"Give me the whip!"...
..."then throw me the idol!"
In June of 1981 I had recently moved to a new town, had yet to make many friends and spent my time daydreaming about escaping from the suburban rut. Then RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK opened up and I was mesmerized, becoming an obsessed fan of staggering proportions. Indy and Sallah became my friends. I spent every single Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday afternoon (dollar movie days) roaming Egypt and Peru with Indy. It was the coolest movie I had ever seen up to that point in my life (Star Wars and Bond were running VERY close seconds).
The first time I saw it, my old pal Gaines and I ran home, got my father's Super-8 (FILM) camera out of the closet and headed into the woods with a couple of toy guns, a rope, and a couple of cool beat up hats and then we staged a horribly shot, badly lit, terribly acted action scene "inspired" by our earlier watching of RAIDERS. I found my calling! I wanted to make movies in the desert, like Spielberg and David Lean. Why, what cooler job could there be? (Actually, what I really wanted to be was a globe-trotting adventurer like Indy and do all that shit for real).
I went to live in France at the end of the summer as part of an exchange program through my father's company, which was headquartered in Paris, and all I could think about before I left for Europe was that I wasn't going to get my regular dose of RAIDERS crack for an entire month. I didn't say, "WOW, I'm going to France." No sir, instead I just silently bemoaned the fact that I would not see Indy fight off the same old Nazis for a whole month. Then the real fear hit me, what if for Gods sake, the film is pulled from the theater before I get back? It might be YEARS before I see it again. This was pre-videotapekids,a pre-Blockbuster/NetFlix era. I'd have to WAIT to see it on cable TV, at a friends house, because we didn't have cable TV. Oh well, I managed to last the month without my fix and I still had a good time in France. Though I had a mission to prep all my new little French friends on the coming of the greatest film ever made as I figured it would come to France someday and therefore I was sent to prepare the way for them.
I had an old white hat that I PAINTED brown so I could have a fedora like Indy and I'm sure I looked stupid as hell in but I didn't care, I was fighting and endless parade of Nazis in my dreams and unearthing great treasures to boot! The film had yet to open in France and hence no one there that had a clue about what it was that I was endlessly going on about. They all thought I was just a strange bird with a painted brown hat, a crazy American.
A few years later, I made another of my low budget films, this one was called MANHUNT and it was also a FLAT-OUT ripoff of the whole RAIDERS trip (this concerned an Adventurer being chased around New Guinea by US Naval Intelligence. The jungles of New Guinea were the woods behind my suburban home). I even turned my parents basement into a south sea bar (my twelve year old brother playing a french expat barkeep) and cast all my crazy pals to play the other parts (I was the star of course). I even USED the music from RAIDERS as my soundtrack - which I would literally play on the stereo in the room as we were shooting each scene because I had no other way to sync to music (yelling "cut" meant running over and removing the needle from my soon to be worn out RAIDERS record). I shot the film/video with old crappy and quite cumbersome equipment borrowed from the school A/V lab. I was in heaven.
Looking back, the film was actually not so bad, for a $16 dollar production - it was full of action and general silliness. We even used a cache of real guns borrowed from the family arsenal of one of the young actors (his dad was on the SWAT team)- who was cast specifically for this reason and not for his horrid acting ability. We procurred blanks for them (I cannot remember how we got blanks, I think the SWAT team dad hooked us up) and went back out into those woods, with a hundreds of feet of extension cord stretched from the house to the woods (this was a pre-battery pack video camera - you had to take the ENTIRE VCR with you to shoot, this was to say the least a great big pain in the ass) and got to shooting, literally. We had .357 magnums, a .22 and a shotgun. Can you imagine a bunch of 15-year-old kids running around now and "shooting" real guns at each other in a suburban enviroment without raising an eyebrow? "Oh, the boys are just making a movie." Pre-Columbine for sure. No one seemed to notice or care.
I cut the movie using two old bulky VCRs (which was tricky because when you hit STOP, the tape would wind a little past where you stopped it, so you had to sort of Guess that your cut was on the money, and it usually was not, but there were some moments that were spot on). Anyway, it all took about 6 months on as I said a budget of about $16 dollars and a few frayed nerves on everyones part (namely my parents) and then I showed it at school, once.
It was soon to be sabotaged by one of my main actors who thought he looked fat in it (he did) and had issues (he has since apologized and lost all the weight). He cut the tape up and that was that. I still had my EDIT copy, with all the takes and was able to hold onto that for a couple of more years but it was stolen in 1989 when I was robbed (it was in a suitcase full of personal items - photos, journals, the film, that the bastards hauled off). I'd love to see that movie now but it only lives in my head.
So long story short, this little item about three boys who spent years remaking RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK shot-for-shot, the old fashioned way on VIDEO, BETAMAX etc. (pre-Hi8 and DV camera, and Editing software) dredged up a lot of fond memories for me this morning when I saw a piece on the BBC about it. I can't wait to see it.
I still have that first Super-8 3 minute roll of film that showcased the wild dreams of my 14-year-old self.
Here is a link to the story about the RAIDERS remake:
Austin Chronicle
RAIDERS RE-MAKE
NPR story
In June of 1981 I had recently moved to a new town, had yet to make many friends and spent my time daydreaming about escaping from the suburban rut. Then RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK opened up and I was mesmerized, becoming an obsessed fan of staggering proportions. Indy and Sallah became my friends. I spent every single Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday afternoon (dollar movie days) roaming Egypt and Peru with Indy. It was the coolest movie I had ever seen up to that point in my life (Star Wars and Bond were running VERY close seconds).
