After we shot the chase scene, I discovered Sam didn’t know how to drive a manual transmission, and I still needed to film him driving my Volkswagon Golf for the dialogue in the car during the chase. Just like with ROAD TO NOWHERE, I had to take one of my actors out and teach them how to drive with a stick shift. We practiced in the same dirt parking lot that we were shooting on, and as Sam would accelerate up to 30 mph, the rear view mirror finally fell off the windshield from the heavy vibrations as we skidded over the bumpy terrain. 

As for Julie and David, they found themselves in the bizarre situation of filming the car chase on the first day of shooting in October 1998, and their last day of shooting in April of 1999, as David Baldwin remembered, “It’s kind of ironic; the first day of shooting we did all of the car chase scene stuff on the outside - the last day of shooting we did all of the inside stuff. Which is kind of funny, it all comes together in between. But my most memorable day (of shooting) was the first day and I got to drive the campus police car. That was quite enjoyable because I like driving cars fast anyway. I don’t tend to get a lot of speeding tickets because I don’t actually get to do it, but when I do get to do it and not get in trouble for it because we’re filming – that was fun to drive the police car. I think for this movie I was a lot more relaxed than I was in the first one (PROPHECY, DEATH AND OTHER FUN THINGS). The first one I didn’t know what to expect. This one I had a lot more fun and it was a lot more relaxing. After having done the first one last year, I was more into my character in this one than the last one. Even though the first movie will be the most memorable, this one seemed like a whole blur. (Laughs) The first one I can remember every single day of shooting, this one feels like, “What happened? We did the first day of shooting; we did all of the chase scene exteriors. And the last day of shooting we did all of the interior stuff. What happened in between?” (Laughs again)”

The other major ‘stunt’ in the film was during the scene, near the end of the story, where Roger finds The Finger’s secret location and rescues Jane, who is tied up to a large combine. Sam came up with the idea that his character would think it was too easy to just walk across the room to Jane. In order to avoid a possible trap on the floor, he would climb up to the top of the first combine and make his way to the other Case I-H combine and the soon-to-be-rescued-damsel-in-distress. As I was trying to find a table or chair with wheels for Roger to sit on and roll across the floor, Julie and I looked up to see Sam climbing across the support structure on the ceiling. He made it from one combine to the other with no difficulty and wanted to do it again on film, although he would only be able to do it one more time. So I set up the lights and cameras and started shooting Sam making his way across the ceiling with only the hard concrete floor far below him.

For two scenes Sam and Julie had to be tied up with rope. On screen these scenes only lasted 5 to 10 minutes, but to shoot them they sometimes were tied up for hours. It became an inside joke about the ‘bondage issue’ in the film, and all of the sexual references and jokes associated with it, as Julie Ann Willis remembered, “Well getting tied up was certainly memorable. Well, I haven’t even discussed (the bondage issue) with the people that are going to come view the film. No, just kidding! It wasn’t really bad, I just made a joke about it because obviously when you watch a movie and it’s just a 2 minute scene people don’t realize that it was like HOURS worth of work. So for the ‘bondage’ part of this movie it’s not that much time really. But it was funny because when we filmed that, it was several days worth of being tied up. But it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t too bad at all really.” Sam added, “One of the grueling days was that one scene in the shooting range where I was the only person who was tied up the whole time. You try being tied up for FOUR HOURS!

One of the most memorable scenes in the film is when Roger is put on trial for crimes against humanity. An inspiration for this scene was the Orson Welles film THE TRIAL from the early 1960’s, starring Anthony Perkins. I saw it for the first time about six months before writing SIDETRACKED and really liked the surreal approach to the story of a man who is accused of a crime and put on trial, but is never told what he did wrong. The film takes place in an unnamed fictional country, where society is controlled by judges and lawyers who determine people’s fate through a biased, political and unsympathetic system. In this fever-induced nightmare approach to the movie, Perkins’ character tries in vain to discover what was his crime and becomes more and more disillusioned by the lack of help or answers. THE TRIAL reminded me of another film that I consider to be one of my favorite movies; Terry Gilliam’s BRAZIL. Both had the surreal dreamlike qualities to the content and visual style that took the viewer on a journey into the fantasy/nightmare of a lost soul overcome and defeated by modern-day society. One of my early story ideas for SIDETRACKED was that Roger would find Prairie Park and be put on trial by the town, where the residents would show up in a gymnasium and act as jury. But I knew I couldn’t shoot with that many people, and I couldn’t think of what would be his punishment. So I shelved the idea and came up with the robbery/blackmail/romance/comedy idea instead. But when I came to the section of my film where Roger gets the disc and heads back to trade it for Jane, it seemed to be a rather uninteresting portion of the script. I thought this could be a fun spot for Roger to become sidetracked once again, and then I thought of the trial idea. And that’s when I came up with the idea of the Internet. This would also be at the heart of the film, allowing the audience a glimpse into the character of Roger Cole and what made him tick.

