No I’m not nuts, anymore?

by Casie Gibson

Wow, what a pain. I mean, doing a documentary isn’t easy but it can be fun. Take mine for example.

It starts out with a super eight movie of my stay in Thailand. We actually filmed it in HD and then sped it up by a quarter before putting it on super-eight. Then we refilmed it in HD for the film.

And that was just the opening. But it sure came out cool. I mean, the James Bond films have nothing on mine.

The super-eight segment started out with a couple of moments, at the LA airport. Then moved to the airplane and on to the front of the hospital in Thailand. A few moments in the lobby, moved to my hospital room and my changing into my gown. If you didn’t blink, you’d see that I was really a man. Then a gurney ride to the operating room and a few scenes of the operation itself.

Then soon, when they removed the bandages, I slid to the side of the bed and moved my feet to the floor to give the camera a peek.

Speeding it up that little bit, gave us the opportunity to move a lot in but still not give a lot away.

The actual start of the movie found us back on regular HD and at real speed. The cameraman walking across the street while, zooming on a gym window and then right through it. Of course it didn’t actually go right through it. That would have made an awful mess. But the cameraman stopped on the outside and then moved inside to restart.

His focus was on us, Josef and I. Josef was lifting weights and I was spotting him. We’d been hanging out there for a week, so people were used to us. The fact that it was a gay gym helped as well.

After just a few reps on camera, we moved to the locker room and messed around at the lockers before walking to the showers.

Like I said, we’d been there for a week now so we didn’t really get a second look we showered with the guys, although I was sure the audience would.

You see, Josef is what he terms a “Cockpit Cowboy.” Because he has had the surgery to change is private parts to female but is living as a male. Although that also applies to me, I guess I like the term “Coochie Boi,” instead.

While Josef had lived as a woman after his surgery, I still hadn’t but planned to. In fact, that is what this whole production was really about.

So here we were, showing everything in living color and at realtime speed.

This wasn’t a porno or anything, we were just putting a little action in, here and there.

Soon we were dressed, stopped at the urinal to each use plastic tubes to pee and after throwing them away we headed for the door.

The scene stops with our driver closing the car door after us.

We’d actually filmed the pee to closing the car door, first. Since I’d spent the morning at the beauty shop and wouldn’t look as good after the shower, unless we hired a hair girl and we were on a budget. So thinking ahead helped.

We did some video in the car as well but I ‘m not sure that made it into the movie. I mean, in the end, we had a few hundred hours of video and hacked it down to just over two hours.

We’d spent twenty minutes of movie time on this scene. But a week to set up and film it. The problem wasn’t the film, the problem was getting everyone used to us and us used to showering with them.

Truthfully, I just felt so vulnerable. I reminded myself of Dr. Seuss’s “Sneetches.” you know, the one where they had people with stars and without stars going through a machine to either get them or remove them. We’ll, I felt as if I’d had my “star” removed. I wasn’t one of them anymore.

The next scene was horseback riding and camping, with Josef. We planned on spending ten minutes of DVD time here. But a week of riding and camping to get a real feel for it and see what interesting thoughts might pop up.

We didn’t prescript much, we had kept track of thoughts and worked them into the dialog.

The camp fire was a lot of fun and a few practical jokes helped as well. They are also great for the out-takes.

But soon we’d packed everything up and spent another twenty minutes of DVD time moving again to Thailand and through the hospital. This time, I was going to leave, looking like a girl. I was getting just about everything we could think of but not look like I was put together from scraps.

This scene took four weeks to film.

We nudged it into the next scene by going by freighter. This would give me a couple of weeks to heal and sun tan, when we could find a brake in the clouds.

So with about five minutes of packing onto the freighter, lounging around on deck naked and getting off the freighter. We were ready for our next month of filming.

We were in the Middle-East and I had to be a good girl here. We’d hired a couple to guide us keep me out of trouble. I had to go from being one of the guys to a good Middle-Eastern girl in the blink of an eye.

Josef was a help here since he’d lived here as a woman and we went to all his old hang outs.

You really got a feel of the place as we wondered the streets and toured the history.

We also did a lot of filming in the home where we stayed. We didn’t rent rooms at the hotel but stayed in a house with a family and everything.

They took good care of us and I was doing pretty good. Other than shaving. Yep, I still had to shave. The shaving was meant to remind you that I had just been a guy.

But it still sucked.

Soon we were on our way back to the good old U S of A and a needed brake. I got my beard removed with the help of a laser and we planned on a couple of weeks to heal.

Then it was on to the finale, while it might have been, “what you all have been waiting for,” as they say in the movies, it was what I was dreading most.

You see, Josef had done two things that I’d thought were interesting. Living in the Middle-East as a woman and stripping. I was now to try my hand at the second.

The routine wasn’t hard to think up. I’d just adapt a scene from “Myra Breakenridge.” That was easy but doing it was much harder.

We’d hired a chirographer and two strippers, to help me work it out.

We spent most of the first day just deciding how to get me to the stage. I loved Racquel Welsh but when I did it her way, I still came out looking manly. So we added a tightrope walk to it and it worked out better. You know, one foot in front of the other.

That done, it was easier to workout the rest. I was thankfully only doing one song and that was it.

But we filmed all the trials and tribulations of the rehearsals.

We started on Monday and after working on it twenty to thirty times a day before the bar opened, and spending the day at the beauty parlor, I was ready for my two minutes of fame on Thursday.

Soon we were wrapping things up with another week of horseback riding and camping.

This would give us a few moments to finish out thoughts and background scenery for the credits.

While the movie was great, the extras were wonderful. We had two hours of the original introduction, at regular speed and before mangling it with the super-eight. Along with out-takes, interviews and bloopers.

In total, it had taken us almost a year and a half to do. Between starting with my surgery (I got a face lift the next week as well), taking almost a year off and then starting things up again with Josef helping me.

After all, the premise was, that it was really his story and I was just reliving it for him.

He’d set the stage and I’d talk about what I was going through living it.

While we made it look fun, there wasn’t anything fun about it. It was hard work and it wasn’t until I saw it on the screen that I finely enjoyed it.

Right up until I was asked to stand up and take a bow. I can tell you that was even worse than stripping.