The Fat Monster Films credo is "We depend upon the kindness of strangers and the science of happy accidents." Time and again it seems that Fortuna has smiled on us when the odds were against any reasonable hope for success. On this particular shoot we started out by being pulled over by a Washington State Trooper as we were speeding down Interstate 5. When he gave us a warning along with cheerful directions to the ferry we felt it was an omen that karma was still in place.

Now that the weekend shoot is over we can see that the omen was accurate. Everything fell into place for what was one of our best outings to date. One of the best happy accidents this time was our finding Dean Petrich -- a professional clown, talented piano technician and our host for the weekend. Dean gave us the run of Huckleberry Hill with its beautiful wooded land, zip lines, hot tubs and trampolines. We actually used two locations on his property for the Vienna video.

We have learned that Whidbey Island (at least the south side) is intensely populated by artists, musicians, writers, poets and various refugees from the 60's who all have a "building-codes-be-damned" attitude. On this trip alone we saw houses with tunnels between rooms, a living room with a trapeze installed in the ceiling, a tetrahedral swing contraption and a collection of stilts that filled a warehouse. However, the king of eclectic is Dean Petrich who has built a rambling compound from found materials without paying a cent. The place has multi levels with all sorts of personal touches, including a high tower that you can reach only by climbing a narrow metal ladder in the dark (at night). Vienna chose to sleep there the last night she stayed. As an aside, the next morning when she came to breakfast I commented, "Hey V.T., I guess the tower was pretty rough last night, huh?" She replied "maybe a little rushed." You see, the night before she played an impromptu concert for the crew and friends and she thought I was referring to her song "The Tower."

Dean Petrich will always be special to us because we could not have pulled off the shoot without him. He helped us pick out the piano we used on the beach by allowing us to sort through all 150+ pianos he keeps on his property. When we found one with a beautiful case and decent keys he got it in playing order by taking apart the beast and drying out each key/hammer assembly with a hair dryer. Finally, he used his truck to get the piano to the beach where we muscled the damn thing all the way to the isolated spot that Tim had chosen.

Right now Tim and I are in Sacramento trying to get home to L.A. The flights have been delayed and we've been hitting the airport bars while running up prodigious bar tabs. We can only hope that Vienna is safely home in New York now and that she's catching up on much needed sleep after a hard weekend in the brutal weather of February.

Mark Johnson - Fat Monster Films