PIT
STOP was my first stab at scifi comedy and it was an
interesting failure.
Before I
get into PIT STOP let me explain something. These
college movies - both at Brookdale and Jersey City State
- were born out of class projects. The assignment for
Production One at Jersey City State was for
everyone in the class to shoot a 100 foot roll of
black-and-white 16mm properly exposed and in focus using
one of the school cameras be it a BH70 DR or Bolex. It
was a very basic test of abilities and 100 foot of 16mm
film is only two minutes and 47 seconds. Thats all that
was required to get a grade.
What I did
was skip class with the camera and shoot actual movies.
I was largely self-taught in filmmaking. I knew most of
it before I set foot in the class room. All I needed to
know was the particulars of any given camera I was
shooting with.
The BH
70DRs were really rugged, nice cameras and gave you a
very sharp, rock steady image. The bolexs that the
Production One students got were not the best -
they were not the top of the line Rex 5's which were
reflex and the highest quality the Bolex campany
produced - they were cheaper, older non-reflex stuff. I
used both. But my favorite camera at JCSC turned out to
be a Bach Auricon which was a self-blimped studio camera
that could work with the Nagra III recorders for
lip-sync filmmaking. In fact, I took the Auricon out so
consistantly while making the movies I made at JCSC that
it became generally know as "Warren's camera".
Since no one else was shooting sound movies it was
always free and since it was a extremely bulky and heavy
camera requiring a massive tripod, few people wanted to
deal with it. I loved it. Years later when I set-up
Visual Experiences, Inc., I bought one for myself and
still have it. Its a beautiful camera and extremely well
made.
So PIT
STOP was an epic compared to what everyone else was
doing shooting their 100 foot roll of film.
It reached
a point where Professor Mark Eisenstein, a truly
wonderful mentor, simply got out of my way and signed
permission slips for me to keep taking the equipment out
and shooting movies. I skipped most of his classes and
showed him the final movie at the end of the course to
get a grade. Mark knew that filmmakers simply make
films, that it is simply in my blood.
Sample
script:
Opening
shot - interior - day - Media Arts Building Hallway.
Mark and I
bump into each:
"Disbrow"
says Mark. "When are you coming back to
class?"
"When
are you going to teach something I don't already
know" I responded.
Mark gives
me a sly look, nods and walks on. He gets it. Mark is a
filmmaker too and so understands me. Our passion
for making movies went beyond the college
structure.
OK, back
to my 2 minutes 47 seconds / 20 minute movie :o). My
friend John Shea played the part of an alien landing on
a college campus and just walking around exploring
everything. In the process he gets raped by a female,
gets in a pool game with a hustler and is stabbed
in an attempted mugging. He finally gives up on earth,
returns to his space ship and leaves.
It was
shot on Plus-X and Tri-X black-and-white film stock
using a BH70DR camera with an incredibly sharp fixed
focus lens.
I think it
ran about 15 to 20 minutes.
One
incident that I do remember was that when we were
shooting the mugging there was a real shoot out with
cops up the street and John and somebody else who was
there helping got worried that the staged mugging might
be seen as real by the cops.
(to be
continued)
