Junkie

My father hounded me all through college to get a degree in business. He was a big believer in the idea that education brings financial success. As screwed up as it sounds, he wanted me to be a desk jockey. I could understand his reasoning, having spent most of his life busting ass twelve hours a day as a pipe-fitter. He thought he was doing me a favor, my dad; providing money so I could have the things I needed and wanted. He was getting money so I could go to college. The sad humor is that on the day I left for college my father and I looked at each other and realized we had no idea who the other was.

I left college in 1998 needing twelve credits to get my degree in theatre arts with a minor in communications. I "walked " with my class. It was time for me to go though. I had already been there five years, and even just one more semester seemed unbearable. Besides, since then I've gone back and finished up the twelve lousy credits and from a career standpoint, actually having the piece of paper in my possession has changed absolutely dick.

Anyway, I got a job with a temp agency, and they landed me a long term gig with an up and coming software company. I was a go getter. I've kind of always been a go getter, which tends to impress those with authority over me. The kicker is I've always hated authority. I'm an idealist sure, but with the heart of an anarchist. Still, I'm a hard worker. That's one of the things my dad did teach me.

So, when the term of the temp job was up, the guys at this software company liked me so much they offered me a regular position. It was a salaried job with great benefits: health, dental, 401k, the works. All I could do was go up. My dad was ecstatic. I took the job.

After six pretty miserable weeks, I quit. I went into my boss's office, and told him exactly how I felt; that while I appreciated the opportunity he was giving me, it wasn't for me. I had other things I needed to be doing, other paths I needed to walk. "I'm not a business guy," I said. Anti-authoritarian to the bone, I think I expected him to chew me out and be shocked that I was turning my back on what was really a pretty damned good job. He didn't though. In fact, he told me how much he respected me for following my heart.

My dad said nothing when I told him, just kind of shook his head.

The ultimate irony is that the past year I've spent putting together Women's Studies has been more about business than any sort of creative expression. Forget the business degree, I think I've learned what I would have been taught simply by trying to make a go of this thing.

Rather than even doing basic production work like scheduling and loaction scouting, my time has been spent writing business plans, researching the DVD market, setting up corporations, drafting contracts, working with a lawyer to make sure all my state and federal paperwork is correct, weighing the ton of risks against the ounce of hope, and about a thousand other minute detailed things that have nothing to with telling a story. Unfortunately, they have everything to do with making a marketable film. My life is a world of crunching numbers, begging for money, wheeling and dealing, trying to turn "no" into "yes." Hell, even "maybe" would do.

And you know what?

I fucking hate it.

The last six months of my life have been the most soul sucking, humiliating, ego-crushing time I've ever endeavored. I wake up every day and my first registered emotion is uncertainty. My first conscious thought is, "Why am I doing this?" Half the time I feel physically ill. The other half I think I'm losing my mind. A day doesn't go by that I don't want to quit. Nor does a day go by when I know I can't.

I can't. I mean, I physically can't stop myself from trying to move forward. If I walk away, even take a vacation, I somehow find myself turning the film over in my head: "What if I change this line? What if I shot it this way? Maybe Mary should wear yellow in that scene. Music like this would go well in this sequence."

Making movies is all I want to do. It's all I've ever wanted to do, since I was old enough to want anything. If there was a company that hired for "professional dreamer," I 'd be perfect. Experience? I've been doing it all my life. But if you won't hire me to do it, I'll do it anyway. That the sickness of it I think. Even when everyone is telling me the odds are impossible, I still do it. Even when it seems like trying to scale Everest in shorts and flip-flops, I still keep climbing.

A guy I've been hounding to invest in Women's Studies recently said to me, "If persistence leads to success, you're going to be successful." A compliment sure, but I don't think he understand the scary truth beneath it, the reason why I'm so persistent.

I'm a junkie, man.

Creative expression is an addiction. Filmmaking is my drug. I'm just trying to get another hit. Addicts do whatever it takes to get their high. They beg, steal, and sell themselves. Telling a real estate agent how much Dark Harvest made in it's first month on the Blockbuster shelves? That's just me sucking dick in the alleyway for a ten spot. See, a ten spot brings me closer to getting the junk. I'm an addict, remember? Only the camera's my needle, the boom mike my spoon, and the tungsten lights my flame.

Ask any addict busted for stealing, and he'll tell you he didn't do it for the money. The money is just a means to an end. The money just gets him to the high. "I can't help myself," he'll say.

"I just don't know how to quit."

Mary's Confession

I've talked briefly about Mary in a previous blog entry, Married to "Mary." However, now that we've had a little analysis of the supporting characters, I wouldn't mind taking a deeper look at her. After all, Women's Studies, if nothing else, is the story of Mary and the physical, spiritual, and emotional journey she takes through some very strange countryside.

I believe that story should trump all other aspects of a film, be it theme, style, symbolism, etc. The most important thing I need to convey is "What is this about?" I was taught that story, more than being a series of interconnected events, is a chunk of the main character's life. In this case, we're following along with part of Mary's life. The particular chunk of her life I'm focusing on is that weird time she got trapped at a school run by a cult of homicidal feminists.

There comes a point where "who a character is" has to be decided more by the actor than the writer or director. Certain elements already exist in the script, and the director is there to help guide the character through the world he/she is trying to create. However, I think it's more important for the actor to in many cases decide things like motivation and emotion. After all, having to inhabit these characters, the actors are the ones who know these people best.

That said, Cindy Marie Martin and I have had a few chances to talk about who Mary is and why she makes some of her choices. I thought rather than have me talk about who Mary is, it might be more informative to have Cindy do it.

There's probably a couple of spoilers in here, but I think they're vague and minor.

Lonnie:
What would you say is Mary's overriding character trait?

Cindy:
"Nie-iv-a-tay." She believes so strongly in her convictions that she can't understand why other people aren't as passionate as she is. Mary is an optimistic person with a really good heart, and she sees other people through her "humanity is good" glasses. In doing so, she blinds herself to people's faults.

Lonnie:
Sounds kind of "goody-two shoes."

Cindy:
Ew. "Goody-two shoes" is such a stereotype. Mary is a rounded character, a person. That's what I love about her. Everyone knows a Mary. She has a good heart, loads of determination, believes the best in people no matter what they throw at her, and thinks that she can make a difference. (Insert cheesy music here.) But, (dun, dun, dunnnnn) she is also jealous of her best friend's relationship with her own boyfriend which indicates some insecurity beneath her happy little exterior. She chooses to side with strangers instead of listening to her best friend when she tries to talk to her about the weirdness of the situation they're in. She's managed to get herself into a pregnancy that she doesn't want. Finally, (Spoiler Alert) though she loves Zack, she's not real sure that he's "the one" and has no earthly clue how to straighten out her confusion, being too chicken to approach him with her fears and concerns and talk it through like mature adults. She has complex emotions and dirty little secrets just like everyone else in this film. Just like life.

Lonnie:
Interesting. When I was writing Mary, I envisioned her as a sort of "Everyman." You think people will respond to her as such?

Cindy:
Yes, I do. She's a good person who has her faults with hard choices in a really sucky situation. One thing that makes the film so attractive to the actresses involved (excuse me while I speak for us all for a moment) is the fact that it has so many well rounded female roles. But, let's be honest. The bad aspects of the Academy Girls are exaggerated. Mary is closest to a person you'd meet on the street. She's not overly evil. She's not completely perfect. She's just a person thrown into hell who has to react.

Lonnie:
Talk a bit about where Mary is at the beginning of the film.

Cindy:
She's just found out that she's pregnant. She's confused. She wants a career in Washington and her boss, Senator Hamlin, has told her that she has one if she wants it. But, a baby doesn't fit in with a high powered career forcing change for women. She's not sure she wants to stay with her boyfriend, Zack, and has no idea how to end it. Further confusion. Zack doesn't truly respect her desire for a career. He wants kids and a wife at home. In his own way of only hearing what he wants to hear, (similar to Mary's condition), he doesn't listen to her when she repeatedly tells him that's not what she wants. She's craving a solution to her problems. And she finds it. In Judith, et al.

Lonnie:
But what Judith and Ross-Prentiss offer Mary isn't a real solution, at least not the right one.

