I like movies.I like to make them.I like to watch them.Or so you’d think.
I just tallied up my movie viewing for this year.Here are the stats:
Total movies viewed: 93
Total movies viewed for the first time: 57
Total movies viewed for the first time that were not new releases (from 2007 or 2008): 21
Kind of sad, isn’t it?Quite a ways from my peak in 2005, where the three figures above were 253, 177, and 129, respectively.If I didn’t know better, I’d say my Netflix account was being wasted.Hmm. . . .come to think of it, I’m not sure I do know better.
Of the three figures, the one that most concerns me is the number of older movies I watched for the first time.My viewing of new theatrical releases is pretty consistent year-to-year (between 20-25 at the end of the year, which balloons up to 40-50 by the middle of the next) and rewatching things is just gravy, really.The ultimate goal is the exploration of the back catalogue of cinema.This year, I didn’t even average two new old movies per month.For the record, here are the 21, in order of preference:
Nine of those (including most of the worst) were part of my typical October festivities.Six of them were movie club picks.One was a movie we watched in order to play the action movie card game.That leaves five movies that I just watched of my own accord -and one of them is only a half hour long.This will not do.
So here is my solution.I am hereby deciding to watch at least two older movies that I’ve never seen each week of 2009.To keep me honest, I’m going to write about them here.These may be full-blown reviews, or they may be single word entries.If I can keep this up, I’ll have seen 104 old movies by the end of the year, which will be much more like it. If I can't keep this up, then I am counting on all of you to mock and shame me.
This was a new script I had written on a whim the night before Rachel selected her three preferred scripts for Movie Saturday 2.08.My inspiration came from Philip K. Dick, who claimed that he never actually wrote science fiction, but rather that all of his work was fantasy in which something non-literal was made literal.In this case I chose the idea of security vs. spontaneity in mate selection, coupled with the desire that people sometimes have to change one another.Then I literalized it, with the creation of a robot duplicate.
I don’t remember what the other choices were, but obviously, since I’m writing about it now, this was the selection.I then prepared myself for some brutal rewriting, since a) I had forced Trevor to spend a lot of time working on Peephole the last time I directed and b) Rachel was in charge of this one.If you’ve read any of the previous Movie Saturday Memories, you’ll know why that filled me with dread.So when I asked her what sort of changes she wanted and she replied with “no, I like it as it is,” I was pretty surprised.And a tad disappointed, admittedly.
Rachel’s intention, production design-wise, was to give it a sort of retro-future look.None of our usual locations really fit the bill, so we shot for the first time in Denver proper, at an old duplex rented out by several of our friends.This looked pretty good on camera, and I think having a new and appropriate location added a lot to the movie.However, we did wind up riling the natives a bit, as they were upset by the condition we left the place in.My understanding is that everything the other housemates were upset about was unrelated to anything we did, though – except the French Press.We did break the French Press.Yowch.
This was also the Movie Saturday debut of Beth Reed (now Beth Bean), who I had unsuccessfully tried to get into a Movie Saturday for two years.She was an old high school friend, who had appeared in my early German movies that kind of started this whole thing off.She brought along her boyfriend, who was also making his MS debut as 1/3 of the robot research team.The rest of the cast was filled out by regulars Trevor and Bruce, as well as Ben, who I suppose deserves some sort of mention for appearing in the first and last Movie Saturdays, and no others. (EDIT: I forgot that Ben was also in The Fortunate Ones. So he was in the first and the middlest and the last, I guess.)
This was one of the few movies that required props and costumes, since not every character could be best categorized as “this one guy” or “this one girl”.The scanning equipment was thrift store junk, plus part of a Transformer.The shirts were also thrift store material (explaining the awkward fit) with homemade patches sewn on.It was a bit frightening to watch Rachel sew the patch on to Ben’s shirt while he was wearing it, but everyone escaped intact.
You may have also noticed a bit more camera movement than we usually have.This was the debut of the Movie Saturday dolly, aka some cart we got at Home Depot.Inspired by our makeshift dolly from The Economy, we purchased something that we could rig up more permanently.This was meant to take us to the next level of production, which it kind of did.Unfortunately, that next level started with a Kill Screen.But that’s a story for another time (and that time will occur just a few paragraphs down).
Unfortunately, I have no stories about post-production.Rachel and Mavi staged a mini-gynocratic takeover, so I and the rest of the guys (save for Luke) went and had a long lunch at Casa Bonita instead.Mmm.Casa Bonita.We got kind of sick.
I’m kind of glad I did miss post, however, because it was exceedingly rare for me to see a final movie without watching it come together, bit by bit.Sometimes it can be kind of nice just to watch, especially when the final movie is as good as this.To me, it really did feel like a step up, on a technical level, from what we had been doing previously.This, coupled with the fact that we were beginning to bristle more and more under the single day time constraints, led me to make a fateful decision.I floated it by the rest of the major players, and they all agreed.
Movie Saturday would be no more.
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MOVIE SATURDAY: THE DOCUMENTARY
Our intention in killing Movie Saturday was not to stop making movies.We just decided that we had grown as much as we could in the single-day format, and that maybe we could start making slightly longer productions, or spending more time on productions of the same length.It was exciting to think about.I couldn’t wait to get moving on it.We did decide to make one more Movie Saturday first, a big finale that would pay tribute to our past, force us to work in a new, unfamiliar format, and provide us with two movies in one.
The plan was to remake Because it was Dead.It would be rewritten and Hollywood-ed up.More intense drama drama, a fight scene, etc. Maybe we'd even throw in a fart joke. Part of our team would be involved in that.But it wouldn’t be the real Movie Saturday.The real production would be a documentary/mockumentary about the filming of the new Because it was Dead (which was possibly going to be retitled as Dead Reason, by the way).We’d film the filming, interview everyone involved, it was going to be great.
“But Brian,” you’re probably thinking now, “I never saw a Movie Saturday 2.09.What happened to the documentary?And why were you speaking so subjunctively in that last paragraph?”
Well, here’s what happened.We were, for the most part, correct in thinking that we had outgrown Movie Saturday.But there was one thing we overlooked.The most important thing.Movie Saturday provided us with momentum.As long as we had Movie Saturday, we made movies.Once we killed it, we were no longer able to marshal our forces and muster up the manpower to get a movie made.So that’s what happened to the documentary.It never got made.It lives in a magical, imaginary world where it pals around with unicorns and Captain Kirk.
So ended Movie Saturday.Not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a bang followed in short order by protracted whimpering.
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Next Time:
A wrap-up/overview of the whole shebang, and where we go from here.
Pull up a seat, kiddies, this is gonna be a long’n.
