DEAD END DRIVE IN is a favorite of Tarantino’s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Melbourne International Film Festival, where I am currently having a blast, is also showing DEAD END DRIVE IN. It’s my ROAD WARRIOR meets EXTERMINATING ANGEL cocktail. Moody, fruit forward, with a wry finish,

DEAD END DRIVE IN is a favorite of Quentin Tarantino’s. El Q  is forgotten cinema’s National Gallery, a film maker whose idiosyncratic sense of wicked fun pulses from the screen. Quentin loves all the movies showing in the Ozploitation section of this festival.

Quentin first saw DEAD END DRIVE IN at a downtown LA grindhouse in its first week of release, and his affection for it has continued for 22 years. Indeed, US critics had a higher opinion than their Australian counterparts.

 

” …That increasingly rare surprise: a piece of schlock that turned out to be exciting and offbeat. It’s one of those strange grindhouse classics worth looking for… Violently kinetic action, sometimes amazing visual style, density and energy…It’s one of those movies, which apparently promising little, ends up giving you a lot, a  comic nightmare made hellishly real. “

 - Michael Wilmington - Los Angeles Times.

A critic who shares my taste for genre cocktails is a rarity. Thank you, Mr. Wilmington. There are too many self vaunting critics,  mostly in the increasingly flatulent blogosphere, who behave like eunuchs at the orgy; they can’t do it, so they bitch about people who can.

Ned Manning and Natalie McCurry, the teen runaway and her boyfriend, who get imprisoned in a drive in movie theatre.

DEAD END DRIVE IN had the temerity to be socially critical of its target audience’s appetite for junk culture, while reveling in junk culture movie tropes. It’s my socio-political-retro-future-action-exploitation flic adapted by Peter Smalley from acclaimed writer Peter Carey’s short story ” Crabs”. Producer Andrew Williams had the foresight to recognize its movie potential; I took it in a direction and style Mr. Carey did not care for. Sorry, Peter. Indeed, it lacks subtlety. Quite deliberately. I lack subtlety. I had a particular vision in my head and this is how it came out, but the movie has developed a cult following lasting 23 years so far, and may point people back to the original source of inspiration. Because, in the beginning was The Word. Raise a glass to writers. They are under-appreciated.

I added a series of titles to set the scene for DEAD END DRIVE IN, projecting a distopic future. WHAT IF Mururoa Attol experienced a nuclear test accident poisoning our Pacific fishing grounds? WHAT IF South Africa collapsed into bloody inter-racial war, causing gold and mineral exports to cease? WHAT IF there was another Wall Street crash, destabilizing the interlocking economies of the entire world, propelling urban crime into overdrive? These were valid questions in 1985. I wanted to ground Peter Carey’s surreal story in socio-political foundations relevant to world audiences in the Reagan era.  Then make a moody surreal punk movie out of it.

So imagine then, if these disasters had come to pass, our Australia as it might have been in in the late 90’s. Unemployment is rife. Manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas to cheaper labor markets. The Automobile has become a sternly guarded possession. Karboy gangs compete with tow truck operators to  roam the highways, pirating vehicles, leaving the occupants dead. WHAT IF one response from the beleaguered government to social and economic decay was to transform regular drive in movie theatres into benevolent youth concentration camps, the scrap heap for society’s cast-offs, where the weak, the unemployed and unemployable are lured by DISCOUNT TICKET PRICES (!) and literally imprisoned? Elite society is now safe.

We see these inmates adjusting quickly, content to be supplied with free junk food, all night exploitation movies, loud meaningless music, drugs, contraceptives, everything their junk value system has conditioned them to desire. With life on the outside an increasing battle, things could be worse. And from the government’s point of view, the arrangement reduces the cost of law enforcement and the prisons. Into this hedonistic dead end comes an unsuspecting young man, who quickly decides he will not play ball. But his girlfriend thinks it’s better than a teen runaway’s life. Our hero’s crisis of conscience comes when the government start shipping in Australia’s unwanted Asian migrant community. This was an element in the story I wanted to expand further, but was unable to. The US distributor even edited some moments depicting racism from the finished film. They felt those moments cut a little too close to the bone.

