ISSUE #22
BEAM FROM THE BOOTH | GRAND RAPIDS FILM SOCIETY
[EDITED BY: GRIFFIN SHERIDAN]
Welcome to an all-new installment of BEAM FROM THE BOOTH, brought to you by GRAND RAPIDS FILM SOCIETY!
Our July programming kicks off NEXT THURSDAY (7/13) with another FILM SOCIETY ROUNDTABLE social event! If you have been looking for fellow film fans or local filmmakers to connect with, this is the event for you. Come alone or come with friends for an evening of conversation with likeminded friends. Just be sure to RSVP ahead of time!
At the Roundtable event, people like to dive into how they fell into their passion for cinema, and our own Jackson Ezinga has a piece about just that to start us off this week...
SPECIAL THANKS TO SPECIAL FEATURES
[BY: JACKSON EZINGA]
I wanted to take the time to give a special thanks to an aspect of at-home movie watching that changed the course of my life forever. I’ve been a movie lover for as long as I can remember, but in the late 1990s a new way to watch movies became widely available. I grew up in the ‘be kind, rewind’ days of VHS and the VCR. I would pop in the tape, press play, watch the movie, and rewind it for next time. But then came the DVD, and my routine changed. Pop in the disc, skip the trailers, hit “play” on the main menu, watch the movie, and then go back to the main menu to watch all the special features!
Not having to rewind, the better picture quality, and being able to see how the movie I just watched was made was a game changer. I knew people made movies but had no idea what went into making them. DVD special features allowed me to watch the filmmakers and actors talk about what it was like making the movie and showed behind the scenes footage of dozens — sometimes hundreds — of people all working together to make it happen. It dawned on me that making movies was a JOB that you could have! I wanted that job, and I wanted to do it here in Grand Rapids.
When I was 12 years old, I saved up enough money to buy a camcorder from a pawn shop, and I started making movies with my friends and family. Whenever there was an option to make a video for a school project, my friends and I would produce short films way longer than the suggested 1-2 minutes with a narrative script, multiple locations, stunts, and special effects. The DVDs I burned to play in class had special features like ‘outtakes’ and ‘deleted scenes.’ My friends and I would also make DVDs for Youth Group trips that I documented and sometimes we would spend more time on the special features than the video itself.
After high school I studied film at Grand Valley State University, shot my senior thesis, and began working on low-budget feature films in the Grand Rapids area. I missed the peak of the Film Incentive days by the time I graduated, so unfortunately working full time in film was extremely difficult. During the incentives boom, I had the opportunity to work as a Background Actor (AKA extra) in a few studio films shot in Michigan including Scream 4 (2011), 30 Minutes or Less (2011), and Oz the Great and Powerful (2013). Working on these films was the first time I got to be a part of the behind-the-scenes action I had only seen in the special features (I even saw glimpses of myself in the special features of 30 Minutes or Less and Oz when those DVDs were released!). I would journal after getting home from set about things like the new crew positions I had learned, the way they shot certain scenes, and general observations of how movie sets were run. It felt like my dream was coming true. However, when the incentives were cut and I struggled to find film work, I eventually had to take a full time job to pay the bills, and it was not for me.
I spent almost two years doing monotonous and unfulfilling work with promises of time off for film jobs getting rejected every time I asked. I was fed up, I hated it, and I ended up getting fired. I didn’t know what to do since I had been out of the biz for so long. As fate would have it, I got connected with an independent filmmaker who was making a new movie in Allegan, MI. At the time, I thought this might be my last film job since nothing I had worked on to this point had captured the excitement, creativity, and fulfillment of making movies with my friends and family when I was younger. I was hired to be the night watchman for the film’s main location and equipment storage in the middle of the Allegan woods. I would show up around 8:00pm to help the crew wrap out, stay up all night to make sure the set stayed safe, and then help the crew set up when they arrived back to set in the morning. I’d go to sleep and do it all over again. While I was doing fire watch, I started making videos documenting my experience.
