Was the Humour Intentional?
FIRST TRIES AT MOVIE MAKING.
Whether you know someone who made one, or it was your own first attempt, I’ll bet it’s memorable. I don’t mean a home movie, but a ‘film’ with beginning, middle and end — though not necessarily in that order. If you shot it, perhaps you were hand-holding a jiggling camera like me, rendering half the film out of focus. I would have obsessively zoomed in and out too, but my first movie camera had no zoom. How could it — it cost a dollar. The used 8 mm Kodak Cine Automatic was broken, but I managed to fix it.
I had suddenly discovered — even in 1968 — anybody could make a (cheap) film if they wanted to. I bought a guidebook and learned about lenses and exposure. To test my knowledge I needed a subject — any subject. How much could be seen on film, for example, if I turned off most of the lights? That was when I saw the spider in the laundry tub. I lit my face from underneath with a gooseneck lamp, and shot my arachnophobic reaction. Cut to out-of-focus shot of spider. Next, trembling hand strikes a match, and drops it on spider. Reverse angle of killer’s maniacal face. The End. There was no title, but I found it years later simply marked, “Spider in Sink.”
When I was studying film, my first 16 mm effort was a documentary. Some of my classmates were more imaginative. Since you have to start somewhere, Blair Lewis made a film about God creating the universe. He filmed a close up of bubbling porridge, while his mother played Beethoven’s 5th on a distorting piano in the background. Jim Hornby’s baffling film was titled, “Electric Solo for Guitar and Bottle.” But it wasn’t until after several years of graduate study, and working in the film industry in New York, that I noticed how funny student films could be.
I’d gone back to Canada to teach film production at Sheridan College, in Ontario. Everyone in the class had to make their own 16 mm film, from beginning to end, the way I did. Scripts were due by Christmas, and after a while I began to notice common themes — even similar plots. The ‘bank heist’ was one that lasted a few years, until it got dangerous. In this template, a rented police uniform was worn by one the filmmaker’s young friends, while students acted as robbers. The uniform was always two sizes too big, giving the poor chap a pencil neck, while his long hair poked over the collar. As the cast ran around outside the bank, the real police showed up and shut the whole thing down. Script changes ensued. The bank heist movies ended when the police tactical squad showed up one time.
There were many First World problem films, but the best was the existential variant. Like so many of these, they’d start with an alarm clock waking up some guy with a hangover. We watch as he gets ready for work, endlessly brushing his teeth, eating cereal while listening to depressing news, and — from four different angles — putting on his winter coat. He gets in his car, but by the time he turns on the radio, the film is half over. Now we listen again while a fake radio announcer reads the most apocalyptic news you’ve ever heard. Our alienated hero finally arrives at the office, but there’s just a few minutes left to find out he’s been fired, and then to read the Dear John letter from his girlfriend. Now just seconds to get him on the roof of his high-rise apartment building. Head banger music builds, guitar riffs scream, until he finally jumps off, spiralling oddly to earth. Though not unexpected, the climax is a disappointment. His body lands without the slightest bounce, as if it were a pillow — which of course it is. A pillow wearing a winter coat.
The next wave of student movies was an endless zombie invasion — much better for expressionless actors. Versions of this genre went on for so long I finally put an end to it. By that time, students were onto other things — paranoia, phobias, snakes on planes. But spiders in sink were history.
© February 2022 by Richard Hancox
