gonzoriffic

08:43 pm: Things I learned from making a sex movie about a sofa bed
Currently staying up till 5 or 6am each day (after coming home from work) editing THE EROTIC COUCH in time for the midnight theatrical premiere on October 16-17 (DVDs will ship the same day for those of you who can't make it out). What started out as just a joke turned into one of the most time-consuming projects I have undertaken since we did our feature-length back in 2007. Never before have I written a film, shot it completely, then gone back to re-write and re-shoot the ending. I have been steadily adding more to the movie since the initial weekend we filmed, including a topless dance sequence that accompanies the opening titles. I've had a lot of interesting experiences making this movie. While I'm no stranger to photographing people without their clothes on, this is the first movie I've made to feature this much bare flesh, and to center completely around sex.

That said, it's not a porn, it's not even soft porn. And the way everyone was shot, no explicit nudity is shown. My feeling was and has always been, at least in terms of the movies I make with my friends, once you show someone's junk then it's all over. You can't go back from that. The mystery is gone. I remember over a decade ago when Craig Hosoda's "The Bare Facts Video Guide" came out, I was fascinated by it until I actually started seeing the nude scenes cataloged in the book. It was always anti-climatic, and it had nothing to do with what their bodies looked like without clothes. You can show someone almost naked a million times and it's always going to be thrilling, but once you reveal all, there is a tangible loss. Not everyone feels this way, that's cool with me, but we're talking about the movies I make here. And this is how it's going to be played.

What I enjoyed most about making this film was how easily and comfortably I directed and photographed scenes where the women interact with the Erotic Couch and each other. I grew up with cable TV, and we were definitely going for an old school sex movie vibe with this one, so I quickly realized all those years of watching cheesy T&A comedies paid off. That's not to say this is the kind of film we made either; I took all the sex scenes very seriously, and made sure everyone looked as good as they would if I were shooting still photos of them. But there's so much non-verbal to this thing, it really was a change for me. The ten-page script yielded a movie that's nearly 40 minutes long. That means there's a lot of ACTION, man. I'm proud of how it came out, and I think everyone else will too.

Some truly incredible things have happened as a result of this project. I'm not talking about getting banned from Facebook or figuring out how to make 3-D (see embedded clip below). There are a small handful of first-time actors in this movie, and a couple of them were people I had only been friends with for a couple of weeks when we started shooting. I take a great amount of care in how images of women are portrayed in the stuff Gonzoriffic produces, and that went double for this project because these women were going to be either half or completely naked in front of my camera. So when not one but two of them told me that working on this project and seeing the footage actually improved their self-image, I thought I might cry. I want art to have power, I don't want to do shit that means nothing. Just as I want the characters in a story to be transformed from who they were at the beginning, I would also like those involved to undergo some kind of change (hopefully for the better). No one here is going on a diet to appear thinner on screen, no one is denied a role based on how they look. If I had to name one thing I want to do with my creativity, it is destroy that type of bullshit, or at least be the exception to it.

I had so much fun making this movie. People think Gonzoriffic is just a low budget horror outfit, but I have always known us to be much more than that. Not a single horror film will be shown at our next midnight event. We've made a variety of movies and I want it to reflect our other areas of expertise, particularly our sex-themed work. Along with the premiere of EROTIC COUCH, the show will feature a gallery of my photography that has never been seen anywhere (and will never be available online or for purchase). I look forward to how it will feel to watch people react to this stuff who think they know me, who think they know us. But mostly I look forward to what kind of things we feel free to dream up next as a result of how successful we were at pulling off this sort of movie.

To the future.




Tags: body image, diy, feminism, film making, gonzoriffic, no budget, underground film, upholstery

07:05 pm: This is why I sell our movies for $5 at conventions.
Monica discovered a blog entry written by a young woman who bought one of every film we had for sale at last April's Cinema Wasteland show. Check this out:

http://spectresonagravenhill.blogspot.com/2009/06/go-gonzoriffic.html

Far as I'm concerned, she gets free movies from us for life. I will gladly take this sort of recognition over the shallow, meaningless, fleeting "success" that comes from signing a distribution deal. A barcode and a sticker on another piece of plastic for the value bin? No thanks. The coolest girls on the planet dig Gonzoriffic, and that is a fact I wear proudly as the badge of honor it is.

The blog made me realize I never made a trailer for I'm In The Basement, so this morning I threw a little something together. It never dawned on me just how much modern Hollywood trailers rely on the same exact set of loud sound effect cues! Anyone can do it...[BEWARE! TRAILER CONTAINS NAUGHTY LANGUAGE]



Tags: diy cinema, feminism, gonzoriffic, horror film, pineapple soda, trailers, underground film

08:43 pm: I'm going to meet Linnea Quigley.
I'm currently in the middle of writing our latest movie. How I know I'm completely in my mode is when I go to bed thinking about the story, dream about the story, and wake up thinking more shit about the story. I could probably go downtown and get stabbed by a guy wearing a Mister Peanut costume and still think about the story. But I'm superstitious about talking too much about projects before I've actually shot anything (you'd think after 6 years and over 20 movies I'd be over it, but I'm not), so that's all I can say on that for now.

The biggest news is Monica and I are flying out to go see this in just a couple of weeks:



Like Gonzoriffic, Chainsaw Kiss is a DIY filmmaking gang of friends that produce and self-distribute all their own movies, and they're putting on a show (like we did a few times last year) featuring a selection of their stuff. Of course, we didn't have bands playing and didn't have a legendary horror star hosting ours, but then again, we're in Georgia. Home of Waffle House and 1-85. Linnea is one of my heroes, I've been a huge fan of hers since I first picked up a Fangoria way back in like 6th grade. I have often said it is my destiny to meet her, and now thanks to our friend Ruby it's going to happen. Will I faint, or will I be cool? Watch this space!

Tags: chainsaw kiss, diy, filmmaking, linnea quigley, ruby larocca, underground film

04:22 am: go gonzoriffic
i woke up tuesday morning with an idea for a gonzoriffic ad. wrote and filmed it wednesday, edited thursday, compressed friday and uploaded today.



Tags: comedy, diy cinema, gonzoriffic, underground film

04:29 pm: the interview i did with NIGHT OF THE DEMONS CENTRAL creator heather murphy is now up at pretty-scary.net - - if you've never seen or heard of this movie, you know what your mission is now in life. seriously, that's one of my all time favorite films ever made. it's "fucking" great, and so is heather.

GO CHECK THE ARTICLE OUT, and don't forget to give it an honest rating on the right hand side thingy thing.

also, if you never read my interview with mink stole last year, i recommend checking that one out too. right now i'm working on getting on the phone with valerie castro from the mind-blowing camcorder epic THE PERIOD. netflix has it, you should get it, the end.

Tags: b-movies, gonzoriffic, john waters, mink stole, night of the demons, underground film

09:14 pm: BLOOD WITCH = FINISHED!
amazing what a couple days off from work can yield. BLOOD WITCH is done, clocking in at 20 minutes...exactly the length i was asked to deliver. i'm proud to say i didn't have to cut out anything good or add stuff to pad the running time. what i'm saying is, it all worked out. that's rare, so yay us. it is our first narrative project shot with the new camera, but don't expect some slick, clean-looking HD affair. i took a long time coming up with a look i really liked, it's got really nice contrast that includes the sort of deep 100% black areas i experimented with on 2005's SCAB. but i won't tell my secrets, so don't ask ;-)

i'm finishing up the dvd extras right now. we've got the requisite gag reel and making-of features, and will be doing a cast commentary soon. my part of this project is basically fulfilled, now it's up to the other three filmmakers to ring in with their segments. speaking of, henrique was super cool and updated me every day whilst shooting SLAY RIDE a couple weeks ago. i wrote the script for him in late 2005 the first time we attempted to put this anthology flick together, so knowing it was finally seeing daylight was incredible. then i saw photos from the set and was floored. it looks fucking amazing. add to that, he landed ruby larocca for the lead role, someone i've been a fan of for several years. it's one thing to see an actor saying lines you wrote, it's a whole other thing when that actor happens to star in multiple films you have in your collection.

i'm making a special limited amount of BLOOD WITCH dvds with all the features, really just for the cast (so they don't have to wait until fall for the whole deal). but i plan on mailing copies to those of you who have continued to show interest and support not just through this one, but many in the past. and i expect some feedback.

also, before i forget...we will be attending cinema wasteland this october in cleveland ohio. we haven't been in two years and are excited to make our return. monica and samela will be joining me once again, we'll be sharing a table with henrique and *hopefully* peddling our brand-new movie. i'll provide updates about this, but our hotel room is reserved so chances are good it'll all work out. now cross your fingers we don't get fucked-over too bad by the airlines. marilyn chambers is listed as a guest...

Tags: filmmaking, underground film

02:10 pm: FIT ME benefits depression
when monica and i made FIT ME last year i decided not to make it available on dvd or youtube like all our other stuff. it's different, it's special, and i truly feel it is most effective in a theater. i'm not being pretentious or snobby about it, if you know me you know i definitely have a firm grip on the realities of no-budget filmmaking. i just realized after WAKE UP screened at the 2005 mental health benefit that some movies work best with an audience and deserve better than to be watched on a computer screen. FIT ME needs a dark room, a small audience, and loud speakers.

on thursday 4/17, it will be showing at athens cine as part of a nuci's space film showcase about depression. monica and i have a history with nuci's space dating back to when it opened in 2000, it opened so many possibilities for us during our days as full time musicians, and i'm happy i can continue to help out in some way.

i'll post more information as soon as it becomes available. if you're in town and this thing doesn't run too late, come check it out.

Tags: filmmaking, underground film

05:28 pm: BLOOD WITCH report + next project
first, before i forget: last friday evening i walked down to athens ciné to show the theater to a friend, and kamala was outside working on an display advertising some sort of special wine they're getting that coincides with the film JUNO (alcohol and pregnancy go well together, no?). she mentions to me that they're doing a local short film show in like 2 weeks. i must have missed the call for entries e-mail or something. not sure. anyway, she said the movies can be 10 minutes or less, so i'm going to bring FIT ME down to her this week so it can get played in the show. since we don't sell this one or have it online, i think it can't possibly get shown in public enough. unlike our other films, this one is meant to be seen in a dark theater, 10 feet high. i'll post more info soon as i can.

BLOOD WITCH has been a slow go in terms of editing. all i need is one goddamn week where i don't have to cover any daytime shifts or sit at the dentist or car repair shop. that's all i need. i work late at night, that's the way it goes. what i can tell you is i've cut three scenes so far and they look excellent on my TV set. in the time since i started my segment of the new FACES OF SCHLOCK anthology, justin has shot some of his part and henrique begins this coming weekend on SLAY RIDE. i'm super excited about that one because i wrote the script over two years ago and am anxious to hear these characters speak to one another.

i have yet to make an official announcement, but longtime gonzo gangstress mitsu bitchi left our crew the last week of january. there's no big dramatic or horrible story, she's just become very busy over the last year or so with personal commitments that do not leave adequate time to continue on playing a major part with us. what's amazing is we managed to make FAKE BLOOD during a very hectic and taxing period of her life, and yet to watch it you'd never know. she is flawless in it. i remember being very hesitant to take the project on, but mitsu implored me to do so, stating that she "needed it". i understood and threw myself headfirst into what would become our longest and most involved undertaking to date. it is my hope that if we're filming near her and time permits, you'll see mistu in a walk-on part now and again. she's got her share of fans, and will not only be missed by our crew but by those who have developed an affinity for her work over the last 5 years.

last but not least: it looks like our next movie will likely be a remake of our 2003 flick BUTTONHEAD. as with the original CANNIBAL SISTERS, it was a good idea that was poorly executed due to our own lack of experience. our first time shooting on a digital camera, i had no idea what "image stabilization" was and as a result, many shots were ruined by my shaky shaky hands. also, i was still about a year away from learning to edit my own movies, so i didn't have a good sense of what would cut together. it has a lot of awkward transitions and angles. but worst of all, and the main reason i don't like watching the original, i was afraid the story was too fucked-up, so i added a lot of humor to soften the overall tone. in hindsight, this is exactly the opposite way underground film is supposed to work. no one who's into these sort of movies wants to see self-censored ANYTHING. so unlike the revised CANNIBAL, the new version of this story will have a great many drastic changes (which will hopefully include a title change as well). monica and i have already discussed some of this and will hatch out the details hopefully in the next month.

till then, thanks for reading :-)

(11.27.09 ANDREW'S NOTE - The revised version of BUTTONHEAD was entitled GASH. I worked on it here and there over the period of a year, picking up considerable steam during early summer 2009 in the script stage, but ultimately putting the brakes on when I realized the male lead I required was going to be an issue. As of this writing, I have completely stopped working on it, and cannot be sure if it'll ever happen.)

