GarlickDance 2009: Silent Films

The script has been selected for next years GarlickDance film festival! And the winning script "writer" was me!! Ha!! Okay...the victory isn't nearly as impressive as it sounds, because I didn't really write anything (you'll notice I put "writer" in quotes). My movies tend to be very visual and action driven...and as such the real trick for me is figuring out how I can let the characters say the lines in the script without interfering with my action. So this year I had the idea to submit a script that was blank...basically a dialogue-less script, and it won! Crazy!! Here's what I submitted as my script:

"(This is a dialogue-less script. There is to be no speaking by characters, nor other means of delivering lines as has been used in prior GarlickDance films. As per GarlickDance festival rules, a narrative prologue/postlogue is allowed, but once the film "starts" there is to be no speaking, subtitled actions, or dialogue captions. As with all GarlickDance films, background music with lyrics is allowed so long as the lyrics are not used as a means of delivering lines.)"

Several people have, in past years, complained about being forced to follow the script...this gives those people a chance to have complete freedom as directors. Well...almost complete freedom. So that there will still be a common thread through all the films, it was decided that each film is required to contain: A Duck, A Flower, and A Cutting Tool. These can appear in the films as overtly or as subtly as the directors desire...they've just gotta be in there somewhere. The idea behind having these objects is that they're fairly random, although common enough that it shouldn't be TOO hard to stick them in the films. Traditionally a big part of the GarlickDance Film Festival has been seeing how each director chose to use the same lines in different ways...hopefully these required "objects" will provide a similar How-will-this-director-use-them kinda thing.

Anyway, I'm excited to start. I laid in bed for a good hour before I fell asleep last night, thinking of ideas for dialogue-less films...no real winners yet, but something will come I'm sure.

By Way of Announcement...

The Official GarlickDance film festival took place on Saturday July 21, 2007, and was a HUGE success. Tons of fun. We had a good turn-out of about 40 people at the Utah Chapter of GarlickDance, and about 30 met for the Oregon Chapter, which took place at the same time.

Now for Logan! Since my movie features several Loganites and several others helped in one way or another, there has been much demand to see my movie. Here's the deal, though...just watching my movie would be fun, but to really appreciate the whole GarlickDance thing, you gotta watch several movies. If you read my last post, you know the deal about the shared-script. The first few movies shown in the festival, unfortunately, suffer somewhat, because the audience is often not very familiar with the script, but after watching a few, half the fun of watching becomes waiting to see how the next movie is going to use a given line of dialogue, or what crazy stuff they chose to fill-in-the-blanks that were provided in the script. So rather than just watch my movie, for the Logan premiere of my film we're going to watch all (or at least most of) the movies from the film festival. "Where" and "when", you ask? Well here's the plan...

Our friend Janey works over at the Cine-Four theater by Winger's, and she told us that she can let us watch the movies there!! Isn't that awesome!?! Here's the only catch...it has to be late, and due to several scheduling conflicts, we can't do it on a weekend unless we wait 3 or 4 weeks. So here's what we're planning. 1 week from today (Monday, July 30) we're going to watch the movies at Janey's theater. We're meeting there at 11:30pm, and should start fairly shortly thereafter. Yes, it's a work night, yes, it's late...There's nothing we could do about it. But here's the deal: If we watch all the movies it's only about an hour long (and we'll probably skip a couple of them), and since you know well in advance you can make sure you get plenty of sleep the night before and even plan on taking a nap that afternoon or something, so you'll have the energy to come watch!

I'm really excited for this! I think it's going to be way fun! Hopefully anybody who's interested can make it! Oh, and this is really open to anybody who wants to come. If you know someone who might be interested, invite 'em. I don't want hecklers - remember that the films are all made by amateur filmmakers...for some this was their first movie project ever - but the more the merrier, I say.

GarlickDance Info & A Dream

After several months of work, I'm THRILLED to announce that my 2007 GarlickDance Film Festival entry will have it's premiere showing tomorrow night at the Official GarlickDance Film Festival in West Point, Utah. It's awfully short notice, but anyone interested in attending can contact me for details. Sometime in the next week or two a Logan showing will take place...we may not watch all of the films at the Logan showing...maybe just the best few and mine...We'll see what people want to do.

For anybody unaware of what the GarlickDance film festival is, it's my family's version of a yearly family reunion. We've never been much for just getting together and having a BBQ...we prefer to be entertained...and who's more entertaining than us!?! So each summer for the last three years our family has organized this mini-film festival. "Mini" in that (A) the festival is small, and (B) the films are short. There's a 12 minute time limit on each film (including credits, previews, outtakes, etc.) but I think this year the average film length is only about 7 minutes. This year there are 11 entries in the film festival. Entrants include: myself, my sister, both of my parents, 2 aunts, 2 uncles, a cousin, a nephew, and 2 family friends. Yes, if you count that up there's 12 people, but two of the directors collaborated to make a single film. In the film festival, each film uses the exact same script. The trick is that the script is riddled with mad-libs-esque blanks. These blanks allow the filmmakers to fill-in the necessary customizations to adapt the script to their unique idea.

