Production Overview by Rick Schmidt (from ‘Main Feature Competition”/catalogue, Figueira da Foz Intl. Film Festival, Portugal).
CRASH MY FUNERAL was a crazy production. We quickly got in over our heads because we stared shooting with what we imagined to be a workable story concept instead of just letting our movie grow out of the surroundings (locations) and real-life stories of our actors. We begun by thinking that we were making a movie about a street person (played by JOHN BALQUIST AKA “yahn soon”–– he performed the fantastic “Magic Mushroom” story in LONELINESS IS SOUL) who lives up in the Berkeley, California hills. So for a while we had fallen into the typical “indie’ trap of actually trying to forge a story in the impossibly short period of six shooting days, and playing “catch-up.” On day-3 we rejected this notion, and searched for a fun concept that could add meaning to all the great stuff we had already shot. My son Morgan (our great Co-Producer/Director of Photography), yahn and I sat together over breakfast, wondering if any one of us could possibly figure out a way to pull the movie into usable fashion. Thankfullly, Morgan came up with the concept that we make the lead character (yahn) a SCRIPTWRITER...someone trying scripting a movie in spite of a writer’s bloc...in search of his inspiration. That meant that everything we had previously shot could now be incorporated into the cut! Scenes could be regarded as either real or imagined. And the connections could all be made in his head (the editing could show this...).
The character that yahn/John Balquist was playing could learn new things as he searched for his story. He could deal with the creative angst, worry about story and plot, moulding characters, all in the name of “art.” Suddenly it was appropriate to discuss moviemaking issues, like “selling out.”
We were fortunate to have the use of a large Oakland hills mansion where BELLAS CURVE band members Knox Ziegler and Matt Calkins lived, and we worked hard to include their music and scenes in the movie (THE MUSIC SCORE WAS AGAIN CREATED BY PAUL BAKER, who is seen playing with BELLAS CURVE’). The brain surgeon who owned the Oakland house had reluctantly given us permission to shoot there, but the day after we finished the movie he evicted the musicians from their low-cost apartments at the basement floor level (their fabulous views gone!). It wasn’t enough, it seems, that we were careful in our work, didn’t disturb the room-wide gymnasium the doctor had created for his adult “playpen.” Our error had most likely been that we gave his tenants too much focus, rendered them as less than invisible in their downstairs rehearsal cubicles, made him perturbed on some level (that’s what I heard back, anyway). Fortunately they were proud of the movie and loved their particular scenes, especially the music-videoesque sequence of live band rehearsal, and believed that it was their fate to move on.
Lead actor John Balquist/yahn soon, co-writer/co-director, music creator (with Paul Baker) is pictured on poster—he’s the “scriptwriter” of the story.
Our terrific AVID editor/co-writer/co-director Michael Rogers (who cut LONELINESS IS SOUL so beautifully) was happy to stop tearing out his hair and make scenes fit together. He could finally make it understandable when an melodramatic scene was over-played (it was him, yahn soon, the scriptwriter, searching for the truth of the scene in his mind). And other editing miracles were possible!
A woman who yahn sat next to momentarily on a park bench (Meeka Schmalle, also from “LONELINESS IS SOUL”), could instantaneously become his muse, a lead character in his story. From barely a glance at her pretty face his fertile mind was now capable of creating an array of scenes starring “the woman on the bench” (which we get to see, as his script comes alive...): “Cassandra” is a ghost-like presence as she sits silently on a bed watching videos. Then, at the musician’s house, she is seen again, now as a drugged-out groupie girlfriend of one of the band members. Later, she shades another part of the story, becomes an old man’s suicidal daughter (Willie Boy Walker who has starred in several of my past features, including 1988-THE REMAKE, EMERALD CITIES, MORGAN’S CAKE, AMERICAN ORPHEUS, THE FIFTH WALL (©2000), BEAR DANCE (©2002) plays the father, and tells a hilarious real-life story about going to camp for the first time.“
So our out-of-control production suddenly became a little more stable. The editor Mike (now given a well-deserved credit for “A Film By”) called for scenes he needed to complete the cut as the ten days of shooting/editing were winding down. Musician Paul Baker (who created almost all the original musical scores for my last six features) once again delivered his special brand of songs for our soundtrack, and our comedic crazy-quilt movie was completed by the deadline.
We’ve learned once again that the best parameters for our 10-day start-to-finish FEATURE WORKSHOPS productions are when we follow trails and directions as yet unknown (as we did with past features BLUES FOR THE AVATAR, LONELINESS IS SOUL, MAISY’S GARDEN, other workshop movies..), letting the story emerge from the truth of our journey. It’s through that process of personal discovery that we ultimately do our best work.
Click on link below, 2 C full CRASH flick:
CRASH MY FUNERAL —Features Willie Boy Walker/"MORGAN'S CAKE," etc.)———
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