WHAT THE WHAT?
HELLO! And welcome to the GREATEST, most AMERICAN, most NON-BUDGETY viewing experience you may ever encounter by way of low-tech (but high concept!) genre-based storytelling! (Wow, what a mouthful!) In short, this is a true B-Movie in every sense of the word… but it is also a labor of love. A long back-burnered project, put on hold for various reasons, finally given the finishing touches for you all to kick back and watch, free of charge. But first, let me tell you a little bit about WHAT kind of journey you are embarking upon…
Once upon a time in early 2003, us five eager aspiring film-makers set off for a ten day vacation at our relative’s scenic ranch property in Northern California and decided to fill their days working on some run-and-gun on-the-fly short films. One of us had previously written and shot their own short project there and was looking to soon complete it. That would be Nate. After yet another hilarious round of “what if?”, he and I decided to branch off of his little movie into a larger, hybridized project between us. We had one clear motive in mind, but not a lot else figured out. I packed up a plethora of props, costumes and air-soft guns from past student films (or culminated elsewhere from years of this sort of behavior) and we headed northbound. While spit-balling ideas during the long ride with our other cousin Andy, his pal Paul and my good buddy Mike we all realized that our individual concepts might work better servicing a much larger whole, with our fivesome playing several different roles and fulfilling several different production duties… and thus the B-Movie was conceived!
After those ten days we realized we had somehow, in our very unpolished efforts, managed the impossible: We captured lightning in a bottle. Well, we thought so anyway. Perhaps we should have stopped there, cobbled together whatever we could with the footage we had shot, and moved on. But somehow something was compelling us to continue further with this: To write, shoot, re-write (and re-shoot) several new scenes to bolster the ones we were most impressed with. After several more trips up to the ranch, several sets built in garages and bedrooms, and several years of fitting in B-Movie work between other creative projects, work schedules and life events, we finally had very nearly all the footage we felt we needed in the can!
And in the can it stayed. For many, many years.
Even though we put our movie on an indefinite hold (full disclosure: I was the first to hit the brakes) The B-Movie was never far from our thoughts and our hearts. But the years dragged on with very little progress being made. When Andy and then Nate moved away, it became clear that this movie might never see the light of day if we maintained the same “all for one philosophy” which had berthed this behemoth. With their blessing, both Mike and I continued work upon it when time allowed. And as time marched on, it became ever more difficult to use it for a long-in-the-works labor-of-love throwback to campy creativity starring a cast of family and friends. Slowly but surely, Mike and I have now accomplished our task at long, long last.
There seemed like no better time to release our movie then NOW in our very-nearly-POST-pandemic world when the entertainment industry seems to be at war with itself over streaming rights, mergers and identity politics as they are all trying to figure out the best strategies to make their precious green… while us consumers are asked to foot the bill for their high-quality entertainment. So… how about some low-quality FREE entertainment that isn’t as concerned with how much you’re willing to pay but more with how much you’re willing to ESCAPE into this crazy story we concocted (too) many years ago?
Matthew JLD Rice
May 22, 2021