Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only the Movie Producer

I have a story concept for an over-the-top exploitation film. I have a friend with around 300 acres in the boonies of Parker County, Texas I could film on. I was going to have my art director build a small village with grass huts, etc., and have a bunch of topless Mexican chicks in grass skirts and a bunch of Mexican vatos in loin clothes portraying cannibalistic natives.

The story line is a film crew arrives in the jungles of a fictional South American country to begin filming a soft-core porno movie in the jungles. They get lost in the jungle and attacked by a cannibalistic tribe and have to outwit them and escape from them. The movie will have lots of bullets and lots of babes. The director is a dictatorial asshole. The female star is a preening primadonna. The male star is a handsome, ex-Marine who drinks a fifth of vodka a day and is going to seed. The production assistant is an innocent farm girl from Kansas. The star's bodyguard is a bone-crunching, karate slinging bull dyke to die for. Throw in some missing shipments of gold, some drug lords, federales, rebel armies, rich gringos from Hollywood hiring ninjas dropping out of trees.

Shoot it all guerrilla style, with digital equipment, natural lights, limited makeup, baloney sandwiches and daily stipends and/or points, all pp shot within a two week period with one day off in between. Balls to the wall, seat of the pants, do or die, fuck all, shoestring budget.

Any takers?

[I got the idea for this after watching the 70's German independent film, Man From Deep River.]

Back in the Saddle

I've been trying to get back into the groove to write more about Dilligaf Productions. I've been very busy moving Movie Central to our new location in Springtown, Texas, now known as Movie Central West. We all hated to see our location change due to monetary problems.

Our last location in Dallas was where it all happened... the bunkhouse, the beer binges, the steel balls, the shouted obscenities, the loose women, the working girls, the 99 cent frozen pizzas, the 3 for a dollar frozen burritos, the Bugler brand, hand-rolled cigarettes, the all-nighters, Mako shoveling coal in the engine room, the unmentionables, and the the 700 movie DVD and VHS archives to choose from when anyone cared to watch a movie instead of make, film or edit one... they will all be missed!

Now it's onward, wagons ho and don't look back. Coming soon... the biker flick, Dead or in Huntsville! More to come!

Dispatch from Les #5 - "You Wanna See Helicopters?"

Yes, we are still here. Life and the 40-hour work week go on in the real world. The editing continues in the movie world. (On weekends, that is.) The mind numbing attention to detail and constant search for that best combination of scenes that is editing. Most scenes shot at a 3 to 1 shooting ratio, if we were lucky. Viewing the same scenes over and over for three years is like water torture. It's like eating chocolate cake until you puke. Whew! But we are so close! We're at the finish line! Still planning on that March 2009 premiere for Having My Baby, fingers crossed! The media blitz will start soon. Look for us on the telly, as our British friend would say, as we countdown our fifteen minutes of fame.

What kind of movie takes 3 1/2 years to complete? What were you doing on Labor Day? Editing. What were you doing on Thanksgiving? Editing. What were you doing on Christmas Eve? Editing. (Eraserhead supposedly took David Lynch five years to shoot. The torture that man must have gone through. Five years of anticipation to see a completed project. Some people call Eraserhead unwatchable... some call it genius... an audience is a fickle thing. I fall in the latter camp and call it wholly original.)

"You wanna see helicopters?" I got the helicopter shots just hanging around Addison Airport for a couple of Saturdays. Inserted those shots where needed, and voila! Used the helicopter sounds to sell other lean scenes in the woods... indie movies at bargain basement prices! Life is good. Guerrilla filmmaking is a blast! And it looks good! And sounds good! Gotta love the Canon XL-1. It's a workhorse. Probably almost obsolete by now, but hey, it works. The medium is not the message in cinema, the story is. All you pretentious filmmaker wannabes and poseurs clucking from the sidelines like matrons in some sewing circle can't see the forest for the trees. Show me your movies. Oh, you've not made any.... Our little movie is looking good, Holmes. Dilligaf has mucho cajones. (Translated: Big drawers.)

Long story short, we're not giving up. We have survived scenarios in movie making that would make Oliver Stone blush. (Incidentally, we love Oliver Stone at Dilligaf Productions, so back off, Phil.) We don't give up at Dilligaf. You can knock us down and we get back up. We keep pushing. We're like wounded soldiers moving through the bush, pushing to make it to the chopper so we can some day see our loved ones again. Keep pushing... keep pushing... keep pushing....

Walking my three miles every other day... doing my chin-ups every morning... meditating during the week when I can... eating my veggies... drinking my green tea and red wine... haven't had a cigarette in three months... pushing fifty... a vain, cranky old man who wants a cigarette... pushing past that donut aisle... pushing, pushing pushing! March 2009: be there.

Dispatch from Les #4 - Do You Want Some Cheese With That Whine?

I'm not complaining, folks. I set myself up for the struggle. I wanted this punishment. I don't want this blog to sound bitter. I'm excited! I feel like the coolest mofo in town. I just don't want to count my chickens before they cross the road, if you know what I mean. (You know why the chicken crossed the road, don't you? To see a man lay bricks.)

