The Haywire Effect: Halloween II
Halloween II is a movie that I didn’t know was bad when I went to review it. I think I’d watched it so much growing up that I’d kind of mentally adjusted to its Crap Factor and had been subconsciously overlooking all its flaws. Virtually everyone I know has at least seen the first two Halloween movies, and it’s the consensus amongst most of them that “they should’ve ended it after Two.” I think most people remember it this way simply because Halloween III: Season of the Witch is one of the most ball-crushingly horrible sequels ever made, and contains so many plot holes and lapses in logic that it begs the question, “What were they thinking?”
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| “I’ll get you next Halloween, He-Man!” |
There was already a lot of nostalgia going into my first Haywire Effect episodes knowing I was gonna tackle a series that has essentially come to define a lot of my childhood pastime. I was watching Halloween movies before most kids even knew of their existence, let alone asked their parents to rent them and gotten shot down, be it due to the violence or the T and A factor. By the time Halloween: 20 Years Later came into existence, I was so psyched it was out of control – I saw the movie three times in its first week of release. Yes, I was only 15… and yes, I did have to sneak in once… but it wasn’t my fault – I needed something to wash out the poopy taste that Snake Eyes left in my mouth (another movie that begs that age-old question, “What were they thinking?”).
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| What were YOU thinking, Nic Cage? |
So, as you can tell, if I was that psyched to see the newest Halloween at 15, I had been harboring a love for the series for a while. Remember the old axiom “love is blind”? It’s true for more than just relationships I’ve found out, and as you’ll see from this second Haywire Effect, it can try to graft rose-colored glasses over your eyes to make you look past some really atrocious writing and plot holes bigger than the combined ego of the cast of Jersey Shore.
“Purple Heart’s Final Beat”
I had to blog about this one eventually. This is the best known of my films and it has the most interesting story involving its genesis, from inception to completion. It also has a title that I’ve always been unhappy with, but until recently didn’t come up with anything better – Purple Heart Attack. How awesome a title is that?! I would change it, but at the toll of over 26,000 YouTube views plus numerous others at film festivals, it seems a bit late in the game at this point.
Purple Heart’s Final Beat marks the first time I directed a film that wasn’t my original idea. After the fall of Starshowz in late 2008, I was scavenging through Craigslist, looking for any and all possible work that would help me make ends meet. For a little while, I was even writing papers for lazy college students – hey, I was desperate and more than $4,000 in the hole thanks to Starshowz, so keep your morality lessons in your back pocket. Nah-nah, nanny booboo. But I digest… Going through Craigslistings for video gigs, I found one looking for a director for a small film project. I answered it figuring, What do I have to lose?
That weekend I met Sergeant Terrence Popp, a war veteran in his early forties with two Purple Hearts to his credit, and an idea that immediately got me interested: He wanted to make a movie that exposed the reality soldiers face when they come home. A reality that pushed them to suicide; a fate that a close friend and mentor of his had succumbed to very recently. We spoke for a little over an hour, and I agreed to make the film for only $500 because of the special feeling I got listening to Popp talk so passionately about it. I knew that making this film would change my life.
I wrote the script in a blitzkrieg piece of screenwriting – it was done in under an hour. The finished script was sent off to Popp, who responded with genuine shock and awe. I don’t think he expected a young filmmaker with no military experience to actually get what he was going after and truly understand it. Compared to someone like Popp, a war veteran who is a victim of the divorce court industry and a non-custodial father of two kids, my life reads like Chicken Soup for the Soul.
The filming itself took four shooting days over the course of two months. Not because it was planned that way, but because a one man crew and a war horse with a head injury tend to forget things. In a nice bit of serendipity, the things we forgot about – usually props needed for a particular shot – ended up creating a better film because of what we were forced to work around. New ideas were constantly ricocheting between us, and as frustrating as it sometimes got, the energy in the air was electric. I remember the moment we both reviewed one of the pivotal shots in the film: The canted low-angle view of the plastic sheeting slowly and silently gliding to the floor. Both of us got chills and then laughed with utter triumph to each other.
Another two months of sound design followed the shooting… because I had no idea what I was doing. Even as I was editing the final cut together, I was making a list of sounds that were lacking. I would take hour breaks from the computer to set up my camera – lens cap on – with the microphone to capture sounds as I threw myself repeatedly to the floor, swished liquor bottles around, ripped pieces of paper, etc. Finally, on my birthday of 2009, the film was posted to YouTube, and the results were far from immediate. However, over time, the film found its audience, and helped Second Class Citizen to gather members and operators all over the country.
As of today, it has won the 2010 Mitten Movie Project Film Festival, been featured in two others (Blue Water Film Festival and Detroit Independent Film Festival), will be screened in the Central Florida Film Festival this September, and awaits confirmation from numerous others. I was right: Making this film changed my life and got my name out there in ways I used to daydream about in high school. I’m even on the Internet Movie Database. How awesome is that?!
