Photo Gallery

The making of OMEGA RED

The following are excerpts from Mark’s book TRULY INDEPENDENT FILMMAKING;

Carlson arrives on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City looking for Omega Red

F.B.I. Special Agent McCormick secretly watches Carlson via surveillance cameras in Kansas City

Dr. Norris and his students, Mike and Heather, are captured by Carlson and his men

Rob, BCCC Campus Security Officer, begins to suspect something's wrong

            OMEGA RED became my longest film to date, with a running time of 2 hours and 4 minutes. An even bigger surprise was everyone’s reaction to the movie. The “DIE-HARD-on-the-college-campus” story-line was a hit, and everyone really responded to the tongue-in-cheek humor, diverse characters and interwoven sub-plots making OMEGA RED more than just an action movie rip-off to the audience. Although it didn’t win any awards, it was an example of great public response making up for any lack of acclamation. 

                Rory Perrodin remembered how his students responded to the film, “I liked OMEGA RED. I remember a lot of OMEGA RED. Several of my students have asked to borrow a copy of that. I talked to a student who borrowed my copy over Christmas and showed it to the family, and they said they never laughed so hard. They loved it. Yeah, that was a fun film to do; Pat Dempsey and I were kind of buds anyway. So we had the little sidekick thing going. I was suppose to be a detective probably about the age I am, chasing a 20 year old girl. Which, of course would never happen. (Turns to address his wife) Honey, if you ever read this, you know me better than that! That little joke I said about, ‘I’m going to trade you in for two 20’s when you turn 40!’ It was a lie! A LIE! (Laughs) But I was chasing a 20-year old girl and trying to be younger than I was. Kind of a misfit, but very serious about what I did and trying to do the best that I could. It was a classic! I didn’t show that one to my Baptist minister brother!”

            Patrick Dempsey remembered how he became involved in the movie, “Mark didn’t approach me about being in the film.  I basically fell into my role by chance.  I was in Rory Perrodin’s office one afternoon early in the fall 1996 semester and Mark came in to drop off Rory’s part in the script.  I had never met Mark Adams formally, but we chatted for a few moments to get acquainted and I asked him if there were any other parts as I would enjoy being a character in the film.  He later wrote me in as Detective Palmer of the Great Bend Police Department. Fortunately, all of the shooting for my scenes was done in one Saturday afternoon.  My favorite scene was running around Camp Aldrich looking for the terrorists and then stumbling upon the student-terrorists who were merely making out! It was hotter than a firecracker that day and Rory and me were wearing suits. When we returned from Camp Aldrich to shoot the Police Department scenes, I was feeling kind of cranky because it was so hot and I was tired. Rory wouldn’t stop clowning around and, although I didn’t show it, I was starting to get pissed off at him because I wanted to finish the shooting! I love Rory!  He’s one of my best friends at the college and I think we made a really good team as the bumbling Great Bend cops. I mentioned that it was hot that day and I was getting cranky because Rory kept screwing around and I was getting disturbed because I wanted to finish shooting. The one blooper where he’s stepping on a fly, if you see my reaction, I’m not very happy in that shot even though I’m smiling. We didn’t really do anything mischievous. We just had fun being dopey cops. The spontaneity was the key to Rory and me being successful in our roles.”

            As cameos I had Kerry Marsh and Bill Cordes come back for the flashback scene. They played the lab workers with David Lake ’s character at a young age. Originally I wanted Aaron Lake to appear as well, playing his father at the younger age. But at the last minute he had a scheduling conflict, and I changed the scene to where we see what was happening through Dr. Norris’ point of view. This worked well for a flashback scene, although it would have been fun to have Aaron there as well. But for Bill, it was still a fun shoot, “OMEGA RED – another fun one. Of all the films to shoot that one was probably the second most (memorable). Being in the lab coat, and I had my famous ‘Death Scene’! I love the spot on the blooper reel where Kerry’s banging on the door and the door is suppose to be locked, and I stick my head out and yell, “AAAGH!” – and he lost it! OMEGA RED was another fun movie to watch - I really enjoyed doing it. Working with Kerry was fun, and working with you was fun.”