Cindy:
The solution they offer her isn't the dogma they preach. It's the friendship. Mary is confused and feels not listened to. Judith and her clan are more than attentive. They listen to Mary's views. They even "gasp" agree with them. Judith shows undivided best-friend-like attention to Mary without any ugly past connections to her boyfriend. Unlike Beth. It's a solution to her insecurity problem. She fits in. She's valued. The Academy Girls keep Zack away from her so she doesn't even have to focus on that mess. She doesn't realize the extent of their "solution" until she's really trapped. When her eyes are opened, she doesn't just sign right up for their army. She fights.

Lonnie:
There seems to be a strange attraction between Mary and Judith. Explain it from Mary's point of view.

Cindy:
I think Mary is captivated by Judith's authority. She commands the respect of all these powerful, (she thinks) tuned in women, and yet has a warmth to her that appeals to Mary's "humanity is good" side. Remember, that at the beginning, Judith isn't showing Mary her killer side. She's wooing her. Mary is falling in love with her in a platonic way. Judith is taking over Beth's role in her life. Judith does have some romantic infatuation with Mary, but I don't think Mary sees it until Judith makes it obvious. (Again, naive.) Then, at that point, I think Mary is so confused over Zack and her love life that she's willing to give anything a try. I haven't worked with Tara yet, so I don't know exactly how things between Mary and Judith are going to shape up.

Lonnie:
Any final thoughts?

Cindy:
Mary is a facinating young woman. She lives her life making herself an element of constructive, peaceful change. Then, she's thrown into this bizarro world of feminism led by Judith whose ideals and desires mirror Mary's in almost every way- except for the method of implimentation. Suddenly, harmony and integration are no longer valued. Judith leads a cult of otherwise intelligent women forcing change through violence while preaching about the Goddess. Anyone smell the stench of irony? What factor pushed the Academy Girls over the edge into terrorism and will Mary fall victim in order to save herself and her convictions?...(Insert techno fight music here.) That and honestly... I just can't wait to start shooting. I want to get on set with the other actors and discover who this woman really is. For Womens Studies to succeed in playing the extreme, man-hating, homicidal feminist and show how outrageous that is, Mary has to be a grounded, believable person the audience identifies with. No pressure, right?

A Spiritual Definition

(*Since there's no qualms about it on this one, here's your big, fat SPOILER WARNING: If you don't want to know a major plot point about Women's Studies, do not read this blog.*)

A supporting character like Melissa inherently creates problems. If you write "by the book," which none of the best writers ever do, the job of supporting characters is to inform us about the main character; what my communications professor defined as "symbolic interactionism." In other words, the similarities or differences Melissa has to the main character, Mary, are what defines her. (Mary, not Melissa. Do you hate me yet? It gets worse.)

Melissa, however, has very little direct interaction with Mary. In fact, Melissa spends most of her screen time, when she's not killing people, with Iris. If you'll allow me to invent a literary term out of thin air, Melissa is what I would call a "Tercerary Character." It breaks down like this: Mary is the "Primary Character." Iris, is the "Secondary Character" who informs the audience about Mary. Melissa is the "Tercerary Character" who informs us about Iris, who in turn is informing us about Mary. So, Melissa's effect on our view of Iris in turn effects our view of Mary.

What exactly am I trying to say here? Isn't it clear?

Of all the characters in Women's Studies, Melissa has changed the most from her original inception. In the original draft, she was purely and simply dumb; not just run of the mill dumb either. We're talking dumber than a bag of rocks. There's no nice way to say it. She said dumb things. She did dumb things. I'd like to tell you that her antics were comedy gold of the highest karat. I'd also like to tell you that a little green fairy will come to you in the night and bring you candy and flowers.

Melissa's original role was little more than padding out the academy girls' numbers and comic relief, if you're the type of person who finds dumb, blonde jokes funny. Later, when I introduced Iris into the story, Melissa stayed dumb, except it didn't quite work anymore. Why? Well, if Melissa is dumb and Iris is naive, isn't that kind of like the blond leading the blind? ("Bum-Dum-Chh!" Thank you, I'll be here all night.)

So, Melissa had to evolve, and I wasn't exactly sure what she should evolve into. My first idea (or second idea, depending on your point of view.) was to have her be exceptionally, unbelievably heartless. Perhaps, of all the academy girls, Melissa was the only one who was truly evil. If Diane was in it for the cause and Judith was in it for the passion, Melissa was in it for the kicks. She doesn't care about liberating womankind or finding herself. She just wants to create chaos. In a way, she was the "anti-frat boy:" "Let's get drunk and kill some fuckers!" Ultimately, I decided that since Melissa's primary goal was to convert Iris to the cause, this interp wasn't the best, since Iris would probably be more frightened than seduced by someone so blatantly cruel.

My next idea was to make Melissa very trendy, immature, and obsessed with beauty, the kind of girl who was afraid of stabbing too hard for fear of breaking a nail. The problem was, this just didn't seem to fit into the world I created. If she was that vain and shallow, would Melissa really give a shit about any kind of social revolution?

For auditions, I tried Melissa as stoner though that just seemed to be doing "dumb" from a different angle. I got a lot of Keanu Reeves impressions, and while it was entertaining, most of the girls exaggerated it horribly. During one woman's audition (who ironically enough didn't end up getting the role) I got a "new age" spiritual vibe I hadn't seen before. Suddenly, the picture of who Melissa was began to fall into shape.

If Iris comes from a strict Christian background, it stands to serve that it would be spiritual ideas that would pull her away from that. Melissa sees the Ross-Prentiss dogma as a spiritual path encompassing all the universe and it's energy, the future matriarchy as the patriarchy's bad karma coming back around, and the killing as a present physical sacrifice being made for the greater good of a balanced spiritual future. Of all the academy girls, I think Melissa is the happiest and most comfortable with the heinous acts she performs because she understands that without the knowledge of darkness, we could never understand or even recognize the light.

To say that Tiffany James, who's playing Melissa, has her hands full is something of an understatement. The character, while now on more solid footing than before, still has some evolution to endure. However, I think it needs an actor more than a writer to feed it. I also think Tiffany understands the balance between light and dark, and the importance of walking both paths because she seems to have done so. There's some elusive quality in her that's wild yet also wise. It's going to be interesting to see how those qualities show themselves in Melissa.

Queen of the Damned

(*NOTE: More than any other character, Judith is tough to talk about without giving away certain story elements. Though I've couched spoilers in the vaguest terms, if you're avoiding them, you may want to skip this one.*)

"Once upon a time, Mary, the Good Witch, and her companions were traveling through a dark and enchanted forest. There she met Judith, the Dark Enchantress, and her coven of wicked witches who with the promise of freedom and love, lured Mary and her friends back to their lair . . ."

While I like to try to boil Women's Studies down to the above fairy tale essence, it's really not that black and white. Sure there's purity and light, represented by Mary. There's also violence and darkness which as the script nears its climax becomes represented by Judith. However, there's a lot of grey area as well, places where the difference between light and dark, right and wrong is not so clear cut. You see, both Mary and Judith are fallen angels. They both have secrets; Mary's which causes her fall, and Judith's which shows how she fell.

With the character of Judith, I fully acknowledge the archetype (stereotype?) of the "Bad Witch," a woman of power who due to some negative emotion, uses her powers for ill instead of good. The Evil Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and the Evil Fairy in Sleeping Beauty, both consumed by jealousy, come to mind. (Also, Rapunzel, Cinderella, and a list of any other Grimm's fairy tale which describes a cruel matriarch.) The ultimate expression of the "Bad Witch" (Which, lets be honest, created the modern stereotype) is the Wicked Witch of the West from the film version of The Wizard of Oz who, after the accidental death of her sister, promises a swift and cruel revenge on Dorothy of Kansas. (And her little dog too!)

Thankfully, Judith is not so over the top as Margaret Hamilton cackling "I'll get you my pretty," in her cronish, green make-up. (However, do not interpret "over the top" as "ineffectual.") Still, the basic elements of the "Bad Witch" are alive and well in her. It's negative emotions, vengeance, jealousy, pride, and above all, loneliness that drive Judith to commit her wicked deeds. Also, as often happens with the "Bad Witch," she takes on a different form to seduce the naive heroine. Judith's transformation isn't physical, but it's there all the same. (I cast Judith as a redhead, because in medieval times, red hair was a sure sign a woman was in league with the devil . . . just in case no one had a duck handy.)

Lastly, though nothing overtly supernatural occurs in Women's Studies, I imply on more than one occasion that Judith has somehow survived her own death. But as we all know, there's always a price for such a feat. Judith you see, is like Medusa, the Gorgon, once beautiful and loved, now a monster and alone. We can't see the monster, but we know it's there. SHE knows it's there, and she thinks that with Mary's help, she can defeat this monster and restore the real Judith. The problem is that the real Judith is already dead. The damned can't get out of their deal with the devil.

