MY WEDNESDAY MORNING

FIGHTING CRIME... 8 BITS AT A TIME

So something I haven't really mentioned here is that in addition to the film watching, film review writing, film reading and general faffing about I do I also occasionally find myself involved in making something filmic. This latest endeavour is born of a vague (initially throw away idea) from a brainstorming session two years ago. First we knocked together a trailer. Then we decided to make it a six episode web series. Then we shot it. This is... Tetris Cops. 

Produced by an Indian, a Chinaman and a White Guy Productions, the original plan for filming was to shoot an episode a weekend, for six weekends in a row. That didn't quite work out as planned. Instead, as can so often happen (especially when you're working on zero budget) things got pushed out. Various uncontrollable things happened. Months went by. We regrouped. We took a week, glanced at each other meaningfully and said "This is when we film. Let's do this!"

A few of us took annual leave from our day jobs for the past week. We didn't use that leave to relax. Nossir. We used it to film. I was first helping out on a couple of other episodes, and then worked on directing mine. And it was great. Fucking awesome. I was exhausted at the end of most days; from standing up, from constantly working through scenes and problems, from driving around trying to navigate Wellington city streets, from holding a big ass camera over my head... I was exhausted and a little delirious. I felt a helluva lot better than after a regular day of my office job.

 

Directing!

Photo courtesy of Chris Tse 

The thing that really got me, is how great folks can be. Our two cops, Julian and Logan, are played by two professional actors, Simon and Paul. Acting is what these guys do for a job. And they agreed to help us out. The mad fools agreed to put on awkward box costumes and run around spouting dialogue in gruff cop-action voices. To top it off, they're totally ace, riffing randomness like the best of them. And our villain, also a professional actor trained in all types of cool stuff (Ben), was happy for us to whack a fake mustache and fake tan looking make-up on him as we made him strut around with a faux Mexican accent. And the same goes for all our cast. From the Chief, to the DA to little random insert characters. Just the fact that these people were willing to give up so much of their time, often taking time off from work, makes me feel all humble. 

Shakespeare, this ain't.
Photo courtesy of Chris Tse 

Not to mention the guy who let us use his car for the Tetris Cops' car. None of us had met this guy before. He didn't know us from Adam. But my friend, co-writer-director-producer Rajeev saw his car and flat-out asked him if we could use it for a shoot. "No worries." This dude, this awesome dude, let us borrow this:

The Tetrismobile

with no worries. No worries driving it. No worries hanging on to it over night. What can you say about a guy like that? Fucking. Ace.

Basically it's been a hectic, busy week running around like a madman fighting traffic, weather and the odds. We've got most of the footage we needed for the rest of the series, with only a day worth of shooting to go. It's been exhausting and rewarding. And I'm looking forward to y'all seeing it and hearing what you think of this crazy little series. Shot on a frayed shoestring, with a lot of goodwill and help, I'm pretty chuffed with what we've achieved so far. I'll be keeping you posted on release, likely early in the new year.

The challenge, for me personally, is to not let myself fall back into the morass of daily routine now. I'm already plotting and pondering new projects. I know I have to move beyond that initial stage and get going, get moving get creating. 'Cos that's when the good stuff happens.

VAMPIRES, ZOMBIES AND WEREWOLVES... OH MY!

Halloween, that great big Northern Hemisphere (particularly American) tradition is coming up again soon. It’s All Hallows Eve where the barrier between this world and the next is said to be at its weakest; a time for ghosts, ghouls and various creatures of the dark to come out of hiding. So, of course, some people celebrate by dressing up and wandering around the neighbourhood asking for candy. Others prefer to dress up and drink themselves silly. And some people prefer to turn off the lights, put on a movie and scare themselves silly.

There’s nothing quite like a truly frightening film to get you scared. The best work by not only making you jump out of your seat with fright, but by getting under your skin and having you lie awake in bed. The covers pulled up tight, you cannot help but be deadly afraid that some raving undead vampire ghost zombie lunatic demon will murder you horrifically while you sleep. You jump at every unusual sound, your adrenaline is heightened, and your fight/flight instinct is engaged. Just because you know monsters don’t exist doesn’t make them any less real.

The power of story, eh? It can be a truly dangerous, frightening thing. The right story, told well, can be more terrifying and longer lasting than a more immediate fright, like a rollercoaster ride or haunted house. I believe it has something to do with how the human brain is hardwired for Story (not just stories, but Story). Despite our best nature, despite our rational thought, we want to believe.

Horror has never been one of my favourite genres though. As a child, the closest I came was hiding behind the couch during Ghostbusters. I was always (and still am) more of a sci-fi geek. Perhaps, as a kid, I was generally pretty frightened enough just by the thought of creep, ooky monsters. I didn’t need the films; I had my brain. By the time I entered my teens in the mid-90’s, horror had entered something of a lull.

I’m interested in the history of the genre and enjoy more than a few horror films. As a genre, it gets something of a bad rap which is likely due to the massive amounts of schlocky examples there are. It all started so well in the early days of the 20th century with unqualified masterworks like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu and The Phantom of the Opera. From these roots came the Cold War/atomic horror films and B-movies of the 50s and 60s (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Omega Man, Night of the Lepus) , the beginning of the modern age of horror in the 70s (The Shining, Carrie, Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist), the horror series from the 80s (Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Child’s Play), the post-modern deconstruction and resurgence of the slasher flick in the 90s (Scream) and the torture porn and remakes of today (Saw, Hostel, Halloween). But this brief decade breakdown can barely hope to cover an entire genre, with its many branching sub-genres and practitioners. There’s also the Dead series from Romero, the low budget horror-comedy of The Evil Dead and Braindead, Hammer horror from Britain, sci-fi horror, video nasties, Roger Corman, Cronenberg’s body-horrors, Hitchcock, the arrival of J-horror, Abbot & Costello and more.

This is all a (rather long) pretext to me posing the question to you, dear reader: What’s your favourite scary movie? What film/s do you remember being frightened by the most? Are there certain films you revisit every year or so? Or do you prefer new scares?