EMERALD CITIES (90 min., ©1983)--Here's a full dose of "The making of" (or, "How to shoot in the desert with basically nothing locked down," and a VERY SHORT schedule--4 days & losing 2 for travel!).

https://bynwr.com/videos/emerald-cities

EMERALD CITIES- Death Valley shoot,1979.

Next comes Emerald Cities, the final film of the trilogy, with the same three actors doing their star turns: Carolyn Zaremba, Dick Richardson, and Ed Nylund. And again, I include excerpts to tell the story, this section featuring chapters from my book, SLEEPER TRILOGY. But first, Vic Skolnick, Cinema Arts Centre, Huntington, NY, supplies the Introduction, from my November, 1984 Trilogy retrospective.

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INTRODUCTION

EMERALD CITIES (U.S., 1982, 90 min., color) Directed by Rick Schmidt; Music by Flipper and The Mutants; with Ed Nylund, Carolyn Zaremba, Dick Richardson; Film International Festival, Rotterdam, Holland; London Film Festival

By Vic Skolnick

In this traditionally American mad cap "shaggy-dog" story, Ed Nylund "stars" again. This time as an aging heavy-drinking Santa Claus. Ever since the Great Depression he and his greatly depressed daughter Z (Carolyn Zaremba) have made their home in the middle of Nevada's barren Death Valley. There they dwell in their combination ramshackle mobile home and gas station until one sunny day Z ups and leaves for San Francisco with a guy who stops for gas. The film opens with Carolyn Zaremba fulfilling the dream of her life as she receives the Oscar Award for Best Actress. Her thank you speech serves as the means to enter the flashback that unfolds this zany saga.

BILL KIMBERLIN, 2nd cameraman, positions lead actor CAROLYN ZAREMBA for opening shot.

Schmidt, with imaginative inter-cutting, presents a wide variety of images culled from our popular culture. Included are cameo TV news appearances by those bellicose peacemakers, Ronald Reagan, Alexander Haig, and Caspar Weinberger, who explain that might will somehow make it right; actual on-the-street interviews in the Black community in which the question asked is "Do you believe in Santa Claus?" There is a hilarious interview with a California politician who offers sound answers to the school drop-out problem: "Pay them $15,000 a year and the problem will be solved," and bemoans the vast expenditures on the space shuttle and comments, "Let them from outer space come to us, it's cheaper." Striking performances by post Punk New Wave Rock groups, The Mutants and Flipper, pound out the lyrics of desperation in "The New Dark Ages" and "We Need A New Drug," and "Love Canal, " and "Shine,"

Sally Webster, Sue White of THE MUTANTS (& ED NYLUND/Santa at right).

EMERALD CITIES is Rick Schmidt's provocative and compassionate "howl" at the gathering tide of nuclear lunacy as the mass media adjusts us to the "new dark ages of limited nuclear war.” The juxtapostiion of the various elements, representing key themes, offer an, at times, hilarious and at other times disturbing collage, of the contemporary American scene. --Vic Skolnick

SF EXAMINER & CHRONICLE: "EMERALD CITIES uses the humor of lifelike situations, together with Schmidt's active sense of the absurd...touching real emotions."

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(And here’s a second introduction, from Peter Conheim, the man who did the hands-on restoration of Emerald Cities, re-mastering the movie over a year period, from the original 16mm AB film rolls, and audio magtrack, to Hi-RES 4K digital video).

INTRODUCTION #2 by Peter Conheim

Rick Schmidtʼs Emerald Cities was filmed primarily 1979-1981, capturing the uneasy period when Ronald Reaganʼs television Presidency began and daily fear of nuclear annihilation was perhaps as extreme as during the Cuban Missile Crisis, yet at a constant slow boil. So, if youʼre going to chart the end of the world in progress as a kind of pre-Repo Man black comedy, why not turn to San Franciscoʼs punk bands The Mutants and Flipper to appear on screen as a sort of Greek Chorus to provide the music? Both bands specialized (and still do, decades later) in arch critiques of popular culture, but one did it as impossibly catchy pop-punk with a dirty edge (the former), and one did it by scraping out the grimiest and most deceptively plodding-tempo scum-rock on earth.

Joe Rees (TARGET VIDEO) shoots Bruse Lose/FLIPPER, for EMERALD CITIES.

