Working Within My Limitations: “Who Shot the President”

As I’ve aged, I find it harder to make movies. I don’t have the energy that I had when I was younger. I won’t let that stop me.

In this post, I want to take a look at one of my first movies, “Who Shot the President,” and consider how I worked with my limitations back then..

This post includes spoilers, so you may want to watch it before you read the rest of the post, you can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lSTEhH0d4E . The film runs about 3 minutes.

I made two versions of this movie. The first in 1994 on Super 8, and a second in 2004 on 16mm.

Inspiration

While I completed the first version of “Who Shot the President” back in 1994, the idea came to me a few years earlier. In the late 1980s and early 1990s I watched several documentaries about the assassination of John Kennedy. Then in 1991 I saw the movie JFK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JFK_(film)

To begin with, I was open to the possibility that there was a conspiracy. But I am also something of a skeptic in general, so I was apt to question what people said. The more I learned about the assassination, the less likely I felt that there was a conspiracy.

This was before I really got serious about making movies. But I began to think about making a parody movie of the conspiracy documentaries that I had watched.

Generating Ideas

Over the next few years, I came up a quite a few ideas for my parody movie. At the time I thought of this as a feature length live action movie.

One idea was to have a character do a blow up of a reflection in a piece of chrome on one of the cars to reveal the shooter. Who would be someone who obviously couldn’t be the shooter.

Another idea I had was an “interview” with one of the co-conspirators to expose the plan. I had several different ideas as to what the interview would expose.

Realization

It was during this period that I began to get serious about making movies. I made one movie on Super 8 (“Weekend in Calgary” https://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/weekend-in-calgary) which was screened at the first $100 Film Festival.

I started to look for an idea for another movie, and I went back to my assassination conspiracy theory parody movie idea. At this point I had managed to make a 3-minute film on Super 8. The ideas I had for my parody movie were far beyond what my skills and finances could accomplish.

The realization made me discouraged and, so, I gave up on the idea.

Reconsideration

Later, though, I went back to the idea. I knew I had the skills and money to do a 3-minute movie on Super 8. Could I develop one of the ideas I had come up with into a movie of that scale?

My first question was to ask myself, what do I want to say with this movie? I didn’t want to just have a joke. It had to have a bigger meaning.

The answer was that I felt that so many of the conspiracy theories used circular reasoning. For example: If there was no proof of a conspiracy, that was proof that there was a cover up. Since there was a cover up, that proved that there was a conspiracy.

Recognizing Opportunity

My observation that conspiracy theories follow circular reasoning fit with one of the ideas I had for the interview with the co-conspirator. The interview would follow the pattern of the old Abbot and Costello “Who’s on First” routine, where the conversation plays off misunderstandings and goes around in circles.

I didn’t feel up to the technical challenge of doing an interview, so I came up with a different approach to the visuals for the movie. I would use a series of stills related to the assassination. As the interview progressed the individual shots would get shorter. I would select these images so that at the end of the film they would create the impression that the screen was spinning in a circle.

The spinning effect worked well on the Super 8 version of the movie, but when I redid the movie on 16mm, the effect wasn’t as effective.

Later, when I watched Chris Marker’s movie “La Jetée” I was struck that he used a similar approach. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU99W-ZrIHQ

Making the Movie

Some years ago, I wrote another blog post about making “Who Shot the President.” So, if you want more details on how I made the movie, you can read about them here: https://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/how-to-make-a-film-for-the-hundred-dollar-film-festival-part-3/

Of particular note, when I did the first version, I used a tripod and placed the stills on the floor. This resulted in my doing about 2,000 deep knee bends while shooting the movie. I don’t think I could do that now.

Lessons Learned

The movie was a success from my point of view, and I got a lot of positive feed back from people. I also got physical threats from people who found it upsetting.

However, what I learned from making the movie the way I did was that it was possible to rethink an idea to fit both the goals you want to achieve with a movie and the limitations of your own abilities. In the end, I believe the film I made was better than what I would have made if I had the wherewithal to make the feature I originally conceived.

Another lesson is the importance of having a clear idea what you want to say with your movie. In this case, knowing what I wanted to say helped me focus on those aspects of the movie that carried that message and in a way that I could actually achieve.

I’ve thought of this approach as similar to poetry. The structure of a poem constrains how a poet can express themselves. It is those constraints that encourage creativity.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Slow return to Writing

Since my heart attack I have found it difficult to get back to my writing and film projects. I have started to make progress on a couple writing projects lately.

I joined a group of people who get together to talk and work on their writing. I found the writing exercises we do a good prod to start writing. I am working on a couple of projects that came out of discussions at the group.

