Sometimes, being a creative person can really suck.
Perhaps I should explain.
You see, I've just completed the "final draft" of a screenplay. "Final
draft" is in quotes because about a year ago, I said I had written the "final
draft," only to discover all the flaws in the narrative. The main problem
was that the whole thing was just too damned short. But now it's just scraping
by the leading edge of feature length, and I cleared up most of the problems
with the earlier draft...only to find myself beset with a whole host of new
ones. And that's just my issues with the script itself.....
Begin at the beginning, Mike.....
It was May of 2001, and My Friend Al had just given me a birthday gift,
a copy of John Waters' "Trash Trio"* that he had purchased
while on vacation in Key West, FL. I'd had some screenplay ideas kicking
around the back of my mind for some years, including the beginnings of a "gay
biker" flick. After refreshing my memory of the works of John Waters, I realized
that I'd found my milieu, and that milieu was TRASH!
Mere weeks later I had banged out the first draft of a script, then saddled
with the rather pompous title "Lords of the Air," now known by the punchier
and catchier name "Blimps." The Cliff's Notes version of the storyline, without
giving any major plot points away: two progressive rock musicians get lost
in the woods. One is abducted by a violent and randy gang of overweight,
gay bikers, and it falls on the other to seek the aid of a freaky all-male
hippie cult to rescue him. It's less a story than a chronicle of obscure homages
and weird obsessions, incorporating references to 70's progressive rock,
the works of E. R.
Eddison, body inflation fetish, trepanation, "The Driver's Seat" (both
the Muriel
Spark novel and the Liz Taylor movie†), the films
of Ken Russell and far,
far too many other atrocities to list here, all wrapped up in an orgy of sex,
ludicrous dialogue and cheesy special effects.
That's all well and good, you say? Consciously, I know that. If only I
could get my subconscious to agree.
Why do we do it? Dana Gould once said something to the effect that it's
always the most emotionally fragile people who find a need to express themselves,
and he's totally right in that regard. I know my next step should just be
to suck it up and start showing my work to wealthy people in positions of
power and influence. Easier said than done. Particularly for one as wracked
with self-doubt and with as strong a fear of rejection as I.
When I showed the script to "my
friend Al," he called it, "cute, but totally unfilmable." Now, I can't
help but love the jaded soul for calling a scenario incorporating trepanation,
male rape, male nudity, drug use, larceny, deformity, bizarre fetishism and
lots and lots of (absurdly) simulated male/male sex "cute." but it was the
"unfilmable" bit that got me. Perhaps I was a bit too ambitious? No, because
it had to be written or I would have gone mad; much of what is contained
in the script is a whole lot of catharsis, pent-up crap that had been festering
for years. Maybe that's why it's so freaky; this is what happens when you
suppress every creative outlet for twenty years or so only to let it all
pour out in one, big deluge. Things mutate over time, I suppose.
But I'm getting a bit off my original point. What was it again? Oh yes...how
do other creative types deal with the sort of depression that impending rejection
of projects they poured their soul into can produce? Particularly if they're
unemployed and impoverished with no prospects on the horizon, and can't
afford psychiatric counseling or Paxil™? I suppose I could just forget it,
pack in my dreams and go back to school and earn a business degree. But no,
that would be the coward's way out. I think I'd rather try at something and
fail than to not do something and spend the rest of my unfulfilled life wondering
"what if?" Besides, I made a pact when I started this project that I would
see it through to its end, and I don't want to go back on my word...particularly
as it seems every other thing I've tried seems to have languished in some
sort of incomplete limbo at some point or other. That has to change sometime.
And on reflection of Al's "unfilmable" comment, I'm taking that as a challenge.
Yes, some of the scenes are a bit, shall we say, "complex." I'm just hoping
that will open the door to greater creativity when the time comes. I do know
that's in no short supply. Besides, one of the whole points of the project
is a sort of an homage to the spirit of the B-movie, warts and all. I get
a big kick of really bad special effects, so I imagine I'll get an even
bigger kick out of creating really bad special effects of my own. Try it
yourself, it's fun!
On a completely random, non-sequitur note, here's a doodle I drew when
I was 18 or so...
All right, I lied, that was neither totally random nor non-sequitur. In
fact, it was deliberate. Inspired by John Steinbeck's "The
Grapes Of Wrath" and probably a couple of twelve-ounce cans of Dr. Pepper
(don't ask, it's a long, boring story), that bizarre little doodle became
known as Smokey, and took on a life of his own in the form of a character
in the very screenplay I've been discussing here today. In my first mental
outline of the story, Smokey was supposed to be, pardon the pun, the "heavy,"
the main antagonist, but it didn't work out that way in the end. On the contrary,
he turned out to be one of the "good guys," and the one by far with the
lowest self-esteem and the greatest odds to overcome.
I could say I don't see myself in his character in the slightest, but
if I did, I'd be lying.
I guess what I'm aiming at with this whole project is a sort of "cult
film" audience. I'm just worried that that market may be glutted. Nowadays,
any idiot with a video camera can film some exhibitionistic friends of his/hers
drooling, puking and eating their own snot, and suddenly they think they're
the next John Waters. Just look at anything released by Troma, if you need an example. And I've
been reading horror-stories by people who have worked on independent films
in the past, and it doesn't bode well. Check out Dr. Freex's nightmarish
(and intensely detailed) account of the making of his one-time pet project
"Forever Evil."
Doesn't it want to make you run out and make a film of your own?
I suppose such anxieties are normal, but I really ought to get over it.
I mean, lots of much, much worse ideas have come down the pike and come
to fruition. I remember one time when I was deathly ill, I wound up watching
"Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid" from
beginning to end on cable. It was one of the worst feature films of any
notoriety I've ever seen, and after seeing films of such dubious pedigree
as "Monster A-Go-Go" and
"Manos: The Hands Of Fate,"
that still stands. Still, some guys with a 16mm film camera set out to make
"Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid." Some people believed in their cockeyed vision enough
to give them enough money for the project. And someone (well, Troma) believed
in "Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid" enough to give it a video release, if not a cinematic
one.
I suppose this proves that there's a place out there for every vision,
even a totally screwed-up vision as the one contained in the seventy-one
pages (at last count) of my screenplay "Blimps."
So, I've come to a decision, this does not end here. I'm going to at least
try to see what I can get done with this project, and see if I can make it
fly. Who knows? Maybe it will find a ravenous cult audience. Stranger things
have happened. And even if it doesn't, I still have other ideas...
Besides, it can't possibly be any worse than "Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid."
Click on Christopher to return.
*"Trash Trio" is a book of screenplays to John Waters
films: "Pink Flamingos," "Desperate Living" and the unproduced sequel to
"Pink Flamingos" entitled "Flamingos Forever." Back
†Keep an eye on the Cinema Page, I plan on reviewing
"The Driver's Seat" soon. It's possibly my very favourite bad Liz Taylor
movie, and you'll soon see why. Back