What could be more disturbing than hundreds of people in a large room acting as your jury? What if there was a group of people who used the Internet to dispense justice? Their identities would never be revealed, yet they would have immense control over your life by having the ability to alter all of your computer records. This idea of having your identity removed from society, via the Internet, is nothing new (i.e. THE NET). But I wanted this to be a unique approach. These Judges would not be a group of people out to use this technology and power for their own selfish greed, but to sincerely try to help the world. I saw these Judges as people (probably judges in real life) who wanted to make everyone realize that if they are not living up to their own personal potential, they are not only unhappy in their own lives but creating problems all over the world. They would think; “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” If everyone had a job they loved, that challenged them creatively, and allowed them pursue their dream in life, wouldn’t the world be a much better place? But, in the reality of our world, only a very few really have jobs they love, careers that fulfill their dreams, or the ambition to live up to their full potential. Therefore everyone is guilty until proven innocent in this Internet judicial system, and no one is ever truly proven innocent. The Judges must decide to what degree an individual is, or is not, living up to their potential to succeed in life. And they do this one person at a time. Randy Allen commented on the scene, “I liked the idea of it (the trial via the Internet scene) intellectually, of being put on trial for those things. Being put on trial for owning a Barry Manilow record! (Laughs) Or things the person has failed to do or not done. I thought that was interesting. And it wasn’t so far ‘science fiction’ as to be uninteresting, or beyond the audience’s viewpoint. They can relate to that idea. I thought that was a nice part just thematically.”

One of the longest days of shooting occurred near the end of production. First was the final ‘confrontation scene’, where everyone reveals their true identity, which was shot in one of the college’s maintenance buildings. The first thing shot that day was the arrival of the military half-track and soldiers. Originally, in the script, it was to be a police S.W.A.T. team, but I had no idea how to find one. Dr. Scott Brantley, the Chiropractor who’s office was used for Dr. Payne’s scene, belonged to a World War II Re-enactment group in Great Bend. Kevin Lockwood of the 4th Armored Division Re-enactment Group had a fully restored 1941 M2A1 Half-track, and he and the rest of the group were willing to be in this scene for my film. We decided to not explain why World War II era soldiers show up with a Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent, it would be another odd piece to the never-ending puzzle called SIDETRACKED. Also in the original script was Dr. Payne as the K.B.I. agent with the S.W.A.T. team, but David Lake left the college soon after shooting his scene for a job in state government in Topeka, Kansas. So Lanara Luthi stepped in to lead the soldiers to arrest the band of crazy criminals. After they were done, we stayed until after dark shooting the rest of the scene involving guns, beany babies and a welding mask. The welding mask was used to hide the fact that Ryan Allen didn’t show up for the shoot to play Brainerd, and we had Bill Lloyd (playing the video documentary crew director/camera operator) stand-in for him. Unfortunately Bill was about a foot taller than Ryan, so if you really pay attention you’ll notice how much taller Brainerd became in the final scene. 

Cody Hunnicutt remembered shooting the big shoot – once he got there, “The second day that I shot, which is one of the final scenes in the movie, was exciting. There were several characters in it and it was fun, it was really fun - all the military guys and the whole bit. It was a fun day. Of course that was shot (earlier in the day) because I was in a cooking class and couldn’t make it, so they shot my part separate. It was just the camaraderie and the joking and the laughter.”

For David Baldwin, the production of SIDETRACKED was more structured than the previous project, “This one you kept us a bit more focused because the last one we just went too wild! This one you kept it a little bit narrow and kept us going along the same track and we didn’t get too sidetracked, even though the movie got sidetracked! A lot of it too was because of shooting on Super 8 film, and especially when you found out there’s no more sound film! ‘Oh my God!’ This one we had a little less lenience on messing up, we had to be a little more perfect and get a little better because we weren’t shooting on as much video as the last one.”

Craig Siefkes felt that SIDETRACKED was a contrast to the previous production, “I think actually it (SIDETRACKED) was a little bit lighter. During PROPHECY, DEATH AND OTHER FUN THINGS, it seemed a little bit dark at times. Sam (Wright) was a little bit crazier than even Cody was during filming. Cody was Father Prophecy for those of you who haven’t seen it. It (SIDETRACKED) seemed lighter and a little bit more fun at times (to make).”