Conspiracy Theory Story

The first story came out of an off-topic discussion we had at one session about conspiracy theories. I talked about a theory I made up a while back that I called “The First Person in Space”. One of the writers suggested it might make a good basis for a story. Over the last couple of months, I have played around with the idea.

I wrote a short script and have done a couple of rewrites. Initially I wanted to clarify just what the theory was. In the latest rewrite I tried to develop and differentiate the characters.

The script has three characters, a woman and two men. In the earlier drafts the two men were indistinguishable from each other. I developed some back story and motives for them, which helped me recognize which one should have which lines and how they would say them.

I haven’t done much about the woman character, other than show that she is smarter than the other two. She is the one who proposes the theory. I haven’t decided if she believes the theory or is just having some fun with it.

I felt good about the rewrites, but I think I can do mare to make the characters more interesting. The other problem I see is that I don’t have a good ending. I also struggle to determine what point I want to make with the story.

Another issue that concerns me is the danger I see in proposing a conspiracy theory. There are people who believe even the most absurd conspiracy theories. I don’t want anyone to believe my theory. I want to make it clear that it is a fiction. One challenge is that my theory is more plausible than some of the more popular theories. I’ll need to come up with ways to make it easy to debunk.

Election Story

The guy who runs the writing group suggested that we each write a short script about an election. Then we could review and discuss it at one of our sessions.

I kind of cheated. Years ago, I wrote a short story called "Hello, my Name is Bob", which is about an election. So, I reworked it as a script. That was straightforward for the most part. I had originally conceived it as a movie, so for the most part, all I had to do was reformat.

I had to give the minor characters names and descriptions. I tightened up the dialogue a little and cut most of the action descriptions.  The biggest change I made was to switch the order of a couple of the scenes. When I reread the story, it seemed so obvious that they were in the wrong order that I wondered why I wrote it that way.

I went through a couple of minor rewrites. I had thought in the past of maybe developing the story into a film, but never gave it much serious thought. Now that I’ve reworked it, I think that maybe I should go ahead and turn it into a film. I think it could be expanded into a longer film.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Maybe It's Time to Get a New Secret Cabal to Run the World

I don't believe that there is a secret cabal that runs the world, but if there is one, they don't seem to be very good at it. Maybe it is time that we replace them with a new secret cabal and see if they can do a better job.

Back when I made "Who Shot the President" I read a lot about various conspiracy theories. While secret conspiracies have existed in the past, and some may well exist now, it is doubtful that most of the large conspiracy theories have any basis in reality. A recent study demonstrated that large conspiracies unlikely to stay secret for long: http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/math-vs-conspiracies/

Nevertheless, the concept of a large scale secret conspiracy to run the world still attracts people's interest. If nothing else, it certainly provides much fodder for fictional treatment.

For quite a while now, I've rejected the idea on the basis that if there was a secret cabal, they didn't seem to be competent. Eventually I came to think that if they were so bad at their job, they should be replaced. This might make a good story.

I need to have is a reasonable way for the secret cabal to be replaced. Of course, if it is more of a satire, I could come up with an absurd method to replace them.

I have the feeling that a lot of people who fervently believe that there is a secret cabal that runs the world would probably be very offended by any kind of satire. I got several threats of violence when I posted "Who Shot the President" on YouTube.

Maybe I could have the secret cabal's replacement put to a world wide democratic vote. The secret cabal would need to campaign to convince people to keep them in power. Other potential secret cabals would propose how they would run the secret world conspiracy. The unfortunate draw back is that I don't think I am ready to write something of this sort.

Another possibility is to have a higher level secret cabal that can hire and fire the lower level secret cabal. That could mean that there is an even higher level secret cabal that can hire and fire the higher level secret cabal. There could be an infinite number of levels of secret cabals. This could turn into another absurd story.

Maybe someday I'll be ready to take this on as a project, but for now I think I need to let it percolate through my mind. Maybe more inspiration will pop-up.

You can watch "Who Shot the President"  here: http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/who-shot-the-president/

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Should I create my own conspiracy Theory? The Other Earth Conspiracy.

I've had an interest in conspiracy theories for a long time, even though I am very sceptical about them in general. I've been tempted to create my own conspiracy theory for fun and profit. I've hesitated to do that because I was afraid that people might take it seriously.

Years ago I got interested in the Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories. At first I kept an open mind, but, as I learned more about the theories, I began to think they were just too implausible to be true. My thoughts on the conspiracy theory led me to make my movie "Who Shot the President". http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/who-shot-the-president/

"Who Shot the President" resulted in more threats than money, but more people have watched that than any of my other movies. I didn't like the threats, but I could see that there was a great deal of interest in the topic. Like any other filmmaker, I do want to find an audience and there is clearly one that looks for conspiracy theories.

