Lost films I long for….

I was speaking one day to an elderly man who used the phrase, “You can’t miss something you never had.”  With all due respect to him, I beg to differ.  I miss plenty of things in life I’ve never had.  In particular I miss lots of films I’ve never seen.  I was combing through an inventory of missing silents and pondering the losses.  I wish a miracle would happen and ALL of them could be found and preserved.  I zeroed in on the following films that I dearly miss and would give anything to have experienced:





THE ETERNAL CITY (1923)
This WWI silent drama starred Barbara La Marr was filmed on location in Rome and New York City.  According to reports, King Victor Emmanuel III and Benito Mussolini appeared in the film leading their troops.  Even if this film wasn’t a masterpiece, it would still be interesting to watch for the sake of historical value.  Based on the limited footage I have seen, Barbara La Marr was a stunning vamp.  She began as a screenwriter until Mary Pickford saw her and encouraged her to pursue acting.  La Marr won co-star status with Douglas Fairbanks in THE NUT and THE THREE MUSKETEERS before going on to headline numerous romantic dramas.  Sadly, many of her films are either lost, incomplete or very hard to find.  Fortunately the film SOULS FOR SALE (1923) was feared lost but has turned up and is now being offered for purchase by the Warner Archive.  I wish I could see more of her films.  It is very hard to analyze and appreciate the career of an actor when so many of their films are unavailable.  With La Marr, there is so much mystery surrounding her life, career and untimely death that I just wish I had more pieces of the puzzle.  Actress Sherri Snyder has developed a one woman show about La Marr and is heavily steeped in researching her life.  I’m hopeful that as time goes on, this forgotten star will finally be rediscovered.


THE GREAT GATSBY (1926)
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s definitive chronicle of “The Jazz Age” got the big screen treatment for the first time in 1926.  Subsequent adaptations in 1949 and 1974 have been disappointing at best.  It would have been amazing to see this put on film in the exact same era in which it was set.  It was the best possible time to have captured that energy, vivacity, longing and spirit of what the era was all about.  A few years back the Valentino and Swanson film BEYOND THE ROCKS (1922) was discovered after being thought lost for almost 80 years.  It was news that film lovers live for.  When the restoration was complete, the Academy held a screening.  Before the film began they showed a trailer for THE GREAT GATSBY and AMERICAN VENUS (with Louise Brooks) both of which remain lost.  I was fascinated by the GATSBY trailer, but it was painful to only see so little.  I wanted to stand up and shout, “MORE MORE MORE!” The trailer is one of the 50 films in the 3-disk boxed DVD set called More Treasures from American Film Archives, 1894-1931 (2004), compiled by the National Film Preservation Foundation. It was preserved by the Library of Congress and has a running time of one minute.


Below is a video I found on YouTube in which Netherlands Filmmuseum curator Giovanna Fossati explains the process of restoring BEYOND THE ROCKS.

FOUR DEVILS (1928)
Directed by the German great F.W. Murnau, FOUR DEVILS was only his second American film after SUNRISE.  Set in the world of the circus, this film reunited him with SUNRISE star Janet Gaynor.  In 2003 Janet Bergstrom directed a documentary called “Murnau’s 4 Devils: Traces of a Lost Film” that comes as a bonus feature on the SUNRISE Special Edition DVD.  There is also a coffee table book about this film in the “Murnau, Borzage & Fox” DVD box set.  I’ve heard rumors that the studio cut the film considerably and inserted sound sequences as this film was coming out during the transition to talkies.  Regardless of the quality, I would still be curious to see this.  The loss of this film is all the more tragic considering Murnau only made two more films before his life was cut short by a car accident.  He only lived to direct 21 films and only 4 of them in America.  There should have been many more.  He was such an incredible artist. 




WAGES OF SIN (1928)
When I was in film school, it seemed the only directors we ever studied were white males.  I always found it frustrating that there wasn’t a more diverse pool of filmmaking talent to study.  A few years back I attended the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and learned all about Oscar Micheaux.  He was a groundbreaking African American filmmaker whose work often tackled social issues.  He worked outside the studio system and became a pioneer in the independent film world.  While he excelled at drama, he also directed films in a variety of genres including musicals, comedy, westerns and gangster films.  His film are so significant because they defy the racist stereotypes of the time and present a unique, more fully developed portrait of African American talent.  Numerous Micheaux films have been considered lost. 


I can only hope that these films will be found.  They are all significant for a variety of reasons and would add so much to the film legacy of their creators.

