Bystanders And Lookeeloos

There's a couple of interesting shots in this otherwise unspectacular collection of old films. Whenever my super 8 camera and I needed to go out on location (as we did with the 'Farm News' movie) I would often have to deal with nosy bystanders and lookeeloos who simply HAD to know what was going on; what the heck I was doing; and why the heck couldn't THEY be movie stars too.

Dan and I were lucky to get out of Gastown with all our belongings when we filmed a few scenes down there in the mid 70s. It's probably even worse nowadays (wot with the Downtown East Side right next door) but back then, we only had to oblige one homeless vagrant/fan by allowing him a few seconds of stardom holding a prop. (Clip included in this video). His contribution to that epic movie of 30+ years ago has been sitting on the cutting room floor until this special blog moment came along. (I should probably clean up the cutting room floor now and then.)

The only other scene of interest today features Paul walking left to right down the middle of the street. What's not immediately clear to the viewer, is that everything was shot with the camera upside down and then the film was reversed after processing. A rather brilliant twist in film making (if I don't say so myself) that was unfortunately never really utilized in any dramatic fashion for my story movies. The only adjustment the actor had to make for the gimmick to work, was that he/she had to walk backwards in a casual, lifelike manner - traveling right to left and landing toe-heel rather than heel-toe. Another look at the 'screen-grab' (provided) will show that Main Street is now apparently situated to the west of Don's house, when we all really know it's to the east.

Other than those two scenes, there's bloody little else to bother watching here. A gang of thugs (led by Big Al) gather around Bartholomew's Bert puppet. Rob and George play miniature soccer in the middle of a table hockey tournament. Randy loses a tennis match to Bart. And Doug's camping trip with Paul comes to a sad and dirty laundry end. Yup. Pretty dull batch of films overall. The next collection should be better.