Originally this shared-script idea made all of us a bit nervous that we'd end up with nearly identical movies...this has never even come close to happening. It's amazing how the exact same dialogue can be used in such completely different situations! Last year's film festival ended up with many of the movies being some sort of action film. This year it sounds like comedies are the predominant genre...of course, I've not seen them yet, so I can't be sure.

Okay, well that's about it for GarlickDance information. Let's talk about my latest dream!

*** Dreamt July 19-20, 2007 ***

It was time for school, but I really didn't want to walk up to the university, so I decided to take the recliner (yes, the recliner). Next thing I knew I was whizzing up 200 West on a light brown recliner. The only tricky part about driving a recliner, it turns out, is that they spin, so you really gotta keep your balance as you're crusing down the road or you might get spun around backwards and not be able to see where you're going.

Eventually I got to a dead-end (which I don't remember ever encountering on 200 W in Logan in real life), so I got up and picked up my recliner and ran into the HUGE house that was blocking my path. My idea was to cut through the house then I'd be back at the road and could continue on my way. Unfortunately there was a very narrow stairway in the house that led up to the front door, and my recliner simply wouldn't fit. At about this point I realized that there were several people in the house looking at me..I tried to ignore them as I started heading back out. It was also then that I noticed how remarkably light the recliner was...maybe 20 lbs tops. Not bad at all considering the engine and wheels and stuff that must have been attached under/inside it. I got back outside where I'd entered and mounted the recliner and headed back to ButterKnife, trying to think how else I could get up to campus. I thought about taking my bike, but I didn't know where to put it up on campus, then suddenly I thought, "Oh man, where would I have put the recliner?! It'd be way harder to find a safe place to keep it than a bike."

I made it back to ButterKnife Estates and when I entered it was now dark outside. I greeted Thad and started to chit-chat with him, when I noticed that several people (none of whom I recognized) were coming in and congregating in our front room. I tried to ask Thad about it, but he kept shushing me. Apparently he owed some of these people something, so he was letting them use part of our house for the evening.

I went downstairs to my room and noticed that I'd been followed my parents' cat, Gus. "Get out of here, Gus!" I shouted. Unfortunately Gus is a very old cat who's pretty much deaf and quite stubborn, so he wouldn't leave. I picked him up and took him out a couple of times, but he kept running back in. I really didn't want him in there, because he's kinda not fully with it these days and sometimes has bladder control issues. Again I went to pick him up, and when I did he latched onto my right hand. Thankfully I was wearing a bowling glove, so it didn't really hurt, but he kept attacking the back of that hand, and it was just really annoying. I finally got him off and kicked him out of the room long enough that I could close and lock the door. I was trying to figure out why he'd been so keen on attacking my right hand, so I took off the glove, and that's when I remembered that I'd dripped some barbeque sause on the back of that hand, which is what he must have been going after. I started off to find a sink where I could wash the barbeque sause off my hand, but I woke up before I made it there.

***

So You Think You Can Direct...

I'm a big believer that dreams are roughly comprised of 2% of our inner thoughts, fears, etc, and 98% random stuff influenced by what we've seen/heard/done lately. Before last night's dream, one should first know a few things: (A) I've recently been spending a lot of time working on movie for my family's annual summer film festival "GarlickDance", (B) a new reality show entitled "On The Lot" has recently begun in which a group of young filmmakers are vying for a movie deal with DreamWorks Studios....I watch regularly, and (C) two night's ago my brother came home with a poster book of stills from the movie "Labyrinth", which I looked through.

*** June 16-17, 2007 ***

I was in a filmmaking competition in which all of the contestants had been divided-up into two teams. As fortune would have it, my mom was also on my team, and my buddy Corey was on the other. In this challenge, we were playing a version of the classic TV show, "Supermarket Sweep." Our teams were to run through a grocery store, grabbing items and bringing them back to our team's bin, then at the end the winner would be the team who had the ingredients to make the most sandwiches.

When time ran out and we went back for the official ruling of which team had the most sandwich-making supplies, our team was shocked to see that most of our stuff that we'd grabbed wasn't there! In fact, we now only had 3 loaves of bread (compared to the dozens in our opponents' bin)! That's the worst thing to be short of, because you can't make sandwiches if you don't have bread! Of course, the accusations immediately began flying, and members of the other team were actually quite quick to confess that they'd hidden much of the sandwich loot that we'd found.

Right about then, a voice came over the store's intercom system announcing that David Bowie (rock singer and star of the movie "Labyrinth") was outside in his trailer and that he would be signing autographs and giving instructions for the competition's next event. Of course everyone bolted for the doors. I never did see David, however, because I woke up right about then.

***

By far my favorite part of this whole thing was that in a movie-making contest we had a task to see who could come up with the most sandwich-making supplies.

What a fun show that supermarket sweep was, though, wasn't it? Alright, it was actually a pretty hokey show, but I always wanted a chance to run through a store like that, madly grabbing stuff off the shelves and throwing it into my cart. I remember as a child some contest - I'm thinking it was put on by Kool-Aid - in which the grand prize was a 2 or 3 minute shopping spree in KB Toys. My brother and I actually drew maps of our local toy store and would plot what course we'd take and write down the top few items that we'd be sure to grab...Of course, it wasn't much of a course through the store, since it was basically just bee-lining it to the video game section and grabbing all that we could.

...Good times.