35 split day/nights of shooting in and around Sydney’s abandoned Matraville Drive In was a glorious experience I will never forget. The design of the Star Drive In by Larry Eastwood and Nick McCallum is nothing short of genius, beautifully lensed by Paul Murphy. This 1985 film demonstrates the high professional standard all departments of the Australian Film Industry had reached in the 15 years of its renaissance. Stunt co-ordinator Guy Norris performed the record breaking climactic truck jump stunt, and earned himself a well deserved international career.

My most bizarre memory of the shoot occurred when, at 3 am, a car full of drunken hoons, whooping and hollering, their testosterone stimulated by sounds of  motorized mayhem, skidded round the entry barriers and roared into the drive in at high speed, perhaps hoping to join in the fray. We were about to do some gunfight scenes, so there were a couple of M 16s loaded with blanks on set. Someone - who shall remain nameless  (!) - fired a burst in their direction, prompting a fast U turn and exit. I think they got their desired adrenalin rush. Perhaps they needed a change of underwear anyway.

Subsequently, a European resident of a neighboring Matraville street took out a writ in the New South Wales Supreme Court to shut down the film because  the nightly sounds of gunfire and explosions were giving him World War Two flashbacks. Indeed, gunfire at 3 am is grounds for complaint.  ( Personally I enjoy that sort of thing, but I guess it’s not for everybody.)  Co-producer Damien Parer handled this potential disaster with great expertise. He hired a barrister ( attorney) and headed to court to request the right to discharge firearms  until midnight. But when the complainant’s counsel stated that his client was a decorated war hero, it looked like we were sunk. Then the judge asked what the decoration was. “ The Iron Cross “ was the answer. It is said the judge’s face hardened. We were allowed our requested firearms curfew. We finished those scenes in a couple of nights. But it was a lesson to me to be more sensitive to environmental impact on the civilian population.

The wrap party, commencing when shooting finished at dawn, offered an unique activity: playing dodgem cars with the few remaining working vehicles in the drive in. T-Bone that Fairmont! Rear end that Mazda!.. Without damage insurance consequences! Woo Hoo!

Those were the days, my friend.  We thought they’d never end…

Forgotton Cinema.

- PROPAGANDA, POLITICS, CAMERA ACROBATICS…

The DGA screened a newly re-mastered print of I AM CUBA  (SOI CUBA) for its members last week. This link to the trailer will give you an idea of the picture’s epic style.

Most trailers give you the best moments. ( I know because I used to make them, and today, in the desperate competition for first weekend big box-office, these sales tools give away too much) But this trailer leaves you to discover many of its high impact moments when you see the whole film. Amazing use of high contrast infra-red stock and ultra wide angle lenses combine with striking compositions to make I AM CUBA an unique visual experience.

Intellectually the film offers keen political and sociological insights of increasing relevance, given that America’s presently poisonous relationship with Cuba will undoubtedly change during the first term of the next administration. Shot in 1963, during the Cuban missile crisis, this USSR/CUBA co-production was directed by famed Russian film maker Mikhail Kalatozov ( The Cranes Are Flying, Palm D’Or - 1958).

I AM CUBA is a cinema tone poem of idealized moments from the Cuban revolution, yet neither Cuban nor Russian audiences responded favorably to it on its release. In Havana, it was criticized for presenting a stereotypic view of Cubans.

In Moscow, it was considered not revolutionary enough, too sympathetic to the lives of the pre-Fidel bourgeoisie, and soon withdrawn from circulation. Many NATO countries banned it. It was not seen in the US till 1995 when Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola presented its release through Milestone Films. Propaganda has more flavors than you might think. Images of Great Moments in Socialism abound throughout the long unbroken shots, as the camera accompanies a selection of revolutionary characters through key experiences: Undeserved Misfortune, Oppression, Conversion, Activism, Armed Struggle, Martyrdom, before the final reward of Triumphal March.

The choreography of cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky’s shots is complex and continuously imaginative, as the camera probes, soars, glides through a variety of environments. At a dissolute party, the camera descends 2 stories and ends up joining the swimmers underwater.