Cody Hunnicutt had his own, unique perspective of shooting SIDETRACKED; “I didn’t get to curse in this movie, which kind of sucks. (Laughs) But I will not be panned by the critics like I was in (PROPHECY, DEATH AND OTHER FUN THINGS). Although in this film since I play basically an ignorant, bumbling F.B.I. agent…students will probably still mock me. They’ll say, ‘You know that character you played in that movie? That’s they way you are in the classroom, man!’ (Laughs again) Yeah, that’s my greatest fear. With Father Prophecy I didn’t think people would think that but I did have two students ask me, ‘Are you like that in real life?’ And then of course I responded, ‘Damn straight.’ And then I HEALED them up against their forehead! And then they got the Heck out of my way. I didn’t get to heal anybody this time, I didn’t get to curse so maybe next time – there are my parameters; potato salad not been out in the sun all day, cursing and healing people!”

Randy Allen commented on his reaction to the final film, “With (SIDETRACKED), and again I’m in very little of it, I enjoyed a lot. In fact I think it’s right up there with DEATHGRIP. DEATHGRIP and SIDETRACKED are my two favorites of all of them because of consistency. They both have scenes that are genuinely funny, because they both have scenes that are genuinely absurd that people can relate to real well. And I think because the main actors in them were so good. Kerry Marsh (from DEATHGRIP) is a very good actor. Julie Ann Willis is a very, very good actor. Sam Wright is excellent, so to me the success of those movies is because the actors themselves in the lead parts were uniformly excellent. There are classic scenes in SIDETRACKED that Sam is doing that are hilarious. The Karate scene (with Quy Wesley) is just outrageous! (Right before Roger finds Jane in the hanger, he runs into a Ninja-like character who beats the crap out of him. It turns out to be a case of mistaken identity, with Quy looking for the Shoaulin Monk named ‘Lin Fat’. Then Quy’s character suddenly disappears as quickly as he appeared.) It’s just so funny! The scene where he’s at the airport and he’s running from place to place trying not to be seen. It was like something out of an old 60’s British movie! And for that it works, it’s a really funny thing for that. And it has really good dialogue bits to it. And the ending has a real sort of ‘Neil Simon’ kind of ending to it, where you get to the end and all of the characters are not who they (appear to be). It’s like something out of Neil Simon - it just gets more and more absurd which is funny. And Ryan Allen (as Eric Brainerd) was also quite funny. He did a really nice job in the movie. Yeah, SIDETRACKED and DEATHGRIP are both great.”

I entered SIDETRACKED into the 9th Annual KAN Film Festival, and it was chosen as one of five top finalists in my category. But a week before the festival, I received a letter stating, “After viewing and judging the finalists in the Drama/Comedy +30 category in the Open division the judges decided that while your film, Sidetracked was selected as a finalist, it did not meet the technical standards and merits associated with receiving an award in the KAN Film Festival…We appreciate and applaud your efforts in producing Sidetracked and we’d like to encourage your participation in the KAN Film Festival in the future.” 

This was certainly a surprise and disappointment for me, but what really caught my attention was one of the judges written critics and score. I received the written evaluation forms by the judges for SIDETRACKED, and had one very negative review enclosed. I sent a letter to Martin English, Executive Director of the KAN Film Festival, stating that I was not asking for the judges decision of my eligibility to be changed or reversed and why this one written critique was so disturbing. 

