motorcycle drives by. On set were the previously mentioned people, plus the sound guy, two “production assistants” and two of the people who lived there, usually crammed into the hall right next to the giant hot light. I think I got the better end of the deal being the actor stuck on the set.

I was supplied with knee pads which we stuck underneath the pants and we went through the shots in a similar but not exact order as the rehearsals. Ignasi ordered a Necronomicon-like book off eBay, but it didn’t come in time for the shoot, so we used an anatomy book. There was a related blooper where I couldn’t find a page that didn’t have a decidedly non-evil anatomical drawing on it as I was flipping through the book of dark magickal spells.

Overall the shooting went well, though a lot of it was very challenging for me and not just from the heat. I had to keep my hand and head perfectly still as I was supposed to be writhing in pain, more or less exactly the same from take to take. I didn’t start sweating until the climactic shots – the writhing ones – so makeup had to constantly be applied to me.

I’m intrigued to see how it all turns out!