MicroCinema Scene

Like so many of us with a desire to eventually make movies for a living, I like to view my little DV shorts (a.k.a. Microcinema) as a training ground. Even when making a five-minute camcorder short, the kind where you are the writer/ director/ producer/ cameraman/ editor, you can still prep for bigger shoots, and develop good habits. One of these habits is creating and maintaining a shot list.

A shot list is a list of all the camera angles for a shoot, including coverage and cutaways. This can be done from the script, on the fly during a shoot, or even AFTER the shoot, using the footage and just naming the shots that were obtained.

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Once upon a time “microcinema” meant the garage and basement and parking lot venues used to show underground movies; soon it grew to include the movies themselves. I began writing for the Microcinema Scene website at its inception several years ago and became involved in a film festival that grew out of Canada and blossomed in South Dakota and last year landed in the outskirts of Chicago. In the past I had judged and MCd and taught workshops, but this year I was mostly going to enjoy myself.

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Don’t miss Part One or Part Two of John Oak Dalton’s adventures in b-moviedom.

SATURDAY MAY 31, 2003:  THE AFTERGLOW

With two of the main actors, Bob and Hunter, making their way home, the Polonia Brothers, Jon McBride, and I began to watch all of the footage, seeing the scenes we had shot over the last few days unfold before our eyes.  Everything was there (a blessing, as John Polonia had an alarming tendency to leave the lens cap on), and not only that, it looked great.  Over several hours I began to see in my mind how the film would piece together, and I thought, even if it gets panned from coast to coast and in every dusty corner of the Internet, I am still proud of what we did.

That evening I was treated to a great dinner at a nice restaurant with the extended Polonia family.  There I saw a poster for the local “Rattlesnake Festival,” where denizens swarm the hills to capture and bring back rattlers to the baseball diamond in the center of town. Prizes are awarded for the biggest capture, and anti-venom and pork fritters are easily on hand.  For myself, I would then apply a well-swung axe; but the fun-loving Pennsylvanians turn the snakes loose again.  For the first time I thought I understood what in their formative years made the Polonia Brothers what they are today.

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This is a great and very in-depth analysis of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining made by Rob Ager.  Part One focuses on how Kubrick constructed the film to be scary. Part Two focuses on the subtext. The Shining is one of my 10 favorite films and this analysis really made me think about the film on several new levels. This is the kind of information you would pay good money for in film school and now you can watch it for free while you are sitting around in your underwear.



PART ONE

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(Editors Note: Don’t miss Part One of John Oak Dalton’s experiences in b-moviedom. If you haven’t read it yet, click here.)

THURSDAY MAY 29, 2003:  “SURVIVOR:  WELLSBORO”

For the first time I heard words that I wrote coming out of an actor’s mouth, and it’s a weird feeling…from my laptop in the cornfields of rural Indiana to an L.A. actresses’ mouth in a van bumping down a road in Pennsylvania.  It is basically a funny little scene where Billy D’Amato is driving to the cabin and talking about the differences between shooting documentaries and shooting porno movies.  Unfortunately the first scene I would hear of mine mouthed by a professional actor had the word “cornhole” in it.  At the end Mark Polonia turns to me as I’m crouching out of the camera line in the back seat and says, “Well, you’ve seen your first scene comes to life!” and John Polonia cheerfully chimes in with, “We haven’t even started raping the script yet!”

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[Editors Note: In 2003, indie screenwriter (and MicroCinema Scene co-founder) John Oak Dalton watched a movie called Blood Red Planet and was introduced to the strange world of legendary cult filmmakers - The Polonia Brothers. Little did he know that this low-budget space epic would lead to a collaboration that continues to this day. He has since gone on to write several movies for the Brothers and in 2003, travelled to Wellsboro, Pennsylvania for the production of Among Us - a movie about Bigfoot!]
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Get ready for another Savage Experience. Indie auteur Rock Savage is back with Savage Film School 3: How to Be a Professional! Don’t miss Part 1: Confessions of a Dangerous Filmmaker or Part 2: Low-Budget Secrets.

By Rock Savage. There are a lot of people out there calling themselves “professional” but really, what is a professional? A professional gets paid for what he does. So if you ever made any money off your films or got paid to make a film for someone then you are a “professional.” Now, it may not be your main source of income but, hey, you made some bread off it!  Let me share some of the ways that I have made money as an independent filmmaker!

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Well, after you read this, it won’t be a secret will it? To be honest, all the things I will tell you should not be a secret but many low budget filmmakers don’t have the information to save big bucks on their film projects! Everything that I’m about to tell you, I have learned from the school of “hard knocks” so you won’t have to spend a lot of bread!

NEVER GET PERMITS!

One of the reasons that film schools suck is that they don’t teach you how to save money and get stuff for free! First, lets talk about location, you need a place to film, and you don’t want to rent a place because you’ll have to break your piggy bank! Don’t bother to get permits, they cost too much and in order to get one, you may need some sort of insurance (more money!) so lets say you need an office, first try to get a “home office”, you may know someone who has one!! In Hardboiled Heroes there is a scene in occult investigator Harry Gross’ office which is really a home office but looks damn good and I got it for free!

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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!

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The Robert Rodriguez sponsored GRINDHOUSE trailer competition made all kinds of noise prior to SXSW, but then kind of dropped off the radar. I did some investigating to figure out who the winner was and didn’t find any mention of it on the SXSW or GRINDHOUSE sites. So I made a few phone calls to people who attended the presentation and I can now confirm that the winner is: Hobo With a Shotgun.

Hobo With a Shotgun was the grand prize winner out of three finalists which also included The Dead Won’t Die and Maiden of Death. All three trailers were screened during the presentation. We’ve already posted the trailers for Hobo and Maiden, but just so we don’t leave anybody out… here’s the trailer for The Dead Won’t Die.