How perfect, then, that smack in the middle of this spectrum lies the narrative of Emerald Cities, where a bored and frustrated daughter of a drunken small- town desert Santa Claus impersonator flees to the big city (with Ted Falconi of Flipper, no less), with hapless dad in pursuit. Hi-jinks ensue. Meanwhile, Schmidt reminds us that itʼs an emerald- green TV world out there by way of tracking current events in semi- documentary style and analyzing the meaning of Christmas, Santa Claus, psychotherapy, and the use of psychedelics.

ByNWR.com went back to the original 16mm camera negatives and digitally restored Emerald Cities from scratch, unearthing an entirely unused song by the Mutants which was cut just prior to release in the process. It is presented as part of the film here for the first time. (see it online):

http://mubi.com/films/emerald-cities/player

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SCRIPTING IS PRE-PRODUCTION

Just a word on why “Scripting” and “Pre- Production” are presented together. The structure of making movies in the indie/low-or- no-budget manner requires that the solo filmmaker/videomaker/artist does basically everything for his/her movie all at the same time.

Since I was planning to shoot in the December/Christmas time-period, I was hoping for some images that celebrated that holiday. In any case, it was some early loose scripting that got me thinking how to structure the Emerald Cities story. It would be about Z (actress Carolyn Zaremba), making herself a star. It took a bit more time to realize that the scenes in Death Valley should be the setting for her explaining “how I won the Academy Award (TM)”––a flashback to growing up with her father Ed (played by Ed Nylund) in the desert.

Another actor/friend, Kelly Brock Boen (native of Muscogee, Oklahoma), would also be an asset, helping as a production assistant. I didn’t fully understand that Kelly would also figure in as actor, playing an old friend of the Ed/Santa character, at the Trona mill.

Of course, other scenes would be shot as time permitted and inspiration dictated ––whatever came to mind while there in that fascinating desert environment (before the film stock ran out!). The trip would be expensive––after film stock, funds would be going mostly for food and shelter. Ed offered to cover gas (a huge break) and snacks, financial help he had so generously imparted on my first two features. Ultimately, he covered much more, including picking up tabs for several restaurant meals, etc. Ed Nylund remains a real hero to my crazy filmmaking ventures.

Actor Ed Nylund and Dick Richardson (Martian mask): Watch it all here (just click!)

WRITING & PRODUCTION-MANAGING (Both at the Same Time).

I knew that it would be mostly an improvisational approach at every phase of the process. That means, I wouldn’t just seat myself nicely down and spend a month or two writing without, at the same time, doing the following:

(A) Trying to acquire funding. (Happily, a grant from the NEA did roll in, a year after I applied, giving me $7500 to get started!

(B) Checking out friends/actors (usually non-actors) to determine their future availability and get their ideas while I discuss my concept(s)

(C) Deciding on equipment and gathering my technical people together (like friend Nick Bertoni, who became both my sound department & investor).

What else? Maybe I can include...

(D) Just getting straight inspiration, developing psychic energy from what is happening in daily life around you. Only with what I call a filmmaking antenna can the artist receive the necessary ideas/miracles it takes to make a good film/video. It allows you to mentally identify things that fit into your ongoing search for good content=script=improv, and maybe scanning the horizon for visuals=locations=new people not met yet, who may be pulled in as on-screen talent.

Bill Kimberlin and me checking out the Ballarat ruin, wondering if weʼd ever find a location in Death Valley (in the middle of nowhere!) that had a cafe and gas station for the opening sequence. Photo by Julie Schachter.

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These initial realizations led to the understanding of what my future writing job would be, namely writing Z’s speech to an imaginary TV-and-in-person audience, at the big Awards ceremony. But before that, there were other priority pre-shoot jobs to accomplish. Here’s a nuts and bolts list that covered a lot of future concerns.

NUTS & BOLTS LIST
(for Actually Being On-Location!)

1. Get Palmer Films Lab to agree to issue me future credit. If I paid down my debt from Showboat 1988, I needed credit for film stock (a bare minimum of 8-400’ rolls of color negative 16mm stock, plus processing and workprint). Just like a shark, as long as I could move forward with some cash flow, my filmmaking process made sense to the Palmer’s accounting department. The money I had accumulated from the sale of my 1939 Dodge truck ($1200) plus Nick Bertoni’s loan ($1000) = $2200, was still measly in most people’s book. But if the lab could roll over my debt, let me shoot a new movie, I’d be happy to give them a good chunk of the bankroll.

