This is going to be a long post as I describe just what the hell “Black Blood” is and why I’m scared shitless about it 
This past spring some film buddies and I created a 20 minute documentary dealing with how African-Americans are portrayed in the horror genre for a class project. It was well-received and now has the honor of being the first student film to be publicly screened for the “Reel Clips: Contemporary Glimpses on Film” series. That means a number of things. First, our film was enjoyed so much that this program was created in response. Because of that, future UNL filmmakers are going to have an outlet to show their works. I feel like I’ve left a positive mark on my college, unlike my high school where I was integral in getting video cameras banned
Secondly, on a personal level, I’m incredibly proud of this. We put a lot of time and effort into it and seeing it all pay off in this way is a great feeling. This is also the first project that I did that didn’t involve any of the other Dead Lantern guys (and gals). In a way, that was a really liberating aspect of the whole experience. I mean that in no offense towards any of the other DL’ers, but it was satisfying to know that I could sort of venture off on my own and accomplish a success without having that inevitable feeling I always get on a DL project…that everyone is just sort of participating out of kindness rather than actually wanting to do it.
Filmmakers are never completely satisfied with their films. Sometimes they have nitpicks, other times disasters. Black Blood is no different. For the most part, I’m incredibly happy with how everything turned out. In fact, it turned out pretty much as well as I could have hoped. My problems with it are minor and are related to the time constraints we had in making it. It could be no longer than 20 minutes and for the subject matter that we chose it is pretty difficult to do that. I mean, how can you really explain how blacks have been portrayed in horror movies for the past 100 years into 20 minutes? At first, I didn’t think it would be possible. I remember getting together with Bill, Stefan, and Patrick (without whom, this film would not have turned out as it did. Their input, help, and writing were invaluable) and saying “How in the hell are we going to do this?”
The original concept was to simply focus on the relatively recent phenomenon of DTV urban themed horror films. Stuff like Bloodz vs. Wolvez and Hood of the Living Dead. Exploring this topic fascinated me because, generally speaking, African-Americans are not seen as being large consumers of horror. I wanted to figure out why there were so many of these films being released and who was watching them. However, it soon became apparent that it would be difficult to talk about these movies without talking about what came before them. So we decided the best thing to do would be to cover the entire spectrum; nearly a 100 years of horror cinema. In doing so, you naturally lose the detail you’d have if you focus only on a certain area. The film became more about broad important points than specific details. In that respect, it was disappointing to me that I couldn’t include everything I wanted. We had a large section dealing with the representation of African-American women that had to be cut out altogether for time purposes. The reason that bugs me is because when I watch a documentary, I want everything to be covered. Maybe that is just selfishness on my part, but documentaries drive me nuts when I see a point brought up and then never followed up in any detail. But I don’t think that takes away from the film as it is. The main objective was to introduce to our audience (a class of about 25 students) a cinema that none of them were acquanited with. Seriously, none of the film snobs ( ) in our class knew anything about African-American horror representation, let alone the horror genre itself. So it was easy to impress. Which brings me to this screening…
I’m not sure I’ve ever been so nervous about anything in my life. When we premiered The Grand Horror, I was pretty hopped up on adrenaline. I was just hoping that people wouldn’t walk out en masse. There were no real expectations with TGH. It was a terrible film that we were simply crossing our fingers wouldn’t go over like a lead weight. But Black Blood is different. There was a real sense of “Wow, that was really awesome!” that I’ve never experienced before. Just today, someone came up to me in class and was like “I remember you! You made that kickass class project! I want to be in your group this year”. Black Blood is the first project that I had no hand in setting up or promoting with the intention of it being seen by anyone other than who it was designed for. It’s suddenly become this thing that other people are excited about and going out of their way to get other people to see it. That’s weird to me.
And I’m scared shitless about that. First of all, the film was never designed to be seen by tons of people. That’s the reason we ultimately decided to focus on a broad overview of black horror rather than a detailed one. I’ve been told that other film professors are coming to this screening. It’s been booked in an auditorium and is apparently going to be promoted all over campus and used as an extra credit option for hundreds of students. I guess what is worrying me is that I feel as if this thing is sort of growing beyond my control. The expectations for it seem to be obtaining a Blob-ian aspect. It’s not that I don’t want people to show up. I do. I’m just commenting on this feeling I have that I’m not in control. It’s just sort of “out there” and I have no way of keeping everything in check. Maybe all directors go through this eventually? It’s an odd feeling and something new to me.
The Q&A session after the film is designed to fill in all those details that the documentary doesn’t explain. Most of you reading this probably don’t know me, but I don’t do well with people. Especially large groups of people. One of my acknowledged faults is that I’m terrible at explaining things to people. I know how it is in my head, but trying to get my mouth speak the necessary words is a skill I just can’t do (ex. our abortion slasher film…that was tough for people to get). It’s a funny quirk considering that I’m a “director”. This came up in conversation many times during the Outpost Doom shoot (usually when I “wasn’t around”). Some of the actors had problems with my “lack of direction” i.e. telling them what they should be doing. I’m far more Ozuian than Kubrickian in terms of dealing with people. Ozu wouldn’t even talk to his actors. When they would ask him a question, he would simply tell them something like “If I had a problem with what you were doing, I wouldn’t have moved on to the next shot”. Moral of the story: assume what you are doing is to my satisfaction unless I specifcally say so. I’m not sure how I’m going to deal with people asking me questions at the Q&A. I’m going to be the one doing the majority of the talking since the rest of my group, admittedly, aren’t horror fans. Hopefully, the Film gods will smile upon me and none of my film professors will show up. I’m not as worried about the student body questions so much as I am the academics. I can just picture one of them asking me to explain the importance of Jean Rollin’s Rape of the Vampire in comparison to Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. *shudder*
I’m fully aware that I’m probably making more of this than I really ought to be. More than likely, there will be only a handful of people at the event and students will do what they always do: not ask questions so they can get the hell out of there. It’ll probably be a lot less nervewracking than what I’m making it out to be. I guess that is just human nature. Though the tone of the last few paragraphs may seem a bit negative, I really am proud of the film. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done by leaps and bounds, in my opinion. I hope people like it and are as impressed by it as our class was. My ultimate hope is that some of the student body decides “hey, these movies look pretty cool” and decide to check them out. If our film can get 1 or 2 people to become lovers of horror, well then it has accomplished more than I could ever want.
I’ve had some people ask about posting the film online, so the non-Lincoln Nebraska crowd can take a look at the film. I would do this in an instant…if I could figure out a problem. The film contains still photos and everytime I try and either burn it to a dvd or compress it to a manageable file size, some of the still photos are “deleted”. At 4 Gig, it just isn’t feasible to post the film anywhere online. I suck with technology and it pisses me off that I can’t put the film on a DVD. If someone can find the answer, please let me know and I’ll post the film for your viewing pleasure.
Geez, what a ridiculously long post
Filed under: DeadLantern News | 5 Comments »
