SAVAGE FILM SCHOOL 1: Confessions of a Dangerous Filmmaker
By Tim Shrum • Mar 29th, 2007 • Category: Articles, Filmmaking
The above title is no joke! I have been called “dangerous” and other things as well! Well someone who reviewed two of my films said that the Savage Film Group was “art” disguised as fun and this made my films “dangerous” (he thought this was a good thing!!) I have also been called “dangerous” because I pack heat & my films are very vengeance driven! An angry feminist said that we ran on “high octane testosterone”. Also, we have done some dangerous things for our movies!
LOCATIONS!!!
Let’s start with every filmmaker’s nightmare—location! Never pay for permits (we don’t). It’s a scam! We always got permission from people in return for a screen credit or a small part in the fim, when that didn’t work, we just trespassed, shot the scene and got the hell out!!
STUNTS!!!
Dangerous stunts? You bet!
I had a few close calls, in A Taste of Flesh (our first horror film) Frank Vassallo who played the villain was choking me so hard, that I turned blue!! Then in Zombie Beach Conspiracy I jumped on a moving car!! Hey, in low budget movies, the actors are stuntmen!! Our kung-fu guy, Eric Koger had a few close calls himself, but he’s a real tough guy!!
CAR CRASHES!!!
Even working on the crew can be dangerous. In Mummy a Gore-Gore there’s this scene when this guy driving down a dirt road is so drunk that he picks up the Mummy. That’s right, he is so drunk that he thinks the Mummy is a hitchhiker that was in a bad accident! The Mummy then smashes the drunk’s face in the dashboard! The scene was filmed twice, once from outside and once from the inside of the car! Both times the car went in a ditch but the second time we went in harder and could not get the car out! A car passed and saw us with the Mummy and drove away very fast! Soon a cop showed up! Well, I told him what happened and he used his radio to call AAA or us. In all of our movies, there are some great action scenes, these too can be dangerous.
WRESTLING!!!
In Hardboiled Heroes we have a scene where real-life masked wrestler, the Mod Mutilator, (Double-M to his friends!) fights a werewolf. We know Double-M was a pro but actor Don Woods had never wrestled!! Double-M choreographed the action, and Don did very well (Don is a real tough guy and was once in the army). I did the camera work and had to get too close to get some good shots. I almost had Don throw into me a few times!!
BLOWING SHIT UP!!!
Early in our filmmaking adventures, we shot some test footage on 16mm to see if our effects guy (who’s name I will not share) could do bullet hit effects. Well, he used gunpowder and blood bags and used a bit too much gunpowder, It was a damn good thing that the actor had a metal plate on his belly, but the heat from the blast was still too much. The actor did a very funny dance (it wasn’t funny then), but to add insult to injury, the damn camera did not work and the film came out black! We then went back to Super 8.
SISSY FILM ORGANIZATIONS!!!
Some people think our “ideas” are dangerous! I was a member of an organization called the Independent Film & Video group and they had this film test, I showed, Vengeance for a Dead Alien (a short film that is part of Hardboiled Heroes). Well, most of the films shown were dull stuff about boring people and their “feelings”. When my film was shown all was well until the end when the hero shot and killed the bad guy. The audience gasped! Gee, I guess the hero should not have defended himself. I am sure that the same idiots that gasped are part of the same 15% who think we should “talk” to terrorists instead of fighting back! After the fest, those losers gave me dirty looks but are you surprised? I did not renew my membership in that sissy organization!!
These are just some of the reasons that I (and the Savage Film Group) have been called “dangerous”!! So are you dangerous too?
Copyright Rock Savage, 2007—Rock Savage and the rest of the his film group can be found at http://www.savagefilmgroup.com
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