August 30, 2001
- Death Faces intro at Deja-Brew
 One
of the last things I needed to shoot was the goofy intro to
the "Death Faces" tape that Todd (John Horrigan's character)
was showing at the first Amanda party sequence. (Filmed on
September 2, 2000) This was
supposed to be a take-off of the ridiculous intro to the real
video called "Faces Of Death". In that, the narrator guy of
the video does this spiel about how death has always been
his obsession, while standing in some badly lit room that's
supposed to be a morticians office. I was going to mimic it
as closely as possibly, but I couldn't bring myself to light
the scene in such an amateurish manner...and no one would
believe that anyone could deliver dialogue so poorly.
I had asked Andy
Ihnatko if he'd like to be THE GUY. Never have seen him
act, didn't know if he could act..but he got the job. Couple
of reasons why I went with him. Andy is very intelligent (professional
writers tend to be at least literate...and Andy was clever
and literate). I felt that he got the gist of what I was trying
to do. (Pompous presenter who has way too much self-worth.)
I could also exploit Andy's notoriety within the Macintosh
community. The film is filled with computers and computer
references..and the guy who looks like he would have the least
to do with computers (in the film) is one of the most famous
personalities within the Macintosh community!
I then needed a
location. I wanted to shoot this in some place that looks
like a morgue. In fact, a morgue would've been perfect (even
though I've never seen a real one...I'm assuming they look
like the ones in the movies.) Therese and I started calling
a couple of places locally and got no where. The few morgues
that exist are at major hospitals, major hospitals want to
know WHY you want to talk to people in the morgue. People
who run hospitals don't have a big sense of humor when it
comes to things relating to death. We tried contacting some
funeral homes. They have even a less cheery outlook on the
subject, since we would have to film at their place of business,
and they have to take death way too seriously for their cliental.
We tracked down the one school that teaches mortuary science
in Boston. I imagined they must have young students playing
with body parts when no one is looking. (I know *I* could
think of all sorts of funny things to do with body parts if
left to my own devices.) No go, some person starting quoting
all sorts of rules and regulations on filming anything dead,
or even near someone who is dead, even though I had no intentions
on filming an actual cadaver.
 During
this time, Jim Barron had
been whipping up vats of beer for himself at Deja-Brew
in Shrewsbury, MA. Deja-Brew is one of those self-brew places
where they supply all the necessary stuff for you to crank
out a keg of beer of your own choice. He noticed that they
had a large metal table (for bottling beer) that looked like
something you might find in a morgue to do autopsy's on. We
asked the owner Ray Schavone, if he'd be interested in having
us turn his brewery into a morgue. He was all for it! They
had a sink near this "autopsy" table and everything. I just
had to cover the large Three Stooges poster (of the Stooges
holding beers) with something that looked medical. We scanned
a couple of things out of Greys anatomy, printed them up large
and stuck 'em on the walls. Vola...one morgue!
The last thing
I needed was some kind of apron (with fake blood on it) and
a jar with some kind of internal organ in it. In the original
"Death Faces" video, the stupid presenter holds up a specimen
jar and makes a comment about how when this organ ceases to
function, death occurs..yada yada yada. I found this butcher
shop where the owner had sold me one of their aprons/lab coats
and a cow's liver for 20 bucks.
 Andy
worked out great for this sequence. He came up with some over-blown
dialogue for his character "Dr. Frank Osirin" We even got
the owner Ray to play the role of the corpse on the table.
That's his feet sticking into the frame. I shot this sequence
with my BetaSP rig. I noticed that I was getting an error
message when I started recording (which usually means a head
clog), but I didn't see anything in the playback within the
B&W viewfinder. Once I got home, I found out that the heads
were clogged enough just so that I would lose the color information.
Oh well, I guess the sequence will be in B&W. I can't believe
how much work and effort went into pulling this stupid little
sequence off, just for a lousy 25 seconds of screen time.
During this time
John and I have been going crazy getting the rest of the graphics
done for the showing at the Coolidge Corner on September 8th.
It's still amazing how much work we've done just to have these
quick, insert shots ready. In one sequence, I needed to create
this fake smut video cover that John Horrigan was supposed
to be working on. It was going to be called "Boobs Galore",
but realized that I didn't have any good shots of any sexy
women with their tops off. (That either John or I shot ourselves...I
guess we just never got around to these types things.) John
had a friend who got into stripping, so he had done a shoot
where she wore all this lingerie for her "body shots". The
tape was now called "Leg Obsession".
September
8, 2001 - Coolidge Corner screening
 After
going crazy for the past month, John
and I finally got a final cut together with almost all the
elements we needed to include to finish this puppy. We were
working up till midnight the night before getting everything
together. Earlier in the week I had started to bump up the
resolution of the video on my Media 100. The larger the video
files you make, the more likely you will have problems on
getting everything to playback smoothly. (at least on my older
Nubus Media 100 system) This is what started happening. Some
scenes had almost 8 tracks of audio that had to play in time
to the new higher resolution video. It couldn't handle it,
I started to get skipping frames all over the place. I had
to do a bunch of mix downs of many of the audio tracks to
get everything to play back fine. The last thing we added
was the closing slide show credits that John was pounding
away the day before.
The screening at
the Coolidge Corner
was scheduled for 3 pm. I got there around 12:30 to hook up
my BetaSP deck and run some tests. (Their BetaSP deck was
being fixed, I thing I saved $75 by using my own deck.) It
looked really nice once we had it up and running. The audio
was incredibly clean and in my face and with a much bigger
bottom than I had expected. (I had never mixed the soundtrack
at that volume or EQ...you could hear EVERYTHING.)
