Here's an FAQ for ya: "Ed, what's the deal with Bikini Academy?!?" And a good question that is too, my friend.
Let's start from the beginning...
Ever since anyone can remember I've been talking about making a movie. (To be exact, it was John Water's Cry-Baby that sparked my film making bug! Don't ask!?) Oh sure, I've got a tv show! That's great, don't get me wrong, I love doing The Ed South Report [now The Ed South Show!]. But I wanted to make a movie...you know, a story, lots of actors, action, different locations, scantily clad co-ed's...the works!
I'm always coming up with really dumb ideas for movies, usually just as a joke. I've always been a fan of movies that had the word "bikini" in the title, and movies that tried to rip off the Police Academy format. One night, sitting around with some friends, I jokeingly suggested a film called "Bikini Academy" just the most blatent attempt at both genres of film. We all had a good laugh at that, and then the conversation turned to failed FOX tv shows like Medicine Ball, and the night went on from there.
Flash forward about 5 or 6 months, and my buddy Andrew Heiliger and I are driving back from a weekend in Ocean City and I'm discussing ideas for movies, and my desire to make one. Andy, along with everyone else I'm sure, was sick of hearing me talk about movies and never doing anything about it. "Just do it," he said. "You've got the people to work on it, you've got the equipment, you've got the experience writing and directing, and you've got an audience...so just do it!!!"
Well, by the end of the trip it was set in my mind that I was going to make this film! So I went about the usual steps to getting such a project mounted. Had auditions, lined up equipment, made out a shooting schedule, secured locations to shoot, had a crew all lined up, everything was bikini-rific!
About two months later, near the end of May, shooting was to begin. We had a cast, we had (most of) a script, we had 9 days of shooting and we had it all planned out. Where we were going to be, who was going to be there, who was wearing what, and what we needed to bring. It's all down hill from there.
The cast and crew was set to meet at 3:00 in a parking lot at the community college. The first order of business was to shoot exteriors at Andy's house in nearby Woodlawn. We had a lot to shoot, but we could have gotten it all done!
3:30 rolls around, and everyone is present except for two actors. Everyone starts to get antsy and a bit aggravated. An additional 20 minutes later, one of the missing actors shows up...we had to get started we were working with natural light and things had to get underway.
So now, one hour into this thing I've got a major obsticle...I've got to rework the script so we can shoot around the missing girl. After we get all the script changes out of the way, it takes us the better part of four hours to shoot what is now the second scene of the film, which runs no longer than 4 minutes.
