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Welcome to
or Loyd Greenblat Redux
Greetings fellow film fans, freaks and filmmakers, I do hope this finds you in good spirits. First things
first, thank you for taking the time to read over this material. I've
done my best to keep it concise and informative. Click Loyd TV to play promo clip Not too long
ago, back in the mid 90s, I produced and directed my first film called This
Was Loyd Greenblat a
hybrid of and homage to Rob Reiner’s This
is Spinal Tap and the
documentary Superstar:
The Life and Times of Andy Warhol.
The finished piece was too long to be a short and too short to be a
feature, so the end result was a bit clunky, but the core of the
material was a lot of fun. Call it a spoof, a mockumentary, a sucker
punch to the ribs of the art world… it
was my official foray into independent filmmaking.
Shot on a lo-fi
Video 8 camera (the same camera used to shoot my real documentaries Frank
the Barber and Two
Fiddles) with actors and friends, friends as actors, we made something
come together for the hell of it. The end result, all 40 minutes, has
barely been seen by the general public and has only been available on
VHS. The gist of the story swirls around the unfortunate death of the almost famous pop artist Loyd Greenblat. Known for his hard drinking, hard-luck women and trashy art, (some would say trashy women and hard-luck art) he blazed a trail, albeit crooked and directionless, through the art world and into his untimely oblivion at the age of 35 in 1987. Now, nearly 20 years later, a small underground media holding company in Finland has approached me (Flicker Pictures) to revisit the raw Loyd footage and shoot all new material of his only spawn Leonard Greenblat, aka Lenny G. Blat, the rocker known for such college radio favorites as “Boobs not Bombs”, “Go friend yourself” and the Euro dance club video smash "Pet my pinecone". Watch interview clips here.
This is where YOU come in. As the producer of this massive undertaking of ridiculous proportions, I am sending out a CALL TO ARMS. It’s time to wield your camera and shoot some footage in the name of art, music and all things cinema. Here’s what the plan is… Since it would take me endless hours to fly around the country – the world even – and meet with all the people, such as yourselves, who were influenced or affected in some way, good or bad, by Loyd Greenblat and his art (and avant-garde movies, he made some short films, too) and capture hours and hours of footage to include in this new Loyd Greenblat Redux web version 2.0, I am asking you to take the wheel, step up and be the filmmaker you were born to be. Many of you have already proved your moviemaking mettle. This is why I'd love to have you on board.
With any luck, having watched the clip, you have a pretty good idea what sort of footage I’m hoping for: run-and-gun documentary style, cine-verite, and man-on-the-street sort of stuff. However, I will leave that all up to you. It’s your call. Straight up talking head style shot in a well-lit studio setting is totally fine with me. Consider location, content, lighting, sound, performance, wardrobe, etc, but don’t get too bogged down with details. Sometimes that rough performance can be the most genuine. I’d love to see as many crazy locations as possible. Show me your world to share with others. Remember, Loyd was born in 1952 and died in 1987, so keep that in mind when you refer to the man and his work. I was only 16 when he died, but his art has resonated with me even though I didn't "know" Loyd. Your content doesn't necessarily need to stick to all things Loyd, but it would be best if Loyd and his art or Lenny and his music are mentioned as springboards for a broader dialog. Feel free to riff on the current state of modern art, social inequities, politics, philosophy, cinema, Myspace pages, and on and on... My goal is to
collect as many hours and tapes from independent filmmakers who I have
either worked with in person or met via IndieClub, The Sanctuary, film
festivals or other online forums. You will receive full credit for your material so please make sure to list camera, crew, and cast credits with the tapes. Standard format MiniDV tapes are preferred but if you wanted to burn a DVD that is fine, too. This project is 4:3 60i, but again, if you needed to shoot 24p I can work with that format. Just make sure the sound levels are strong and/or the Quicktime or AVI files are funky free.
All I’m
asking for is about 15 minutes tops. Ten to five minutes would be ample,
as long as you feel there is a solid bit for me to edit from. Foreign
language is fine, but please provide a transcription in English. Did anyone see The Aristocrats? In that film there was a disparate collection of characters all riffing off the same premise, but taking it in many different directions. That’s what I’d like to see with this project. I’ll be including footage from the original Loyd movie, new footage of Lenny G. Blat, and then all the mixed bag material I receive from cool people like yourself. After many years of editing short and long format documentaries, I’ve found that cutting together a story from a variety of source tapes is actually one of my favorite things to tackle as a filmmaker. So it only makes sense that a project like this was something I’d feel strongly about putting out there in hopes that others will want to participate.
If 50 of the people I invite send me just 5 minutes of tape, that’s over 4 hours of shots to sift through. How fun will that be?? But it’s up to you to put your stamp on the material. You could be on the set of your new film, at the mall, downtown in the big city, or in a studio... I’ll take care of cutting it up. Just send the raw footage, sit back and wait for the "Loyd Tapes" to take shape.
Click
here for over 20 intro lines to get you started.
If you needed more ideas and haven’t seen Superstar, it’s worth checking out, but there are tons of great documentaries out there that are, well, "out there". The tentative deadline is sometime in February 2008, so there's plenty of time to find someone with a camera (if you don't already have one) and/or squeeze in some time to participate. Remember: Serious is funny. I'm serious. For those interested, download the release form here, a boring formality yes, but as we all know too well, quite necessary in this business of creating entertainment. Completed forms and tapes or DVDs should be mailed USPS to: Flicker Pictures c/o Jeff Palmer 1605 Oak Avenue Davis CA 95616 Please be sure to make a copy for your records. If you have any questions about this project, send me an email with the subject "LOYD MOVIE" so I can quickly scan and sort my inbox. Shoot 'em up! Jeff Palmer |