The plan was for
Dan to show up at 1 pm
so we could find a restaurant locally so we all could have
a place to go afterwards. While waiting for Dan, I had gone
into the theatre that was showing "Apocalypse Now Redux".
I nearly shit my pants when I saw the color popping off the
screen, compared to what I saw on my video projected image
next door. Then I realized that I was looking at a real Technicolor
print and you won't normally find this projected anywhere.
(They stopped using the process year ago due to the cost.)
Dan finally showed up and we scouted around a bunch of local
joints and threaten them with our entourage of 45 unexpected
guests.
 I
had a guest list of 45 people (I was determined to fill EVERY
seat for my $150) and we just about had it packed. (A couple
of people had bagged out on us.) Dan and I gave a little speech
before hand and then started the show. About half of the audience
were cast members who have seen most of it in one form or
another. The other half were mothers, wives and musicians
(who had their songs in the film) who had not seen any of
it.
Damn, I don't think
I could've had a better reception! I got big laughs through
out. The audience was almost too enthusiastic near the beginning
because they were practically laughing at every little gesture
anyone did. (I knew the first few scenes weren't THAT funny.)
I got applause right after the intro/title sequence when Johns
computer crashes and it goes to black. No one had seen any
of the computer animations that John and I had been pounding
away for the past few months and boy they seemed to work.
The first big reaction came with the "Up
the Skirt" cam scene. It seems no one was expecting it
and I got gasps. (For the past year I've been showing it without
what they were looking at, and most people were just scratching
their heads on what I was trying to do.) All the women did
the big "aaaaahh" when they first saw my Shih-Tzu dog Mei-Li.
(HA! They fell for my pat, easy manipulation.) Sparky
got laughs throughout his sequence. (It's an interesting kind
of laugh, it's sorta like random gun fire...you laugh at the
point where it gets to YOU personally, and not when everyone
else says it's funny.) The nightclub sequence worked great...the
music cues out to where Johnny plays with Mei-Li worked great.
Deirdre's money
dress worked...I got applause when I appeared as the clown
in the beach scene. (I'm assuming
most of the crowd knew who I was.) The Bond
boys Siamese twins sequence
worked great (and I had the most trouble with it personally...I
didn't think it was working.). The board room sequence REALLY
worked. Cara's last line (I'm wearing fishnets) popped...and
this was surprising..the ending title sequence got cheers!
An usher stuck his head into the theatre when they came on
because of the 45 people that were making so much noise. (He
then noticed that it was only the title sequence, then left.)
It was absolutely fucking amazing.
I got some unsolicited
e-mail from a few people after the showing:
 Tony
Annesi wrote:
Eric, Thanks
for the alt.sex premier! What a big improvement over the
wrap party video! the music and the graphics really made
it work! good job!
Tom Hauck
wrote:
Eric - Thank
you for inviting Kim and I to the screening of Alt.Sex.
Congratulations! We were probably among the very few in
the audience who had never seen any of it, and didn't know
anything about it, so I am happy to report that we both
found the film to be very entertaining. Great script, vivid
characters, lots of laughs, wonderful direction, and --
most importantly -- not a single slow moment. The hour and
a half seemed like fifteen minutes. This film has that rare
quality, a protagonist that anyone can identify with. A
perfect date movie for anyone who has ever worked in an
office - and that includes just about everybody. "Lonelyhearts"
sounds great, too. Good luck, and once again, congratulations
to everyone involved. - Tom
 Sparky
said:
Wow what a great
job you did! Funny from beginning to end. It flashes across
the screen like a moment which means like a pretty girl
you talk to for hours seems to go in a second. the way you
did the timing and the montages gave this whole movie an
uplifting experience even when livestock is at risk.
 Eric
Bloom wrote:
"As for the alt.sex
"premier," I found the film to be a tour de' force. Of course,
it's no GONE WITH THE WIND; but, of course, it isn't suPPOSED
to be. For what it's supposed to be, it very well may eventually
become known (by some audiences and some critics) as one
of THE best films of its particular genre'. [This statement
reminds me of the scene in MOD ROMANCE, when Mary and Robert
are eating, and Robert says the film was "saved in the editing,"
and Mary asks if he believes such because HE did the editing,
and he very bluntly says "...of course!...." It isn't that
far-fetched to believe my enthusiasm is partly due to the
fact that I am IN the movie, and that it was created by
MY friends. HowEVER, I DID watch it on the big screen, and
attempted to divorce myself from any personal attachments
to it as best I could. The fact that a majority of the actors
involved are strangers to me helped me to do this. And when
all was said and done, I honestly felt I had just seen an
extremely well-made piece of cinema. What makes me believe
my own opinion, in light of the potentially undeniable bias,
is the fact that all throughout the film, I found myself
laughing, and laughing hard. I smiled, and smiled because
I was very much surprised, and, at times, despite the kind
of view Eric has of life and the world, was even moved to
a beautifully subtle sentimentality! A lesson was also learned
by myself, because when I was shown several scenes back
in the first part of the year, I was genuinely unimpressed,
and almost scared for John and Eric. Last week, I was literally
blown away, and told myself once again (as this theory applies
with most judgement of art), that to decide on a work of
art's quality and worth by seeing or hearing PARTS of it,
is a very awkward and often dangerous way to do it. These
kind of decisions almost HAVE to lack what is one of the
most critical aspects of any work: CONTEXT. You know the
rest...
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