I finally got the chance to direct a project, completely and fully, from pre-production onward, thanks to a fortuitous once in a year event.That even was, of course, Halloween.We decided that, in the spirit of the season, we ought to do make a horror movie for the October Movie Saturday.And of course, if we’re making a horror movie, it simply wouldn’t make sense for anyone but me to direct it.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have any horror scripts, so we had to solicit new ones.There were three that we ultimately took under consideration.One was a Vincent Price-esque monologue written by Shawn that was okay, but didn’t have any spark.Nothing much to say about it.The second was one that I wrote, about a man who, after the death of his wife, took over for the ailing boogeyman as a way of finding new meaning to life.I was very pleased with how it came out and was very excited about getting to shoot it.Obviously, that didn’t happen.No one really thought it made sense and it was especially criticized for a stretch in the middle where the chronology broke down and several different time points co-existed in the same scene.This stretch happened to be my favorite part of the script.Ah well, c’est la vie.Maybe someday.
The third script, which we wound up shooting, was written by Trevor PinBlackJamesCockFord.I really didn’t like it much early on.Some of the dialogue was clunky, the pacing was kind of weird, and most of all, it just made me uncomfortable.But then a funny thing happened.When I submitted my top three picks for voting, I also wrote up a little description of what I intended to do with them, directorially speaking.That was when the potential of Peephole became clear to me.Earlier that day I had watched What Have They Done to Solange?, which coincidentally had a scene where a couple of perverts looked through a peephole into the girls’ shower room.This brought a single word to my mind, which solved all of my problems.That word was Giallo.Go ahead, look it up.I even provided a handy link.
Now, one could argue that, strictly speaking, Peephole is not a Giallo.In fact, you could argue that, in any sense of the word, it is not a Giallo.I wouldn’t disagree with you if you chose to do so.But that doesn’t mean you can’t give it the same sort of feel and atmosphere.The sleazy discomfort I felt upon reading the script could be an asset, not a detriment.This could be a whole lot of fun.
Thus, by the time I had finished posting the voting choices, I had already switched my vote in my mind from my script to Peephole.Everyone else was on board with the choice, and Trevor and I dove into what was probably the most comprehensive re-writing process of any of the Movie Saturdays.Looking back through old emails, it looks like I had Trevor do two rewrites based on my notes, then I did one, then back to him for a Final.
Before re-reading things for this article, I mostly remembered the big changes I requested – primarily the addition of a new opening.The original script began with the guys already in the secret room, looking through the hole.I also toned down the profanity (again!What’s the matter with me?) and de-contemporized and de-Americanized the names and dialogue.John, Kevin, and Valerie became John, Mark, and Eve.After looking back over the old emails between Trevor and myself, however, I see that we spent a massive amount of time discussing character motivations as well, and made a lot of little changes to the action and dialogue as a result.The major actions remain the same, but the rest of the script is pretty dramatically different from the first draft.
Now, I don’t mean to imply that I swept in and fixed up a broken script.Trevor was responsible for many of the changes made, and some of my suggestions would have hurt rather than helped, had he not fought them.But I think that I made him think a lot harder about his characters than he would have otherwise, and I know that he made me think harder about them than I would have.Also, now that the memories are flooding back, I’m starting to remember how positively giddy I was that someone was willing to have these kinds of conversations with me.This was the sort of process I was hoping for when I suggested that scripts be chosen ahead of time in order to allow for rewrites. Ultimately, the script was much stronger for it.
That said, looking back over the old emails, I see that Rachel seems to have thought the original script was better.Gah.
This brings us to production, which was a bit difficult.The main issue was casting the role of Eve.Although we did not intend to show any actual nudity on-screen, we still needed someone who was comfortable undressing in front of the crew.This is a subset of society that does not include any of the women who had previously been involved with Movie Saturday.I left the task of finding our Eve up to Trevor, since he was a college student living in Boulder.He pulled it off, and we were all set to go – until the actress cancelled out on us early Saturday morning.Back to the drawing board.
After a few irritable hours, he found a replacement, Brandi (last name withheld by request, as well as by my own poor memory).Unfortunately, she couldn’t make it until four or five pm.We shot around her as best we could, and ultimately had every shot that did not include her taken care of before her arrival.Even Luke’s blood-spattered appearance opposite her in the climax was filmed ahead of time.I have to say, Brandi was a real trooper.She hung around for hours, naked or in a towel for most of the time, covered in blood for part of the time, wet (and therefore cold) most of the time, but still soldiered through it.We did reach a point at the end of the shoot, when we were shooting the afore-mentioned climactic confrontation, where she clearly didn’t want to be there anymore.I just kept shooting, requesting take after take, trying to get it exactly the way I wanted, because I’m kind of an asshole that way.Fortunately, Trevor is not that kind of asshole, and he talked me down.I’m still a little disappointed with the scene – I think it plays way too fast – but sometimes you have to take your actors into consideration too.
I guess.
The geography of the house is pretty awkward, and it was kind of fun to try and piece it together.There are very few areas that have the same spatial relationship in real life as in the movie.The peephole room was actually in the basement, while the bathroom was on the first floor.The really tough part, and the part where I kind of blew it, was the interior of the bathroom itself.In order to get a proper peephole view, we set the camera up in the doorway and pretended it was the mirror.When Eve initially walks into the room, she’s walking from the actual sink/mirror.So when Trevor rushed in halfway through the movie, we had to fake the angle of the camera and the angle of the bottle being thrown so that everything would look like it was in the right place.This worked well enough to get by, I guess, but it’s not right.
By the time we got to post-production, it was already pretty late, and we came to realize that we would not have the movie done in time.We wound up finishing everything but the music, leaving that for Sunday.I edited the movie while Bruce (a late arrival) and Luke worked on sound.I kind of regret missing out on the sound effects, since they got to play with and dismember all manner of produce.They also created the TV program that Trevor was watching at the beginning, which they titled “Contemplative Bisexual.”Last I heard, VH1 was thinking of picking it up for a mid-season replacement.
Speaking of music, this was my first time behind the keyboard (not counting some minor, uncredited assistance to Bruce on Shadow).There were three reasons for this.One, I had some very specific ideas about the style of music I wanted to emulate.Two, I was using it as a test, to see if I would be able to compose music for my long-delayed feature, The Unwritten Rule.Three, I don’t think anyone else really wanted to.I’m generally pleased with what I came up with, although I think only the last piece, which begins when Eve hears the axing, was fully successful.
So finally, Sunday evening, we gathered for the screening of our first Movie Weekend.I’m very happy with the result – in fact, more so now than I was when I first finished it, despite the pacing of the climax and the crazy bathroom geography.And now, because I just haven’t said enough about this movie, here are some more random facts and stories that I couldn’t fit in above:
--I initially embraced the 70’s Eurotrash aesthetic much more fully.I was thinking of transferring the movie to VHS to give it a crappier look, and I even wanted to dub the dialogue, with different actors portraying the characters.Others (Luke, primarily) talked me out of this, and boy is it a good thing they did.
--I love, love, LOVE the blood spurt when Eve is killed.We watered down some of our blood and put it in a chocolate syrup bottle, which we then placed in her armpit.When Trevor pulled the knife away, she squeezed.I think it only took two takes to get it right.That said, why the hell is there a kitchen knife next to the toilet?
--I had to force Trevor to put the shower door with the towel in front of him.He kept trying to switch them.Not funny.
--As I was walking Brandi through the scene, I commented that she would be naked, but behind frosted glass.When we were actually shooting, she touched the glass and said “This isn’t frosted, it’s just dirty.”I am an idiot.
--For the record, my shower was in the other bathroom, so I am not responsible for the above dirtiness.
--Somehow, we managed to get blood on the ceiling of the bathroom.The vaulted ceiling, fifteen feet up.
--Trevor is watching TV in the exact same place where Shawn was waiting by the phone in Ticking.I really hated using that set again, partly because I hate to do that sort of thing in general, and partly because it’s really just a giant echo chamber, as I’m sure you can hear.
--I caught some flack for the lengthy opening sequence, but I’d do it again if I had the chance. And no one can stop me - BWAHAHAHAHA! Seriously, though, I think it was vital to have a period of peace and mundanity before the chaos began. It really wouldn't feel right without it.
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THE ECONOMY
Now that I’ve finished my book on Peephole, I figure I’ll keep this one short.We’ll see if that happens.
The most significant thing about The Economy to me is the fact that, for the first time, we were shooting on my brand-new Canon GL-2.It’s fortunate that I had been planning to buy a new camera anyway, because during post-production on Peephole, Luke kinda sorta broke the firewire port on my GL-1, which prevented us from capturing video to the computer, which prevented us from editing at all, which prevented us from making movies.I’m not sure there’s a tremendous improvement in image quality with the new camera, but operating it works much smoother.
As written, this was an oddly paced piece.The main titles came approximately halfway through the movie, at the end of the job application monologue.It’s still a little weird, being divided into two parts that are only somewhat related, but moving the credits to the beginning helped.Speaking of the credits, I take full responsibility for the fact that you can’t read them.It’s all my fault.I was trying to mimic a stock ticker, but side-scrolling text at that speed just doesn’t work.You can see the same problem with the end credits of many, many British TV shows.Well, live and learn.This opening credits sequence also involved our first use of a dolly – and by that, I mean we literally set our tripod on a furniture dolly.It took a bit of doing to make it work right, but a whole new world opened up to us in that moment.
Shooting this movie also required me to do something I swore I would never do again – shoot a dialogue scene in a moving car.You can see how awkward it is to get a shot of either actor without ramming the camera up in their face.In fact, I just went ahead and rammed away.Actually, the angle on Bruce isn’t so bad, since I was able to sit in the passenger seat – but Rachel took the full brunt of the ramming.It almost looks a bit like a fish-eye lens.Also, you can’t really light in a car – so the background is completely blown out.Fortunately, you have Rachel’s strongest, funniest Movie Saturday performance to distract you from the technical issues.
By the way, have I mentioned that I hate shooting in moving cars?
The opening monologue is kind of odd, with the bizarre cutaways to coffee cups and the like.We shot them at Shawn’s behest - he seemed to think he was the director or something – but I never intended to use them.Unfortunately, in the grand tradition of the score from Because it Was Dead, Bruce wrote a monologue he couldn’t recite in one take, so in they went.I guess that was foresight on Shawn’s part.I hate to admit something like that.On the other hand, it still looks weird, so in some strange way, I can say that Shawn was wrong.
I suppose that’s about all I have to say.I’m not a huge fan of The Economy, although it has a lot of really good parts.It’s certainly better than most Season 1 movies, but I think it’s a little below par for Season 2 (The Fortunate Ones excluded)
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Next Week:
Safety in Numbers, and the tragic death of Movie Saturday.
Rachel was in the director’s seat for the fourth production of Season 2, just like she was for the fourth of Season 1.Funny how that works out.This time, she was working from one of Trevor’s scripts.It was originally structured much more naturalistically – the various encounters between Harold, Kim, and Jim could possibly have been a series of events that occurred over time, as events are wont to do.It was only at the end of the script that the truth is revealed – Harold, an old dying man, is stuck revisiting variations of his greatest regret.
I had initially fought against using this script, because I didn’t like the twist ending.In particular, I didn’t like putting that revelation at the end because it didn’t give you time for the ramifications of what you’re seeing to sink in – just 30 seconds of revelation and you’re out. I also thought the various encounters didn’t flow together very well, especially if the viewer was meant to see them as an objective reality.Still, nothing better was available, so we moved ahead.
Shooting took place inside a sorority house at the Colorado School of Mines.This particular house had bylaws stating that men (or boys, as we were likely called) were not allowed inside.We therefore had the threat of being discovered and thrown out hanging over our heads the whole time, which added to the fun.In fact, the opening scene was shot in one of the bedrooms, which raised the scandal level to heights undreamed of.We were truly rogue filmmakers, venturing into unknown worlds near and far, sacrificing everything on the altar of –
Where was I?Oh, yeah, the cast.This was Rose’s first appearance in Movie Saturday, although she had previously thrown water on Jeff for Sustain.She was uncomfortable and shy about being on camera, but I think it worked well for the character.It would be nice if you could hear her better, though.Bruce was Bruce, playing a character that fit his persona, and Nick was playing against type as the suave, macho asshole.I think he was a little uncomfortable as well, but I can’t imagine anyone else delivering the line “I know. . . let’s go” as well as him.
Following our somewhat successful attempt at lighting in The Lamp, I tried to do the same for this movie.Unfortunately, with only three lamps, my ambitions outstripped my capabilities.I was going for magic-hour sunset light coming in through the window.Instead, I created dingy ambient light in a room with odd floor lights.Ah, well.At least it didn’t look any worse than good old sunlight would have, and maybe the artificiality of it helped enhance the atmosphere of artificial reality in the movie.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Somewhere in the middle of shooting, we found a way to satisfy my script problems without changing what everyone else liked about it.The answer was simple – move the old man Harold scene to the beginning so that the events are framed as being in his mind.Unfortunately, the scene wouldn’t fit at the beginning the way it was written, and Trevor was unavailable for a rewrite.I wound up throwing something together in about five minutes between takes, and we had our opening.
And what do you know, it looks like, despite my claim in the write-up for The Fortunate Ones, this is actually my last on-screen appearance.Hardly counts, since you can only see a bit of my hand in the corner.But I promise, no more after this.
Eventually, we made it out of the sorority house without alerting the authorities.Bruce and I had a blast editing this one, since Rachel gave us a lot of latitude to futz around with the transitions, using a lot of pieces of different takes and footage from before “action” and after “cut.”Luke wrote a great score, which had a real drive to it and did a lot to help tie things together.I think there’s a bit of an Aronofsky vibe to the way the whole movie flows, and the score is a big part of that.
If you couldn’t tell, I’m extremely fond of this one.It’s one of the few Movie Saturdays that really has a vibe, or a feel to it, and I still enjoy watching it now, years later.It was also a really good production experience, where every department added something essential to improve the whole.One could argue that we made better movies, but this was the epitome of what I hoped Movie Saturday could be.
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TICKING
This was kind of exciting because we got to shoot on location.The script called for a motel room, which I thought we’d have to fake or pay for– but in actuality, all it took was one phone call and we found ourselves in a real motel room for free.Granted, it was a used motel room, and we had a limited window between the check-out and the arrival of the cleaning crew, but hey – verisimilitude trumps hygiene concerns, right?
