Classic Movies cover the timespan of late 1994 to early 2000 (me age 13 to 18). They start off with the ninja movies shot on Hi-8, edited by Zeb, and end with VR Wheeler shot on mini-DV, edited by myself. All the movies were school projects (for somebody or another -- usually me) except for Deathwheeler and Scott's Music Video, which were made in the summer, just for fun.
VR Wheeler was the last movie I made for my G/T class at West Valley High School. Basically I told my teacher that I would make two movies that semester for a grade. The problem was that I spent all my time on Metal Box, so at the last minute I made this movie. I got Abe and we started the movie at about 5pm the day before my last day of high school. We stopped shooting probably around 10 or 11pm (thank you midnight sun!) and I immediately went home and started editing. Around 6am I finished. As for the plot, well, who cares? It's Abe being a ninja on his four-wheeler! One of these days me and Abe will have to make a proper four-wheeler movie that we spend more than one day on.
Cast & Crew: Abe Julig, Joed Polly.
VR Wheeler
Metal Box
Metal Box was a on-going project throughout my senior year at West Valley. I got the cast together sometime around October to start shooting, and filmed the first half of the movie. Then somehow I didn't get around to shooting again until the spring time. After that I spent a while editing it and doing the special effects until the end of the school year. Metal Box is about a guy that finds a metal box in his stomach after a beating and notices that the metal box gives him a certain ability. Even after all these years this is still one of my best 'serious movies' (the seriousness is debatable).
Cast & Crew: Chris Taylor, Mark Holmes, Brooks McCumby, Joed Polly.
The Fountainhead
The Fountainhead was a project I helped make for Heather for her English class. I have never read The Fountainhead, and I don't know much about the book or the author, Ayn Rand. But I did know how to use Final Cut Pro and After Effects, and I did know how to make a cardboard box building look like it's exploding. Heather made the construction paper characters, and I think we teamed up on the box building. Some of the other visuals I made in photoshop or stole off of the (primitive year 2000) internet. It's a well chosen 1:44 from the book, I imagine.
Cast & Crew: Heather Mease, Joed Polly.
Frankenstein
I made Frankenstein for my senior English class. We broke into groups and we had to do a project about the book we just read, Frankenstein. Of course I instantly claimed we'd make a movie. I forget what the other groups did, probably something stupid like group papers, plays, puppet shows -- yeah I forget. So this follows the book about as closely as a Bugs Bunny cartoon. But I really did read the book. I guess it's a natural urge for movie-makers to ignore the source their movie is based on. And I guess I have the natural urge to turn every school project into a ninja movie, regardless of circumstances.
Cast & Crew: Scott Wynne, Peter Flora, Joed Polly.
Audi Video
I made the Audi Video for a German class I was taking. We had to do a final project to show that we learned something about Germany in the process of learning the language. I have no idea where the idea came from, but basically I videotaped Ben driving his new Audi at unsafe speeds on slick Fairbanks roads. And then I edited the footage to the fantastic Schneider TM track 'Moist'. Get it? A German car, a German song, eh eh? Well it worked for the grade at least, and I didn't have to make a diorama or whatever sucky things the other kids did. After I showed the video, the teacher asked about the shots showing the car going 110 mph, and before I could answer, some kid told her the speedometer was broken. I was just going to tell her we were going 110 mph (true, although we only went that fast once).
Cast & Crew: Ben Wade and his Audi S4, Joed Polly.
Scott Music Video
This music video was made for one of Scott's awesome Player Pro techno tracks. Of course, it is about ninja fighting. I don't know how we ended up choosing a local elementary school as our shoot location, but the playground equipment worked pretty well as acrobatic ninja props. It's pretty good if you like to laugh at high school kids acting out Street Fighter 2 in real life. And for the record, we spent about one hour filming this, making it up as we went along (which should be noticeable).
Cast & Crew: Scott Ledbetter, Keith Hutchison, Joed Polly.
Handgun
Handgun might be so bad it's good. It's about a bad guy that can shoot bullets out of his hands. But his luck is about to run out when some FBI agents with construction paper badges and clunky cell phones for walkie-talkies try to shoot Handgun dead (with the guns tucked into their blue jeans and khakis). The special effects were mostly done by a reluctant Zeb as he walked past me editing, since my skills in After Effects were limited at that time. While watching this movie, you may start to feel like you are watching someone play a Sega CD game. This is normal. I wrote the "script" and made some storyboards early in '99. One day we couldn't figure out why we were getting so many dirty looks while filming Chris in a trenchcoat being pursued by armed (bb-guns) FBI agents. When we got home that night we learned about the Columbine school shootings. Oops. A few days later the UAF police stopped us with guns drawn (we had BB gun handguns and rifles) and kicked us off the campus. That's why the last duel scene is suddenly in a dirt construction area. Oh yeah, and we all got to explain the situation to our assistant principal. I talked my way out of it. "No, we won't shoot up the school, it's fiction, very goofy fiction..." Enjoy!
Cast & Crew: Chris Taylor, Scott Ledbetter, Keith Hutchison, Joed Polly, Mark Holmes, Abe Julig, Zeb Polly.
Good Thing I Bought This Gun
GTIBTG was the first movie I ever made using my new Panasonic mini-DV camera and Final Cut Pro 1.0. It is also the first movie I edited on my own, although Zeb helped with the special effects. When I got the new camera I was excited to go make a movie, so Abe, Scott and I all went up to UAF (one of four movies I ended up shooting up there for some reason). We made up the story as we went along and finished shooting after just three hours. The end shot just happened to work out that way. Abe ended up recycling this movie for some class project later that semester, and even though this movie is about trenchcoat violence and revenge, it was finished well before the Columbine shootings. Abe showed it a few weeks after Columbine, and his teacher praised it for it's social commentary on the shootings. Abe nodded.
Cast & Crew: Scott Ledbetter, Abe Julig, Joed Polly, Zeb Polly.
MacBeth
I made MacBeth for Mrs. Sprankle's 10th grade English class. We got to pick groups and we had to make some sort of project about Shakespeare's MacBeth. I think Chris and Robert instantly knew they ought to get in my group so we could make a wacky movie. We told the whole MacBeth story in shortened form, made King Duncan an alien from Babylon 5, and used Shakespeare's lines as one-liners. A funny story here, since Chris and Robert lived in Fairbanks and I closer to North Pole, I figured it would be easier to fake their appearance in the movie rather than actually have them come over to my house. Plus I could switch them out for more trained ninja actors. So I videotaped both of them against a white wall, taking off a paintball mask, saying a line (to later be dubbed over), and then putting the mask back on. Later I had Keith fill in for Robert, and Scott fill in for Chris, both of whom didn't even attend my same high school. With the paintball masks on, the illusion was complete. We all got 'A's, and when I told this secret to a few other classmates after the viewing, they didn't even believe me.
Cast & Crew: Joed Polly, Abe Julig, Chris Kleven, Robert Carter, Scott Ledbetter, Keith Hutchison, Zeb Polly.
Attack of the Cyborg Beasts
AOTCB is sort of like the 5th movie in the Attack of the Killer Blankets movie series (see below). There was a fair amount of time between the 4th AOTKB movie and this one, so I gave it a new name. Also some noticeable differences from the blanket series: the soundtrack, the special effects, and the fact that this movie isn't nearly as good as the AOTKB series. In this movie, the Evil Nephew of the Evil Scientist (he has a shorter haircut) tries to take over the world with his three cyborg beasts, and only the Super Ninja can stop him. This movie and Macbeth ended up being the last of many movies we shot almost entirely in the corner of our basement living room after moving the couches and paintings. These were wintertime movies.
Cast & Crew: Joed Polly, Abe Julig, Raif Kennedy, Zeb Polly.
Deathwheeler spontaneously came about one summer afternoon when me, Abe and Scott busted out Abe's hi-8 video camera (identical to the one my family had, if I remember correctly) and started to shoot a movie. Zeb showed up later and decided he'd start helping. This is another movie with no dialogue, just video and music. It is about a man (ok, teenager) who randomly busts into a guy's house and murders him. This gives way to a four-wheeler chase sequence that ends at the local rock quarry. It's pretty good for another movie we made up as we went along. It also was the first time we ended up using weird angles and cool editing to make it more rad.
Cast & Crew: Scott Ledbetter, Joed Polly, Abe Julig, Zeb Polly.