From this standpoint, Women's Studies becomes a tragic love story between Mary and Judith. They both think that each other's redemption, forgiveness for their dark secrets, lies within the other, but Mary soon finds that to not be the case. Only then does their relationship become black and white, for if Mary won't walk Judith's path, Judith cannot allow her to walk any other. They become each other's nemesis; light and dark, Athena and Medusa, the Goddess of Light and the Queen of the Damned.

When I first conceived of Judith, I envisioned her as a "femme fatale," dark, sexy, and deadly serious. She was originally written as your stereotypical, dark haired, pouty lipped villainess. I realized quickly that she was neither scary nor funny, but just kind of there, a villain whose only purpose was to serve the plot because every story of this sort needs a bad guy, or in this case, bad girl.

When Tara Garwood read for Judith, I realized how humorless I had conceived the character. It's okay though, because Tara knew that Judith, though scary, is also a little bit funny; a ball of contradictions, intertwined in a bundle of nervous, expressive, yet frightening energy; like the love child of a tryst between Squeaky Fromme and Freddy Krueger. Kind of a funny image, no?

Then again, I wouldn't want their kid sitting next to mine in kindergarten.

More on Tara at www.taragarwood.com

Razor Blade Butterfly

On February 4, 1974, Patty Hearst, granddaughter of newspaper czar, William Randolph Hearst, was kidnapped and held for ransom by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a radical group who claimed to be a huge army dedicated to fighting "fascist Amerika" but was in reality a handful of "guerillas" led by one Donald DeFreeze, an escaped felon. Two months later on April 15, Hearst was photographed wielding a fully automatic M1 Carbine while helping Defreeze and company hold up a bank in San Francisco.

If you're unfamiliar with the case, the question on the tip of your tongue has to be, "What the hell happened in between February and April?"

According to Hearst in her horribly written biography, Every Secret Thing, she was cocooned in a closet for six weeks where she was sexually assaulted and brainwashed into thinking the SLA really stood for something more than DeFreeze trying to get some more of his prison buddies out of the joint. Other folks claim she suffered from "Stockholm Syndrome" where an individual in a hostage situation begins to sympathize with their captors. (Named after a bank robbery gone wrong in Stockholm, Sweden where just that happened.)

After a shootout which killed most of the SLA (including DeFreeze) and another bank robbery, Patty Hearst was captured by police, tried and convicted of armed robbery and served three years in prison before Jimmy Carter commuted her sentence. (She was later given a full pardon by Bill Clinton.) The general consensus seems to be that Hearst was brainwashed by the SLA, and couldn't be held completely responsible for her actions. Today, when not acting in films by John Waters, Patty Hearst lives in Connecticut with her family. I suspect the truth of what happened in the two months between her kidnapping and the bank robbery in San Francisco is lost even to her.

My fascination with Patty Hearst, cults, and brainwashing pops up in Women's Studies through the character of Iris, who at the beginning of the story is an unhappy, insecure girl whose conservative, religious father treats her and her mother like pets. Though still working out Iris's visual look, it will definitely communicate that the girl is lonely, beaten down, and friendless. Her self-esteem is so low as to be almost non-existent. The root cause of her esteem issues is a fear of being forever misunderstood that borders on total despair.

I think one fear that is universal is the fear of being alone, not just physically alone, but feeling that no one else understands, relates, or cares. After all, when we lay down at night and close our eyes, the truly solitary nature of human existence becomes apparent. Even if a person is in the bed beside you, it's still just you in your head with all those dreams, wants and fears... especially the fears. In my more pessimistic moments, I've let myself believe that any sense of community, togetherness, or connectedness is just an illusion, a mental construct to keep individual humans from destroying themselves or each other.

When fear and confusion is all encompassing, it's easy to follow instead of lead, to find someone to guide us and show us what to do, even who to be. This is where we find Iris, searching for an identity, for someone to be. Anyone but who she thinks she is will do. She sees a leader in Mary, who taught her in an Intro to Women's Studies class. She's attracted to Mary's strength and beauty, but I believe that's secondary to the fact that Mary is kind to her, unlike her father or any of her peers. Iris is like a hungry caterpillar, and Mary feeds her a steady diet of confidence. However, Mary is older and consumed with her own issues. Besides, the unpopular kid in school is only friends with the teacher because the "cool kids" his own age want nothing to do with him.

Once at Ross-Prentiss, the "cool kids," in particular Melissa, come to Iris with acceptance. They begin to feed this hungry caterpillar with revolutionary ideas about self worth, and power, and a society that has created her insecurities. They offer a new world, a solution to her problems, and even vengeance on those who have slighted her. Scary maybe, but who cares? They make Iris feel pretty, important, and loved. That love above all things is key, because it blinds Iris into thinking the cocoon she's wrapped herself in is full of life, but it's not. It's putrid and rotten. Despite this, the pupa still lives, and the creature that eventually emerges from it, though beautiful, is deadly and destructive: a butterfly with razor blade wings.

A little bit Dylan Kleibold and Eric Harris with some Manson girl and of course, Patty Hearst, thrown in for good measure, finding an actor to portray Iris's transformation was something of a challenge. Still, we think Laura Bloechl (pronounced "BLAY-KEL") is up for the job. Mostly soft spoken and fun loving, she's also capable of going to Iris's darker and more extreme places, which if I can say so, kind of freaks me out a little.

I hope it does you too.

Artemic Bomb

In Women's Studies, the character of Diane spends much of the film silent. However, there's a scene where she's about to do something rather nasty to another character. This individual asks Diane about her lack of verbosity, to which she responds with the following line of telling dialogue:

"I just choose not to most of the time. There's an awful lot of talking that goes on. Most of it isn't worth a damn. Besides, I like action more than words."

Diane is perhaps the scariest character in Women's Studies. First off, she's physically imposing. (Kelley Slagle, the actor playing Diane, clocks in at around six feet.) In many scenes, her main purpose is to use her size to intimidate others. In earlier drafts, that's all she did. Well, that and kill people. However creepy, it makes for a pretty one-dimensional character.

Contemplating Diane eventually helped me organize how the leadership hierarchy of the Ross-Prentiss cult is structured. While Judith is nominally regarded as the "ringleader" of the academy girls, it's Diane who actually holds the real power within the political and spiritual structure of the cult. Though the religion the women practice is a paganism of my own invention, it's structured not too differently from Catholicism. (And it really has more in common with the more war obsessed patriarchal religions than any religions which worship the feminine divine.) Diane is like a low-level priestess, and about to cross over to a life and "mission" outside the school. At one point, some of this was articulated in the script, but it convoluted things, so I jettisoned it.

To me, Diane is just as scary for what she represents as she is her physical presence, perhaps even more so. She is zealotry personified, a living embodiment of the cause she believes in, and code she lives by. To her, the goal of a total fascist matriarchy isn't just a mad vision. It's destiny, the only future possibility that exists. And if murder on a massive level is the only way to make that future, so be it. There is no debating with her. There is no reasoning with her. She is unswayable and merciless. Like the suicide bombers boldly running into nightclubs and blowing themselves up for some cause or another, her allegiance to her dogma is total.

The character was named Diane after Wonder Woman's alter ego. However, "Diane" is also the Roman name for the Greek Goddess Artemis, who is often regarded as the protector of those more vulnerable than she. (Also, Artemis is known as the "feminist" goddess.) The Diane of Women's Studies fulfils that role, keeping a close eye on Zack, the male interloper who finds himself at Ross-Prentiss. Funny enough, Artemis is also goddess of the hunt.

I've had the chance recently to spend some time with actor Kelley Slagle while in a stage production of Night of the Living Dead. In many ways she's nothing like Diane, but I've seen Diane's most frightening trait, the pleasure she takes in freaking you out, show it's face. Backstage, we're supposed to constantly make "zombie" noises in order to keep up the illusion that the stage is surrounded by zombies. During the show, Kelley stands beside me, hooks her hand into a claw, and scrapes her fingernails across a wall, creating a high pitched, "nails on a chalkboard" sound. I put my hands to my ears when she does this, to which Kelley always smiles manically and proceeds to pull her nails across the wood again.

Kind of scary, eh?

More on Kelley at www.cavegirl.com.