This was a very old script that had been passed up multiple times before.It was originally written for Season 1, and was the only Season 2 production for which that was the case.There was always a concern that the plot (man has to call kidnapper at a certain time to negotiate a ransom payment, but loses the number so the hostage is killed) wouldn’t come across.I’m still not sure it does.On the other hand, I think that everything going on in Try Again is completely clear, so take my judgment on this matter with a grain of salt.
Shawn really went all out as an actor in this one.He banged up his head pretty badly hitting it against the table.He cut up his hand tearing apart Tom’s bedroom.On the other hand, he also ad-libbed those lines at the end, which were not scripted.I guess, considering that he wrote the thing, that’s okay, but I think it’s pretty awkward given the lack of any dialogue in the rest of the movie.
I should also give credit to Tom for letting us tear apart his bedroom like that – and it was far worse in real life than it looked on-screen.There was no plan for this segment, we just started the camera and let Shawn go nuts.I wouldn’t have let us do that to my room.
Speaking of rooms, I also want to give props to the set decorator for making the rest of the house look so trashed, which reflected the disorder in our protagonist’s mind.Certainly, the place never looked like that any other time.Ever.Really.
Also, Bruce trying to pretend to smoke is one of the funnier things we’ve ever committed to magnetic tape.
In addition, this write-up is pretty disjointed, and has a lot of uncomfortable transitional clauses.
Finally, I don’t think this is one of the stronger pieces from Season 2, but it’s still a damn sight better than The Fortunate Ones.
PS. When I saw a bit of my old Subaru in the movie, it made me kind of sad and nostalgic.That was my very first car.
PPS. That’s all.
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Next Week:I finally direct Peephole, and Bruce teaches us all about The Economy.
I just wanted to take a moment to observe the death last night of the legendary Forrest J. Ackerman. I'll keep this short, since there are a lot of other people out there who have a lot more to say about him than I, and a simple Google search would probably net you hundreds of tributes from people who actually knew him. To be honest, I have had very little direct exposure to his work, mostly due to the fact that his heyday occurred around the time that my parents were children. Why, then, am I even writing this?
Because, like all truly great men, his own actions are vastly outweighed by those of the people he inspired. Largely through his magazine, Famous Monsters of Filmland, he exposed an entire generation of writers and directors and special effects artists to the wonders of horror and sci-fi. In fact, he even coined the term "sci-fi."
Try to imagine a world without the accomplishments of the following (and this is a miniscule sample):
Ray Bradbury Stephen King Phil Tippett Rick Baker Joe Dante John Landis Tim Burton Peter Jackson
It's not a world I would want to live in. It's what the world would look like without Forry Ackerman.
Forrest J. Ackerman was 92. He is survived by every fan of science fiction or horror in the world.
After our lengthy, unplanned hiatus (which I remember as being almost a year, but which research reveals to be about 4 months), things were different for Movie Saturday. In the interim, we moved out of the 14th street Superhouse, which was the setting for . . . with a View, part of Weekend Warriors, Aware, Sustain, and the Cold Grey Light. We made ourselves a sweet new logo, utilizing the stuffed monkey that was viewed so distantly at the end of Because it was Dead. We made some other, unimportant changes.
Okay, okay, the other changes were the most important of all. We basically came to realize that the Movie Saturday format was kind of limited, and decided to expand it so that we could continue to grow as amateur artists. Specifically, we introduced an element of pre-production. One of the most important parts of a director’s job is pre-production – assigning the right people to do the right thing, finding locations, gathering props, etc. Alfred Hitchcock used to plan things out so extensively that even if he never showed up on set, the movie would still turn out exactly as he planned it. In other words, in Season 1 of Movie Saturday, the director wasn’t fully directing.
For Season 2, then, we started picking the director ahead of time, preferably at the screening of the previous project. They would pick the time of the next project and, two weeks before shooting, pick a handful of scripts they were interested in. We would think vote on a script over the subsequent week, and the director would then have one last week to prepare. This was very exciting for me, as it meant I wouldn’t ever get shoehorned into directing a script I didn’t care for, like The Fallen Ninja or What You Want!! Also, and even more importantly, it would allow for rewrites. You see, most of our scripts were hastily written first drafts. In Season 1, we never had time to do any rewriting after the script was chosen, and no one wanted to put the effort into multiple drafts on a script that may or may not be used. Now, not only would we have time for rewrites, but the director would have a chance to affect said rewrites, putting their personal stamp even more fully on the final result. I cannot tell you how stoked I was for this. With these new procedures in place, the quality of Movie Saturday was poised to go through the roof.
Relatively speaking, I think it ultimately did improve dramatically. You’d never tell from watching The Fortunate Ones, however.
Trevor James Pincock Blackford was the chosen director for our inaugural effort. We wound up selecting one of Rachel’s newer scripts, Fortune Cookies, to shoot. It was, like all the others, a quick first draft. I asked Trevor if I could take a crack at a revision, since Rachel doesn’t like rewriting. He agreed, I took a crack, and I was pretty pleased with the result.
Rachel was not.
Boy, and I thought The Fallen Ninja was an uncomfortable situation. She hated every single change I made to her script, bar none. We wound up spending about three hours hashing through the whole thing the night before shooting, with Trevor refereeing and making the final decisions. In retrospect, I probably should have just backed off and let them go with the first draft. Of course, if I had a time machine and could go back and change things in retrospect, I’d be more concerned with the outcome of that diamond heist I was involved in than with avoiding this confrontation.
Oddly enough, since then, Rachel and I have discovered that we work pretty well as a writing team, so long as one of us isn’t revising the other’s pre-existing script. Go figure. At any rate, we wound up using an even mix of my changes, Rachel’s original ideas, and new compromises. I don’t really remember what parts of the final version were mine, except for the new title. I wasn’t really happy with the outcome, and I don’t think Rachel or Trevor were either. Oh, well.
This brings us to shooting and – oh, wait, is that – yes, I think it is – yep, it’s me, on camera again. Fortunately for all of you, this was the last time. Boy, check out my big hammy death scene. It’s probably the second take, too, which is too bad because I spewed up a pretty good blood fountain on the first take. We were using a few spoonfuls of our standard Karo syrup blood mixture combined with a quarter tablet of Alka-Seltzer to make the mouth-spew. I wasn’t paying attention and took a whole tablet of Alka-Seltzer. By the time action was called, my cheeks were about to burst, and I could barely stumble through a few seconds of pre-amble. In addition, I was trying to figure out a way to release in a controlled fashion, so as not to ruin the carpet. At this, I was partly successful.
I think the reason we didn’t use the first take is that the increased proportion of Alka-Seltzer to blood made the final concoction come out light pink.
That’s really all I can remember about this one, except that did make a box cover for the Turbid Serbian video game, which is completely invisible in the final movie.