Tags: filmmaking, underground film

12:25 am: a follow-up thought
a good friend of my wife's died over the weekend. he drowned in the ocean. she's known this guy for 6 years. he was only 27 and was doing really important work as a PHD student. i'd hung out with him a few times, spoke to him many times. he was a good guy.

so obviously we have been talking about death for the past several days. she's never had someone she was this close to die before. for me, it's something i have sadly been too familiar with in my life. but i don't usually spend time thinking about death, i'm too busy living and thinking about right now.

here's what i had on my mind today though. sort of a follow-up to my previous post.

this urgency i talked about, this kind of subconscious need to not waste any time, it is both a curse and a blessing. a curse in the way that it will not let me sleep, will not let me rest, will not let me sit and play video games. the voice screams and beats against the insides of my head, "GO DO THAT. DO THAT NOW", and a blessing in that i never lose sight of how lucky i am to know who i know and have the means to do what i do.

and death? well, death means no more talk. no more ideas. no more rough drafts. no more plans, dreams or designs. nothing. all that is left when you die are things you DID. that's you. your actions and their results are what you leave behind, both in the hearts of those whom you meant something to and with those whose lives your work affected.

i never set out to do something that would shake the world. i am not interested. the world is too huge and when i think about it, i feel completely helpless. but looking back at all the music and the films and the art, all those nights and days spent trying to pry something out of my head and into something you could see or hear or touch - - it really was something good. no wonder i never had any interest in getting high or getting wasted.

it's like ian mackaye says on "in my eyes":

YOU TELL ME I MAKE NO DIFFERENCE
AT LEAST I'M FUCKING TRYING...

...WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE?

i'm not scared to die. i'm scared of not being finished yet when it happens.

Tags: filmmaking, underground film

09:42 pm: a look at GONZORIFFIC at 5 years
it hit me over the weekend that the shooting of our latest movie BLOOD WITCH happened almost 5 years to the day of when we made our first movie under the gonzoriffic banner, 2003's BUTTONHEAD (earlier shorts with monica, POP GOES THE EVIL and the original CANNIBAL SISTERS, were done as side projects while we were concentrating on our band).

thinking back on it, every creative adventure i'd ever been involved with prior to gonzoriffic films (the review site started back in 1998) maxed out at the 2-and-a-half year mark. those earlier undertakings usually stopped either due to personnel problems or because i became fixated on something else and moved on.

matt and i had our fictional radio station, comic book company and TV station, then went into our first two bands together all between the years of 1988 and 1994. i spent 1995 to 1999 in one band or another with dan and/or matt until monica and i got our first band going in 2000. it lasted the requisite 2.5 years and then we jumped head-first into the world of underground filmmaking.

so what's made it last?

for one thing, we're grown ups with jobs to help pay for this stuff and cars to get us to one another. second, unlike having a band where you're limited to this set lineup of participants, gonzoriffic's door is open to anybody we come into contact with who has a desire to pitch in and be part of what is essentially this ongoing passion project monica and i share. we've had the ability to be selective about who gets in the gang, the resources and talent to do things with the bare minimum of participants (we've made more than one movie with just her in front of the camera and me behind it), and the good fortune of meeting some of the greatest people you can imagine. things just inexplicably keep getting better for us no matter what obstacles get thrown our way. and i'm happy to say, we've never wasted any time or anybody. three years with mitsu and one year with teresa yielded so many amazing results i don't even know where to begin.

will i get another year? i wasn't sure at first, but for now i can say yes. 2008 has started out really strong with the screening and a new movie. it is my hope that we can at least do one or two more and also make a convention appearance before the year is up. i have plans and i have back-up plans too. another reason why this thing has lasted so long is because there's no shortage of inspiration happening. it is just easy enough to be fun and just challenging enough to be a motherfucker.

i have never been involved in anything this great and cannot imagine anything else creatively i would rather be doing. it has always been my dream to make movies, a dream i let go of for a decade of my life. at age 12 i clearly remember going batshit anytime my aunt would be in town with her VHS camcorder, i'd beg her to let me borrow it just for a few hours so i could make something. my family took notice of this and between my folks and my uncle managed to score a camera for my very own, a camera my friends and i swiftly killed within two years of non-stop use (coincidentally it quit working not long after matt and i started our first band in '92).

thank you monica for being my most tireless, ever-present and steadfast creative partner. i know it was the right time and the right place and the right people, and i know some of it was just luck, but the main reason this shit has lasted is because you and i have carried it on. sometimes with the help of many and sometimes just on our own backs, but we have done it nonetheless. your willingness to do whatever is next, your personal bravery and your strong belief in me have resulted in this belief i have in endless possibilities. i feel free to dream anything, and for an artist that is the greatest thing one could ever want.

happy 5th birthday gonzo, you beautiful bitch. i just couldn't let this go by unnoticed.



Tags: filmmaking, underground film

09:55 pm: SCHLOCK re-boot
i don't know if i'm even supposed to be making mention of this or not, but our new movie BLOOD WITCH is but one segment in the upcoming FACES OF SCHLOCK anthology feature film. SCHLOCK is the creation of dayton's henrique couto ("marty jenkins and the vampire bitches"), a way to show solidarity in an otherwise very competitive and delusionally egotistical film scene. back in 2004 he proposed it as an idea, and asked if he could include gonzoriffic's BUTTONHEAD (aka FRANKEN-CLIT) in the project. i said yes, thinking probably nobody would see it, and my shaky handheld photography would stay amongst friends.

nope. along with shorts by couto himself and baltimore's chris lamartina ("book of lore"), and wraparound skits featuring "slutpira", FACES OF SCHLOCK went on to great internet + convention sales and some really good online reviews. the second volume, which added west virginia teenage genius justin channel ("die & let live") to the mix, did even better and even landed us in fangoria magazine. with another success on our hands, it was only a given we'd do a third volume. for my segment, i remade one of our early shorts CANNIBAL SISTERS and wrote another script for henrique called SLAY RIDE, a christmas-y horror comedy.

volume 3 was delayed and then scrapped for a number of reasons, but now we're back and starting over with SCHLOCK in hopes of landing a distributor and boosting the overall production quality to compete with an already cluttered DVD horror landscape. again, the selling point of this project is the variety of talent involved. i'm the oldest of the bunch by a good 8 or 10 years, but that doesn't mean anything at all - - these fellows are all great guys and very experienced filmmakers.

i'm sure there will be some sort of official announcement/website thing in the near future, but what i can tell you now is that all four of us (couto, lamartina, channel and i) are in various stages of production on our respective stories and everybody's got excellent ideas. i'm happy to be part of it and i have hopes that this thing will stand out among the other shit on the video shelves.

Tags: filmmaking, underground film

04:28 am: scene from BLOOD WITCH
i started cutting BLOOD WITCH today. here's a taste...



Tags: filmmaking, underground film

10:37 pm: BLOOD WITCH update w/ stills
this past weekend we shot almost all of our new movie BLOOD WITCH, our part of the FACES OF SCHLOCK reboot (justin channel, chris lamartina and henrique couto are all contributing segments as well). i say almost all because we had a couple actors who were sick with pneumonia and couldn't come play. their scene is really short, so it shouldn't be too difficult to pick up later. i'm just anxious to finish. monica and i will be composing and recording the score together, hopefully this saturday before the henry rollins gig. yes, we just saw him in october but the guy's back already. and why break a tradition that goes back to 1992 (i haven't missed him since i was a teenager).

here are a few stills from BLOOD WITCH. this is the first scripted film we have made since TWO IN THE PINK back in fall of '06. it was great to get back to knowing what the hell was going on (sort of) after FAKE BLOOD, an experiment that seemed like it was never gonna end.

enjoy!


countess samela and monica puller


countess samela as "lucia"


playing footsy in the shower


priscilla lee presson as "kelly"


part of our awesome dolly shot

Tags: filmmaking, underground film