2. Secure a hold on motel rooms in-and- around Death Valley/Trona, California. Since the Trona mill gave off a pungent smell, I knew that any housing would have to be a little out of town. I remembered seeing some motels on the outskirts when I’d been there before, so hoped we could find something suitable by using the phone book.

Nick Bertoni, foreground (sound), Bill Kimberlin (framing camera), and me behind (far visor), in the vastness that surrounds Trona, CA. Photo by Julie Schachter.

In any case, co-cameraman Bill Kimberlin squelched any ideas I had about camping out during the shoot (saving every cent), telling me it was a recipe for disaster. It would have been, in his words, “counter-productive to keeping cast and crew happy.” So with actor Ed Nylund’s help attaining a Trona phone book––he borrowed it from the Oakland, CA, downtown library where he worked––I made some calls to secure reservations for 3-4 rooms.

3. Line up leads ~ Actors Carolyn Zaremba & Ed Nylund I’d need to get their agreement to perform, and learn dates they’re free from work. Then I could begin to pencil in start/end-dates of the shoot.

4. Budgeting the shoot ~ I hope to spend a minimum of four days filming Just the driving down and back would eat up two of those precious days. So, I aimed for a pretty tight production schedule. Still, with a small cast (four), and bare-bones crew (also four), consisting of two camera operators, one soundman, and wife, Julie, as stills photo- grapher and production assistant, I hoped to at least properly film Ed and Z in father and daughter interactions, and record the arrival of a stranger (Ted Falconi of Flipper band), also him driving away with Z, out of the desert.

Bill Kimberlin works to get lights placed for Ed Nylundʼs scene in his “free Trona motel room.” Photo by Julie Schachter

Real Costs

The motel rooms, I learned by phone, were an affordable $30-$40, so that helped me believe I could survive my enterprise. Of course, my mental denial of some hard filmmaking truths was working overtime. While part of my brain (the left-side, I suppose) was working out all the logical, nuts-and-bolts Production Manager details, the right-brain half was shielding me from many crucial inconsistencies in what was, and wasn’t, locked down. So let’s just jump to the shoot and see what I so conveniently forgot to deal with.

Location(s) vs. Time-Constraints

The first thing to understand is, there was no advance location scouting for Emerald Cities. I was willing to blindly launch myself with eight helpers into the fray, basically knowing nothing about where I could shoot the setups of Ed and Z’s home––a gas station/cafe, and TV usage, with crucial knob adjustment to green-tint the images.

This meant I would have to quickly…(1) locate a small rundown (almost deserted), hopefully desert-friendly house with…(2) at least a table I could fake for cafe scenes. And once that was found (remember, I’d have just two days to shoot) I would need…(3) to secure a signed Location Release, to legally take over control of the property for the film, before…(4) determining the position and blocking of actors, while selecting a spot for my tripod and framing the first shot, as…(5) the “script” was finalized––actors reviewing their lines from in- progress, improv writing. Such was the basic laundry list of what was needed for me to succeed with the crazily brief shoot.

BILL KIMBERLIN sets up camera for opening shot of EMERALD CITIES, image featured on the cover of NEW DARK AGES book.

If I didn’t have a solid script by that point, I’d need to at least (6) share some improv thoughts and well-honed concepts (directing) with actors/non-actors, so they could then develop their own performances. I would have to somehow magically materialize the Main Location, before the two-day clock ran out. All that, everything that makes up a movie––great locations, well-conceived scenes, professional performances, good shots and sync sound recordings, plus carefully-designed cuts so footage fit together in editing––would need to be accomplished on the second and third day, following our 12+ hour drive from the Bay Area to Death Valley. Being pretty good at ignoring filmmaking problems that were mostly out of my control, difficult enough even with adequate money, I soldiered on.

After lining up agreements from Ed and Z, with a typed up contract for profit sharing and deferred salaries, I committed to the mid- December shoot dates, and followed up on the possibility of renting friend Bill Kimberlin’s Eclair camera, which he had previously used for his hit drag racing documentary, American Nitro. Fortunately, Bill let me off the hook with a half-up-front payment ($300), along with the stipulation that he would have to come along with his camera. That unexpected gift of a highly skilled second cameraman was one of the first production miracles for Trilogy Film #3.

At this point (November, 1979) I committed to a four-day shoot schedule in Death Valley, with my cast and crew members, taking the chance that after losing the front and back travel-days, I could at least begin my feature film with exposing up to eight 400’ rolls of Color Negative 16mm film stock (equal to 88 minutes of running time), over the very short remaining two days that I’d be on the ground there

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