Kinda OT: Have you made B-Movie? Have you always wanted to? Tell us about it!

[AndyC]

Oh man, I just got a flashback of a high school project I did with a few other guys. Our English class did a unit on film, and we split up into groups to make movies.

My group did a slasher film called Roger's Revenge. The title character, seen only through POV shots with heavy breathing, was named after a real bum who occasionally lived in the park near the school, where we filmed our movie. The story was that he became outraged, and presumably mutated, by toxic dumping in the park, and went on a killing spree. A bunch of beer drinking, pot smoking teenagers wander into the park, and get attacked.

We actually had one of the better-made films in the class, in terms of editing and laughs, but there were still some continuity problems, such as one guy forgetting to wear the same clothes the next day. It actually looked pretty funny, because he and another guy took off running in one shot, and in the next they come to a stop and he's wearing something totally different. So, we worked it into the story as part of the supernatural goings on.

We also needed a skull for the remains of an early victim that are discovered. The best the science department could give us was a goat with the horns sawed off, but we made do.

I played four victims (toxic dumper, flasher, cowboy and guy having a smoke), and the hands of the killer, but I was mostly behind the camera.

Best shot, hands down, has to be the POV shot down the street, as Roger chases "Final Boy" (maybe there were two) through an intersection. The light turns red as the killer approaches, and he starts to whistle a little tune as the POV shot stops and looks around while he waits for the light to change. Light turns green, the heavy breathing resumes and he's back on the job.

Oh, I should mention that we used real beer in this movie. We really got a laugh out of handing in a video of students drinking beer in the park on school time and actually getting a good mark. Teacher had to assume we filled the bottles with water. She had no way of proving we didn't. Ah, the magic of film.

I've got a VHS of this somewhere. I should get a capture of it (if it's still playable) and put it up where you guys can see it. You can see me in all my denim-jacketed, feathered-haired, tinted-glassed, peachfuzz-mustachioed glory. It's a total 80s flashback.



Post Edited (09-21-05 20:26)

[Archivist]

I never made the movies directly, but I was sometimes in movies made by friends.  When I was just out of high school, a friend had a video camera and was forever making strange movies with other friends.

I remember some of the quite creative cutting they did to achieve special effects.  The two characters walk up to a garage, look at each other, and then up at the roof.  The next shot is a low foot-level shot of their feet jumping off the ground.  In the very next shot, you see them 'landing' on the roof of the garage.  They turn to each other and say, 'Yeah, we still got it!' high five each other and walk along the roof.

Of course, fight scenes were staged, often involving perspective shots that made it look like someone was being kicked/punched but the angle of the shot concealed the distance between the fighters.

These friends were also into dubbing movies themselves.  I always remember their version of a Sean Connery Bond movie that they had completely redubbed in their own voices.  A few of my friends were quite talented actors/mimics and could do voices very well.  The Sean Connery impersonations seemed pretty good to my ears back then.

This brings back some memories.  I haven't seen these guys for years now.  I wonder if they still have the movies?  Who knows...

~Archivist~

[dean]

My first 'major' production was for a media studies class.  We were studying horror and slasher films [it was a fun year] and everyone had to get in groups and make their own horror film.

Our plot was that at the back of the hall, in a kind of Phantom of the Opera-like way, were two crazy students who are killing all the cast of the school play.  Our group was really lucky in a sense because we had the two scariest looking people in our class: a long haired hippie-looking friend of mine who is really good at 'wild and crazy' and a really tall, kinda disturbed looking guy who kind of reminds me of Jaws from the Bond films.  They played the killers of course, and did a great job.

There was also a great deal of satisfaction in killing off the most annoying people in the class who happened to be in our group as well.  Basic plot involved the two killers selling the dead students to the canteen staff for food.  Our final shot was of my friend eating a dim sim with the other killer having a perplexed look on his face.  It was kind of an odd ending, but seemed to work!

I was mainly behind the camera, but worked my way into the plot, and back out again, without actually getting killed.  A few problems in terms of continuity occured: we filmed behind the curtains on the stage at our school, only to find a week later a heap of band equiptment had been set up on the previously empty stage, and other days the hall would be quiet, but in the latter stages of shooting, one class kept having badminton nearby and they were quite loud.

It was great fun, and edited with the power of VHS, which was a pain, but turned out well.  We had stunts, which we kind of got in trouble for later because they were apparently dangerous.   We even managed to get suspensful music which was great for the final kill: right at the climax, the killer violently bursts through the stage curtains and jumps on and kills our final surivor.

The only problem with that class was the fact that we had to watch the opening sequence of Scream about 20 times.  We were doing close scene analysis and needed to be able to identify every bit of it.  Our teacher even turned the screen around and had us just listen to it.  It was very funny that people would know all the lines by the end of this and would be miming them whilst the scene was playing out.  But then again, being shown slasher films for a course isn't too bad in High School so I guess nobody was complaining.

[dean]

A friend of mine who is a camera operator and 'steadicam specialist;' [it actually says this on his business card], well he asked me if I would like to help work on a short Zombie film.  Even without asking about the project I said yes, and its due to be done in January.  Upon further interrogation I have found that it will be used to get funding for a bigger budget full lenght movie, so if things go well I may be able to live out one of my goals in life: to be a zombie extra on a proper zombie film.

That should be fun.  I hope this wasn't just a tempting drunken offer [which it well could have been.] and I don't know what capacity I'll be involved, but I really don't care.  Even being around should be fun.  Hope it goes well...

