Part Five - The Esther Project

Don has promised me that someday we'll get around to shooting a sequel to this crazy Esther movie, but I think I'd be just as happy to redo this first one over again from scratch. To try and eliminate the glaring errors I made this first time as the so-called writer/director/gaffer. The biggest of such errors (as I've said more than once) was killing off the suitcase in the opening scenes! If you bother watching this fifth and final chapter of the film, try to imagine the hilarity that was denied us because Don wasn't fumbling with a suitcase during the big chase.

Another mistake I made was refusing to use a tripod for any of the long shots - not that I had any tripods to use anyway. This award winning moment (picture left) of the four tuffnik friends coming to the rescue of Esther was undermined by a less than steady camera. I also learned that close ups are an important part of any feature film (experts suggest 90% of a movie should be close ups) and proper focus in these scenes can't be stressed enough.

So I considered it all a learning experience at the time of production and was looking forward to making bigger and better films because of it. However, when Don left the world of Blazerville a few short weeks after this movie wrapped, the bottom pretty much fell out of the local super 8 film studio rivalry and no further attempts were made to replicate the grand Hollywood epics of yesteryear.

The opening scenes (of Esther's home turf) were actually shot in the famous rough and tumble 'downtown eastside' of Vancouver.