The following is what I wrote to Mr. English, “I completely understand that films may not be of a certain level of standard or quality, and I certainly know that the other finalists in my category may be better than mine and deserve the appropriate recognition. I also understand that my film Sidetracked may not deserve an award. What brought me to send you this message was one of the judges ‘written critiques’ of my film. I fully understand that constructive criticism is not only part of the filmmaking process, but a valuable and needed one. I seek constructive criticism, and that’s why I requested a copy of the written critiques for my film Sidetracked. One judge not only gave me the lowest marks for each of the judging criteria, ranging from script originality to difficulty level, but added a negative ‘-‘ sign in front of each. My final score was Negative Five (-5). (The judges are required to give a score of 1 to 5, with 1 being ‘low’ and 5 being ‘high’, for five different criteria.) NEGATIVE five? First of all, is that even allowed? Of course, there may be no ‘rule book’ for judges so if they want to give negative scores, they can. The only written comment with the –5 was ‘The score is (and the word ‘is’ was underlined twice) my comment’. The other judges had varying scores, which I’ve come to expect from past film festivals. One gave my film Sidetracked a score of 11, another gave a score of 5, another gave a 16, and another a 9. Obviously Sidetracked wasn’t completely and utterly TERRIBLE, so why a NEGATIVE five? His one and only comment was “the score is my comment”, which to me says that the film was so horrible that it actually offended this person. There was no value, potential or creativity to it at all. It must have been so profoundly bad that it should have never been made, and I, as a filmmaker, have no hope or future in this endeavor. In the letter informing me that Sidetracked, ‘Did not meet the technical standards and merits associated with receiving an award’, there was also the following statement, “We appreciate and applaud your efforts in producing Sidetracked and we’d like to encourage your participation in the KAN Film Festival in the future.” This seems to be in contradiction with the judge’s NEGATIVE approach to critiquing my film. To go so out of their way as to put NEGATIVE marks in front of the lowest possible score not only says to me ‘The film is a piece of crap’, but that it showed no signs whatsoever of any promise. Frankly, that’s quite a slap in the face. Remember, this judge is representing YOU and the KAN Film Festival. I assume that above all else, you wish to encourage all filmmakers to keep making movies. I understand, and believe from experience, that the more films you make - the better you become. Even if someone makes a film that is considered a failure in some way, the filmmaker should still be encouraged to keep trying, keep learning, and keep making films. A NEGATIVE five? I am the first to admit that Sidetracked is not a great film, and certainly had some technical problems. It was shot on Hi8 video and Super 8 film, and I transferred the film footage to video for editing myself. The quality of the transfer has a lot to be desired. And the acting isn’t great, the leads were very good, but not all of the actors were accomplished thespians. I used 15 year old linear ¾” video editing equipment. My film is not a commercially produced film with a budget of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars. (The budget was approximately $700.00) I would have no doubt that the other finalists in my category deserve awards, and I am not disputing the decision for Sidetracked to ‘not be selected to receive an award’. But if Sidetracked was so bad that it deserves a NEGATIVE five, then why was it a finalist in the first place? There was another judge who not only wrote lots of comments on the front of the page, but took the time and effort to continue extensively on the back. This judge gave me a score of 11, and gave honest observations about what they felt didn’t work adding, ‘you had the beginnings of something here and there were some good things.’ I appreciated that, and that’s a very good example of the kind of constructive criticism that filmmakers need. I fully understand that not everyone is going to like a film, and I accept that the judges felt that Sidetracked wasn’t to that level to receive awards. There are going to be judges who give harsh scores and even harsher critics. But is a NEGATIVE five and ‘The score IS my comment’ the kind of constructive criticism you should be offering aspiring filmmakers? Is that the kind of constructive criticism you want to send to us?”

I ended the letter by asking Mr. English to personally watch my film SIDETRACKED, and let me know if it was such a terrible, God-awful movie and truly deserved a negative five. There were a couple of other KAN Film Festival judge’s comments that seemed strange. One wrote for script originality, “Certainly original! But plot got sidetracked.” Is it just me, but wouldn’t you expect the plot to get sidetracked in a film with the title SIDETRACKED? Another wrote about my script, “In the first place – should begin next project with fewer cooks in the writing kitchen. Then go back to square one and construct a straight-ahead Hollywood style screenplay – down-the-middle-of-the-road plot, etc.” I found it odd that this person wanted me to make a ‘Hollywood style screenplay’, just like every other film out there today. I thought it was more desirable to write a new, fresh and different kind of story, rather than the same old thing. Plus many typical Hollywood screenplays are written essentially by a committee - including several people writing and rewriting each other’s script. Certainly that’s a lot of ‘cooks in the writing kitchen’. The one judge who seem to like my film gave it a score of 16 commenting, “interesting film to video cuts…seemed to show everything that was visualized in script synopsis.”

But I think what ultimately made SIDETRACKED less than desirable at the KAN Film Festival was the fact that it was such a low budget, non-commercial, non-professionally made film. (That makes my film sound really bad, doesn’t it?) I shot parts of it on Super 8 film, and to anyone in the film business that’s like trying to offer a TV dinner as a gourmet meal. Since my transfer of the film footage to video looked bad, even to me, they must have really hated the Super 8 film look. I think they were comparing it to independent films that have budgets of hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, and certainly anyone will find my films ‘sub-standard’ in that respect. I’m the first to admit that my films do have an ‘amateur’ look and feel to them, along with the ‘professional’ touch. Limitations in budget, time, actors and resources make it difficult to create an epic masterpiece worthy of Hollywood standards. But I prefer to keep trying, keep making the films I want to make and the best that I can make them. I’m sure there were films in my category at the KAN Film Festival that did deserve the awards they received, and were better written and produced than SIDETRACKED. That was never the issue. 

