Ever since our Dad got a Super 8 movie camera in 1967 my siblings and I used it to amuse ourselves making silly little movies. In 1983 we were all grown up and moved away from home, but annually converged at the family homestead in Colorado Springs for Christmas vacation. MaxPaul Franklin, my film making mentor had long been subjected to our Super 8 madness. That year he told me why not make our little movie with professional equipment. He’d buy the film.
Such an offer is not to be passed up! I was pretty fed up with working on commercials at that point in my career and was ready to blow off some steam. So a script was written in a day. Props were either gathered from our closets or quickly manufactured. A crew was recruited and filming began immediately.
Principal photography was completed by the turn of the New Year because we all had to get back to jobs or school. Post production and visual effects were not finished until a few months later in Los Angeles. One of the biggest challenges of shooting was the fact that it was winter in Colorado Springs and snowy. That made it difficult to do the balmy L.A. Noir look. As a result there are few actual exteriors in the film. The showdown at the end was largely achieved with miniatures, even the buildings behind Chuck Dodd. In that climactic scene there is a sequence of shots where no two adjoining shots were photographed within six months or 1000 miles of each other. Ah the magic of the movies!
And the most amazing thing is that this little movie was made before there was Photoshop, much less digital film making. Even the Macintosh computer had yet to debut. Yep, it was a long time ago. I hope you enjoy it. I always have.
Ever since our Dad got a Super 8 movie camera in 1967 my siblings and I used it to amuse ourselves making silly little movies. In 1983 we were all grown up and moved away from home, but annually converged at the family homestead in Colorado Springs for Christmas vacation. MaxPaul Franklin, my film making mentor had long been subjected to our Super 8 madness. That year he told me why not make our little movie with professional equipment. He’d buy the film.
Such an offer is not to be passed up! I was pretty fed up with working on commercials at that point in my career and was ready to blow off some steam. So a script was written in a day. Props were either gathered from our closets or quickly manufactured. A crew was recruited and filming began immediately.
Principal photography was completed by the turn of the New Year because we all had to get back to jobs or school. Post production and visual effects were not finished until a few months later in Los Angeles. One of the biggest challenges of shooting was the fact that it was winter in Colorado Springs and snowy. That made it difficult to do the balmy L.A. Noir look. As a result there are few actual exteriors in the film. The showdown at the end was largely achieved with miniatures, even the buildings behind Chuck Dodd. In that climactic scene there is a sequence of shots where no two adjoining shots were photographed within six months or 1000 miles of each other. Ah the magic of the movies!
And the most amazing thing is that this little movie was made before there was Photoshop, much less digital film making. Even the Macintosh computer had yet to debut. Yep, it was a long time ago. I hope you enjoy it. I always have.