Seeking a way out of his shady debts, Tripp (Tim Koehl) joins a sinister group of graverobbers (David Mellinger and John Petzold) with buried treasure on their minds. The only thing they dig up is a long-hidden secret… that was taken to the grave.
Feature Length
Production began in 1988 and final editing was completed in 1990.
Inside Job was a film put together by Byron Conrad Erwin and John Petzold. We both wanted to complete a feature length project that was fun, exciting and action packed. We found a great location: Hollywood Cemetery in historic Richmond Virginia. This graveyard was hundreds of years old, was sprawled out over acres of rolling hills, and didn’t close until sundown each day. We would sneak our cast and crew in and film until dark when the caretaker would do his rounds and chase everyone out so he could lock the gates. Some nights we would get locked in and have to jump the metal fence to get out.
We shot most of the film at “magic hour”, just after the sun dips behind the horizon and the sky is colored that surreal vibrant blue. This gave the film a unique and beautiful look for the 1/2 inch VHS video format we were using.
We brought on our friend Mark C Harvey to help us write the script. He gave the characters a more human element and helped with the emotional arcs for each actor. He also served as a co-producer.
The actors were our friends; David Mellinger, Tim Koehl, Paul Blackwell and Ellen Hartman.
It took about 6 months to write the screenplay and draw all of the storyboards.
When we began the production, our friend Mark Mervis, a very young 35mm cinematographer, pleaded with us to shoot only a scene from the film. Shooting a scene in 35mm and presenting it with the storyboards and script would get us the funding we needed to produce the whole project. In our ignorance, we moved forward with filming the entire production in 1/2 inch VHS video with a small budget and the passion of all involved. The production was so overwhelming that, at times, we felt like we would never finish. Eventually we did and what you see today is the surviving copy of degraded 20 year old video tape transferred to digital in 2010.
Camera: Panasonic Movie Maker Camcorder
Sound: Radio Shack condenser microphones
Lights: Quartz Halogen Shop Lights
FUN FACTS:
Mellinger inhaled a large quantity of red-colored milk through his nose during a special blood effect that involved him hanging upside-down.
The cemetery caretaker called the police when he spotted an actor dressed as a ghoul carrying a life-sized coffin over his shoulder through the graveyard at dusk.
The Richmond city police agreed to be in our film after we talked them out of writing us tickets for driving a vehicle without legal tags or insurance through the busy city streets.
Blackwell was sent to the doctor after slicing his hand open on broken glass when he jumped through a second story window.
For authenticity, Koehl ran around the block a couple of times before sprinting onto the set and performing his emotional breakdown scene.
Unable to hear the crew shouting warnings, Petzold was almost run over by a train when performing a scene on some train tracks that were located a distance away from the set.