"Beth" in Show

(NOTE: I'm trying to be very cautious of "spoilers" in my blog entries. However, I think I really toe the line on this one, so if you're keeping yourself in the dark on story elements of Women's Studies, you may want to skip it. You've been warned.)

"Beth, I hear you callin'
But I can't come home right now.
Me and the 'girls' are playin'
And we just can't find the sound."
--"Beth," KISS

I had to alter the KISS lyrics a bit. Gene Simmons, I beg your forgiveness, though to be honest, "Beth" is a bit dated. The whole glam ballad deal sounds pretty sub-par to these 21st century ears. Maybe Paris Hilton should do a remake. (I don't think my inbox is prepared for the leagues of hate mail I could receive from the "KISS Army" for that last comment.)

But I digress.

In the original forty-page draft of Women's Studies, there were only two interlopers: Mary (originally named Amy) and her boyfriend, Zack. Mary, instead of being intrigued and enamored by the women of the Ross-Prentiss Women's Academy, was acutely aware that something is rotten in Denmark at this particular college. As Mary's journey shifted into one that's more emotional and philosophical, I realized I still needed a character to act as a foil to the academy girls and Mary's fascination with them.

Enter Beth: "the best friend," stage right.

Perhaps "foil" is the wrong term unless we're talking about Beth's relationship with Iris, Mary's insecure student who also becomes seduced by the world of Ross-Prentiss. (Iris or Mary; whatever the case, this ain't Shakespeare.) However, Beth provides balance. If Mary is caught in her confusion of whether or not to join the Academy girls, Iris and Beth are the opposite terminals of that confusion. At Ross-Prentiss, Iris thinks she's found something which has been missing in her life. Beth, of course, falls squarely on the side of, "This school ain't cool."

Beth shoots from the hip and calls it as she sees it. To me, that confident, "Take no bullshit" attitude is her overriding character trait. Her sarcasm provides much of the humor in the script. In the earlier feature drafts, Beth's role was smaller, but I realized that much of the humor kind of slipped away when she wasn't around.

Plus, Beth is supposed to be Mary's best friend, right? If your best friend tells you that she thinks the school you're at is filled with homicidal cultists, you're going to at least hear her out. Unless maybe that friendship sits on some shaky fault lines. What if the uncomfortable tension between Zack and Mary, is countered by tension that's a bit more comfortable between Zack and Beth? I created a back story in which Beth and Mary had both dated Zack, but he eventually chose to be with Mary. Now, as Mary's emotional compass shifts towards Judith, will Zack's shift towards Beth?

"Like sand through the hourglass . . ."

I could go on, but I don't want Melisa Breiner-Sanders, the actor playing Beth, to go too far with all this before we've sat down with the script and done some proper table work. That's "MAY-LEE-SA," by the way. "Melissa" is bound to give you a sarcastic eyebrow raise that explains exactly why she got the role. More on Melisa can be found at www.MelisaBS.com.

Plague/Cold of Death

My wife has given me her plague/cold of death. I take this as proof of a feminist plot to murder me. Anyway, it's hard to write about filmmaking when your only two thoughts are "tissues" and "sleep," so forgive this week's short blog.

There's a lot of things in action behind the scenes on Women's Studies right now that I'll hopefully be able to talk about in upcoming blogs, such as:

--Our Art Director, Stephanie Petagno has shown me some preliminary designs for the "cult tattoo" that all the academy girls sport.

--We're in talks about our main campus location. I'm really excited about this because the location is in many ways a character in the film.

--I'm almost done with my "director's script," which has a boatload of notes for all my department heads, mainly the camera, lighting, sound, and art departments.

--You're probably already aware, but the new Women's Studies website is live at www.womensstudiesmovie.com or www.ross-prentiss.org. Keep your eye out for "easter eggs."

I also want to take the time to give a big shout out to Gary Ugarek and his zombie film, Deadlands: The Rising. Gary helped Cindy and I out on our short film, Under the Bed, and has been a major cheerleader for Women's Studies from the beginning. Cindy and I both returned the favor by appearing in and helping out behind the scenes on Deadlands. In about a month, we'll again lend the assist on some pick-up shots he's working on. I'm also going to be contributing to the sequel, Deadlands: The New World. I won't say exactly how yet, since Gary may want to tell folks that himself.

Anyway, Gary's a great guy who knows his zombie films. As a filmmaker, he's not only aware of his strengths, but also his weaknesses, which makes me have a lot of respect for him. A little bird told me that a lot of folks are going to get the chance to see Deadlands here in the next six months, and I encourage you to check it out if you get the chance. Zombie fans will not be disappointed. More info about Deadlands: The Rising can be found at The Official Deadlands: The Rising website.

Next week will kick off a series of five blogs spotlighting the cast and characters of Women's Studies. I tried to figure out the best way to approach it, and just decided to go alphabetically by character. Therefore in the next blog, we'll introduce you to Beth, Mary's quick-witted, "take-no-bullshit" best friend.

Pro-Choice

Because of it's subject matter, namely homicidal feminists trying to take over the world, Women's Studies isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea. "You can't please everyone," is an adage of the theatre. It's true too. You can't. All you can do is tell the story the best and as honestly as you can, and hope for the best.

Back in March of '06, I sent out the first initial casting notices for Women's Studies, which got picked up by the Independent Women's Forum who wrote a blog about it.

In turn, a blog called Pandagon picked up on the IWF story and wrote a response to it. My thoughts are at the end.

As you can see, the negative reaction kind of rattled me the first time. Then I got my head out of the clouds and reminded myself of that old theatre adage. Now when it happens, and I'm sure it will keep happening, while I listen politely to what detractors have to say, I certainly don't try to change their opinion of the film. Just as I hope no one thinks I'm going to change my mind about making it.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I have no intention of playing politics here. My goal is to make a scary movie, not save the world or destroy it. Cults are scary. Feminism is interesting. A film about a feminist cult seems like it would be scary and interesting. The argument of Women's Studies is not, "Feminism is good/bad." Both the protagonist and antagonist are almost mirror opposites in their feminist beliefs. The difference is that one is willing to kill for their beliefs and the other wants change to come about peacefully. That's the ideological debate I'm interested in. Feminism becomes almost incidental, a "MacGuffin" as Master Hitchcock might have said. My intentions, though I'm admittedly an agent of chaos, are good. Yet, we all know what the road to hell is paved with, don't we?

Here's the bottom line for those people who find the concept of Women's Studies (or any other book, TV show, movie or art work) offensive, sad, outrageous, misogynistic, politically incorrect, or intellectually pornographic:

You ready?

It's kind of a crazy idea.

Choose not to watch it.

I'm certainly not going to come into your home and force you to watch my film. I also sincerely doubt congress is going to pass a law making Women's Studies required viewing for all Americans. Your local church group isn't going to ostracize you if you don't see this film. So, the choice whether to see it is entirely in your hands. Should I inadvertently contact you or a group you're involved with because I think you might be interested in the film and it turns out you're not, by all means politely tell me so. I won't bother you again.

Don't get me wrong. I want you to come see the film. I'd like for you to come with an open mind and put any pre-conceived notions aside and see what we have to say about cults, feminism, and the fine art of sharp, shiny knives. However, I also understand and respect that Women's Studies may simply not be your cup of tea, and as that old theatre adage goes . . .

I'll leave you with this thought to ponder: To me, anyone who thinks this film (which isn't intended to be an anti-feminist film) has the power to ruin the women's rights movement doesn't seem to have much faith in that movement's power. Also, in the grand scheme of things, doesn't womankind have bigger problems to worry about than a horror film about killer strippers?

Poster Notes

When we all went to see The Blair Witch Project seven years ago (Seven years?!? I'm getting old.), what were we really paying for? The movie or the advertising?

(NOTE: I understand I'm breaking every rule of independent film marketing by mentioning The Blair Witch Project. Bear with me because I do have a point.)

I, like so many others, lined up around the block to see Blair Witch as soon as possible. I did it because the trailer was the most frightening thing I'd ever seen in my life. For those of you who don't remember, you got some ominous Phillip Glass-esque percussion and the following words on screen:

"In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary.

A year later their footage was found . . ."

Then you got the "I am so scared" eye shot and if you were me, proceeded to simultaneously piss your pants and cry for your mommy.

Later, when I saw what an utter dogturd the movie actually was, I learned a very important lesson about the film industry: When we pony up our nine bucks, we're not paying for a movie. We're paying for a marketing campaign.

