Microcinema Flashback - A Cry For Help... (2001)

I've always envied the horror film genre. Their fans are the most loyal and most forgiving. The market place may increase as public taste fluctuate, but they never dip into obscurity. I think you can be pretty successful if you can shoot good low-budget horror. Unfortunately, I've never really liked the blood and guts horror flicks. Just not my thing.

In this article from October 2001 I ask for help on understanding the appeal of this odd, but loyal film genre.

*****

A Cry For Help... As Blood Spews From My Neck.
by Pete Bauer

I need help... understanding... education. I have to admit something that may offend some of you... but I hate horror movies. Not scary movies, not spooky movies, not boogy-man movies, but the blood splattering, in your face, knife-plunging, decapitation gory movies. I know there are a lot of people in this world who find some sort of entertainment from such films, otherwise the local video chains wouldn't be stocked with Children of the Corn VII! But, I just don't get it... never have. And I need you fellow horror-film fans to explain it to me.

I remember when Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street and other flicks came out. I saw a few, but always found myself spending more of my time closing my eyes during the bloodfests than watching and finding enjoyment from it. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm too in touch with my sensitive side. Maybe I need an injection from the Wes Craven testosterone factory.

Don't get me wrong... I love suspense movies, scary, creepy, watch-out-for-the-bad-guy-behind-the-door films. The original Halloween is one of my favorite films of all time. So, it's not that I dislike the genre, just the more excessively bloody versions of it. Halloween worked so well for me because the graphic events are more implied than visual. It made me imagine... create what's going on as we hear the knife stabbing the older sister... we only see the knife through the eyes of the child's mask and since I have to fill in the gaps with my imagination, it makes it much more real than watching some clever special effect happen in front of me.

After the initial attack on Halloween night, the setup of impending evil, the rest of the movie is really a stalker movie. He follows Jamie Lee around, standing ominously across the street in shadow or near the clothes lines... scares the living crap out of you. Even the last act, where all of the bloody mayhem ensues, is handled with restraint and is incredibly effective as we see this evil finally unleashed.

I guess my problem comes from the point of the attacks in these types of films. Cheaper versions of the genre just throw a bunch of scantily clad beauties in a central location and let the hacking begin. Obviously this works well. This standard storyline is repeated over and over again by just about every level of filmmaker and it always makes money.

But, again, I just don't get it. I get offended seeing a knife plunge into the chest of a woman who's only crime is that she's in the wrong shower at the wrong time. I get offended when I see a guys neck slashed, blood spurt out and his head fall next to his lifeless body. Part of me has attached some sort of humanity to these characters and their loss, no matter how annoying the character is, is still a loss. That's just the way I am, I guess. I don't see them as plot devices that need to be hacked into oblivion, but people being killed. And, people dying gruesome deaths offends me.

Maybe I'm just a frickin' wuss! Maybe I need to go through another round of puberty. But, that's how I react to gore-fest films. Now, I avoid them at all cost. I remember back to something my Dad said to me when I was young... "watch out what you put into your brain because you can never get it out." So, I weigh the value of allowing certain images into my head and seeing a water-logged Jason return for one more vivisection just doesn't seem a logical use of my brain... don't think I gain anything from experiencing the imagery.

Again, help me here. I'm not judging, I'm not criticizing, I'm just trying to get it. I'm trying to understand where the enjoyment is for fans of horror. Is it that you don't attach yourselves to the characters and just appreciate the effects as a fellow filmmaker? Does it tickle some dark fancy within you? Is it "just a frickin' movie" and I should get out of my cinematic diapers? Give it to me straight. I can take it. I know many of you make horror flicks, and from the response, apparently they're very successful. I'd love to see the works of Timberwolf Digital or Eric Stanze or a variety of other filmmakers out there because I LOVE low-budget films with an edge... as long as it's not the edge of a large kitchen knife with blood dripping from the end.

Hell, I'll admit it... part of me is a hypocrite. My first film was a Super 8 slasher flick where we got all excited that we were able to get a knife with blood on it to look real. So, I've been there as a filmmaker making the best effects we could with bailing wire, some chewing gum and loads of food coloring. And I envy people who can make films in the genre with continued success, on any level, not so much because of the story that they're telling, but because they have tapped into a profitable niche market. If it was in me, I'd make a billion lesbian vampire flicks and retire... but I just can't tell that type of story. It's not in my genome.

So help me out... help me understand what so many people see that I, apparently, just don't get. I'm a fellow filmmaker with a cry for help. Just educate me before you dissect me and feed me to your relatives at the next holiday gathering.

Bucco Bruce Makes a Comeback

The Bucs had an unexpected win over the Green Bay Packers this past weekend, welcoming in the Josh Freeman era as the Bucs franchise quarterback.

The Bucs chose this weekend to play in their throwback Orange and White jerseys with the famed Bucco Bruce on the side of the helmet.


Initially, I thought I would not enjoy seeing the Bucs in their old style uniforms because of my childhood full of watching bad football in creamy orange... players like Vinnie Testeverde or Jack Thompson or Errict Rhett...

But to my surprise, I really enjoyed seeing the old unis. It was nostalgic.

Where the creamscicle uniforms were once a symbol of winless football, this weekend the Bucs got their first win of the season while wearing those bright threads and while also honoring Lee Roy Selmon for putting the Bucs legitmately onto the football map.