Popp and I continue to knock ideas back and forth for more films. To date, we’ve made nine together, and have concrete stories for at least five more. Fairly soon, a video will be posted to Kickstarter.com requesting financial support for production. In our current economy, it’s become harder and harder to find the extra time to make these films, as much as we love to and need to. I hope we can gather the support we need and keep driving for the change the system so desperately needs.
Now, for those of you who haven’t seen it: Purple Heart’s Final Beat. Please spread the word.
Girl’s Best Friend Plus Man’s Best Friend
In September of 2009 I shot one of my all-time best wedding videos for Dana and Mark Peznowski (or “Pezian,” keeping with the Armenian penchant for friends and family assimilation by adding an “-ian” to the end of a last name). Sitting down with them for our first meeting, we hit it off more like best friends rather than an employee-employer relationship; instead of talking strictly business, we watched a mashup trailer someone had made on YouTube, making Toy Story 2 look like The Dark Knight (you can watch that here). I knew it was a match made in heaven, but I had no idea that their wedding would be the definitive beginning of “Lightcraft style”- it’s the first one that I got absolutely right.
And apparently Dana and Mark and company agree with that sentiment because that video got me a gig shooting commercials for Dana’s family jewelry store, Karagosian Jewelers. I can’t thank them enough for setting me on this path that not only defines my style as a videographer but also allowed me to set off into the direction of marketing.
The most recent endeavor is promoting a pet adoption day that Karagosian Jewelers is sponsoring in cooperation with the Michigan Animal Rescue League. I took the opportunity to film some adorable footage of animals and score some starring roles for my friends. I can’t wait for the next commercial, and I hope it happens soon. Enjoy!
Web Scammers… WTF?!
Seems like everyday online there’s some new scum of the earth rearing their heads in the attempt to snag passwords and user information from us. Be it to our Facebook accounts, Craigslist, our email or the like, what is it they exactly hope to accomplish? Is it really foolproof to use someone else’s email account to spread the word that it’s a lot easier and less expensive than we think to enhance someone’s masculinity without surgery?
I received this lovely tidbit just a few minutes ago in my inbox.
“If it is true I hope you die in hell…” That’s just lovely. But also raises an intriguing philosophical question: I thought you had to die to go to Hell, but now this woman is telling me that I can die while I’m there… I’m so confused. Does she mean Hell, Michigan? Or is her life so vacant as she searches for pathetic ways to steal my passwords that she views her life as Hell? Thoughts?
Either way, can we all agree to put an hour or two aside in the near future, find these people and beat them mercilessly with wiffle-ball bats? That’d be an awesome genesis for a superhero. Imagine a night out of classic films noir and some mugger getting cornered by a nerd in a track suit and a bad ski mask.
“Who the hell are you?”
“I’m Wiffle Batman.”
Cue the merciless plastic beating.
Oh So Very “Blue”
Blue was originally supposed to be “an easy film I could make in three days.” It turned out to be a lesson in humility. It really is a film that I should’ve waited a year or so to direct, but instead made so fast (once again under deadline for OU’s student film festival) that so many corners were cut to the point where the finished film was a jagged circle with frayed construction paper edges. That being said, it turned out better than it had any right to, and our little ramshackle production still scored pretty high in the end, winning an award for Special Effects (in this case, the gore effects).
It was my first experience working with a professional actress, Karen Mester, whom I’d met in a TV production course and had taken a liking to. Not only was she beautiful and sweet, but grounded in a way that helped us identify with each other. So when I pitched her the idea for Blue, she jumped at the opportunity for us to work together, and I really hope that it isn’t the last time. Not just because I loved working with her, but because I believe in going out on a high note. This is more like a B-flat.
Once again putting on his villain face for a role, my good friend and fellow cinephile Andrew Kotwicki was on board to do some serious murdering. He must wonder what I really think of him after only casting him as bad guys in my movies. We dressed him up how I thought an inexperienced home invader would look and then recruited my friend Chris Daniels to play Karen’s husband. Chosen for his imposing physical stature, Chris definitely looked like a guy who could toss Andy like a salad, but his lack of experience turned a “quick shoot” into a fairly grueling time for me as a director.
Combine that element with a three-day shooting schedule, the fact that I was shooting two on-screen deaths and a fight sequence which had to be choreographed on site, and you have a recipe for disaster. And it sure felt like it. Cutting this movie was like meatball surgery. My inexperience suddenly seemed as tangible to me as the camera itself. The version of this movie that played at the OU film festival is not what I’m posting, but instead a truncated edit that showcases its potential. Eventually I’d like to get the funds to make it properly. Hope you all enjoy it!
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