            Kerry Marsh also enjoyed the one afternoon of shooting, “That was neat (running around and banging on the doors with the red lights), that was really fun, actually. I really enjoyed it. Again, it’s that brute, obtuse kind of acting where you’re just screaming, “Peterman!” or whatever the name is! (It was Boarman) I love that. Bill (Cordes) was hip. I really enjoyed working with him because he was very professional, and yet he knew how to have a good time doing the shows, of course. He had a great sense of humor and he dealt with people well. He was modest and humble, he felt like he knew his own limits and yet tried to get better and tried to improve like we all do. I guess I could identify with Bill a lot and felt very comfortable working with him in all of the shows. Yeah, Bill did a great job.”

            One major sub-plot involved my daughter, Morgan. She was about 6 - 7 months old at the time, and was crawling around on all fours. I shot several scenes with her as a baby who sneaks away from her distracted mother (Tracy Adams) and interrupts several of Carlson’s men during the film. Her cute reactions to the bewildered bad guys were highlights for the audience at the World Premiere Presentation, although it was very hard to shoot. I filmed her first, and had to turn on the camera and leave it running while Tracy and I sang, jumped and acted like fools to get Morgan to react in different ways. I chose the best reactions and then wrote the rest of the scene around her, filming the other actors months later. 

                My wife, Tracy, has two reactions to these final scenes; she becomes very sentimental when she sees our daughter caught forever in a moment of time when she was just a baby crawling on the floor (although we have many home video tapes of her at that age). And she always points out to people that she was playing a fictional character, and she really isn’t that bad of a mother, who loses a baby and then wanders around the campus saying; “Morgan, where did you go? The last time you did this I was worried.” Tracy ’s reaction to those scenes was, “What a rotten mom I was! (Laughs) At that point I don’t think I wasn’t really concerned about playing my part. I was more concerned about keeping track of Morgan. I was a young mom with a young child, and she was crawling around on the college floor in her PJs. We were trying to coax her to go this way or go that way, or tried to get her to laugh or to smile. I guess (the thought that people would see me as a rotten mother) crossed my mind, vaguely. But people had to actually stop and think that - I mean, (Morgan) always gets a good response when that scene comes up. She was cute and adorable, and everyone always seems to respond to it.”

            The original ending had a building being destroyed: the library on the BCCC campus. The accelerator was not disabled, but actually explodes and blows up the library. I was planning to shoot this with a model and a forced-perspective shot on campus, but I decided against this for several reasons. First of all I’m sure it would have looked like a pathetic little model blowing up, and not a real building. And I wasn’t an expert with explosives, so I would have burned down half the campus, most likely, while filming the stunt. But I wanted a big finale of some kind, since this was a DIE HARD type of action movie, and I needed to destroy something! Then I read about a filmmaker in Wichita, Leif Jonker, who was making a low-budget horror film called SHOCKTOBER. He wanted to shoot this ghost-story/vampire/gore-fest in an abandoned hotel in downtown Wichita which was slated to be demolished, but the city council wouldn’t allow him to shoot inside. He mentioned that he still wanted to shoot the building’s implosion for the film’s climax. I had always been fascinated with how buildings are imploded, and knew that they allow cameras in at special press sites to film the event. So I thought I could go to Wichita myself and shoot the implosion to use for the end of my film as well.

I wrote the short scene at the end where Carlson goes to meet with his clients, hoping they’re not upset about not having the Omega Red, but suddenly the building implodes and falls to a pile of rubble. I was able to get a press pass from Tim McQuade at KSNC-TV, and waited to shoot the implosion. And I waited. And waited. There were delays, some dealing with people wanting to save the old hotel, plus the usual bureaucratic and labor related obstacles. Originally scheduled for the fall, the implosion was pushed back to Thanksgiving, and finally to the end of December. It was a Sunday morning and I arrived at 5:30, when the gates opened for the press, to get ready for the 8:00 a.m. event. I had two cameras, one on a tripod and the other hand held, and was squeezed in between the CBS and ABC Wichita affiliates. I did see Leif Jonker there, setting up a 16mm film camera to shoot the implosion from our angle. He left it with a friend and went to shoot in a second press location with an actor pretending to be running out of the building right before it comes down. I would like to watch his horror film and see what his footage looked like, since he not only shot with two cameras in two different locations but had the very dramatic and realistic addition of the actor actually running from the destruction. (So far he has not released a film called SHOCKTOBER, although he has released a vampire movie called DARKNESS. I’m not sure if this film uses the implosion scene.) Right behind me was a freelance photographer who traveled the world shooting these implosions, and he was in this spot the morning before to check out the lighting. The early morning sun would have hit the hotel just perfectly at the time of the implosion…but notice I said ‘would have’. That Sunday morning it was 27 degrees, overcast and misting with major fog that just blew into the downtown area. If I didn’t have the press pass and just showed up to shoot from farther away, I would have been unable to see the building through the fog, but I was, fortunately, about two blocks away with a clear view of the hotel. Or at least until the demolition crew arrived with their family and friends. Our location was suppose to have an unobstructed view of the implosion for the press, but they decided to have the detonator right in front of us and invited a few people from the crew to join them, and they invited a few people, and they invited of few more…all of the press was quite upset by this large group of people standing right in front of the cameras. Finally they got everyone to kneel or sit down just before they brought the building down. In my final scene I had to fade out fairly quickly to hide the fact that people wearing hard hats immediately started standing up and cheering, which didn’t make sense to see in the film.

