5×8 Film Festival-part 3, The Shoot

It is 1 a.m. in Humboldt Park and things are not going well for the Rainbows 4 Jeebus team. One of the members has to leave for Indiana. They still don’t have an idea, and Tyler has locked her keys in her car. They call AAA and wait, though there are all sorts of volunteers offering to break into the car for them. One man tries earnestly to unlock the door, but he soon gives up and asks the group if they have any beer. They give him some money and he walks away. AAA finally shows up about 3 a.m. and it takes the man seconds to open the car. The Rainbows pile in and head to an nearby apartment.

Meanwhile Gushing Artery is having a blast. They are shooting in front of the adult bookstore across Hubbard St. from The Whitehouse offices. Charles Leslie, the orthotist, plays a group 18 member forced to “take a small role” in a porn film to make ends meet because Dick, the Group 18 leader, absconded with Group 18’s film. When they wrap here, they quickly move across the street into The Whitehouse offices.

The Whitehouse offices work well as a location because they offer so many different looks. Sig Froelich is Dick. He sits behind a desk in a Whitehouse editing room complaining that if he didn’t take the film the other members of group 18 would have ruined it. The other Gushing Artery members play Group 18 members left behind. Elizabeth McNaughton, the actress, is standing in Whitehouse’s kitchen all made up. She is playing Dick’s former wife, “Well, we just fucked for three weeks.” Her character has an eating disorder so McNaughton feigns vomiting into the Whitehouse kitchen sink. McNaughton says she likes her character, and “would like to develop her into something bigger.” Jessica Volpe, a journalist in real life, plays the receptionist who Dick had an affair with. She complains to the camera that with her flaming red hair, she should have been a star, but Dick has screwed her and now she is a “fucking receptionist!”

By 1:30 in the morning they are finished. Schonbrun and Shevchenko both have cameras and have been shooting. Between them they have nearly two hours of footage for their three-minute film. The entire Gushing Artery team packs up and goes to Shevchenko’s apartment to watch the rushes and select the clips they want to put into the film.

Ow MyEye doesn’t begin shooting until after midnight. T.W. Li, a Columbia instructor, is the principle director of photography. He feels there is perhaps an embarrassment of riches. “We could shoot with any camera, we are editing with an Avid. We could even finish in an on-line room.” Li thinks less technology might be the way to go. No matter, someone makes the decision and the film is the only one presented in a letterboxed format.

It is 12:35 in the morning and art is imitating life. U’ Ren and Paul are standing at the bus stop on Division and Leavitt dressed in fright wigs and aviator glasses as members of Group 18. They have five minutes of tape left when they begin to argue about the direction of their film. As material it is good, except they aren’t arguing as Group 18, but having creative differences as Sean and Atom. It is all caught on tape. They decide to try to save their film in post.

At 3:00 a.m. Rainbows 4 Jeebus finally settle on idea. They want to make with their own hands as much of their film as possible. So, the remaining three group members begin drawing pictures and making collages. Harley Gambill has some old Super 8 footage she wants to incorporate. Tyler says the film will be a “bizarre parable with a moral that is kind of creepy and might offend some people.”

Part 4 Tomorrow.

PeterH