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.
-----
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.
-----
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.
----
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)
-----
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.
-----
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.
-----
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.