This group of filmmakers was different from most of the other crews I had worked with up to this point. They were kind, they were passionate about what they were making, and they treated every member of the cast and crew with respect. They were cool, a little crazy, hilarious, creative, and all super talented. They called themselves “Sob Noisse,” and their movies had screened in film festivals all over the world. At the end of my week of fire watch, they had asked me to come on board as the movie’s Key PA. I worked the rest of the shoot on set and had a hell of a time helping Sob Noisse shoot a scrappy, gritty, indie film. By the end of the shoot, I had a new group of lifelong friends. The following year I was invited to the world premiere of the film, The Alchemist Cookbook (2016), at SXSW. It was a dream come true to have a project I worked on screen for two sold out audiences at one of the biggest film festivals in the world! When the DVD came out, I had my mind blown when I realized the director, Joel Potrykus, had put the footage I shot during my time as night watchman in the special features!
Sob Noisse kept making movies, and they kept calling me back. For their next film, Relaxer (2018), I was asked to be the Assistant Director. I had never AD’d a feature film before, but they believed in me and I was up for the challenge. We finished the film on schedule and had an absolute blast making it! Our grip, Andy Miller, brought his camcorder to set and filmed throughout production. He then edited together a 30 minute making-of doc that might be one of the best special features I’ve ever seen! Kid-Jackson would be freaking out to be part of such a crazy journey that was so well documented and really captured the feeling of what it was like being on that set!
Now it’s 2023 — ten years after I earned my film degree and about twenty years after making the definitive decision that I was going to be a filmmaker. This year, I spent the first four months in Detroit working as the 1st Assistant Director on two feature films before returning back home to work on the next Sob Noisse movie; probably our most ambitious film to date, it was all hands on deck to get it made. Our crew, our families, and friends donated their equipment and supplies, their time, and their skills and knowledge to help make it a reality. Our crew members’ children were on set, my dad donated props, my parents and my brother served lunch one day, and a lot of photos and videos were shot between takes that will inevitably become special features on the DVD (ok, Blu-Ray and/or 4K Ultra HD now). It felt like I was making movies with my family and friends again, because that’s exactly what we were doing. Wrapping this film felt full circle.
With streaming being the dominant mode of watching movies at home, special features have become more difficult to access. I’m one of those nerds who still buys physical media and goes through the same routine of watching the movie first and then diving into the extras. It’s my hope that special features will continue to inspire filmmakers-to-be and help struggling or even thriving filmmakers stay motivated to continue making their movies and documenting the process for when it’s time to burn some discs and fill up the special features menu.
* SPECIAL FEATURES *
With permission from Sob Noisse, I’d like to share a special feature behind-the-scenes clip that I shot on the set of the most recent Sob Noisse film, Vulcanizadora. In it, our 2nd Assistant Camera, Brandon Bowman, teaches Solo Potrykus how to slate for camera.
ECHOES
[BY: SPENCER EVERHART]
Echoes is an exclusively-visual column based on the MUBI Notebook series of the same name - a fun way to find the repetitions, reverberations, and recapitulations in images throughout cinema history.
INLAND EMPIRE (David Lynch, 2006)
New York Movie (Edward Hopper, 1939)
UPCOMING EVENTS
FILM SOCIETY ROUNDTABLE
WHAT: Join us for another GRFS social event and chat about filmmaking, screenwriting, and cinephilia with other like-minded members of the GR film community.
WHEN: Thursday, July 13th, 7:00pm (Doors: 6:30pm — arrive early to mingle!)
WHERE: The Wealthy Theatre
LYNCH/OZ (Philippe, 2022)
WHAT: WEST MI PREMIERE! This documentary explores the undeniable influence The Wizard of Oz has had on the work of director David Lynch.
WHEN: Thursday, July 20th, 8:00 pm
WHERE: The Wealthy Theatre
PURPLE NOON (Clément, 1960)
WHAT: Tom Ripley takes on the identity of a rich, spoilt brat after murdering him. However, he has to summon all his skills to get the police and the victim's friends off his back.
WHEN: Monday, July 24th, 8:00 pm
WHERE: The Wealthy Theatre
REAR WINDOW (Hitchcock, 1954)
WHAT: Alfred Hitchcock’s classic story of a recuperating news photographer who believes he has witnessed a murder.
WHEN: Sunday, July 30th, 3:00 pm
WHERE: The Wealthy Theatre
And so we’ve arrived at the end of another BEAM FROM THE BOOTH! We appreciate you taking the time to read it and truly hope you’ll continue to do so. Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to get each issue in your inbox every SATURDAY and stay up-to-date on all things GRFS!
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Look for ISSUE #23 in your inbox NEXT SATURDAY, 7/15!
Until then, friends...