It was amazing to be there and feel that huge building implode, the entire ground shook from the muffled explosions and finally the building itself fell. I really didn’t see it ‘in-person’, though; I had to concentrate on shooting with the hand held camera and basically saw it through a very small black-and-white viewfinder. But I learned a very valuable lesson; DO NOT STAND DOWN WIND OF AN IMPLOSION! A building that instantly crumbles to it’s death produces a large cloud of dust and dirt that engulfs the entire area, and I found myself directly down wind of the growing cloud that was heading right for me. It looked like the wall of fire that spread out through downtown Los Angeles and New York City depicted in the film INDEPENDENCE DAY, and I knew I was about to be overtaken. I covered the camera on the tripod with my coat and stuck the other into my camera bag desperately trying to protect the broadcast equipment (that cost more than my car) from the Hellish expansion of dirt. When it hit, I couldn’t see more than five feet in front of me, and was forced to use my shirt as a filter to breath through. The huge crowd that had gathered behind us scattered, some poor souls hiding behind the building next to us thinking they were clear. But the dust wrapped around and covered them like a blizzard in Buffalo , New York . The reporters live on TV next to me were describing the scene as if a volcano just erupted, and everyone was running to find shelter from the ash cloud. Once the initial wave passed it took a good 20 minutes or more for the dust to settle enough to get the video equipment back out from under cover. One of my cameras seemed to be OK, but the other had to be taken apart and completely cleaned to get the fine particles of dust out of every little nook and cranny. And I was completely covered with dirt, trying to think of a way to tell my wife why I, and the car, looked like we had been lost for years in an African desert.

“I was watching the movie and my brother came over.  He watched the last 45 minutes with me and while I was laughing at most everything, he didn’t find anything funny....until the very end.  Elmo Carlson and Stromberg are going into a building to talk to their clients.  Elmo says “We’re in a public place...what could possibly happen?”.  Then we see the building blow up.  My brother was laughing out loud at that!” – Patrick Dempsey

“That was fun! (The scene with Philip Wethington in the ‘F.B.I. office area’ and the room full of office cubicles.) I think that was the first scene we shot, we shot that one night in the Kirkman Building . For me it shows in the performance of it because that was early on (in the shooting schedule), and Phil’s a fun guy as well. So it was fun to do that with him because of the character he was playing and the bloopers he would do! That was a really lively shoot to do. Of any of the scenes that I did in that movie, that was my favorite because they were absurd scenes. “Hey McCormick!” and peaking up over the partitions like a rat in a maze! That’s fun! I didn’t think it was going to be that funny when I saw it on the film but it was! Because it was one head in a room full of partitions! That was a fun thing to do.” – Randy Allen

“The action scenes were fun but very hard to do. I had to have a terrified look on my face and pretend that someone was chasing me. Although this may not sound hard, it is when you know that no one is around and you look pretty goofy.” – Lindsay Lake

“I never really paid much attention to this before, but Kerry Marsh does a great job with the music…I think he made some new music for OMEGA RED, which you used very well in the trailer and in the regular movie sequence. I watched the OMEGA RED trailer the last time I watched (the movie). In fact, I watched it over and over for about a half hour!!! I love how you put the music to the trailer, especially at the end when Heather says 'Did you have a bad childhood or something'.  Well, needless to say, I have gotten an immense amount of joy out of watching Adamstar films!” – Patrick Dempsey

Carlson installs the Omega Red container into the particle accelerator underneath Barton County Community College

Rob battles Drax for the gun

“I thought the film ending up being a really great show to watch. It had a little bit of humor mixed in with action and suspense. Mark Adams was an outstanding director. He put up with a lot of giggling from me and many retakes. He made do with the materials and acting abilitiy he had to work with and still developed a great film.” – Lindsay Lake