In Laymon's Terms

Carl is a kick. Vampire Night would be worth watching if only to see him in action. He is played by actor/stuntman/bartender, Jimmy Jerman. Think Jean-Claude Van Damme, make him an American, add some muscle and wit, and you’ve got Jimmy Jerman.

As we stood around on the concrete floor of the warehouse shortly after arriving, I overheard this muscular guy say, “Not that I have a problem landing on cement—we’ll only have one take that way.”

Later, he said, “I’m like the male Buffy.”

But he looked very believable as an ex-Navy Seal. Dressed in black, he carried a Glock semi-automatic and a wooden stake in holsters on his utility belt. Not to mention a pack of Altoids.

TOOLS OF THE MOVIE TRADE

The Glock was easy to come by, the writer/director/producer being a deputy sheriff.

The stake was a bit more tricky. Apparently, the stakes in Vampire Night were made from the legs of a small table. I know this because a new stake was needed while we were there. A member of the crew walked by, struggling with pliers to remove a screw-like attachment from the thick end of an already-sharpened stake-to-be.

The stake was intended to protrude, point first, from the chest of a female vampire who lay sprawled on the concrete floor. The top she wore was a rather skimpy leather vest with laces up the front. While she squirmed on the floor, the makeup woman crouched over her and attempted to make the stake stand upright by shoving its thick end between the vest’s laces. Unfortunately, it kept tilting and falling over. And the vampire kept complaining about the cold floor. At last, the stake was fixed against her chest with a gob of goo and they shot the scene.

From watching the stake work, I concluded that a well equipped tool box is nearly as essential to film-making as is a camera.

The camera being used in Vampire Night, by the way, was a state-of-the-art digital Panasonic job of the same sort used in making Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. It was being wielded by Dennis Devine, director of photography for this film. Dennis (who had invited us to the shoot) wrote, photographed and directed the Cinematrix film, Vampires of Sorority Row. Also, he wrote and directed, along with Steve Jarvis, the film being made after Vampire Night, called Bloodstream.

Another prominent piece of equipment at the shoot was the fog machine. Nearly every scene required swirling fog, so people were continually fooling with the machine. As it hissed and puffed, crew members fanned its vapors this way and that. Dennis never began shooting a scene until the fog looked right. Seemed like a nuisance. However! They say that every cloud has a silver lining. Well, so does fog. Now and then, they relied on it to hide small problems. “No big deal, the fog’ll cover it.”

A less dramatic but nonetheless fascinating piece of equipment was the Kevlar vest. Meant to stop bullets and likely worn on the job by Jason, it was worn by a stuntman (Jason’s brother) during fights in Vampire Night. To protect him from the concrete floor, more than likely. Fighting with the main vampire (played by Robert Ryan—not the dead Robert Ryan), he was frequently hurled to the floor. Take after take. “We need more of an impact,” he was told at one point. Good thing he was wearing the concrete-resistant vest.

While the stuntman kept being thrown to the floor, the vampire’s job was to leap high above it. He was aided in his leaps by a device that catapulted him into the air. It had to be “armed” before each take. Then, when the fog seemed to be just the right consistency, Robert would go bounding up the ramp, someone would trigger it, and he’d be hurled up, arms out, fangs bared, cape flapping. In true vampire fashion.

ASPIRING FILM-MAKERS PLEASE NOTE

I was fascinated and amused by a lot of this. And also impressed. Here was a small group of film-makers using state-of-the-art equipment...and also throwing stuff together with ingenuity and duct tape. Nearly all of them hold regular jobs outside the movie industry, but get together regularly and frequently to make their films. They take turns as to whose project will be made, and everybody pitches in, performing different duties on different movies. In this way, they have succeeded in making numerous low-budget films.

Films that earn profits for those who make them.

To me, this group seems like a model for small, independent film production.