As a farmer burns his cane field, the camera seems to pass through ever expanding walls of flame. The business end of a bombing raid, during which a father frantically searches for his missing 8 year old son is another stand-out sequence, keeping you on edge, wondering where the next bomb will fall. A sustained sniper sequence generates similar tension.
We were fortunate that the DGA screening was introduced by one of the camera operators. He took questions afterwards as to how some of the shots were accomplished by a combination of specially built elevating platforms, dolly shots, and cable shots, with the camera being invisibly passed from one operator’s hands to another at certain points. Sometimes there were as many as 17 takes of a 4 minutes shot involving hundreds of extras. We filmmakers watched each technical feat, green with envy. Wouldn’t it be great to have those resources and an open ended schedule?

The famous swimming pool shot originally went on longer, with the camera rising from the pool, and moving back into the party. This was achieved without water droplets being left on the lens, by coating the lens with a special soviet submarine periscope cleaner! But this tag to the sequence was ultimately dropped from the final cut by the director.

If, like me, you are addicted to bold image movie making, and I AM CUBA comes to a specialty screening in your city, go see this unique Forgotten Cinema experience. Or rent the DVD, but the big screen is better. Look past the propaganda, or enjoy deconstructing it, and revel in its glorious camerawork.

We owe a debt of gratitude to directors like Scorsese, Coppola, and Tarantino when they use their influence to rescue a splendid piece of bravura film making from obscurity.

Another film maker performing this type of service is Australia’s Mark Hartley, whose feature documentary NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD premieres at the Melbourne International Film Festival. It tells the story of Australia’s genre film makers of the 70’s and 80’s, and without Mark’s 10 year crusade to get the picture made, many of these films would have been buried without trace. I will be there on opening night July 25. As I am in the movie - among many other worthy pioneers of the 1970’s Australian Film Renaissance - vanity being what it is, I am bound to like it. You will have to judge for yourself as NQH is released across the world. Here is a link to the on-line promo. As an old trailer maker, I can attest - it looks like fun! And it does not give too much away.

www.notquitehollywood.com.au

Next blog - from the Melbourne International Film Festival. Then the week after that, from the Brisbane International Film Festival, where I will be on a panel. Till I fly out, I am working on the cut of the webisode pilot FUSION. Ain’t Life grand!

A terrible tale told to a Bionic Woman

Fire Down Below…Director nearly vomits on his film.Perhaps this is the behavior of an obsessive movie making enfant terrible, after producers have re-cut his masterpiece beyond his recognition. I may be terrible, but I am no enfant. This is how it happened.

December, I979.  I was the third person in a Hughes 300 helicopter. Can seat three. Generally two. On my left was the pilot; on my right was future Academy Award winning cinematographer John Seale with a Panaflex camera hanging from bungey cords through the open doorway beside him.

Our standby mission each day: to capture footage of brushfires ( known as bushfires Down Under) that regularly break out each summer in the rugged Blue Mountains north of Sydney. The call to get in the air had come through an hour before. A big blaze had started. These pictures will give you an idea of the scale of these fires each summer, and the big brass balls of the volunteers that fight them.

Installing our bungey-slung, poor man’s Tyler mount for aerial photography required flying without the door on the passenger side of the perspex bubble cockpit. We had left the door at the city helipad along with our regular clothes. We were wearing white overalls, part of our survival gear for easier location from the air, in case the chopper went down in remote terrain and we were marooned pending rescue. An unlikely scenario but a worthwhile precaution.

I sat snuggly between pilot and cinematographer, cradling two loaded 400 foot magazines on my lap in case the reported outbreak of fire was spectacular enough to require extensive coverage.

The courage and dedication of these volunteer fire fighters is extraordinary.

But as we approached the ribbon of fire and smoke, we were struck by a weather phenomenon unique to Sydney known as a Southerly Buster, a hot wind from the south that can reach full intensity inside a minute and is sometimes strong and sudden enough to capsize a yacht. There were two external  results:  the fire back burned on itself and fizzled out, ending our mission, and local airports including the city helipad were closed to all aviation till the wind had abated. Our pilot, cool and laconic as Australian aviators tend to be, simply turned the chopper into the wind and hovered pending instruction as to which airport to make for. The Southerly produced an internal result for me..

