Rhett Acts

These are clips from our trip home last November for Thanksgiving. The last two years when we've gone home for the holidays, we've made movies with our 15 nieces and nephews at Rhett's parents house. Crapo Collaboration 2006 was our remake of Narnia, pretty funny but on a video camera, so no digital format capabilities. All I can tell you is Rhett made an amazing Mr. Tumnus. The scene playing his recorder to Lucy to make her fall asleep could win awards.

Some photos of the kids. I didn't have any during the movie, the middle one is everyone playing monster Twister. I made the huge Twister board from a king sized sheet. Some of those kids were really limber... the final match was between Rhett and our sister in law, Nancy. If I remember right, Nancy kicked his trash.

Our video for 2007 was our own spin on Clue. Basically a mystery dinner and we killed off all the characters leaving the audience wondering who the murderer could be since everyone died. The surprise ending was the fact the murderer wasn't in the film at all, but was the "House Fairy", some random footage of our 3-year-old nephew who insisted to wear a purple fairy costume to compliment his fake machine gun. We were in a rush because we made the mistake of filming on the last night for some of the kids. They had to leave to drive home, so we had to kill a bunch of the kids off in a hurry. After they all left, Rhett and I reviewed our footage and realized there were major holes in the plot. So to fill in the gaps, we made Rhett the narrator and filmed a bunch to explain the story. It ended up taking us late into the night, and luckily the Crapo family are all night owls so Rhett's parents were up and we didn't wake them with Rhett playing the piano, us busting up laughing, and the meowing of a feral cat.

So to explain these clips.

Rhett's costume is supposed to be a wise professor complete with mascara mustache, boy scout green handkerchief meant to be a silk scarf, and a sweater vest his mom knitted. We kept trying to provide unique poses and situations for the many shots of Rhett explaining our movie; sipping on the mantle, playing the piano, lounging on the couch, reading and surprised by the camera, even coming out of the restroom. But my favorite was Rhett's idea of catching the feral (born in the wild, not tame) cat that roamed around his parents house to lay on his lap. I thought it was so great, so we ran out at 2am with cat food in our hands searching for the wild cat.

Luckily since it was freezing (November) the cat was curled up next to the house for warmth. Rhett enticed it out of it's corner with the cat food, only to snatch it up. I have this image of him running into the house in his costume his arms straight out with the cat twisting and squirming in attempt to escape.

The scene is Rhett introducing one of the characters, and he did a great job until I messed up this first shot busting up laughing...but it was so funny. See what you think. Maybe it was hilarious just because it was so late. This first clip was going well until the cat started acting up, and I lost control.

This is the final clip, or the one where my laughing in the back ground is the least.

After we got the above footage, we ran back outside to let the traumatized cat outside. We ran around the corner as Rhett's mom had to step out of the way to let us by. I can't remember if she had seen our previous antics, or if all the sudden her 26-year-old son and his crazy wife came busting through her kitchen in costumes, carrying a snarling feral cat, and laughing hysterically. When we came back she said: "I heard all that meowing and thought it was on the TV." It was a pretty awesome Thanksgiving vacation and I'm pretty sure all the kids loved it. Our movie even had a soundtrack...the theme song from the 80s sitcom Mr. Belvedere.