Synopsis

I was eight years old when my dad returned from Sears with a full Super-8 outfit - camera and projector - to film my sister's dance recital and his golf swings. Once I took a look at this thing and got my hands on it, I borrowed the camera and proceeded to make 200-second long films with my friends.

All starred my close friend John Emeigh - a one-man acting studio who can mug with the best of them.

We made a series of monster flicks, comedy sketches, slasher films, martial arts movies, beat poetry road trips, terrorism sitcoms, and exposes into the pleasures of drug addiction.

We especially learned how to make brains out of cauliflower and ketchup.

We even won one local award. Indie film king Steven Soderbergh and I both grew up in Baton Rouge, although our paths never crossed. I entered Twin Terror into a local film festival and Soderbergh entered his latest short. We both won top honors! It was my proudest moment until I found out we were the only two who entered the festival. The story:

Two terrorists move into the neighborhood with plans to disrupt the International Computer Convention.

But first we had to experiment. In 1981, we started out with The Strange Movie - a series of comedy sketches such as "A View From A Bee" and a poor Orson Welles does Paul Masson wine commerical imitation. We also ran over people with cars. A lot.

Then the projector bulb burned out. We didn't make another film for four years as we saved up the thirty-bucks to buy a new one.

Returning to form in 1985 with the martial arts film Tae-Wan Chang (I wonder, did we misspell Taiwan?):

A martial artist emerges from hiding in a ditch to pose for the camera and then fight some guy who is chasing him with a plastic uzi.

"This film will scare the living hell out of you" is how The Boarding School Massacre opens. Filmed on one Friday evening with two rolls of film and some knives - the film defies any further description.

We abandoned the filming of Desert Egg in 1988. As we describe it:

This film opens with a poppy field dancing cross dresser being senselessly slain by a beret wearing fascist. It was then promptly abandoned probably due to the cost ($5) of Super-8 film.

In 1989's Trouble Man Jones:

A drug deal goes awry after a man runs over a suicidal hitchhiker with his vintage Beetle. During filming, our neighbors were startled to watch us drive around the block with a dummy straped to the top of the car.

Determined to branch out and expand our scope, we made the European film Full Frontal Nudity:

The story of two hitchhiking beat poet heroin addicts is told concurrently with the story of a Nazi who relentlessly beats a corpse with a shovel. Featured a stunning animated title sequence.

In Summer 1991, I was finally able to realize my dream of a sound camera. Delusions of grandeur floated through my head when I envisioned people rhapsodizing ecstaticaly about my clever, witty dialogue.

Once we wrote the script - which was of course a formality - and titled it Kerouac Is Dead (we were serious) we bought the film. As it turned out the film was a little expired - didn't worry about it - what's a few months between friends?

We proceeded to shoot a few scenes - the first roll at the Catfish Town Coffee Call in downtown Baton Rouge. This consisted of John and his then-girlfriend smoking and repeating the same dialogue over and over.

The second roll took place at Skip's place off the LSU campus. John and Parke smoking and acting. Vaughn showed up for his cameo of being hit on the back of the head with a shovel.

There were also some scenes in Ginny's bug along River Road and under the Mississippi River bridge to the soundtrack of the Stones.

Submitted the film to be developed and waited anxiously for the results - just how expired was that film, really?

Proof of a higher power: the first roll came out totally black albeit with scrapes of a soundtrack - the second roll was somewhat exposed.

Awards