Despite being the son of a fighter pilot, I have not inherited my father’s love of flying. After 10 minutes of buffeting, pitching and yawing, my stomach began to indicate it had issues.  I had just finished eating when the call to chase this fire came through. Now my lunch was unhappy with its lodgings and anxious to leave.  The pilot, while sympathetic, was under orders to hold his position while other aircraft were diverted to different airports. He urged me to hold it. Well, there comes a time when we all know that a Technicolor Yawn is inevitable. You have seconds to decide in which direction to point your mouth. I considered the options from left to right. Vomiting on a pilot while in flight, as opposed to an inner city public bar, is considered bad manners in Australia. Vomiting on the controls of an aircraft is also frowned upon. Vomiting on one of Australia’s top cameramen…see rules relating to pilots. Additionally John had taken the $200,000 Panaflex Gold with zoom lens off the bungey cords and was holding it securely across his lap. On my lap rested the spare magazines. No cups or paper towels. Not many choices left. So, when the time came to throw me voice, I leaned back as far as I could go and regurgitated in careful bursts onto my chest, as my perverse subconscious deciding to play Barry McKenzie’s song “Chunder in the old Pacific Sea” in my head.

One of the fire fighting choppers that back up the volunteer bushfire brigades on the ground.

Sensitive readers have by now hit the delete button. For those few brave remaining souls, you will be pleased to hear…it gets worse!

My companions were stoic, and grateful that the flying vomitorium had one door removed. We were directed to land not at the city helipad, but at the light plane section of Sydney’s airport.  When we touched down, I asked the pilot where the nearest bathroom was so I could clean myself up a bit, before getting a cab to the city helipad were my regular clothes were. He pointed me towards a large hanger, advising that the bathrooms were at the back.

I entered to find the hanger full of office party revelers. About a 150 of them. It was December 17, mid summer in Australia. The extended Christmas party season had been underway for a week. Uniformed waiters offering wine, and trays of smoked salmon at an upscale  bash for some aviation company, was now gate crashed by a man in white overalls sporting a large stain from chin to groin, with some artistically placed food particles. The Ghost of Christmas (Party) Future had materialized as a warning to all those might over-indulge.  I stammered some explanation but guests shrank and looked away, trying to ignore the odiferous Elephant In the Room, who obviously could not hold his liquor.

Finally reaching the bathroom, I succeeded in making the stain even bigger, but at least lighter in color. Then came the task of calling a cab. In the height of the Christmas party season. An hour later a cab did arrived where I was waiting at the curb.

“ I don’t take drunks.” said the cabbie sternly.
“I’m not drunk” I protested. “ Just a little motion sickness”

He took me under sufferance. But anxious to be rid of Mr. Smelly in the back, or perhaps this was how a Serbian cabbie always drives, he went like a bat out of hell for the city heliport. The twists and turns reactivated the motion sickness, and I had to ask him to pull over. In the rear view mirror I saw his face tighten into I bloody knew it.

As the cab screeched to a halt, the back door flew open, and I slid along the plastic lined seat, I wondered what I looked like to the passing traffic, several of whom honked their horns at a head and shoulders dry retching into the gutter. “ Look at that drunken dickhead, and it’s not even 7 o’clock.”  Today. it would be on U-Tube in minutes.

“You’re lucky I don’t leave ya here.” growled the cabbie, as we sped away. No good deed will go unpunished. But I didn’t care. I was just happy to be alive.

I have told this story during desert at a dinner party ( I know…I’m a sick and wicked puppy)  but perhaps the best place for the telling of this tale is inside a helicopter in flight, which I did when sharing a ride with Lindsay Wagner and her kids. We had finished a night of shooting on my killer virus melodrama VOYAGE OF TERROR, and were being transported from location back to the Vancouver helipad. Watching her kids howl with laughter at each icky detail was a joy.

Lindsay Wagner is a smart, kind hearted, eco friendly, talented actress, able to project strength and vulnerability at the same time, the way Holly Hunter and Kyra Sedgwick can, to name but two. Lindsay has a wry, whimsical side too. And a sexy husky purr that enlivens her commercials. So it surprises me that we do not see more of her in good roles on the small or large screen. She should at least be doing the parts that Geena Davis turns down. Casting directors, please think outside the box.

