"PURGING
OF THE HIVE" was my first pretentious, arty
college short. It was inspired by Patrick
McGoohan's brilliant TV show of 1968 THE
PRISONER. It was fun to make and has some
interesting stuff in it but it is also
embarassing for me now in some ways. I guess
everyone's first films are too pretentious.
It
was shot in film with a Super 8mm camera and
sound was added in post. I used the music
from, NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN I think. John Shea
helped with some of the camera work shot around
Brookdale Community College but allot I did solo
too.
I
played the McGoohan part myself and I looked
normal. Society was represented by white, blank
faces and hands on everyone else in the movie. I
was the only individual in a world of faceless
people and those faceless people were after me
because I was different from them! The title
"Purging of the Hive" came out of
that.
As
my character fled I encountered faceless police.
Asbury Park officers actually helped by
supplying a police car and two uniformed cops
that agreed to dressed in the white masks and
gloves too! And I played a faceless Priest
emerging from a church to confront myself.
The
film was I guess only 10 minutes. As I
said, it had energy and on some levels worked.
It ended with me dying I forget how now.
In
a NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD style scene, there
was this artwork hanging on a wall at Brookdale
which consisted of alot of black squares with
white hands in them. I photographed that, put
the picture on a record turn table and
rephotographed it with the Super 8 camera as a
sea of swirling white hands and I slowly shifted
the hands out of focus so it became this moving
pattern.
I
haven't seen the movie in years. I don't think
any pictures were taken while we shot but if I
find avideo of the movie I'll do
frame grabs and post them here.
John
Shea was a very good friend of mine for a
period. He was going to Jersey City State
College as a film student studying 16mm film
production while working at Brookdale in the
Media Department. I would ask him a ton of
questions about what they were teaching him at
Jersey City.
Later
when I transferred from Brookdale to Jersey
City State and lived at 440 Kennedy Blvd, John
was still there and he appeared as the star in
my 16mm black-and-white scifi comedy PIT STOP.
Campus
life was fun, lonely, exciting and
depressing but I was still learning more and
more about making movies and kept focussed. Even
at the film department I was known as "The
Film Guy"!!!