What really bothered me in the end was the one judge’s negative five score and “the score IS my comment” attitude. I couldn’t see the judge’s intention with that approach any other way that just a hate-filled ridicule of the film and me as the director. And why? I didn’t feel the film was THAT bad. In fact, I knew lots of people who had seen it and loved it. So why was this person so negative in their attitude about it? He/she went out of their way to add the negative signs in front of the score, in order to say that the lowest score of 1 couldn’t possibly describe how awful this film really was. This film must have sucked the life force out of the judge, it took something away from their soul, and so in their mind it deserved a NEGATIVE score to illustrate this atrocity. I wish someone could tell me how this judge’s contempt can ever be constructive criticism? I couldn’t believe the KAN Film Festival was allowing that kind of disrespect: a film festival should be the center of encouragement and inspiration. In the end, I can’t let one person’s complete hatred of my work stop me from my dream, or a film festival’s rejection keep me from making my films. I know my little ‘masterpieces-of-amateur-filmmaking’ have an audience, a few fans out there who have enjoyed watching a short comedy like WAR, DEATH AND PIZZA, or a science-fiction drama like JUDGMENT DAY, a satirical comedy like PROPHECY, DEATH AND OTHER FUN THINGS, or a rejected comedy/adventure with a score of –5 like SIDETRACKED.

Vivian Wilkerson, Chair of the KAN Judging Committee, sent this response to my letter, “As indicated in the entry form, the Open division pre-judging only includes the first ten minutes.  In all final judging the entire film is viewed by a different panel of judges. Most of our judges are professionals in the “Biz” or are educators in media departments of colleges and high schools in the area.  Some of our new judges were surprised at the quality of judges and it became a networking event for them.  The decision to have NO winners in the open over thirty minutes category was difficult and we do encourage our entrants to keep trying. I understand your feelings about a negative score.  Keep trying.  Remember your successes.  Life’s a ----- sometimes and you feel like an incompetent dolt, but you do improve with perseverance, practice and help from your friends. I did not see your entire film.  I saw about twenty minutes after the final judging. I agree with the pre-judges.  Your opening credits were interesting.  There was potential for something good to come.  But I felt that the next ten minutes I saw could use some major improvements…Focus on the positive and keep the faith! You’ve done it in the past, you can do it again!”

I found it interesting that she said, “the decision to have NO winners in the open over thirty minutes category was difficult…” (I guess it’s nice to know I wasn’t singled out in any way.) So, in other words, everybody in my category sucked. Every film that was a finalist in my category (I found out later that there was only one other finalist, and I never saw the film) was so bad, so poorly made, so sub-standard in the world of independent filmmaking, that NO ONE deserved an award of any kind. As Mr. Spock would say with one raised eyebrow, ‘fascinating’. She also said, “I agree with the pre-judges.” Did this mean that she agreed with the negative five score?

In the end, I eventually found the whole thing absurd. People who had seen SIDETRACKED were baffled by the negative five score, and the fact that it wasn’t even eligible for an award. They knew it was a good film, and I knew it as well. I eventually framed the judge’s written critic with the senseless negative five score and the paradoxical, “the score IS my comment” and hung it on my wall. It represented the nonsensical, if not simply silly, evaluation of a film by someone who simply ‘didn’t-get-it’. The idea of a person with a dream who keeps getting sidetracked by unseen obstacles and never ending hurdles was lost to a group of people judging filmmakers in pursuit of a dream. The KAN Film Festival sidetracked SIDETRACKED in a way more ludicrous than any plot twist that I could have written. I wonder if they would evaluate themselves with a negative five?

Tracy, my wife, had this to say about the –5 score, “Well, I liked that movie so I don’t know what that person’s problem was (who gave SIDETRACKED a –5 score). They just didn’t get it? I don’t think that was being fair. I don’t think it was constructive criticism. But I liked that movie.”

Sam Wright had a more direct response, “(Laughs) That judge needed to dislodge something from his hind quarters. (Laughs and shakes his head about the negative five score) It’s not very professional to make up your own scores and just totally hack something, because you personally didn’t like it. Some people should get more sleep.”

“Well, I think the critics (at the KAN Film Festival) are idiots,” Randy Allen said. “I think SIDETRACKED was one of the best ones because it was funny. It had lots of really good comedy parts in it, and for the critics to be really fussing about it – of being implausible or that the video sections were jarring and somehow distracting – they’re just completely wrong. I think it’s one of the best ones so far.”

In case you were wondering, Martin English, Executive Director of the KAN Film Festival, never wrote back to me.