Despite my gastric upheaval, the 20 minute theatrical documentary DANGEROUS SUMMER, honoring the heroism of the bushfire brigades of Sydney’s Blue Mountains, turned out quite well, distinguished by spectacular scope photography from John Seale, Tom Cowan (subsequent aerials) and Australia’s leading female DP at that time Jan Kenny, who carried camera, lens, and tripod across her back through burning landscapes as it was a lunchbox in her knapsack.

More on this fiery film another time.

The Art of Triage in Film Making

One of the cruel realities of a director’s life is this: you cannot go on shooting forever. Much though you and your pals would like to  play in the sand box all night, the shutters must come down at some point, and when they do, regardless of unexpected disasters, delays, and assorted impediments, you had better come away with all the shots you need. If you fail to do this - in episodic for instance - you get sent to movie jail. The unemployment line. I remember one very good Canadian director being struck off a big company’s list because he shot 3 hours past the time he was meant to hand the crew over to the next episode’s director. The Quick or The Dead.

Glove Love. Corrupt cop Kevin kills crack head hooker but all round nice person Chalet Nechtman. We staged the murder solely from the victim’s point of view.

A crisis late in the last shooting day can be particularly challenging. Last Sunday was the final night of our Webisode pilot FUSION, a sci-fi police procedural, in which two characters concealing their different super powers have to decide whether the other is friend or foe. Technical issues were slowing us down - like how to keep transferring what we had shot onto hard drive while juggling only two cards, one long, one short. ( I hate computers. And they hate me right back)

” Just resting!”  Actress Chalet Nechtman gives an intense, complex, multi-layered performance in the morgue scene.

The building staff in our location, level 4 of an underground car park, could not have been more cooperative. But we had to be out by midnight. Then at 9.10 we learn that car park lights, which we support with our own lights, are on a timer, and go out at 10 pm.  Or maybe it’s half power at 10.30. Or is it 10.45? The man who knows is away from his cell phone, understandable on a Sunday night.

It’s the waiting that kills you… Actress Julianna Robinson ( Wasting Away, McBride) patient as ever between takes.
On a micro budget shoot it is mission critical to make your day, particularly the last day, and there is still much to shoot. This is a Sword of Damocles moment for any director. Changing circumstance force you to triage your intended staging down to the essentials, guesstimating what can be achieved in the remaining time. Worst case scenario -  50 minutes left to cover all story points necessary to complete the scene. Best case, 95 minutes. So, the plan becomes: shoot the spine of what’s needed before 9.58, then do a shot that fills in the most important hole. You might get lucky. If the lights are not out by 10.05, it a safe bet that you will be lit till 10.30 at least. Fill in more holes till then. 10.32, and still got light? Go like hell to grab all the grace notes you wanted for the scene.

Take that you brute! Then do it again on a tighter lens.

It’s one thing for a director to strategize, but unless the cast and crew are hyper-focused and you all leap frog from shot to shot as one many legged beast, you are not going to make it. But this team were at the top of their game. Consequently we charged through complimentary coverage wide, tight ,and low from each side of the axis,  shooting the last insert at 10: 41. The lights went to half power 4 minutes later.

“It’s just a rash..” explains actor Dennis Pratt, who plays evil Doctor Thornhill.

Watching the shot (7) from the far right ( though not politically) is our prime mover, writer/producer/generalissimo Richard Manning ( Star Trek, Farscape, Sliders, etc.)
The crisis was over, or so it seemed. We still had more essential shots to do outside, where street lamps would give our hi-def camera the luminance it needed without additional lighting. Chris Cleveland chasing Julianna Robinson through back alleys. Julianna finding a place to hide. Chris reaching the street. She is nowhere in sight. Voice over conveys both their thoughts. Without these shots, there is no cliff hanger ending to the story, the springboard for future episodes. At such times, Murphy’s Law generally makes an appearance. If it can go wrong, it will. And remember O’Toole’s corollary to Murphy’s Law: “ Murphy was an optimist!“

So, what happens? Chris pulls a muscle on the second shot. Very painful to keep on running but he does, shot after shot. Then the camera dies. Dead battery. We’ve been getting through them. All the spares are dead too. No time to recharge because the building is about to close. On big productions I’ve see wailing and gnashing of teeth break out at this juncture, not to mention finger pointing. But not this team. They are in The Zone. So producer Teri Bolke and camera dude Paul Olson somehow rig her cell phone charger from the cigarette lighter of her SUV to the camera, and we are back in business. Wherever the camera goes up and down the back alleys, its huge power source rumbles along with it. And we get the last shot.
3 minutes before midnight. We are out of the building on time.