Before I get too much further, let me make one thing clear: No matter how good the marketing is, there is no excuse for making a crappy movie, especially if it's made by an independent filmmaker. (Big studios are selling widgets, and even Scorsese has trouble getting good shit made, so there's some excuse in that case. Still, it seems that these Hollywood executives should realize there's a direct correlation between the quality of Beerfest and it's dismal box office.) You don't throw story and characters overboard, just because you have a good hook. My first priority is to make Women's Studies the best film I can.

That said, how a film is marketed is pretty important, so from the get-go, it's something Cindy and I have thought about with Women's Studies. Though she didn't major specifically in it, Cindy studied marketing quite extensively in college, so the marketing campaign started just about as soon as we decided we were going to do the film.

Marketing plans are pretty boring to just about anyone who isn't into advertising and marketing. So, just to give you a glimpse of how the process works, I'm going to break down how the Women's Studies teaser poster came to be.

The concept of the female symbol forming the "o" and "t" of "Women's Studies" is almost as old as the story idea itself. I'm not sure where it came from, but I'm fairly sure it was an accident. From the get-go, Cindy and I knew we wanted to incorporate it into the logo design, so we started there.

Enter Tyson Tate, a graphic artist who I became associated with through my work on the Great Society webzine. I ran the idea by Tyson and he worked out six basic designs for the logo which can be seen here. From there, Cindy and I picked #1, which we felt captured the elements we wanted. There were some tweaks of course. We asked that the female symbol be made larger and more pronounced, and played with the shape and "curve" of the other letters until we finally agreed on this:



My original concept was to have the logo printed in blood upon the ample cleavage of a woman a'la Sleepaway Camp III. (I know. I have exquisite taste in bad movies.)



However, my good friend Jim McGivney suggested that the well-endowed lady should be clutching a book with the Women's Studies logo printed on the cover. We thought the idea was brilliant and jumped on it. I guess technically, we had Tyson jump on it, which he did with aplomb. Tyson, being the visionary he is, understood the concept so well, he got it on the first shot.



So, we had the logo, and we had the book, now we just needed a model to pose for the poster. I was all prepared to put out a notice for a model when Cindy spoke up. "Why can't I do it?"

Being a man, I just blurted out, "I'm not sure you have the tits to pull it off."

A week later Cindy still wasn't speaking to me . . .

I'm kidding. Though we did have an honest (yet civil) discussion about whether or not Cindy should be the model. We had both agreed that the breasts should be part of the poster. I hear you ask, "Why is that, Mr. 'I'm making a movie about feminism?'" Because sex sells, that's why. Love it or hate it, breasts grab the attention of our young, male target audience. I know I like boobs.

Anyway, Cindy was offended that I thought her chest wasn't up for the job, so she bra-shopped. Victoria's Secret, Frederick's of Hollywood, the bargain bin at the cheap-o "Body Works" in the mall; Cindy was on a mission . . . a mission to find the perfect push-up bra. I came home one day to discover she had found it. After I wiped up all the drool, I agreed that she should be the model for the Women's Studies poster.

We hooked up with a photographer, Jessica Notargiacomo, and had a very fun night shooting the poster image in my basement. A few bits of trivia about the poster:

--That's a wig Cindy is wearing. She had just cut her hair short before the photo shoot. I wanted the figure to have long hair. Thankfully, Cindy had a wig left over from a show that worked perfectly.

--The original concept was to have Cindy holding the knife, but it looked really awkward. I think it was Jessica, the photographer, who came up with the idea to use the knife as the bookmark.

--In order to "expose" Cindy's chest enough, we used medium sized document clips to pin the shirt tight against her body.



Once the poster was done, we had to come up with a tagline. This seemed to be the most important part, and we engaged many a friend to help us out.

Some taglines that didn't make the cut:

"Class begins soon"
"Get ready to learn a thing or two"
"Prepare to be schooled"
"Cut to the head of the class"
"Anything boys can do . . ."
"History. Anatomy. Dissection."
"Equality cuts to the bone"
"Taking the kindness out of womankind"

Finally, the one that I loved, but knew couldn't be used: "And you thought differential equations was scary"

Credit goes to a cool cat by the name of Ryan Sparks who came up with the tagline that we eventually tweaked to be: "Open your mind before it gets opened for you." It seemed to capture all the elements we were exploring in Women's Studies pretty well.

And that's that. Simple, right?

Death and the Horror Film

My apologies for a late blog this week. I have a good excuse though. Cindy was informed of a death in the family and we had to leave town for the funeral.

In light of that, I guess this is as good a time as any to talk about my feelings on death and horror movies. However, having dealt with death on a very real, emotional level for the past two days, forgive me for not sitting down and working through something new on the subject. While I'd like to, my heart's just not up for it.

Instead, I thought I'd post an excerpt from "Horror Movies 101," a four part essay I wrote a couple of years ago for the webzine, Great Society.

If that feels like a cop-out, I apologize. I hope telling you that next week's blog will be a nice, long, NEW one about the origins of the logo and poster for Women's Studies will be something of a consolation.

Oh, and if enough people want to read the rest of the "Horror Movies 101" essays, I'll post the four parts here on the blog. I wrote them, so I'm biased, but I think they're a pretty good read, especially with Halloween right around the bend.

# # #

One man’s art is of course another man’s shit pot . . . Someone opposed to (horror) films could say, “Why would someone want to watch such things? And don’t give me all your over-intellectualized, thematic gobblty-gook about final girls, sexual undertones or inside evil. I’m not buying it.”

Perhaps all the psychological and literary analysis is just a bunch of horseshit. Maybe I’m just searching for a way to defend my own sadomasochistic fetish for watching films that glorify death. In the end, maybe the horror film is proof that in a society where beheadings in the name of religious fanaticism, ethnic cleansing, and “shock and awe” are acceptable behavior, art is truly imitating life. Maybe humanity is afflicted with some sort of terminal social disease, and the horror film is just a reflection of that. Yet, since death is all around us, why make movies about it?

Most of us seem to be hardwired to try to see the bright side and avoid the darkness. Perhaps it’s connected somehow to our survival instinct. Trying to see the light is our mind’s way of keeping us alive. No one wants to die, even as release from pain and suffering. The idea of death especially in western culture is not a very happy one. There are entire realms of business and commerce capitalizing on the fear of death. There lies the paradox and the problem of modern horror movies, which in many ways are a very American genre; Americans as a whole seem to have big problems with death, a subject inherent to the horror film’s very nature.

Death of course, is the only certainty you really have in life. You can’t stop it. You can’t change it. You can try to put it off, but even that can blow up in your face. Everybody dies: you, me, even the guy down the street with the Lexus, the big house, and the hot wife. Death is the one thing we all have in common. It figures people should find that reassuring, yet few do. Why? Because death is the big unknown, and most people, Americans in particular, hate not knowing what’s coming next. It destroys the perfectly crafted illusion of control we’ve built around ourselves.

To sit in a theatre and watch a horror movie demonstrates a willingness to surrender control, if only for a little while. A loss of control is a loss of power, and powerlessness makes us children again, lacking the logic to rationalize away our fears or the strength to fight them off. Yet what children lack in logic and strength, they make up for in the resilience of curiosity and imagination. The horror movie allows us a safe environment (or excuse) to indulge a childlike curiosity, to take a look at the fearful unknown, and to ask “What if?” What if the shadows on the wall are more than just shadows? What if the boogeyman is real and awake and waiting? What if grandma isn’t sleeping restfully in her grave? What if death isn’t an end but a horrifying new beginning?

Still, that hasn’t answered the question: Why do so many people like horror movies?

After the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks of 2001, American culture braced for sweeping changes that never came. Terror had become the norm. Irony and violence in the media were figured to be the casualties to the discovery that we weren’t invincible to the horrors of the world. As a horror fan, I feared the genre would die a quick homogenized death. After all, in a world of real horrors, who would want to watch fake ones? Strangely enough, quite a few people do. Horror movies have consistently enjoyed success since September of 2001. As Hollywood continues to make them, people continue to flock to them despite nightly newscasts of terror, carnage and death. Now, how do you explain that?

The fears of the “post 9/11 world” are irrational, uncontrollable fears. The Boogeyman, long thought dead, has been brought back to life as a face-wrapped madman who may steal our life away with a homemade bomb, a poison chemical, or a viral strain. He wants to kill us for no reason except that we’re there and he hates us. Only this isn’t just a movie. It seems a real possibility.

