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Like Father, Like Son This is the first documentary to attempt to tell the story of the life and work of Duke Mitchell, famed nightclub entertainer and the creator/star of epic seventies mob film Massacre Mafia Style. I used the original working title for Duke's film Massacre.. because much of the documentary is told from the standpoint of Duke's son, Jeffrey Mitchell. Many of the people who worked and played with Duke over years have passed away, but with Jeffrey's help and support along with family friends George Jacobs and Frankie Ray I believe we were able to pull together a very engaging tribute of a fascinating and misunderstood personality. The documentary is available exclusively on the 2-disc "Family Edition" Massacre Mafia Style DVD at MassacreMafiaStyle.com.
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Scars of Youth My second feature film was another cheerful tale - a kind of post-apocalyptic lullaby about a young guy growing up in this strange, primal, blue forest while his mother wastes away in a deserted cabin, strung-out on this strange black fluid that comes from the ground and prolongs her life. It's a movie about time, age, and things literal and imaginary. Why make such a thing? I guess it started out as a love letter to Andrei Tarkovsky but my obsessions got in the way so what remains is some weird, ephemoral fragment of thought. I think it's an evolution of what I was trying to do technologically and visually with Frankensteins Bloody Nightmare; it was still essentially "no budget" but I still think it stacks up well against most films made at this poverty-row level with one person basically being the writer-producer-director-cinematographer-set designer-etc...at least on this one I was able to find an interesting lead actor and a very brave lead actress. I feel that making a film by yourself or with one or two people is forbidden stuff; it's not necessarily the way you're taught to do things in film school.. It's like the legal equivalent of a defendant serving as his own attorney - he's got a fool for a client, but at least he's the master of his own fate, right? At the same time, the real origin of film includes people like Edwin S. Porter, Oscar Micheaux, The Lumieres - guys with little cames wandering around some landscape capturing the reality as it was happening before them. So in some ways, when you make a film this way you've got the world against you but on a spiritual level you've got some pretty heavy souls behind you because you're following in the real tradition of film which is small, portable, live and real. Does that sound crazy? Then check out the film. I feel the only place I held back was the soundtrack on this one - I made some very interesting mellotron-based mood music, I still mixed in 5.1 but I tried a more traditional mix to make a few people happy and save me some time. No such luck; people still bitched when I put a few vocal effects on some tracks. These same guys listen to screaming, unintelligable music all day long but put an effect on a vocal because it's supposed to be coming from a futuristic version of a "wax cylinder" and they're crying bloody murder. |
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Frankensteins Bloody Nightmare
The concept for this film, my first feature-length thing, probably grew out of my interest in Joe D'Amato's Buio Omega along with a bunch of old Super-8 horror films which then filtered through my love all these experimental guys like, Kenneth Anger, Nick Zedd and the whole lot. In the end I think it ended up being a fun little picture. I managed to shoot it in Super-8 Kodachrome, and it's mostly likely probably the last feature-length project that was shot earnestly in K40. It was quite a learning experience making this film - starting from ground-zero, no crew/friends/actors, and then basically pulling everything together in a year-long process. I think I spent the most time on the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack - I dubbed all the dialogue to give it that clean, spotless vibe that any decent person should enjoy (direct sound is for wimps) and then laying in dozens of textures, tones and little goodies that were invariably missed when everyone listened to the film on their mono television. I'm still proud of that soundtrack, though. |
Stills:
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Nightmare Theatre
I've always been a big fan of the creature features, especially the shows run on USA Networking in the 80-90s, everything from "Commander USA's Groovy Movies" all the way to the "Up All Night" saga. One of the my dreams has always been to work on this type of show and fellows at Nightmare Theatre, a long-running television show broadcast on WUWF-TV, gave me the opportunity to kind of re-mold their show and create a more electic, "Night Flight" vibe where we have a two-hour block of movies, weirdo animation, host segments feature Baron Mondo Von Doren, El Sapo and "Mittens" The Werewolf along with some odd rantings and ravings by your's truly as "Crazy Critic." We've done a year of shows so far and we're gearing up for even more. Who know where the insanity might lead us next! Full episodes are available at Blip.tv.
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The House Where People Die We shot the film in one day and it came together rather smoothly. I was the D.P/Editor the Mike Ensley (Baron Mondo from Nightmare Theatre) directed it. This little project started as a fake trailer but right now we're working on (possibly?) pulling together a feature-length version. In any case, I still think it's a dynamite short. |
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The Cask of Amontillado Another case of me shooting and editing a short that Mike Directed, all in one evening. It's a nice little spin on Mr. Poe's tales with same added needles just for fun. Even though the direct sound caused nightmares because we ran into the problem of shifting room tone, IE the problem anyone run into when the shoot anywhere near a refrigerator compressor of some kind, where it always appears to be whirring an hissing at inconsistent intervals constantly. I do hate that, oh I do... |
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Dead Call A third short that I shot/edited and Mike directed in a day, this time based on a short story by Nolan Wilson. I was dealing trying to pace a performance of a guy continuously playing against a telelphone voice, but ultimately I think it made for a nice, spooky short. |
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User Assumes Risk Lemmie Crews created a very strange, potent electronic music project by the name of "User Assumes Risk." To go along with audio, the UAR experience also includes some pretty frightening live shows which I felt the responsiblity to document. It's a shame I missed the first few shows where pretty girls wearing surgical equipment were splashed with blood and other unknown fluids, but I managed to tape the show where we wrapped Scars of Youth's Amanda Edington in cling wrap for the entire show while light pulsed to the beat of the music and Crews ceremoniously sliced her at the end of the show. I also caught another show where UAR played with a rather impressive light show envoloping them while strange cult movie trailers were projected behind him. Halfway through this set, the fog machine set off the smoke alarm. Oddly enough, it worked with the music and no one noticed until a break in songs. |
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Blood And Panties This was my class's 16mm film project at Full Sail. I only got to shoot / direct a few shots of the film because when we made the short there was this weird things where every two/three shots people would rotate between positions; the first A.C. would rotate to second, then operator, then clapper, director, etc. etc. It was a good way get to know all the crew positions but it also consfused the hell out of everyone as well because every couple shots you had a dozen people all trying to learn new crew positions and at the same time make this film. In any case, we shots in Super-16 on a very interesting set co-designed by Brian Gates, who was kind of the unofficial director. The screenplay by Roddy Lewis also sufficiently strange, but as usual the school made us cut a bunch of things out. |
Pygmalion and Galatea I made this short over a decade ago when I was on a summer program as a Cherub at Northwestern University. It's only a few minutes long - a 100 ft. roll of plus-x regular 16mm - but I guess it marked an important part of my life when I realized how much I enjoyed collaborating with people and making film. It seemed like a real escape to me. Early in the '00s I took the original silent version and started experimenting with 5.1 surround, one of my first experimentations with mixing that format. It made me never want to go back to stereo ever again. |
Stills:
©
2012 John R. Hand. All Rights Reserved. |