The Big Brass Balls Medal of the shoot goes to Chris Cleveland ( The Prestige) for enduring so much physical pain while maintaining the same energy level for 15 hours.

And a word of praise for our sound maven Ronnie Ersenbauch. Generally sound departments contain one cup-half-empty guy. Either the recordist, cable guy or boom swinger is a grumbler. ( Sound departments will now hate me for expressing this common director’s complaint. My next project may well be a silent movie.) But Ronnie, doing all three jobs, never uttered a word - other than “Speed!” Nor did the boom ever venture into the shot. Not once. The whole crew in every department were fantastic.

FUSION is being made for Strike TV which is an on-line fundraiser for the Writers Guild Foundation Industry Support Fund - a charity which is assisting non-Writers Guild members, including IATSE, Teamsters, and other below-the-line crew members affected by the recent Writers Guild strike, and the general production slowdown in anticipation of the possible SAG strike. It’s good to be part of something worthwhile, and it’s great to have so much fun doing it. I’ll tell you when it’s on.

StrikeTV charity:

“Recently, the Industry Support Fund closed, but we’re still making good on our promise to help out our below-the-line colleagues affected by the strike and labor unrest.  In the continuing spirit of solidarity, we are donating the first three months of advertising revenue from Strike.TV projects to the Entertainment Assistance Program of The Actors Fund, which assists film and television crew members affected by the work stoppage.  In a typical year, the Entertainment Assistance Program gives out around $200,000.  Since the writers strike, and with the tenuous ongoing negotiations between SAG and the AMPTP, this year the EAP has distributed over $1.3 million to below the line industry professionals in need.”

In answer to Joe Movick’s comment -

Our crew structure required a degree of multi tasking.  So, don’t load too much responsibility on any one crew member. Make everybody aware that the entire unit is available to help him/her when needed. Create an atmosphere devoid of guilt or blame. We all make mistakes. ( Even me.) As long as the mistake is communicated early enough, it can be fixed. Maintain the communal joy in the process. It’s a fuel additive.

We had no grip/electric trucks, because we devised a way to organize the shoot without them. A crew of three handled all requirements of camera and lighting. Myself, in conjunction with the writer/producer, and the actors, handled continuity, and so on. As these productions get more complex, obviously we will need more people. Remember, Ingmar Bergman made most of his early films with the same crew of 18. The carrot is more effective than the whip. Feed the underpaid as well as you can. It means a lot. No director should think that treating a crew like slaves will benefit him. The Ad line for GHOULIES says it all: ” they’ll get you in the end..!”

 

I’ve shot my Morgue…

“and transfixed a man with rebar in an underground car park!” … ( I know…I am a sick puppy.)

The webisode pilot FUSION is in the can. Well, the hard drive, actually. It was an amazing experience. Lovely to have FIB Production Assistant blogger Brandie Posey taking care of a crisis or two. A great script helps, but if you do not have great people around to help you bring it to life, you can come badly unstuck on the kind of micro budget we were working on. More on the shoot another time, but I want to single out two people for special praise.

Lea-Beth Shapiro, our hands-on producer, is a goldmine, She charmed the technical and location resources we needed out of thin air. I cannot recommend her highly enough to a budget challenged production.

lbs13@aol.com

This is most of the team that shot the show. Paul Olson, bottom left, is a true discovery as a DP/Operator/Gaffer. His grasp of composition, the economical use of light, is extraordinary from one so young. He and his team were the energizer bunnies round the set in a 15 hour day. I see cinematography awards in his future. paul@demzignant.com

So, anyone out there has a challenging shoot, talk to these two. Your problems will be solved.

bts