So, maybe by watching a horror film, we can be afraid of something that isn’t quite as real. Slashers, zombies and a little ghost in a well seem a lot less frightening than a fifteen year old Muslim girl with a box of nails and broken glass mixed with C-4 strapped to her chest. Movie monsters are a fear that only grips us for a couple hours. After the credits roll, we can leave those Boogeymen behind. Just as someday, the Boogeyman of the Islamic extremist will also be left behind as the communist and Nazi ones were before him.

Yet again, that hasn’t exactly answered our question: Why do so many people like horror movies?

“Curiosity killed the cat,” the old saying goes, but it’s been known to mess up the human pretty bad too. Besides a strong dislike of losing control, Americans also hate to be left in the dark. We want to know what, how, and why. We want to know what’s behind the locked door, under the bed, and in the dungeon, even if we’ve been warned not to look. A horrible mix of arrogance and curiosity usually compels us do so no matter the warning. Yet we get horribily offended when we don’t like what we see.

The Ring, the popular American remake of the Japanese horror film, is about a VHS tape that will kill you seven days after you watch it. In the beginning of the film, a young girl brags to her friend about having watched the film a week before. It’s not too hard to guess what happens to her shortly afterwards. Her death sparks off a journalist’s interest in finding the tape. She does and as she pops it in the VCR, the audience is screaming at her not to do it.

Yet, put in the same position, who wouldn’t watch the tape? I don’t know if anybody else remembers playing “Bloody Mary” when you were a kid. Supposedly, if you went to a mirror, turned out the lights, and then said Bloody Mary three times, the ghost of “Bloody Mary” would show up and kill you. What usually happened was your friend would tell you to go do this. After ten minutes worth of peer pressure, you’d finally relent and on the third “Bloody Mary,” your “friend” would open the bathroom door and scare the shit out of you.
They even made a movie about it called Candyman. Only instead of saying “Bloody Mary” three times, you had to say “Candyman” five times. Once you did, the ghost of a slave (played by the always excellent Tony Todd) who was lynched for loving a white woman came and killed you with his hook hand. At age sixteen, nothing scared me more than Candyman. Besides utilizing the “Bloody Mary” legend, it illustrates how over time, even the simplest horrors can evolve into myth. It also utilizes our knowledge and belief of urban legends in much the same way as The Ring.

The Ring scared the hell out of me in a way that no movie had in years. And it wasn’t the damn little girl or the story that did it, though both are creepy. No, what freaked me out for days afterwards was the dead girl in the closet. We don’t see what happens to her, but while her mother is describing how she found her body, we get a flash of her corpse huddled in the corner of the closet with this look on her face. I’m getting the shivers just writing about it now.

However the girl was killed, she looked like she was caught in the grip of a terror that would have driven me insane. The way her body is posed, you can almost imagine that the poor girl died of fright. I could spend all night describing it, and I couldn’t get across to you how horrible it is. Ultimately, we find out how she died and what killed her and though it’s pretty bad, I was almost relieved to see it because it wasn’t near as bad as my mind tried to imagine. Still, I was days getting over that girl in the closet.

People like horror movies for the same reason they like roller coasters, mountain climbing, swimming with sharks, or base jumping. They do it because that fear of death is in each and every one of us, and deep down we all know it. Horror movies allow us a chance to beat the reaper, even if only vicariously, to take the craziest risks in the world without really risking anything, to ask “What if?” and know that no matter the consequences on screen, we’ll be okay. We do it because though our minds resist it, our hearts always want to know what the girl in the closet sees right before she dies.

Web of Surprise

Just a short Women's Studies blog update this week, and not for lack of things to talk about. It's actually because Cindy and I have been swamped. I'm exhausted.

I know. I know. I promised a couple weeks ago that I'd reveal some of the cast. Plus, I've been buzzing about this "September Surprise" or some such nonsense. Now, I see the doubt in your eyes. You're starting to think I'm one of those boys, the kind that whispers sweet nothings and tells untrue secrets in order to make you think he's really good. A really nice boy. You think I'm the kind of boy that the Ross-Prentiss academy girls would like to teach a thing or two about leading people on, a thing or two that probably involves very sharp knives.

Of course, I never thought that was in question.

The "September Surprise" will actually be the "Orgasmic October 1st Opening!"

"October?!? Lonnie, you naughty fibber!!!"

Hang on, now. Notice it's the first of October. That's only one day after September ends. So, I really just told a little white lie, one that really is pretty close to the truth, and if it's that friendly, intimate even, with the truth, it's not really hurting anybody, now is it?

Version 2.0 of the Women's Studies website will go live on Sunday evening, October 1.

It will reveal the six intelligent, beautiful, and fascinating women we've cast in Women's Studies. Sometime after the site's debut, I'll be featuring the cast here in a two-part blog.

If you think that's not much of a surprise, that's because the real surprise will be within the site itself. Cindy and I are quite excited about it all. It's going to be very interesting, maybe even a little bad, but you don't mind, do you?

# # #

This is as good a time as any to give props to Ningen Manga's webmaster, Doug Clayton. Doug's Hivemind Studios designed the site for our first short film, First Session, as well as the first iteration of the Women's Studies site. He's a solid guy, always ready and willing to help out. Cindy and I truly appreciate him. He does quality work, never complains, and only demands that I somehow get him listed on the IMDb. More on Doug can be found at eDoug.

The D.L. on the D.P.

One of the most important members of the Women’s Studies production crew is the Director of Photography, Aaron Shirley. If co-producer Cindy Marie Martin is my right hand, then Aaron is the left one. Last week, thanks to the wonderful technology of the “interweb,” we had the following conversation. Hopefully, people will still take us seriously as filmmakers after reading it.

LONNIE:
So, what are you doing at this very moment?

AARON:
I'm halfway through mastering/QC-ing an eight hour government retirement video. I think I'm going to die.

LONNIE:
Sounds horrifying. Why submit yourself to that?

AARON:
Well, I love horror.

Also, I discovered way back in college that I was a masochist, so I majored in filmmaking. It's an expensive and devastating habit that I've functioned with for over fifteen years. I've thought about trying to make a living doing something else, but then my skills would get rusty. Filmmaking is kind of like a cross between martial arts and heroin. In this area, the two main types of paid filmmaking work you can get are "boring" and "annoying." That's where the masochism comes in. I chose "boring".

The third reason is the satisfaction of helping to teach over 200,000 postal employees how to manage their retirement, at least until the tax laws change again.

LONNIE:
What if the tax laws change before you finish the video?

AARON:
I'm actually laughing as I contemplate the ramifications. In the end, I guess the same thing would happen as it would any time the laws change: We start the whole six month process over again.

LONNIE:
So, Women's Studies (the film): Pro-Life Conspiracy or Anti-Woman Propaganda?

AARON:
All the internet buzz has me thinking it's a tasty mix of both.

LONNIE:
No. See, you're supposed to emphatically defend the film. "It's cinematic genius! A celebration of womankind! Better than Cats!"

AARON:
I think my retirement video will be better than Cats, so Women's Studies should be better than Cats hands down. (Jombie cat? What the heck does that even mean?) Not only do I hate Cats, but right now I hate cats too. When I got home last night, one of mine had gotten into my editing room and ransacked the place. The other five were just staring at me like they knew I was going to freak out. My stuff is everywhere! I can't even go in there. I never want to go in there again. Is this all really going up on the internet?

LONNIE:
Yes. What were you saying about Women’s Studies politics?

AARON:
What I meant to say before was that it plays on the right-wing's fears of what empowering women might lead to, but shows what the left-wing might secretly fantasize about.

LONNIE:
Name your three biggest creative influences, off the top of your head.

AARON:
Hmm, I'm going to divide this between filmmakers and non-filmmakers.

Non-filmmakers:
-Salvador Dali
-Kurt Vonnegut
-Skinny Puppy

Filmmakers:
-Stanley Kubrick
-David Lynch
-Roman Polanski

LONNIE:
Are there going to be melting clocks and a black monolith in Women's Studies?

AARON:
No, but I am happy to report there will be a mansion with a secret, evil cult that is infiltrated by an outsider.

LONNIE:
Are you talking about Eyes Wide Shut, Blue Velvet, or Rosemary's Baby? I guess Repulsion would work too, though there's no cult.

AARON:
The correct answers are: Women's Studies, Eyes Wide Shut, The Ninth Gate, and Mulholland Drive. Curiously, the other movies you mentioned use apartments, not mansions. That brings me to an interesting theory about Roman Polanski's films. Almost all of them either have apartments or a mansion. I think Oliver Twist is his first film to have both. I can only think of two of his films that didn't have either: Knife in the Water (small sailboat) and Death and the Maiden (country bungalow).