The first time I saw it, my old pal Gaines and I ran home, got my father's Super-8 (FILM) camera out of the closet and headed into the woods with a couple of toy guns, a rope, and a couple of cool beat up hats and then we staged a horribly shot, badly lit, terribly acted action scene "inspired" by our earlier watching of RAIDERS. I found my calling! I wanted to make movies in the desert, like Spielberg and David Lean. Why, what cooler job could there be? (Actually, what I really wanted to be was a globe-trotting adventurer like Indy and do all that shit for real).
I went to live in France at the end of the summer as part of an exchange program through my father's company, which was headquartered in Paris, and all I could think about before I left for Europe was that I wasn't going to get my regular dose of RAIDERS crack for an entire month. I didn't say, "WOW, I'm going to France." No sir, instead I just silently bemoaned the fact that I would not see Indy fight off the same old Nazis for a whole month. Then the real fear hit me, what if for Gods sake, the film is pulled from the theater before I get back? It might be YEARS before I see it again. This was pre-videotapekids,a pre-Blockbuster/NetFlix era. I'd have to WAIT to see it on cable TV, at a friends house, because we didn't have cable TV. Oh well, I managed to last the month without my fix and I still had a good time in France. Though I had a mission to prep all my new little French friends on the coming of the greatest film ever made as I figured it would come to France someday and therefore I was sent to prepare the way for them.
I had an old white hat that I PAINTED brown so I could have a fedora like Indy and I'm sure I looked stupid as hell in but I didn't care, I was fighting and endless parade of Nazis in my dreams and unearthing great treasures to boot! The film had yet to open in France and hence no one there that had a clue about what it was that I was endlessly going on about. They all thought I was just a strange bird with a painted brown hat, a crazy American.
A few years later, I made another of my low budget films, this one was called MANHUNT and it was also a FLAT-OUT ripoff of the whole RAIDERS trip (this concerned an Adventurer being chased around New Guinea by US Naval Intelligence. The jungles of New Guinea were the woods behind my suburban home). I even turned my parents basement into a south sea bar (my twelve year old brother playing a french expat barkeep) and cast all my crazy pals to play the other parts (I was the star of course). I even USED the music from RAIDERS as my soundtrack - which I would literally play on the stereo in the room as we were shooting each scene because I had no other way to sync to music (yelling "cut" meant running over and removing the needle from my soon to be worn out RAIDERS record). I shot the film/video with old crappy and quite cumbersome equipment borrowed from the school A/V lab. I was in heaven.
Looking back, the film was actually not so bad, for a $16 dollar production - it was full of action and general silliness. We even used a cache of real guns borrowed from the family arsenal of one of the young actors (his dad was on the SWAT team)- who was cast specifically for this reason and not for his horrid acting ability. We procurred blanks for them (I cannot remember how we got blanks, I think the SWAT team dad hooked us up) and went back out into those woods, with a hundreds of feet of extension cord stretched from the house to the woods (this was a pre-battery pack video camera - you had to take the ENTIRE VCR with you to shoot, this was to say the least a great big pain in the ass) and got to shooting, literally. We had .357 magnums, a .22 and a shotgun. Can you imagine a bunch of 15-year-old kids running around now and "shooting" real guns at each other in a suburban enviroment without raising an eyebrow? "Oh, the boys are just making a movie." Pre-Columbine for sure. No one seemed to notice or care.
I cut the movie using two old bulky VCRs (which was tricky because when you hit STOP, the tape would wind a little past where you stopped it, so you had to sort of Guess that your cut was on the money, and it usually was not, but there were some moments that were spot on). Anyway, it all took about 6 months on as I said a budget of about $16 dollars and a few frayed nerves on everyones part (namely my parents) and then I showed it at school, once.
It was soon to be sabotaged by one of my main actors who thought he looked fat in it (he did) and had issues (he has since apologized and lost all the weight). He cut the tape up and that was that. I still had my EDIT copy, with all the takes and was able to hold onto that for a couple of more years but it was stolen in 1989 when I was robbed (it was in a suitcase full of personal items - photos, journals, the film, that the bastards hauled off). I'd love to see that movie now but it only lives in my head.
So long story short, this little item about three boys who spent years remaking RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK shot-for-shot, the old fashioned way on VIDEO, BETAMAX etc. (pre-Hi8 and DV camera, and Editing software) dredged up a lot of fond memories for me this morning when I saw a piece on the BBC about it. I can't wait to see it.
I still have that first Super-8 3 minute roll of film that showcased the wild dreams of my 14-year-old self.
Here is a link to the story about the RAIDERS remake:
Austin Chronicle
RAIDERS RE-MAKE
NPR story
posted by Unknown at 4/26/2005 08:32:00 AM
3 Comments:
I saw Rob's movie myself, and it was hilarious and inspiring. That was around the time when I made the original Uncle Torture radio show: me making up ridiculous fake radio commercials and movie ads framing a sick kid's clown show! All recorded onto a single cassette recorder using a record player and a VCR to supply the "special effects!" Weird genius or dumb angel?
and I've still got the Uncle Torture tape! T'is priceless.
Great story Rob! I'm glad you're still writing. I wish you still had a copy of that video. It would be fun to pair it up with Mail Bondage as the short before the feature.
jon
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