THE RISE AND FALL OF I.F. CLUB
In high school, I always wanted to start some kind of club. That's exactly what I did my senior year. I called it the Independent Film Club, or IF Club. My first meeting went pretty well. About 15 people showed up, including the girl I had a crush on. I showed everyone short movies I had made. My audience liked them. That made me feel good. I set up the IF Club to meet 3 times a week, during lunch. For the next meeting, I told everyone that I would like them to make movies so that we could all watch them during lunch. I think only one other person made a movie. IF Club just turned out to be a room to go to if you wanted to watch weird movies, such as Evil Dead 2 and The Toxic Avenger, during lunch. I was kind of disappointed, but I couldn't complain, because the girl I liked still showed up to all my meetings. After a month, only 7-10 people would show up to watch movies. Most of them didn't even know there was a club, or that I was the one who started it. In another week, only 5 people showed up to watch movies. I wanted IF Club to be a lot better, but that was too much to ask since it wasn't even an official club at the school, and if I did make it official, I wouldn't have been allowed to play gory B movies, usually rated worse than R. Finally, I had a plan to make it clear that IF Club was MINE. It took 30 hours, but I kept working and working on a new Lego man stop motion movie that would be my best one yet. When I finished, I invited everyone I knew to come and view my masterpiece. I didn't expect many people to actually show up and see it, but the most important thing was that I could impress the love of my life (the girl I liked in IF Club). On the day of my Lego man premier, over 30 people showed up! I was really excited that so many people would want to see my work. When my movie ended (4 minutes later) everyone clapped. It was great! I was glad that so many appreciated my art...but then I realized that the only person I cared about impressing didn't show up. She was sick that day. Two days later, at the next meeting, the usual 7-10 people showed up, along with my favorite member. I played the Lego man movie again so that she could see it. Everyone else was bored, since they had already watched it two days ago. It was definitely not the same without over 30 people clapping afterwards. At the next meeting, I took charge and actually started teaching about different camera shots, techniques, and all that good stuff. Instead of listening, some kids would just show up to talk and interrupt my meetings, so I chased those people out with a long, heavy piece of wood, which I called my skull hammer. Even though it looked nothing like a hammer, I intended to use it for hammering on skulls. This is where I got the name Skull Hammer Films. Anyway, my meetings continued to be total chaos and skull hammering until Christmas break, when I stopped being such a wuss, and finally asked my beautiful member, Elizabeth, to go to the park with me and crawl around in the wash (a giant storm drain). When she said "yes", I knew she was perfect for me. Over the break, Elizabeth actually became my first girlfriend ever. On the first meeting back from break, only about 5 people showed up again. I didn't care, as long as Elizabeth was there. I also knew that these 5 people were probably the most devoted to Independent Film Club. All 5 of us, me, Elizabeth, Chris, Keith, and Matt (who actually was in two real films) got together one weekend, and shot the first 7 minutes of a short movie I wrote called Necro-Geezer. The next meeting, I showed my 5 main members, plus a few minor members, what we had shot over the weekend. Did I mention the teacher of the room was there? Well, since the movie dealed with a necrophiliac super-hero, I was kicked out of that room. After less than a week, I found a new room for IF Club to meet in. The problem: We could only meet once a week. Discouraged from finishing Necro-Geezer, I just brought in episodes of Space Ghost Coast to Coast for people to watch during lunch. For a short while, about 7-10 people started showing up again. However, it got old, and we were down to 4 actual members. Weeks later, I was kicked out of the second room, and Independent Film Club was no more. Me and my friends (the loyal members of IF Club) hung out in the halls at lunch. In time, Matt moved on to the Foods Classroom and Elizabeth started hanging out in the Drama classroom. That's when I knew IF Club was completely dead. Everyone gave up on Necro-Geezer, I wasn't allowed in certain classrooms, and all the members drifted apart for whatever reason. Also, me and Elizabeth's relationship ended a day before high school graduation. Man, I cried myself to sleep for months after that. Still and all, the memories of IF Club's earlier days will always hold a special place in my heart...
I'm pathetic, huh?