LONNIE:
You know, I was going to mention The Ninth Gate instead of Rosemary's Baby, but was ashamed to admit I actually sat through the whole movie.

AARON:
The Ninth Gate was a misunderstood masterpiece. I actually liked it better than The Pianist. (I’m not saying it was a better film, just more “Polanski-ish.”) As a side note, how's this for my film geek cred: I saw The Pianist opening night with $750 worth of Polish zlatys in my pocket. Pirates! was misunderstood too. Now, the most pure 'Polanski' film is The Tenant. It makes Repulsion look like a first year student film. Check it out if you haven't.

LONNIE:
You realize we're showing the world what huge movie geeks we are, right?

AARON:
I thought that was the point.

LONNIE
So, what you're saying is no one should be surprised when Women's Studies looks like a Polanski film?

AARON:
Polanski changes color and light drastically from film to film, but one of his signature “looks” is his use of pan and tilt (from a tripod) to emulate the movement of the human eye across a scene. I'm currently working on a small crane that will emulate the movement of a human walking around a scene. (Most cranes use arcing movement which is not how humans move.) At the same time, the operator still has full tripod-like pan and tilt at the end of the crane for the eye-like movement. Psychologically, the viewer should feel like they're standing/walking right there in the room.

LONNIE:
Speaking of lighting, can you talk briefly about a few of your ideas for Women's Studies?

AARON:
Glad you asked. I have a couple of ideas in mind, but my current favorite is a concept I've been developing for a year or so. I've been studying amateur digital portrait photography on personal profile web sites. There's a lot of bad stuff out there but when it's good, it's fascinating, because it's very original and makes personal images for each person.

LONNIE
A MySpace lighting design? Surely, you must be joking.

AARON:
I never joke, and don't call me "Surely.” (It's Shirley.)

LONNIE:
I knew I picked a bad week to stop sniffing glue.

Origins & Influences

This past weekend was spent conducting cast interviews for the Women's Studies "September surprise." A big thanks to Women's Studies Director of Photography, Aaron Shirley, who you'll be getting to know better in a future blog. He trounced around a hundred miles in two states and the District of Columbia helping me gather footage of the wonderful cast which the world will be meeting very soon.

During my own interview I was asked, "How did the idea for Women's Studies come about?" I gave a pretty long winded answer that kind of answered the question, but not really, at least not to my liking. There are a lot more influences, ideas, and strange twists of fate that occured than a short interview would allow. I figured the blog was as good a place as any to go into further detail.

My first brush with academic feminism was some essays from Camille Paglia's Vamps & Tramps. Paglia has a lot of things to say about gender relationships, the media, and socialization, but I sum up her Vamps & Tramps thesis as such: Madonna in her "Justify My Love" heyday was the most powerful woman in the world because of her embrace of her feminine sexuality and ability to translate it the way she wanted through the media. If you find that an over-simplification, hey, Paglia wrote a whole book on it. You can get the sticky details there. She's quite funny, and I think much of her analysis is spot on. Alarm bells may ring with hardcore feminists who find Paglia to be something of a "male sympathizer," whatever that means.

My interest in feminism is borne from an interest in psychology, specifically the emotional and psychological difference between men and women. I came to the conclusion pretty early on that because of our unique but very specific biological engineering, men and women's brains are "hardwired" differently. This isn't to imply that one is better than the other, just different. We think differently. We feel differently. We approach matters of the mind and heart differently.

Anyway, in the summer of 2000, I was living in my parent's basement after what can only be called a failed excursion to Chicago. I had lived there for a year managing a coffee shop, writing screenplays, being poor, and smoking too many god damned cigarettes. Lack of funds and a death in the family brought me back east, and I spent a good amount of time feeling depressed about being no better off than when I had left college two years before. (Am I showing my age, sonny boy?)

For some reason, a buddy of mine had given me a VHS copy of Night of the Living Dead, which I hadn't seen since I was a kid. At that same time, my eldest sister was doing clerical work for a now defunct culture magazine called Gadfly. She had given me a subscription and one of the issues contained a long, rather academic article on George A. Romero's "dead trilogy." (That's Night of the Living Dead, the original Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead for the non-horror fan.)

Suddenly, I got it into my head that I was going to "research" horror films. I'd do it simply for it's own sake and to give my slacker existence some kind of meaning. I had been a horror junkie as a kid, but in my search for "meaningful art," had abandoned the genre for the most part.

During my new "studies," I read quite a few non-fiction horror books including Danse Macabre by Stephen King and Carol J. Clover's Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. I read classic horror novels. (Couldn't get into Lovecraft, but I loved Richard Matheson's I Am Legend.) And I watched horror movies. Universal's monsters, Hammer films, I Was a Teenage Werewolf/Frankenstein/Zombie, 70's exploitation flix, slashers, big bugs, blobs, and Body Snatcher movies; I watched so many horror movies that for a four month period, I was scared of my own friggin' shadow.

Finally, I took a crack at writing a horror screenplay. Was that my intention all along? Consciously, I don't think so, but the wounds from a failed comic book project had really just healed. I think my brain knew I needed to move on somehow, and the horror overdose was the only way to make myself do it. The screenplay I wrote was about a haunted corn farm and though I may be biased, I thought it was damn scary. For awhile, I toyed with the idea of trying to shoot it, but soon realized I wasn't quite ready for that.

I sent the script off to a few friends to read, including an old college professor. He liked it and came back to me with, "Hey, I shoot a short film with some of my students every year. Do you want to write a script for me? I need something less than fifteen minutes with lots of female characters that takes place on a college campus."

During this time, I had recently watched the 1975 film version of The Stepford Wives, based off the novel by Ira Levin. In the film, Katherine Ross plays an urbanite, amateur photographer whose husband moves his whole family from New York City to the suburban "paradise" of Stepford, Connecticut. In Stepford, the lawns are perfect, the houses are huge, and the men all belong to some weird Elks club housed in a creepy mansion on top of a hill.

The women of Stepford though, they're something else entirely. They clean and cook as if every scrub is pure ecstasy. Exciting times are heading to the grocery store to meet the other wives and talk over dish detergent. Ross finds this to be a little strange to say the least, especially after she meets another recent city implant, played by Paula Prentiss, who feels the same way.

Prentiss, Ross, and another woman played by Tina "Ginger" Louise of Gilligan's Island fame, seem to be the only normal women around, at least until Ginger starts to behave as strangely as the others. Soon Prentiss becomes a mindless "Stepford Wife" as well. It's then that Ross discovers Stepford's secret: the men of the town have had their wives murdered and replaced by look-a-like robots. Ross eventually comes face to face with her own robot doppelganger whose bosom is far more amply endowed than Ross's.

The Stepford Wives mixed around with the prof's suggestion of a short script with lots of women on a college campus. I thought, "What if there was girl's school that kidnapped and murdered men, a sort of anti-Stepford?" I don't remember there being any sort of "Eureka" moment, just that the idea seemed like a good one. I sat down to write it, and instead of the fifteen page script my old professor had requested, I turned out a forty page short version of Women's Studies.

The original script had Mary (who was really what is now the character of Beth) and her EX-boyfriend Zack picked up by a group of college girls (Judith, Diane, Melissa, and Sharon) after their car breaks down, and taken to their secluded women's academy.(The school was named "The Ross-Prentiss Women's Academy" as a homage to The Stepford Wives.) Once there, the academy girls take turns having sex with Zack before realizing he's sterile and killing him. Mary realizes the women are a man-hating cult and tries to escape.

My professor couldn't use it. The subject matter was too much for a small religious college. I was glad too. Even then, I realized that the story had potential beyond the slapdash short I had written.

Later, as I revisited the script, cult ideology and social theory informed the story quite a bit. Most notable were Charles Manson's "Helter Skelter" cult, and Patty Hearst's "Stockholm Syndrome" after being kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army. I also did quite a bit of reading on Al Qaeda and the methods they use in indoctrinating suicide bombers.

That's the way the Women's Studies story happened. It didn't appear suddenly as much as it evolved from a variety of different influences over a period of time. And that's the way it should be. To me, a writer's job is less about having a good idea than it is recognizing the elements from his/her own experience that combined could make a good story. I'm glad I had the wherewithal to catch this one.

