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originally posted at http://www.warrenblyth.com/fhe/coldstorage/216/joe.html
Commentary by Joe Sherlock
My skits were inspired by all of those great and wacky
party scenes from movies - stuff like Sixteen Candles,
Weird Science, etc. Plus it was a chance to do
something that was just goofballish and strange and
try to involve a bunch of friends.
It really was just a framework to allow Alan to come
in and get/drop off his props. I wasn't going for any
deep meaning: far from it in fact, I ended up just
throwing all kinds of visual and narrative curveballs
into it. The initial script probably took an hour or
so, stretched over the course of a few days. There
were a lot of ad libs and such added during the actual
shoot.
Looking back, I thought it was a blast... but then
again, I did have a few beers. The character that John
plays (the guy with the camoflague hat) is "Pope
Bruno," star of the "Mars vs The Pope" segment on my
Vampirisa's Velvet Vault of Horror Anthology. Also,
the black alligator-ish monster that he punches out is
the "monster" from my "Monster in the Garage" movie.
Since the segment was just plain wierd, it wasn't
really a problem to put those guys in and it's a fun
treat for those who have seen some of my other stuff.
All the lines that people say and things they do
before geting zapped out were improv. The blonde gal,
Amira, was a friend (who worked with me in some of my
early video projects) who travels most of the year for
her job, so it was great that the shoot happened to be
when she was in town.
I think my stuff serves as comic relief when alongside
some of the more serious segments. I mean, they are
all strange in their own ways, but mine is strange
purely in a surface level - it's just weird for
weirdness' sake. No need to dig any deeper. As it
turns out, the cookie-snatching alien, who originally
was just another sort of "kitchen sink" thing (the
alien was previously seen in my "We Need Earth Women"
project), ended up becoming a bigger part of the whole
project. At a certain point after I had put my segment
together, Warren asked to borrow the alien mask and
cape, as well as the green monster mask. He worked it
into the ending of the movie and the green guy made it
into the trailer. I thought that was way cool.
In retrospect, I'm pretty darned happy. I think it
really comes off as a bizarre party filled with
strange people who do strange things. Pretty much what
I wanted it to me. I spent a LOT of time on the
soundwork - putting little sound effects here and
there - sometimes appropriate, sometimes not. I was
lucky to find the strange spacey music/noise that fit
with the hopefully-someday-infamous mask-licking
scene. During the party, if you listen closely, there
are bits and pieces of audio from some of my other
projects.
I also composed (if you can call it that) and recorded
the "shake that booty" song for all the dancing
scenes. That was fun! I first recorded the drums in my
garage with my wife on tamborine and my 4-year-old kid
riding his ricking horse and yelling lyrics to a KISS
song (you can hear a little bit of his yelling towards
the ends of the segments). Then I played that tape
through a little Radio Shack mixing board, adding two
layers of keyboards - one played with my hands, and
one (with the phrase "shake that booty" sampled into
it) with my foot! it was nuts, but I love the way it
turned out. I liked it so much I used it in the video
movie I was putting together at the time.
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