The next one is better, I promise. -----
THE LAMP
This was the week we coined the term “Gynocracy” which, as it turns out, we didn’t actually coin. It’s a real word. But it applies. We were shooting a script that Adrien (a woman) had written. It was directed by Mavi (another woman). It was edited by Rachel (holy shit! There’s three of them!). The story was about a dominant woman becoming super-dominant (that’s. . .still three of them, but now there’s a theme, man).
Technically, Shawn helped edit as well, but he was more of an assistant editor, trying to learn how to work the software so he could edit in the future. So by the time post-production rolled around, us guys were pretty much cut out of the loop – which was okay, because it gave us more time to drink beer, play video games, and barbecue steaks in the back of our monster truck in the parking lot of the strip club.
There are a lot of things I really like about this movie. It’s the first time we ever tried to light thing a whole movie, instead of relying on ambient light. Jeff (not Weekend Warriors Jeff) and I collaborated on this process, and, while the results were kind of mixed, I like a lot of it, and I enjoyed doing something a little different. The ending is probably our creepiest, and everything comes together to make it very effective. The only real complaint I had was the final showdown, which I thought came across much too broadly. That opinion has softened over the years, and while I still wish it was a little more grounded, I do enjoy what we have.
Turns out them wimmen-folk might maybe kinda know what they’re doin’ after all. -----
SHADOW
After The Lamp, we lost our momentum again and it was over a month before we made another movie. We decided to do a quick one-off in order to get things rolling again, and the best way to accomplish that was to do another one-take movie, like Sustain. Unlike Sustain, this project was ambitious enough to include an actual story (gosh!). The plot developed pretty organically (“we want a moving background” became “let’s follow someone walking down the street” became “someone is following her” became “no, he’s not really, it’s all paranoia”), and the final inversion was added late in the process because it made the whole thing more psychologically interesting.
We mapped out the route and actions on the white board, then did two run-throughs, and probably five or six takes, sometimes using different cameramen in order to try and get the smoothest image possible. In order to accomplish this, the cameraman had to walk backward and be able to completely ignore the issue of what’s behind him, so we had to have a guide. It was incredibly difficult, and I’m amazed we even pulled it off – but as I may have mentioned before, that’s the sort of thing Luke is good at. I tried running the camera for one take, and didn’t even make it past the first corner.
The dogs you hear barking in the alleyway were a natural part of the ambience. In fact, during the second to last take, some guy came outside to ask us just what the hell we were doing to get his dogs all riled up every ten minutes.
I should also mention that this was the first appearance of Bruce Swihart in a Movie Saturday. He is an old high school friend and had been in both of my longer movie projects from before Movie Saturday. He was with us for the rest of the season and, given the uptick in quality, maybe he was a good luck charm. Or maybe it was a coincidence. Yeah, probably that one.
This is another movie I wound up directing by default. We initially planned that there would be no one director, that it was just a quick group project. About halfway through, we realized that, in the absence of an official director, I was doing all of the directing anyway. So I officially took the job. This makes four times that I had directed, without ever once getting to develop the project. I was starting to wonder if I would ever get the chance to really, fully direct one of these things. Still, at least this was a movie I was proud to have my name on. In fact, it’s still one of my favorites. -----
-I started watching a reality TV show.The man in question is the genius writer of The Specials and Slither (and ex-husband of Pam Beesley from the Office), Mr. James Gunn.The show in question is Scream Queens, on VH1.
I’ll wait while you finish chuckling to yourself.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Waited.
Okay.This isn’t some sort of confession.I’m not trying to get this off my chest.I’m actually asking, why in pluperfect hell aren’t any of you watching it? This isn’t just reality, man.It’s what reality ought to be like:ten aspiring actresses competing week after week for a role in a major Hollywood blockbuster.
Oh.Said blockbuster is Saw VI.Well, I hear the runner up gets a candy bar.Which is just about as good.
Prize lameness aside, the competition itself is fascinating.Every episode has three acting segments – a semi-improv/ad hoc scene, a workshop, and the director’s challenge, where they actually shoot a scene.These scenes include being attacked by a snake in a bathtub, kicking the ass of a psychopathic killer, seducing a man in order to drink his blood, encountering a swarm of man-eating cockroaches, and the highlight, a trailer for the imaginary movie Reform School Zombie Squad.As much as I love these scenarios, the really interesting thing is watching the girls progress through the program, changing and growing each week. It’s like acting boot camp - they aren’t just competing for a role, they’re training for it, and you can actually see the results.I can’t believe I’m saying this, but there’s honest to god depth to the proceedings.
Of course, they’re also all locked in a house together and like to hang out in the hot tub, engage in petty dramatic conflicts, and record bitchy remarks in the confessional booth.But we don’t have to mention these things in polite company.
Even if you don’t appreciate all of the acting craft method rigamarole, Scream Queens still has plenty to offer, mostly in the form of gutbusting hilarity.Sometimes it’s a great bit of a scripted scene, like in Reform School Zombie Squad:
Warden: I’ve been reviewing your record, Channon, and I don’t like what I’m seeing.
Channon (dropping her robe):Review this record, Warden.And by record, I mean Vagina.
Sometimes it’s the magic of a complete idiotic train wreck, such as Michelle’s response to the judges’ complaints that she wasn’t emotionally present in her scene:
For me, it’s kind of hard, because I didn’t have a lot of emotional stuff happen. . . I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging or anything, but I’ve had a really, really great life growing up.
They also like to deliver scripts to the girls in the most hilariously “scary” way possible.The first week, the scripts were in the middle of a bunch of live snakes on a breakfast tray.The second week, a midget dressed as a doll leapt out of a pile of real dolls to deliver the message.One week the scripts were around the neck of a zombie that was vomiting blood all over the swimming pool.
Ultimately, though, the best part of the show isn’t even part of the show itself.This brings us back around full circle to James “PG Porn” Gunn, one of the three judges.Anyone who’s seen his work knows that he is a funny, funny man.Turns out he’s also a funny, funny man with a blog (I know, I know, what are the odds).Every week he posts a lengthy description of his experience on the show, discussing the reasons why the judges judged the way they judged (Judge.Judgejudge), the funny things that didn’t make the final cut, the stupid decisions made by VH1 producers, and the fact that fellow judge and acting coach John Homa apparently cries like a girl.One could argue that, taken on its own, the show does not actually have the depth that I ascribe to it – but when you put the show and the blog together, you get something that’s actually kind of special (no, not that kind of special).
So watch the show, read the blog, and be prepared to have you life changed.Not that Scream Queens will change your life; it’s just good to be prepared in general.But don’t take my word for it – take James Gunn’s word (Re: The midget/doll encounter)
The girls were honestly freaked out on the midget. No feigning here. Tanedra took of her shoe and swatted at her! That's correct: TANEDRA TRIED TO HIT A MIDGET WITH HER SHOE BECAUSE IT WAS DRESSED LIKE A DOLL. Why are people watching fucking SURVIVOR?
PS: My pick to win is Angela.That’s right, I’m predicting the winner of a reality TV show.Someone shoot me.
This was one of my scripts.I’d like to share with you the mental process that produced it, step by step.
1. I got a fog machine for Christmas.
2. I want to use it in a movie
3. We have no scripts that would work for it, so I’ll have to write a new one.
4. The fog should be a semi-metaphorical dimensional vortex of dubious reality that reflects the loneliness and isolation of the protagonist and translates it into a tangible form.
I promise I didn’t leave out any steps.
The Cold Grey Light was Luke’s first directing opportunity, which is kind of strange considering how heavily involved he was with all of the previous productions.I would have expected him to step up sooner.On the other hand, maybe he was just too smart to take on The Fallen Ninja and What You Want!!
There are three major things that I remember from this shoot. The first was the fog itself.Everyone hated it, in particular, the actors who had to walk into the bathroom and stay there for minutes at a time.I never understood what their problem was – for me, the smell of artificial fog is a happy, nostalgic one because it reminds me of haunted houses. Everyone else seemed to think of that smell as nasty chemicals coating their lungs.Weirdos.
The second thing I remember is that Luke decided to try a little bit of method work with his actors, and Neil wound up enjoying a nice big jug of Carlo Rossi wine throughout the shoot, in order to give him that blank stupor that was necessary for the character.This worked well during the shoot, amazingly, but not so well during post production when Neil and several others who helped him with the Carlo Rossi loudly decided that they wanted to watch Rushmore.This wouldn’t have been a problem, but Luke still needed to record music, and it didn’t fit his artistic vision to have Jason Schwartzman’s voice playing over our soundtrack.This led to a stand-off that was eventually resolved in favor of finishing the movie, but much belligerence was expressed before that time.
The third thing, which might have been related to the second, was that this was Jeff’s final Movie Saturday.He was dragged back in to help with the music and narration for the next project, but this was the week when he decided he was done.I never really understood why it happened, and he’s never fully explained it to me, but I hope you’ve enjoyed his contributions so far, because you ain’t getting’ no mo’.Except for that bit in the next movie.But no more after that.
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MODERN COWBOYS
Like . . . with a View, Modern Cowboys was intended as a warm-up project for something bigger.In this case, it was a Kung-Fu version of Hamlet that Jarred and Neil had written.Unlike Weekend Warriors, Hamlet never actually materialized.This is perhaps for the best.
In addition to being the last Movie Saturday in the first year of production, and was also the only one not shot on my Canon GL-1.Instead, Jarred’s technically superior XL-1 (which was also our second camera in What You Want!!) was used, although I think any benefit gained from the better model of camera was negated by that horribly dirty, scratched lens.When I see it I hurt inside, the way a mother might hurt if she saw a dirty, crying, abandoned baby on the street right outside of a gentleman’s club.
This is also the second (of three) on-screen appearance of yours truly, although it’s a pretty brief bit that didn’t require me to do much more than play video games and twitch spastically.Fun side note – after Trevor kills me and goes on a mini-rampage, he knocks a plastic cup off of the table.You can only sort of see this in the movie, but the cup actually ricocheted off the wall and landed back on the table, right-side-up, in its original position.You can’t plan something like that, but you can point the camera in the wrong direction when it happens.
I found myself in a strange position during this production, doing something I never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever would have expected to do – argue for the removal of profanity.It was something that had been bothering me ever since I saw the script, and I couldn’t really figure out why, since not only am I not normally bothered by it, I frequently don’t even notice it.Post-production was almost over before I realized what the issue was – Modern Cowboys is a television program, and television programs get bleeped.A few button presses later and everyone was happy.
I also want to mention the terrific opening credits, which blow my meager What You Want!! effort out of the water.The fact that two out of nine productions were television parodies for which the fake credit sequences were the highlights was a bit disturbing, though.
---
That’s it for Movie Saturday: Year One.Looking back at it, I don’t think it was nearly as successful as it felt at the time, but I have mostly fond memories of the experience despite all the fights, which I seem to remember in more detail than anything else.I do think it’s a shame that things shuddered to a halt after Modern Cowboys, since the best part of Movie Saturday was the momentum that kept us producing on a regular basis.On the other hand, if it weren’t for the extended break and the considerable effort it took to get things going again, we might never have had the newly revamped Movie Saturday: Year Two, in which the promise of Movie Saturday finally started coming into focus.Join me next week for The Fortunate Ones, The Lamp, and Shadow – same Movie Saturday time, same Movie Saturday channel.
From left to right: Neil, Me, Trevor, Ben, Rachel, Jeff, and Luke in the front, happily basking in the afterglow of "Because it was Dead."
Today I sorted through all of my MiniDV videotapes. And by "all," I mean, "the ones that were in my videotape box." There are still a few here and there, lying around - in fact, I can see three more unlabeled tapes right now that are sitting just down and to the left of the photo - but what you're looking at here is the bulk of it. The stacks are, from left to right:
1 and 2 - The Red King and related material (2001)
3 - Fritz and Franz: Fight the Future (1998, German)
4 - Two Legs at Noon, AKA The Unwritten Rule (2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006)
5 - Movie Saturday (2003-2005)
6 - Professional work (look how small it is)
7 - A Month and Change (2006)
8 and 9 - Hell if I know. Lots of different miscellaneous stuff. I'm sure Intuition is in there, along with some more Movie Saturday stuff. There's some personal material as well, like my trip to England and a couple years worth of Art Days.
Each of these tapes holds one hour, so that's just under 100 hours of raw footage. This was then condensed down to, by my estimation, just under ten hours of final product. Now that I've typed out the dates above, I see that this actually represents almost ten years exactly. I wish there was more than this; but even still, looking at these stacks of videotapes gives me all sorts of warm fuzzy feelings. There's something very validating about being able to tangibly see your accomplishments, for good or ill. Hrm.
In terms of movie releases, any given year can typically be divided into three parts.The first runs from January to April, and consists primarily of movies that only get released because, hey, if you sink that much cash into something, you may as well show someone.There is also occasionally a really great independent release (Memento, Brick), but you can’t count on one of those every year.Fortunately, most of the great movies from the end of the previous year don’t make it into theaters until this time, so there’s still something to see.This year, the early period was particularly bleak for me, with only two 2008 releases that managed to interest me enough to get out to the theater (Be Kind Rewind and Leatherheads).
The Summer period, which stretches from May to August, was particularly good this year, with four very strong movies (The Dark Knight, Hellboy II, Iron Man, and Wall-E) and three solid mid-grade releases (The Incredible Hulk, Tropic Thunder, Get Smart).Unfortunately, summer movies tend to be graded on a bit of a curve.The Dark Knight is legitimately a very good movie, but if it’s the best of the year (which is so far the case), then I will be a very sad panda.
Things do, however, typically look dire at this point in the year.That’s because the studios like to hold the movies that they expect to actually be good until the end of the year, in hopes that they will be able to take home a tiny golden eunuch of their very own.So in the spirit of hope, I’d like to present five movies being released (barely, in some cases) this winter, which are all certain to be fantastic.Take it from me.Who can better evaluate the quality of a movie than a guy who hasn’t seen it?Titles link to trailers.
David Fincher has been up (The Game) and down (Panic Room) over the years, but I think he’s earned a whole career’s worth of good will, so anything he does is worth at least looking into.Plus, it’s based on a work of classic literature, so all of you students out there can see it instead of reading the story.
Besides the arresting title, the most interesting thing about this movie is writer/director Charlie Kaufman, the man responsible for Being John Malkovich and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, among others.This entry is technically cheating, since SNY has already been released – but I haven’t seen it yet, and I’ll bet you haven’t either.
This has been described as a pulpier, better-thought out Spanish version of Primer.I can’t say any more, since I’m trying to go into this one as clean as possible.In fact, the trailer already told me more than I wanted to know.Which isn’t hard, since I wanted to know nothing.So why did I watch the trailer?For the sake of you, my readers.After all, if I didn’t watch it myself, how could I be sure it wasn’t secretly a link to “Two Girls, One Cup?”
Darren Aronofsky is three for three so far, having directed Pi, Requiem for a Dream, and The Fountain.This movie looks completely different from all of those, which could be cause for both elation and fear.I’m going with the former for now.Sure, the trailer looks kind of sappy, but look who’s in it: Mickey “Angel Heart” Rourke, who was both handsomer and cooler than you in the eighties, went insane for a while, and is now both uglier and cooler than you.His co-star is Marisa Tomei, who doesn’t get nearly enough credit for being the glue that holds a movie together (watch Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s breakdown in the car in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead and try to imagine it without her reaction shots.Not a pretty sight).The fact that she happens to be the hottest 43-year-old woman on the planet is icing on the cupcake.The fact that she’s playing a stripper is the little edible BB on the icing on the cupcake.
This is, bar none, the absolute must see movie of 2008.Rian Johnson’s first movie, Brick was the best theatrical release of the past six years, and by all accounts, this is even better. I can’t even think of anything else to say about it, on account of my brain being shorted out by the awesome vibes traveling back in time from the future (fun fact: awesome vibes are made out of tachyons).Just watch the trailer.
There you have it. Five awesome movies from the future. Is there anything I missed?
Somehow or another, I've managed to use Photoshop with some regularity, both at work and in my home life, for several years now without ever actually having to composite two images together in any serious way. This era of illogic is now over, thanks to my brand-new title header thing! It was put together pretty quickly and sloppily, and I think I gave poor Ingrid Bergman some sort of deformed monkey snout, but I like it. It also serves as a pretty big hint if anyone doesn't understand my title.
One of these days, I'll probably make a nicer version. On the other hand, I have been told that the wheels of Brian turn very slowly. . .
The weekly upload limit on Vimeo resets every Saturday night at midnight, so here is the second batch of Movie Saturday productions, even though it hasn't been an entire week. This time we're going to talk about Aware, The Fallen Ninja, What You Want!!, and Sustain.
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AWARE
One of the things I was most concerned about early in the life of Movie Saturday was the idea of “pet projects,” which basically meant movies that were written and directed by one person.I was concerned that the whole thing would devolve into “Brian’s Movies” and “Jeff’s Movies” and “Rachel’s Movies” and so on.I was much more interested in having a more collaborative setting, which I thought would also increase participation overall.
Nonetheless, here we are with our second pet project in a row.This happened because a number of participants, including myself and Jeff, had plans to play in a tournament that shall not be named that afternoon (here’s a hint, though – it started with Mech and ended with Warrior.Crap, did I just give it away?).Given our diminished level of involvement, it seemed like the best possible time to let Rachel make her arty Asian culture pet project.
The human actor in this piece was one Mavourneen Graves, a friend from high school who was brought in by Rachel specifically to play this role, and had no other involvement in year one of Movie Saturday.She would eventually return a few times in year two, where she would stage a temporary gynocratic takeover (more on that in a few weeks).
The other actor is Kuro, a shelter cat adopted by my roommates at the time, Luke and Rose.Kuro was a fun, playful cat whose farts smelled like fermenting beer hops.Everyone loved her and I secretly suspect that Rachel wrote this whole script just for the sake of putting Kuro in a movie.Actually, I guess now I openly suspect it.Anyway, while I loved Kuro in real life, on set she was a total diva, refusing to hit her marks and even breaking continuity by forcing her way into scenes she shouldn’t have been in, just to get a few more seconds of on-screen face-time.
Ultimately, I’m not a huge fan of this movie, mostly owing to a script that never appealed to me.As Rachel would be the first to tell you, I’ve never really clicked with her writing.On the other hand, I do think this is one of the more visually accomplished Movie Saturday productions, and demonstrates why Rachel (or, perhaps more saliently, Rachel’s pre-production notebook) eventually emerged as one of the strongest, if not the very strongest, director that we had. -----
THE FALLEN NINJA
This was probably the most unpleasant Movie Saturday experience for me, filled with arguments, disagreements, shouting, hair pulling, eye gouging, trepanation, biological warfare, mutually assured destruction (MAD), death-ray lasers, and tears.Actually, when I describe it that way, it sounds like a lot of fun.
I wound up directing this one by default.We all showed up to make a movie and no one felt like directing.Since no director=no movie (and since I do enjoy the process), I volunteered.The next step was choosing a script, none of which I really liked.We wound up settling on The Fallen Ninja, a Rachel script which was not all that bad, but was almost absurdly short.It was written as a joke/tribute for our friend Trevor, for some reason or another that I don’t recall.Don’t worry, though, despite the dedication at the end, he’s still alive and kicking.
The first thing we shot was the mountainside fight scene flashbacks.Jeff and Luke choreographed a rather nice fight scene, which was, like the “Because it was Dead” music, just a bit too difficult to pull off in one take.This was not a problem for me, because I only intended to use short flashes of the fight anyway.So after spending way more time than we should have on that mountain doing take after take after take, I declared the scene over.
This led to argument one, because Luke and Jeff wanted one good whole take of the entire fight scene.I can certainly understand this, since they spent so much time and effort on it.But at the same time, we still had a movie to shoot, and I had given them several chances to pull it off.Argument one quickly transmogrified into the similar but distinct argument two, when Luke and Jeff realized that I never intended to show the fight in its entirety in the movie.Cue argument 1 again, rinse, and repeat.
Eventually we got everyone off the mountain and started into shooting the meat of the movie.The main action of the script took place on a street and in an alley, but someone suggested a bridge on the Colorado School of Mines campus.It meant re-working the action of the scene, but was completely worth it.The location was a lot more visually dynamic than any given street corner would be, and having Jeff jump off a bridge was way cooler than having him run around a corner.
This did not sit well with Rachel, who was unhappy with having her script rewritten.In an attempt to make peace, I left the dialogue sequence largely in her hands while I shot the action material.All told, this part went pretty smoothly, and I was pretty pleased with most of the footage.Unfortunately, there wasn’t that much of it.Turns out a page of action script does not equal a minute of screentime.
Once we finished, Rachel started editing while Luke and I discussed music.Luke wanted to use an oboe, which I approved.What I didn’t know is that Luke had never played the oboe before, and was really just interested in trying it out.This didn’t work out as well as planned and eventually, after hours of false starts, he wound up recording himself playing various notes and mapping those notes onto his keyboard so he could play it that way.I think this may be part of the reason that music always took so long.Luke composed the scores for the vast majority of our productions, and he tended to be pretty ambitious with his plans.Invariably things would go awry, but fortunately for us, Luke is also great at finding ways to make things work against all odds.Eventually.
While Luke played with his oboe, I was working on gathering the last few bits of material we needed, including the opening voiceover.When it came time to record this, I realized I didn’t really like the monologue at all, and wrote a replacement.I decided to show it to Rachel for approval before shooting it.I figured it wouldn’t be a problem, since she had mentioned being somewhat unhappy with the script back when we first selected it.
I figured wrong.
She was already angry about having her action rewritten, and felt that if the monologue was also rewritten, nothing of her script would remain.She started talking about just wanting to take her name off of the movie and leave, which I took to also potentially mean abandoning Movie Saturday entirely.This would be a pretty big blow, as she was one of the big four most actively involved people (the others were Luke, Jeff, and me).Thus began the long, hard road to compromise.We ultimately made a few changes to address my biggest concerns, while leaving the vast majority of her text unchanged.I don’t think anyone came away happy, though since A) I still had a number of smaller problems with the monologue and B) It wasn’t the original monologue that she had written.
This was probably the most unpleasant part of the production, as this single argument dragged on for over an hour and we still both walked away angry, just as Jeff and Luke were still pissed at me for shutting down their fight scene and I was still mad at them for trying to make it more important than the movie as a whole.
Oddly enough, I kind of like the result, although it’s awfully short.The process took its toll, though, and I was less than thrilled at the prospect of making another movie.I took some comfort in the fact that next time someone else would get to direct, and they would therefore get to be the bad guy for a day.
Oops. -----
WHAT YOU WANT!!
Once again we gathered and once again no one wanted to direct, so I wound up with the job.I had already picked the best of a bad lot of scripts the week before, so the pickings were even slimmer this time.Actually, there was one script I wanted to shoot, but I had written it, making it off-limits.
Please note that I am not in any way claiming that my script was better than the rest.It was, in fact, quite terrible (in addition to being nearly as long as “Weekend Warriors”).At the time, however, I was blinded by my love for the sound of my own keyboard.
Still suffering from a lack of enthusiasm thanks to the “Fallen Ninja” debacle, I picked a script based on how easy it would be to shoot and edit.The lucky winner was “Untitled,” a Shawn M. Hubbard script which was designed to be a parody of sitcoms, laugh track and all.I figured it would be an easy process because sitcoms are typically shot live with three cameras, which would eliminate the need for a lot of different camera set-ups.Sure, it would be murder on the actors, who would have to run the whole scene without stopping.But since when have I cared about the comfort of actors?
Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a suitably stage-y location to shoot this.I was hoping to do a really bright, vibrant, unrealistic lighting and décor scheme, but this quickly proved unfeasible.We only had three small work lights, and an entire room that needed lighting.Instead, we wound up going verite, shooting in a living room that had a large front window which gave us access to the largest floodlight available.I am speaking, of course, of the sun.Bounced off of clouds.Because it was a cloudy day.Which was better than direct sunlight anyway.
Our other departure from sitcom norms was our pioneering use of the two-camera system, which we developed because we only had two cameras.This system was not unworkable, but it put a lot more pressure on the camera operators to pull it off – which they didn’t, really.This isn’t so much their fault as it is mine, since I was rushing things along and trying to get it over with.Had I explained what I wanted more fully, and had we done a few more run-throughs, I suspect it would have been much better.As it was, we did one dry run and two recorded takes, and that was that.
A funny thing happened during those takes, though.I started having fun.By the time we were done shooting I was completely back on board with the spirit of the whole thing, and I found myself very excited by the idea of creating an opening credits sequence for the sitcom.My favorite part of that process was designing a hideous background graphic, which I named “Whack.”It was inspired by one of the greatest sitcoms of all time.No points for guessing, because it’s just so obvious.
This was also the point where I came up with a title for the piece.“What you want” was a phrase thrown around the now-defunct Warren Ellis forum, generally used when someone would complain about how terrible a given comic book series was.The argument was that if you really hate cliché storytelling, cheesecake art, shitty dialogue, etc, you would just stop buying it.Since you continue to buy it, it must be what you want.This seemed like a very appropriate title for our horrible little faux-sitcom.
My other favorite part of this production was recording the laugh track.We all gathered in Luke’s bedroom with a microphone pointed in our faces and, well, laughed on command.We did short laughs, long laughs, belly laughs, chuckles, whoooos, groans, awwwws, and maybe even sang The Star-Spangled Banner*.
Looking back, this was sort of the inverse of “The Fallen Ninja.”That was a horrible experience that yielded a decent final product.This was a very fun project that yielded a. . . less than optimal final product.There’s probably a moral or lesson in that, I guess.
*There is an 89% chance that I am making this up. -----
SUSTAIN
This was the quickest production in Movie Saturday history, running approximately 2 ½ hours from the time we put pen to paper to the time we watched the movie.Despite this truncated schedule, it is still slightly longer than “The Fallen Ninja” if you don’t count the credits.
The project came together at the absolute last minute.We had a Movie Saturday planned, but then, overnight, came the snows.When meeting time rolled around, none of us who lived at the meeting place wanted to get out of bed and we figured that anyone who had to actually leave the house would be even less likely to show up.We quickly declared that there would be no Movie Saturday this week.
That’s when Shawn burst through the door, swaddled in snowgear and huffing and puffing as if he had just returned from Everest.We tried to explain that we were cold and tired and it hurt, but he made it clear that if there was no Movie Saturday after he had gone to all the trouble of getting out of bed and driving over, it would hurt all the more.So Movie Saturday was back on.
At this point, I want to mention that Rachel called me shortly before Shawn arrived and asked me if we were still going to make a movie.I told her no, and that is the only reason she wasn’t involved in this project.It wasn’t a lack of interest or motivation, it was my bad information.I think it’s important to clear this up.And when I say “I think it’s important to,” I mean “I expect to be killed in my sleep if I don’t.”
Anyway, we were still very lethargic and didn’t want to go through with the usual day-long production.Given that post-production was the lengthiest part of the process, we realized that we had to make something that had only one shot (no editing) and had no music.The question was, how to make it remotely interesting?The answer was clearly to do horrible, torturous things to Jeff on camera.Once that was decided, all we had to do was come up with a brief monologue he could recite while we threw water on him in the snow.
For the record, the water was nice and warm.Someone lobbied to use cold water so that the steam wouldn’t show.That someone might have been me.I’m really not sure.All I can say for certain is that I came down on one side of the issue or the other.Which is not saying much at all.
As it turns out, collaborative scriptwriting works a lot smoother when you don’t have annoying things like “character” or “plot” to argue about.The script was finished in about fifteen minutes, and before we knew it we had another movie under our belts. -----
Next week: We finish off Year One with The Cold Grey Light and Modern Cowboys.