In the past I hesitated to pursue conspiracy theories in my movies for a couple of reasons.

First, I don't want to trick people to get them to watch my movies. To me, that seems very dishonest. If I take that route I would feel I have abandoned the reasons that I wanted to make movies in the first place. It wasn't just to make money, although that would be nice. I wanted to say something of value.

Second, I worry that some people might take my conspiracy theory seriously. Even some very outrageous conspiracy theories have their adherents. Even if presented as broad satire, some people will still want to believe.

Despite these concerns I've developed a fake conspiracy theory.

The Other Earth Conspiracy

A conspiracy needs a good name, to catch people's attention. The theory is about NASA, but I can't call it the NASA Conspiracy, because there are already plenty of conspiracies about NASA. For now I'll call it The Other Earth Conspiracy. That sounds lame to me, but maybe I can come up with a better name later.

The theory is based on some strange behaviours on the part of NASA. I've listed those below.

1. NASA has begun to search for other earths

NASA has for the last 20 or so years supported the research of astronomers in their search for extra solar planets. They have a website devoted to this work:

"Planet Quest - The Search for Another Earth" at http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/

While the stated reason for this research is scientific curiosity, the question that comes to mind is, "What is the big rush?" After all, it may be millennia before we could ever actually visit them.

2. NASA has developed plans for a warp drive space ship

Most of us of heard of warp drive from the "Star Trek" TV programs and movies. They use warp drive as a plot device to get the characters from one solar system to another quickly so the crew can have a new adventure every week.

The idea seems like a pretty far out science fiction invention. However, NASA has designed a space ship that uses warp drive. See: "NASA Reveals Latest Warp-Drive Ship Designs" at http://www.iflscience.com/space/nasa-reveals-latest-warp-drive-ship-designs

As with the search for another earth, we have to ask the question, "What is the big rush?" So far as we know, no one has even demonstrated that warp drive is even possible.

3. NASA has wasted a lot of money

In recent years it seems like every one criticises NASA for inefficiency, mismanagement, and waste. Here are a few samples:

·         GAO: True Cost of SLS, Orion Unclear http://www.spacenews.com/article/civil-space/40610gao-true-cost-of-sls-orion-unclear

·         More Wasteful EPO Spending at NASA http://nasawatch.com/archives/2014/01/more-wasteful-e.html

·         NASA: James Webb Space Telescope to Now Cost $8.7 Billion http://www.space.com/12759-james-webb-space-telescope-nasa-cost-increase.html

·         $4 billion over budget, four years past schedule: Meet Northrop's problem program http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/fedbiz_daily/2014/04/4-billion-over-budget-four-years-past-schedule.html?page=all

What is odd, is that NASA used to have a very good reputation. Remember, who else besides NASA has promised the Moon and delivered?

What happened to NASA? Now it seems like they can't even do anything without massive cost over runs. Can that really be true?

One begins to wonder, "Are these projects really that badly run?" Could it be that these projects are just a front? Could it be that the money is actually spent on other, secret, projects?

4. NASA is a leader in the study of global warming

One of NASA's activities is the study of Earth's climate. See: http://climate.nasa.gov/. Many people have expressed scepticism about global warming, and say NASA exaggerates the danger.

But a recent study paints a very different picture. The authors of "Climate change prediction: Erring on the side of least drama?" found that scientists have tended to under estimate and under play the effects of global warming. For example the shrinkage of the Arctic polar icecap has been much greater than even the worst case scenario.

The original article can be found at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378012001215, but since it is behind a pay wall, you can read about some of the results at: http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-scientists-esld.html.

The question that comes to mind is, "Why does NASA want to downplay the threat of global warming?" Are they just too cautious, or could there be a more frightening explanation?

What are we to make of all of this? Possibly they are nothing but a collection of unrelated facts. But, they might also point to a conspiracy. There are a lot of unanswered questions about NASA is up to.

• Could it be that they have discovered that human life on Earth is doomed?
• Could it be that they have abandoned any hope they can stop the inevitable?
• Could it be that they have planned an escape for the elite and themselves?
• Could it be that they have started to build the warp drive space ship to escape?
• Could it be that they have started to look for another planet to escape to?
• Could it be that they have diverted money to pay for the escape?
• Could it be that they have down played the danger of global warming to keep the general population in the dark until it is too late?

This all seems too far fetched to be real. But who knows? Maybe, somewhere far out in space, a new earth orbits around a dim star in our sky, and around that new earth, astronauts from our old Earth have already looked down on their new home.

Warning: This is just an exercise in speculation and I don't believe that any of it is true. Please don't take it seriously.

I realize that this conspiracy theory is similar to "Alternative 3". See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_3

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog