The new reality for independent filmmakers

 

Painting: Camilo Esparza. Poster: Casey Hunter

In 2001 I talked to producer Scott Perry about Jet Blast, an Austin-made, low-budget comedy about a future time where airlines got super competitive. An evil rogue group armed their planes to take out the other guys. Some planes crashed into buildings. It was clearly a goofy joke. Jet Blast was set to premiere at the Austin Film Festival. Then 9/11 happened. No festival screening. No much of anything for a long time.

"We had somehow managed to find the exact wrong film to make at the exact wrong time," Perry told me then.

Also in 2001, a Spider-Man trailer that showed Spidey swinging from a web between the Twin Towers was pulled. There was talk of shelving terrorist-themed movies. It was a tough time for the movie industry.

OK, as filmmakers today we need to lighten up. Things are not nearly as bad. Yes, festivals have been cancelled. Yes, many more have been postponed. But, like with 9/11, the bigger picture shines through as we huddle in our houses and get back to basics. My family watched Onward on overly expensive pay per view just days after its release in theaters. (It was great.) Screening parties are happening on Facebook. Classic films are being rediscovered. This time film is our escape. It just isn't happening in the normal way.

 

For example, where I am in Austin, Texas, the documentary Also Starring Austin is screening for free online here for a short while. The Austin Chronicle is asking readers to watch Texas Chain Saw Massacre along with them at home and engage in a running commentary. Film is bringing isolated people together.

 

I've been quiet lately about the release of my documentary Rondo and Bob, which is about Texas Chain Saw Massacre art director Robert Burns and his obsession with '40s actor Rondo Hatton whose iconic face was twisted from the effects of acromegaly. Deeper down it's about the love Burns searched for and Hatton found. It was set to premiere April 17 at MegaCon in Orlando, with attendance of about 100,000 one of the largest fan conventions in the country. But I knew it wouldn't happen. It had become a rare holdout to the cancellation list.

Word came down Monday that the fest has been pushed to June. Rondo and Bob is the feature screening on June 5. Will it actually happen? Will life be back to normal by then? I'm still not sure. Perhaps it takes a great re-imagining of the film release process. I'd love ideas on that.

In the meantime I want to share this amazing poster based on a painting created by tattoo artist Camilo Esparza and realized by Casey Hunter. It's an homage to a poster for the 1946 film House of Horrors featuring Hatton as the Creeper.

Stay safe. Go watch a movie.

Granny from 'Chain Saw' found!

Photo © Joe M. O'Connell

It took more than a year to track her down, but we finally unearthed Granny, as created by Robert A. Burns for the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre. She was in an undisclosed--and quite secret--location in Texas.

The purpose? Film her for my documentary Rondo and Bob about Chain Saw art director Bob Burns and his obsession with the actor Rondo Hatton. We are entering the main editing phase of the project so it was particularly sweet to find Granny, who is holding up nicely. My shooter/editor Kirk kept the zombies at bay while I took this snap.

You can see more about the documentary at rondoandbob.com or find us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/rondoandbob/.

My next documentary is 'Rondo and Bob'

The cat has clawed its way out of the bag. I'm working on a documentary called Rondo and Bob about The Texas Chain Saw Massacre art director Robert A. Burns and the actor Rondo Hatton, whom Bob Burns was obsessed with. (See more at the web site here: Rondoandbob.com

Robert A. Burns

 Austin American-Statesman columnist John Kelso made the announcement in his column:


Joe O’Connell is doing his part to promote Austin’s eccentricity.

O’Connell, an old newspaper guy who has written about film for several Texas papers, is shooting a documentary about the late Robert Burns, the man who put the gore in the original “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” movie.

In case you haven’t been keeping up with your blood and guts horror classics, Burns did the macabre artwork for the film. Although you wouldn’t guess he’d head in that direction if you met him; Burns was a real sweetheart, a soft-spoken guy with what I suspect was a genius IQ.

There’s never been another one like Robert Burns. They didn’t throw away the mold, because there was no mold. Although his South Austin home was a bit moldy.

Rondo Hatton

Burns lived in a two-story dust-collector in South Austin furnished with props from “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” There was the arm chair, so-called because of the prosthetic arms Burns attached. When I visited Burns, a battery-powered rubber hand was crawling across the floor upstairs with a knife run through it, a prop Burns put together for an upcoming film project.

Burns made these masks.

What project? Who knows? But I’m betting it wasn’t “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.”

During my visit Burns sat me down and showed me the massacre movie on a small TV. His review? He had one complaint: All that screaming from characters being hacked to pieces made the film extremely loud.

Read the rest here.

On the indie set of Western 'Red on Yella, Kill a Fella'

Here's my report for The Austin Chronicle from the set of Duane Graves and Justin Meeks' Western Red on Yella, Kill a Fella. You can also see a slideshow of my photos, including cult actor Michael Berryman in action.

The pair report that Boneboys, which they directed from Kim Henkel's script, is this close (see my fingers inching together?) to a sale.

'Boneboys' set to premiere at Fantasia Fest

Montreal's Fantasia Fest bills itsel as the world's largest genre film festival, and Central Texas-shot Boneboys will make its debut there on Aug. 4.

It's a big moment for co-directors Justin Meeks and Duane Graves, whom I first met as a duo with the release of their horror film The Wild Man of the Navidad. The Boneboys script is from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre co-scribe Kim Henkel, whose other life is as a college prof (Graves and Meeks were his students). That's probably why Henkel dubs it a modern take on Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal.

I met Henkel on the Boneboys set in late 2010 and took these photos. He was easy going and seemed to very much enjoy being back living in the Austin area.

'Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D' shooting in Louisiana

In the category of horror film sacrilege, the latest remake/sequel/re-imagining of the seminal horror film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is being shot in Shreveport, Louisiana. If we can say anything about the various versions that have come before, most of them (I can't think of an exception but I'm sure it's out there) have shot in Texas.

The latest is titled Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D. And, yes, they are looking for extras--rednecks and hillbillies to be exact. I'm sure they've found plenty in Shreveport.

Tobe Hooper plays himself in new novel featuring a swarm of zombies in Austin

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre's Tobe Hooper has a new novel out called Midnight Movie starring a guy named Tobe Hooper and a bunch of zombies swarming the South by Southwest Film Festival. An Austin Chronicle film writer helps our host battle the baddies.

Read my Austin American-Statesman review here.