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More Thoughts On “Paranormal Activity”

I had the pleasure of seeing “Paranormal Activity” (PA) again last week, this time accompanied by LIVE filmmaker commentary, something I discovered recently that the DVD didn’t include!  Here are a few more quick lessons and reflections on the film I gathered from the event:

* I say several times in every class I teach and it is repeated and confirmed by most of my guest speakers—test screen your film in post as many times as necessary.  It is impossible to remain objective about what is working and what isn’t, what the audience is feeling or understanding or isn’t, during the many months you are editing your film.  The best indie films I know have used little test screenings throughout the post process to measure the work being done and gage reactions to both the film overall and to specific scenes or moments.  These screenings are not a sign that you don’t know what you’re doing as a filmmaker. They are a way to make sure you are doing what you think you are doing.  PA test-screened the film something like 50 times according to the filmmakers, mostly to confirm their theories on what was working or what wasn’t.  These screenings don’t have to be a big deal.  Invite a few friends, but most importantly, have friends invite friends who don’t know you or the film.  Hand out some sort of written questionnaire immediately after the screening, before openly discussing the film, and take all comments, especially those with specific ways to change the film with a grain of salt.

* A corollary to test screenings is to design a way to easily and inexpensively do re-shoots on your film.  Again, not a sign of failure.  Woody Allen re-shoots nearly 30% of his films after the initial shoot.  PA was able to shoot little additional scenes or re-shoot scenes that they determined through test screenings weren’t working.  Of course the ending is famously a result of re-shooting.  If you own the camera and editing system, and have access to actors and locations, re-shooting shouldn’t be too difficult.

* Indie films take a long time to reach the end of their road, even the most successful ones. PA was shot in 2006, premiered in its first film festival in 2007, and didn’t reach a wide audience until the end of 2009.  You need to be patient and not accept as failure that your film wasn’t written, shot, edited and released in a year.

* Nobody really knows anything, to paraphrase William Goldman.  Distributors passed on PA TWICE!  They passed twice on a film that ultimately made over $100 million in the domestic box office.

* You have to trust your gut.  With a film like PA, that has the potential to be a hit but whose potential is obviously well-hidden, you have to believe in what you’re doing, have a strong vision, and trust that vision as people and events contradict you.  I can’t tell you how many emails I’ve gotten from folks on my mailing list (and here in comments posted) about how BAD this film was.  Yes, this film is not “Star Wars,” equally loved by everyone.  There are people who hate it and can’t understand why it was ever released in the first place. But obviously, there are many more who love it.  This dissonance is where the opportunities for the film (and for the many other indie films that ultimately break it big) lie.  If the opportunities were so obvious in the first place, these wouldn’t have been indie films.  A studio would have forked over millions and made the film in the first place.

* Sometimes films just play better for an audience.  Any time something good happened for PA, it happened as a result of a screening with a live audience.  When distribs watched the film on their own on DVD (with the exception of Steven Spielberg), they passed.  Agents signed director Oren Peli after the film screened at Shriekfest. Dreamworks got involved after some of their execs attended an industry screening.  Fans started tweeting after the film opened in a series of midnight screenings. 

* To be this successful, you have to take risks and be unique.  This is the independent film way—being unique.  Derivative indie films don’t go anywhere.  Throughout the screening I attended, director Peli mentioned creative decisions that were made to buck the conventional wisdom.  Whenever there were times that we’d expect something to happen because of some prior film we’d seen, Peli made sure to counter those expectations.  This is why the film is so scary.  And there were many times the studio suggested changes that conformed to the way things are usually done, changes that would have destroyed the unique balance of elements that Peli worked so carefully to achieve.  Studio notes are often designed only to increase the appeal of a film and broaden the audience, rather than to make the film “better.”  Often when you do this you go against what makes the film work in the first place.  A perfect example was PA’s slow build.  Conventional wisdom is that audiences—especially younger audiences—do not have the patience anymore to sit through a slow opening.  Work was done to increase the pace of the opening and when those changes were tested, the test audiences indeed confirmed that the film moved along much better than before, but it was also determined that it wasn’t as scary anymore. To get the scary, you had to have the slow pace in the beginning.

* Studios are really good at marketing.  While filmmakers are being asked to do more and more of this on their own, there’s nothing better than a committed, smart and well-financed machine behind your little film.  You certainly don’t always get this, but when you do, it can pay off handsomely.  One of the brilliant marketing strokes—the inclusion in the trailer of the test screening audiences reacting to the film—was Paramount’s idea.