One great bit of fortune here at Dilligaf Productions is that we got so lucky casting Having My Baby. There are a lot of talented actors working and auditioning in Dallas, and we were lucky to get so many. Such kind, gracious, wonderful people. Beautiful people. I am deeply indebted to and very proud of all the actors involved in making Having My Baby a reality.

To those of you who got there late for the pizza, I'm sorry. To the actor left bleeding in the creek without a Band-Aid, I'm sorry. To the dear friend with the twisted ankle, I'm sorry. To the set designer with the hijacked back yard, I'm sorry. To all the numerous people who got poison ivy, I'm sorry. To the actor who had to blow into a breathalyzer to operate the vehicle as she drove and said her lines, because that was the only car we could get for that scene, I'm sorry. To the actor who got anthrax in the mail, I'm sorry. (Just kidding.) And to the actor who was persecuted by The Man, I'm sorry. To all the actors who tired of chips and sandwiches (and Wheat Thins, granola bars, cheese sticks and Fruit Rollups), I'm so very sorry.

To the actors who worked for points... thank you. Don't count them out yet in this economy. I just know we're going to be a big hit in Borneo. To the actors who worked for money... thank you. You were worth every penny and more. I'm just sorry I didn't have more. And to those of you who felt cheated, I'm sorry. And to those of you who donated your time, your resources and your money, a great big thank you. You shall forever be in the pantheon of the people I hold dear. And to my evanescent crew of misfits (a term of endearment to me), I thank you. You too shall get credit when the credits roll.

At the risk of sounding megalomaniacal, I really think we have accomplished something huge in the annals of low-budget indies. Our chances of a cult favorite are a million to one, but I'll gladly take those odds. Better odds than the lottery, mon ami. One thing that can be said of Having My Baby, is that the script has universal appeal. The logline can be understood in any language. Yes, even in the jungles of Borneo, they would understand the storyline of Having My Baby. You think I jest.

New York Times movie critic Matt Zoller Seitz called Having My Baby "a classic" after reading the spec script. Having My Baby poured out of me over a few weekends, as if my muse had turned on a faucet. When I passed around the spec script to an assortment of people, most women who had read it told me it made them cry. When big, burly, scarred roughnecks read it and said they got choked up, I knew I had something. I'm talking about guys who can crack a walnut in the fold of their arm, crying like babies. Guys big enough to eat apples off your head, fighting tears. And Having My Baby never slows down long enough for you to get bored. You won't even have time to notice that tripod leg in the frame. (Just kidding!)

A weird twist of fate has willed this movie into being, like memes taking over time and space and nourishing an anemic little movie into an organic dreamscape worthy of the movie gods. Egads, I sound a bit full of myself as I mix my metaphors. No Hegelian dialectics here, friend, just pure poetry of a movie; beautiful actors, beautiful Texas exteriors, southern style, abortion agonized, religion tinged, testosterone and pheremone fueled, action drama, baby! Get the popcorn ready, Mabel.

Dispatch From Les #2 - How Badly Do You Want It?

How badly do you want to make that low-budget, DV movie? What is your motivation to do such a thing? How much pain can you endure? How far can you push yourself? How much can you do by yourself and how much help will you need from others?

Are you willing to let the electric bill go unpaid so that you can have production funds; waiting until you get the disconnection notice, then getting an extension on the due date, knowing that when you do finally pay it, it will be twice as much because the new bill as well as the old bill will be due by then? Are you willing to survive on frozen pizzas and burritos chocked full of trans fats just to have production funds? Are you willing to live in a dirty house because you worked and filmed or line produced every waking hour, every day, all week long, and your energy level is nil? Are you willing to work forty hours a week in the real world, and add to that the burden of making a low-budget, independent film?

Are you willing to be vilified, such as is in the hate mail posted below? Are you willing to fail? You'll never accomplish anything monumental unless you are prepared to fail and fall flat on your face in total embarrassment. Do you truly have something to say that warrants a movie, or is it a vanity project so steeped in subjective filler that no one really cares?

Are you willing to coddle an actor who halfway through filming decides that your darling script he adored during auditions he doesn't like so much after all, so he decides to change the lines you sweated blood to create, knowing that with half the movie already shot you cannot recast and reshoot his parts? How much torment can you endure without losing your cool? Just how important to you is your script and the dialogue contained within?

Have you done your homework, and read books on indie films? $30 Film School, by Michael W. Dean? Rebel Without a Crew, by Robert Rodriguez? Feature Filmmaking at Used Car Prices, by Rick Schmidt? Can you walk into a restaurant unannounced with your cameraman and actors and steal a shot guerrilla-style, without permission? Can you talk friends, family, relatives and complete strangers out of money for production funds? If your girlfriend of seven years says she will leave you if you make another movie, because she wants to spend the money buying a house, can you handle it? Which is more important to you, your girlfriend or your art? You better say girlfriend, if you want to keep her. How badly do you want it?