[Scottie]

Dean,

Does your friend actually own a real steadicam? If he does, he's deep in the business. The real ones are a fortune! I think you can find a used one for around $5,000. Those counterweights are pricey. If he's using an el cheapo, that's still cool. I want one.

[Mitch McAfee]

Hi folks, I've been posting infrequently since 1999 but have mostly been lurking in the past 12 months.

Anyway, yep I've made a B movie - Atomic Spitballs... & it's somewhat inspired by The Giant Claw. Its played at a few film festivals & generally getting positive responses.

(shameless plug)
http://www.amazingkryptobros.com/atomicspitballs.htm


Hey Dean, I live in Melbourne too. Is that Zombie film set in a rural country town?



Post Edited (10-04-05 23:12)

[dean]

Mitch McAfee wrote:


> Hey Dean, I live in Melbourne too. Is that Zombie film set in a
> rural country town?

I really don't know any details of it.  Not even the name of it, or whether or not I'll be doing anything on it, so it's early days yet.  I wouldn't be surprised that I'll just be there to help my friend lug equiptment around!  Not that I would care really.  My friend has a copy of a script and next time I'll see him I guess I'll ask him what's going on.  Oh, and I'm pretty sure I'm not getting paid for it, which is fine as well, since the experience would be a hell of a lot of fun anyway.  I have a feeling the name of the film is named after the tank/armored vehicle of Land Of the Dead, but can't remember for sure.

Why? You know something I don't? :-P

Also, had a look at your website, that movie looks pretty awesome.  Much better than anything I'm capable of with a zero dollar budget!  I also liked the little reference to this site in the production notes.  Sounds like a stressful, but ultimately fruitful shoot!

I've been playing around with the idea for doing a crappy 50's B-Movie for a while now myself, but talent and budget prohibits doing it properl. What's funny to me is that I actually know the locations you are talking about!  I actually don't live too far away from Hartwell myself, and one of my good friends lives about a 2 minute walk away from that scout hall.

Oh and Scottie, not sure if he owns a real steadicam, though I do know he has access to one pretty readily if he doesn't.  For his media studies project in our last year of high school he used a steadicam in his film to get some pretty sweet shots.  His dad is a camera man as well and they have quite a lot of expensive equiptment lying around.  Damn jealous am I!

[dean]

Found out [to answer Mitch's question] that this short zombie film will indeed be filmed in a rural setting.

Also found out that I will be helping my friend with the steadicam job as an assisstant, so that's cool.  I'll be giving it my all, since I want it to go as smoothly as possible, even though I'm likely to not be doing anything too strenuous [just being there is great!].

So there you go, I have a small part to play in making a Zombie film [well, like I said it's early days yet]  So I'm happy!

[Scottie]

Dean wrote:

Also found out that I will be helping my friend with the steadicam job as an assisstant, so that's cool. I'll be giving it my all, since I want it to go as smoothly as possible, even though I'm likely to not be doing anything too strenuous [just being there is great!].
>
>

Dean, cable puller extraordinaire. Hope you like not doing anything for 45 minutes out of every hour. Is the movie going to be a DV feature or a real film movie?

[Mitch McAfee]

Hey Dean, thats cool about your job as an assistant!

It seems there are a few local Zombie films in production, was just curious to know what film you were attached to. Best of luck with it :)

The funny thing, I don't live far from the Hartwell Scout Hall either - it's a small world isn't it! And thanks for your complimentary words about my film too :)



Post Edited (10-04-05 23:13)

[dean]

Mitch McAfee wrote:

> The funny thing, I don't live far from the Hartwell Scout Hall
> either - it's a small world isn't it! And thanks for your
> complimentary words about my film too :)

You're very welcome, it's always fun and interesting to learn about people's B-movie experiences, which is kind of why I started this thread, and it's especially nice knowing that there's a local boy hanging around this site as well, it is a small world indeed.

Good luck at the festival in Arizona later this month, hope it's a load of fun.

It does seem like Zombie films are the go now, so I hope the genre doesn't get flooded and fades off again [what can I say, I love zombie films] and with the success of Undead, I guess alot of Aussie filmmakers must be attempting to get some recognition via the good ol' zombie film.  The Uni film festival I mentioned in an earlier post had a low budget zombie film in it as well, and that was a fun, if not kind of wacky film.

My optimistic view is that this influx of zombie films will result in the Australian film industry growing into one which has a solid reputation as a country which makes great B-movies [or at least great low budget films not of the Drama genre]  It would be quite nice for this industry to create a niche for itself, it does seem a little lost at the moment.

And to answer Scottie, doing nothing for 45 minutes out of every hour will just mean that I have more time to watch and appreciate the production without the hassle and responsibility of being directly involved, so that's fine by me.

The film, as I understand it, is a short film which will be used to get funding for a feature, so I imagine it would have to look good.  It's apparently being filmed in HD, so that the main guy in charge can load it up on computer and do all the effects himself [I'm told he's good at it] so I guess it's just a matter of wait and see.

January is too damn far away...

[Scottie]

An HD feature? AWESOME! The guy must be using one of those new Sony HDR cams, or maybe the JVC! That's so cool! I've only been around the prosumer Panasonic DVXs and Canon XL1 and 2. I've never seen those bad boys yet. Aw man, if I ever got my hands on one of those things, the world better watch out cause data's gonna fly. Congrats Dean!