* You have to be a multi-tasker or have a small team of multi-taskers working for nothing or next to it to get no-budget films made. This film was made for $15k because Oren was the writer, director, producer, editor, special f/x designer, production designer, grip and electric, DP, production coordinator, music supervisor, sound effects editor, sound mixer, etc. etc. Yes, he did have to hire a makeup person to do some effects makeup, and yes he had a little help once his two producers got onboard and then again once the studio got onboard, but the film was mostly done at that point. If all you can do is direct, and you have to pay people to do all these other things, your no-budget film will become a not-so-no-budget film really fast. Oh, and it helps to be able to do all of these things sufficiently, if not spectacularly.

* Good indie films, no matter how simple they look, are not accidents. While there was certainly luck involved, and trial and error, PA was made by a very talented guy who had to made a long series of correct creative choices. I’ve been there so many times, considering those choices and taking notes from your team and getting feedback from an audience. It’s incredibly difficult to always make the right choice, to find the better way to do it, or to stick to your guns and believe that your way of doing it is correct.  Everyone who’s been there knows this.

While these phenomenon films are once-in-a-decade, it is important for aspiring no-budget filmmakers to note that there are many more lesser, but still significant success stories out there to provide you with inspiration.  For some of you, PA’s success will be enough.  For other more pragmatic types, weighing the odds before jumping into the filmmaking ring, you only need to look at this year’s Sundance—another Golden Ticket opportunity with long odds—for more acknowledgment that it is all possible.  By my count, there are no less than ten narrative feature projects made on micro- or near micro-budgets in the festival, and several more documentaries.  I hope to report on some of these in this space once I return from the festival.

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Free screening of new Lovecraft documentary tomorrow in CYBERSPACE!

You’ve read the headline correctly. I am intrigued and excited by this screening of “Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown” that will be taking place tomorrow in the Second Life universe. The full scoop is listed below. I invite everyone to check it out. The filmmakers will be in attendence.





On February 27th, leading Second Life(r) roleplay community, Erie Isle will host a unique screening event for the award winning documentary, “Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown”. Plans for this special evening include a screening of the movie, a live Q&A session with the filmmakers, a Lovecraft themed costume contest, and more. The public is invited as the filmmakers, Wyrd Studios creative partners Frank H. Woodward, James B. Myers, and William Janczewski join the Erie Isle characters and their guests in-world for the evening.

“Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown” is a chronicle of the life, work and mind of author H.P. Lovecraft, his work, and the mind behind, the man who created the Cthulhu mythos. Director Frank H. Woodward tells Lovecraft’s life story, helped by appearances from modern horror and weird tales luminaries such as John Carpenter, Andrew Migliore, Neil Gaiman , Guillermo del Toro, S.T. Joshi, Ramsey Campbell, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Andrew MiglioreNeil Gaiman, Robert M. Price, Peter Straub, and Stuart Gordon. This documentary film won Best Documentary at the 2008 Comic Con International Comic-Con and represents extensive research into this controversial and often misunderstood pioneer of horror fiction.

The Erie Isle backstory begins with the isle as a vacation playground during Lovecraft’s era but its charm faded as it succumbed to dark supernatural forces. Roleplay is set in current day as the town’s population struggle with forces and fears that are not always known. Erie Isle has been and innovator in SL roleplay by offering events that can be enjoyed both by out-of-character guest, and by the community of in-character players that reside there. Mixed reality events spin-off roleplays that then become part of Erie Isle’s ongoing storyline.

While screenings in Second Life aren’t unheard of, the “Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown” screening will go beyond the normal leveraging of the SL platform. Wyrd Studios is actively engaging a popular existing community that is not only excited to have them, but has the resources and experience to make their screening resonate in SL as a whole.

The event is free for everyone to attend. Those wishing to attend that are not currently Second Life users may sign up and go to the in-world location directly by using the “Sign Up” button on http://www.erie-isle.com/

“Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown” Screening Schedule* for February 27th:

3:30PM - Pre-screening cocktail reception hosted by the Muircastle Trust

4:00PM - Screening of Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown

5:30PM - Question and answer session with filmmakers Frank H. Woodward, James B. Myers, and William Janczewski.

Immediately following Q&A- Street party and Lovecraft costume contest co-hosted by Erie’s Twilight & Dreadshift. Prizes provided by Vanilla C Designs, Wyrd Studios, Cinevolve Studios and Erie Isle.

*all times reflect Second Life time (PST)

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