Throwback Sunday ended up being a good time all around.

Good win, good uniforms and good memories... well, some good memories, at least.

Microcinema Flashback - Writing What You Know... Second Best (2001)

From August 2001.

*****

Writing What You Know... Second Best
by Pete Bauer

There's a common, useful theory for new screenwriters which is to "write what you know." This means to write about your own experiences instead of trying to write a space-epic-horror-musical. The purpose of this exercise is to allow the writer to learn to write without having to do a lot of real pre-writing work... since you're writing from your own experiences, you don't have to do a lot of research, character development, etc. If you've been a waiter for three years, then write a script about waiting tables. If, like Kevin Smith, you worked in a convenience store, write a script about Clerks.

And, as your experience grows, you will find your older scripts could use an injection of your newer life lessons. For example, Steven Spielberg, who wrote and directed Close Encounters of the Third Kind, stated that, now that he has been a father, he never would have written Close Encounters the same way. When he made the film, he was young and single, without any children. So, he had no issue with the main character, played by Richard Dreyfuss, deciding to leave his family to go do some intergalactic galaxy hopping with the nearby aliens. However, now, as a father and truly understanding the love and attachment a parent has for their children, he stated he could never write that Dreyfuss would leave his family. His real life experiences have taught him that it just wasn't believable. And any parent will tell you he's correct.

Like all new writers, I wanted to set the world on fire with my creative genius, but I found my first two scripts falling outside the world of believability. The first, Undetected Risk, was a script about college kids who accidentally receive a top secret satellite transmission. The second, Mirage, was about brainwashing experiments that turn average citizens into assassins. Both had enough quality substance and structure to know that I could write thrillers, however, both stories took place in a shallow world. Both took place in the only world my limited imagination could create. Since I was so young, the only brainwashing and government secret stories I had seen were on television, so most of my stories were written with those pre-fab TV worlds in mind... and in the end it meant my stories offered nothing truly original.

So, I decided to take the phrase "write what you know" to heart and wrote a romantic comedy about a drama student (me) who is dealing with the struggles of a college relationship, called A Moment In The Moonlight. It was based on all of my failed relationships I had to overcome during my college years. After writing this script I realized two things: One, that my characters were much more believable, and Two, the world they lived in was real and unique. Even though the script in its entirety is not spectacular, the experiment, the process of "writing what you know" was extremely helpful. It allowed me to grow as a writer by letting me focus on the process of actually writing 120 pages instead of struggling with trying to create characters and a world from scratch.

However, there's a serious downside to this that I have noticed more and more lately. As the proliferation of DV shorts and features stream from all of the creative minds across the nation, there are more and more stories about filmmakers. About filmmakers unable to make films. Of course, I'm certain that these were done because they were "writing what you know." But, I've got to tell you, most people DON'T CARE and CAN'T IDENTIFY with filmmakers. They see them and the process of filmmaking as uninteresting and they see filmmakers as necessary, creative freaks. So, they could care less about the struggles of a filmmaker. They only want to see the finished product... a quality film that allows them to escape their everyday lives for a couple of hours.

If I see one more story about a struggling screenwriter, actor, director or producer, I think I'll vomit. I love making movies and I HATE watching stories about filmmakers... because, who cares? So, you're having trouble making your movie so you write about a filmmaker having trouble making a movie... unless it's because your potential financiers are actually Iraqi Underworld or something exciting, then why would I want to watch a story about your struggles when I'm having filmmaking struggles of my own. And if I'm not a filmmaker, then why should I care at all? Because, the reality is that usually the writers of these filmmaker stories aren't really good enough to make these types of stories universally appealing. It's a niche market that very few people are interested in.

Does that mean you shouldn't write about the struggles of filmmaking? No, the experience you gain from writing about it will make you a better writer for your next story. But, for God's sake, just don't make a film about it.

Hollywood still hasn't learned this lesson. They find any story about filmmakers as some sort of satire about their own lives. But, in the end, very few of these stories actually ever make any money or rarely bring any true notoriety to the writers and directors. Now, for some reason, the average public IS still fascinated with the lives of the stars. And, trying to cash in, Hollywood decided it would be interesting to make a film about a star and the whole Hollywood-Star experience. So they made America's Sweetheart. Considering the talent on and off the screen, this thing should have been a blockbuster. However, it got mediocre reviews and luke-warm box office receipts. Because, like I said before, NO ONE CARES. Every once and a while some of these stories have enough edge to be successful, such as Swimming With Sharks, Living In Oblivion, and Misery (a writer wrote about a writer). But for the most part, these stories are not appealing.

The writer we could all learn from in overcoming this dilemma is Rod Serling of The Twilight Zone. Serling was a genius and he wrote the bulk of those classic episodes. However, when he started to get creative burnout near the end of the series run, instead of writing about writers having burnout, he wrote about burnout in general. He wrote about advertising executives or plumbers or husbands having burnout. He turned his own experiences into something everyone could identify with simply by changing the employment in which the main character was experiencing the burnout. Suddenly, we participate in the pressure and helplessness of the characters because we think they are just like us... average people who happen to be having extraordinary experiences.

"Writing what you know" is a great way of getting new writers into the writing game. But, when you decide what to shoot, please, please, please choose a story about something you know... second best.