This is one of my favorites. The Drug PSA (Public Service Announcement) came about when Abe had to make a PSA commercial for some class at his school. He thought up the idea and came over to our house one day with a short length of copper pipe and some moss, to make a PSA about the dangers of smoking marijuana. In the movie, Abe's character buys some moss from the drug dealer, proceeds to smoke it, drool, see massive hallucinations, bumps into a friendly forest creature, and hops on his motorized vehicle. Abe turned in the finished product (edited excellently by Zeb) to much critical acclaim, and then I recycled the movie by turning it into my 9th grade Health class, that same semester, for extra credit. We had just finished learning about drugs after all -- the timing was perfect. The moment the movie went black, my friend Jenny Regitano hopped up and yelled out loud "oh my god that was so awesome!" Success.
Cast & Crew: Abe Julig, Joed Polly, Zeb Polly.
And now onto the infamous Attack of the Killer Blanket series. This was the 4th and last of the true AOTKB movies, and at this point has nothing at all to do with killer blankets whatsoever. You may want to scroll down to the first movie at the bottom of the page and make your way back here, so that you are neither watching the movies, nor reading about them, in reverse order. So AOTKB4 is a back-to-back, Back to the Future style sequel to AOTKB3, making number 3 and 4 almost just one single movie. Watch for Raif's hilarious part as the Air Force Commando, if for no other reason. Actually, just watch all four of these movies or we aren't friends anymore.
Cast & Crew: Abe Julig, Joed Polly, Raif Kennedy, Mark Holmes, Zeb Polly.
Attack of the Killer Blankets III
In AOTKB3 we find out that the Evil Scientist cloned himself before being killed in AOTKB2. So now he's a clone of a half-ghost / half-blanket hybrid. Makes perfect sense to me. The first three movies in the AOTKB series have just the three of us, me, Abe, and Zeb, doing everything. The corner of the basement living-room being 95% of all sets, and the constant recycling of actors becomes a trademark for all of our ninja movies. This is even easier when the random "guard" or enemy dude is wearing, say, the silver fire helmet, where it can be literally any person playing that part. Often it was Abe as the extras, or Zeb. Sometimes we'd switch who it was half way through.
Cast & Crew: Abe Julig, Joed Polly, Zeb Polly.
Attack of the Killer Blankets II
In AOTKB2 we learn that the Evil Scientist's "spirit is still alive" so he combines with a blanket, which A) makes him a flesh and blood person again (I guess) and B) is the last time you'll ever see a "killer blanket" in the Attack of the Killer Blanket series. Notice when the Evil Scientist combines with the blanket hanging on the wall, the blanket disappears as he reappears! Whoa!! My favorite here is the robot made out of Construx. Yes! Construx! Best building toy thing ever (and I loved legos, let me tell you). This robot also shows up in other AOTKB movies as well as the Super Classics: Zebinator I and II. Also, check out the ONLY appearance ever of Zeb's face as the frozen, smiling news anchor on the TV.
Cast & Crew: Abe Julig, Joed Polly, Zeb Polly.
Attack of the Killer Blankets I
AOTKB is the first movie I'm putting in the Classics section of my movies. It defines a new leap in movie-making for us, as it was the first time we had access to professional editing equipment via Zeb, when he got a job at Creative Video / FOX7 making television commercials. And it was Zeb of course doing all of the editing and special effects for a good while. My name shows up in 'editing' in the credits as token only, to get proper credit for my G/T classes at Ryan Middle School. My more important and accurate roll for these earlier movies was actor, voice actor, writer, and producer/director. Of course the three of us were a little of all those things, except Abe as a voice actor. For all five movies starring the Super Ninja, Zeb and I dubbed all the voices ourselves, late-night in the editing room. This movie is the only one of the series actually about killer blankets. I guess we decided the ninja fighting and dubbed voices was the best part. Funny, since the idea for this movie came about when me and Zeb thought it would be amusing to reverse footage of something, blankets perhaps, to make it look like they were attacking. The VCR that did a good job reversing the footage died after this movie, so we stuck more to the absurd plots and neck-snapping.
Cast & Crew: Abe Julig, Joed Polly, Zeb Polly.