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Hopefully, next Tuesday will be the first of two blogs introducing our cast members. We're still working on a few things that may delay that one more week. If that's the case, we'll have some Q&A with Women's Studies Director of Photography, Aaron Shirley.

Dealing With the Devil

After ten years of being a "company" in name only, Ningen Manga Productions, LLC has finally been incorporated. That's right, after years of talking about how we're all being swindled by "the man," I've become "the man." This means I can get rich walking over the dwindling middle class. Plus, I'll get away with it because the government thinks it's good for the economy. So let's bomb those fuckers and steal their oil! Yeah! More tax breaks for me!

"I have seen the enemy, and the enemy is me . . ."

Dear Goddess, what have I become?!?

In all seriousness, incorporating is a milestone for me and Ningen Manga Productions, not to mention more than practical on an independent project as ambitious as Women's Studies. The LLC not only protects Cindy and I financially, it legitimizes us and our vision in the eyes of the professional community. A small thing you may say, but when you're trying to get a good deal on a camera dolly, a little legitimacy can go a long way. And honestly, the only things that have really changed are the title and the fact that we're filing our taxes a bit differently. In scope and practice, Ningen Manga has been a business for well over a year now.

A long time ago (though maybe not as long as I'd like to admit), I was one of those pretentious assholes who railed against "the death of cinematic art" and the horror of "selling out." Then I realized that film by it's very nature is an "art form" married to business and has been since it's inception. The expense involved in supporting the cinematic creation process requires that money be a factor. There's no way around it. Does that mean latching on to a trend and trying only to create something that "sells?' Of course not. However, it does perhaps require the creators to find themes and elements in their vision that are universal enough to appeal to a wide audience.

The line between artistic integrity and commercial viability is a scary tightrope to walk, and I still get nervous looking down because there's no net, only a long drop into what suspiciously looks like a lake of fire. Still, I understand that show business is just that: show "business." So, I deal with the devil, compromise myself as little as possible, and try to do it in a way where I can still look at myself in the mirror because I believe in what I'm doing.

By the way, it's not about the money, not deep down in the secret place I don't show anyone else. The money is really only a means to an end. Do I want this effort to be financially worthwhile? Sure, but in the final outlook it's not what really matters. Anyone who's just in it for the money is doomed to failure from the starting line. However, that line of thinking doesn't get you very far with fundraising. So on some level, it has to be about the money. I can't just say that I think Women's Studies is marketable. I have to believe it, and I do.

And you know what? There's nothing wrong with trying to create something that lots of people will like. I mean, isn't that the point? To tap into those emotions and ideas in the human experience that are universal?

The scary flip side is that maybe greed is a universal emotion too. My biggest fear is that the money need may somehow overtake the creative need. If you prick your finger with the devil's quill pen, does the wound ever heal?

Wow. That kind of sounds like a pretentious asshole talking, doesn't it?

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Just to make it official, the production blog will be updated every Tuesday. The next couple weeks should see some exciting announcements about cast and crew for Women's Studies. Also, when we launch our new website sometime in September, there will be a couple of very cool surprises, so keep checking back.

Married to "Mary"

As well as being the writer and director of Women's Studies, I'm also one of two co-producers. The other co-producer is Cindy Marie Martin, who not only is playing the lead role of "Mary," but is also my wife.

I know what you're going to ask. "Did she get the role by sleeping with the director?" I'll get to that shortly. (heh-heh)

Say "husband/wife producing team" to a group of people and you're likely to get a bunch of different reactions. Surprisingly enough, a lot of big film studios and distributors see it as a selling point for an indie with no big names attached. Before I was married, I found the idea a little too cutesy. There was something just uncool about it. Mom and Pop convenience store? Sounds awesome. Mom and Pop film company? Thanks, but I'll pass.

It works though. At least for us it does. We've co-produced two short films together, and both were pretty successful as far as the production itself went. More importantly, we came away from both experiences still liking each other. I won't dare to speak for her, but I like her even more now than I did before we did the films. Why does the Lonnie & Cindy Marie Martin producer team work? A few reasons I think.

First, we both come from theatre backgrounds. We met as actors at a Shakespeare festival, and a rule we both have followed from the day we met is, "Keep your personal life out of the theater." Cindy and I try very hard to keep the filmmaking out of the relationship and the relationship out of the filmmaking. Does the line blur every once in a while? Very rarely, and even then, only when we're alone. That's pretty much inevitable because part of indie filmmaking is not having any set hours, but kind of working on it all the time.

Hey, there's the second reason we work as a producer team. We know (mostly) when to put the movie biz away. If we go on vacation, so does the movie. Being a filmmaker is awesome, but sometimes you just have to be a person too. If you had ice cream all the time, it wouldn't be as sweet would it? Besides, distance lends perspective. Can I pull any other clichés out of my ass? You just watch me.

The biggest reason it works is communication, and knowing who's doing what. For example, Cindy handles the marketing side of things, and while she certainly welcomes my input, she makes most of the big decisions. I handle a lot of the business and legal research, and while she has a definite voice, she never tells me how to do it. We talk out the pros and cons of different production aspects and make the decision that best suits the film. If we can't agree on something, we try to find a way to meet in the middle. If we reach a stalemate, that whole "distance lends perspective" deal usually puts things right.

Now that I think about it, film production and marriage aren't too different. Both take hard work, diplomacy, communication, compromise, and sex. Okay, you don't always have sex in movies. Come to think of it, marriage can be like that too.

Which leads us back to the question: Did Cindy get the lead role in Women's Studies just because she was my wife?

The answer of course is, "No," but don't think for a second I didn't try to pull that whole "casting couch romance" thing.

As we considered our first feature project, Cindy more than I thought Women's Studies was the most marketable of all the concepts I had in my repertoire. She wanted to play Mary, and after having sat in the backseat on other projects, as least acting wise, felt she'd earned it . I did too. However, when I first wrote the script, I had a very different idea of who Mary should be. The character was more hard edged, cynical, and distrustful, more like what now is the character of "Beth" in the script, all the things Cindy is not. I know, it's called "acting," but I had a hard time putting Cindy in a role so out of character.

Then as I begin to let the personality traits, her sweetness, sensitivity, stubborn resolve, and understated darkness, start to inform Mary. I realized what the Women's Studies story was missing as a whole was a heart and soul. There was nothing to care about. All of a sudden, not only Mary, but the entire script began to take new shape. Soon, I realized nobody but Cindy could play the role, because in essence, she was Mary.

Besides, she's hot, looks good with a tennis racket, and can shriek louder than a banshee. All horror movies need that.

More on Cindy at http://www.cindymariemartin.com/ .

The Politics of Being Scared

Women's Studies.

Simply defined, it's the formal study of issues, whether social, political, or spiritual, that deal with the feminine experience. I'm loathe to use the word "feminism" because that word has been politicized to the point of parody. The stereotype is one of wild haired, bra-burning, baby-killing harpies, intent on murdering and enslaving men. If you're in any way enlightened, sensible, or rational, you find that to be asinine.

If you're me, you find it to be a pretty damned good idea for a horror movie. Killer feminists? Beautiful, intelligent women hacking up dudes with sharp shiny things? One ticket please.

Call me crazy or misogynist. You won't be the first. Then after you're done being unnecessarily offended, stop and think about the possibilities for a minute. You have a horror movie centered around a political movement which is universally non-violent. Only in this fictional movie world, part of the movement has splintered off and become violently extremist.

Instead of dumb, shallow girls getting slaughtered in their underwear, save for that last virginal, androgynous "final girl," you have a few dumb, shallow dudes, thinking only with their penises, and smart, self-aware women who realize how crazy killing for a political idea is. The protagonist, instead of being a "final boy" is a women herself, acutely aware of the gray area in which a peaceful political movement can become violent. The "villains" are not a one dimensional male stalker, but a group of intelligent, enlightened women's rights activists who only differ from their peaceful counterparts in their willingness to kill.

Now, forget about any and all political implications, and think about how scary the concept is. To me, that's all that really matters. I'm not out to save the world, or destroy it. I'm not out to bring the feminist movement to it's knees or put it on a pedestal.

I'm just out to scare the hell out of you, and this story seems to be a pretty effective and, dare I say, intelligent way to go about it.

Then again, what do I know? I'm just a dude.

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All that aside, welcome to the Women's Studies production blog. Over the course of the next year (and probably longer), various production updates on the film will be posted here. In the next few weeks, we'll be announcing some of our cast and crew. For news updates, check out the official site, http://www.womensstudiesmovie.com .