So, I made this film when I was nine years old. I watch it from time to time, and make other people watch it from time to time.
I remember the making of this film in great detail.
We never asked our father to borrow the video camera. The gun was real, and at nine years old I had enough foresight to make sure the gun was unloaded before I handed it to my eight year old brother to point at me and the camera for that perfect shot. The parent people were not around.
I remember knowing already that there was some kind of fake speech on T.V. that did not allow for cursing, so I arranged ridicules things (fake cursing) for my brother to say.
My brother was the most arrogant actor that I have ever worked with… and lets be honest, it hurt the project.
But basically I remember just talking to my brother about how the next scene was going to go down, shooting it, and then if we didn’t like that take we would just rewind the type and shoot it again.
The filming took place over the Christmas holiday break in 1989.
More than a decade later I tried to preserve the film from its decaying VHS-C format and digitalized the whole thing. The next logical step of course being to enter it into the small student film festival at my university, where it didn’t win anything, and was poorly received by the few people in the audience.
But the guy running that festival said it was his favorite and asked if he could show it in this college childhood development class (I think he was some kind of T.A.). I left him the festival copy and a few months later he emailed me a said that he had shown it to a few classes.
I felt better. In the end, this film found a larger audience than the winning films from that festival.
I like to think of it this way… I was nine years old. I had a Nintendo and a baseball glove, but I chose to pick up a video camera and work out scenes with my brother and a plastic dinosaur.
You know that question that guidance counselors ask when confronted by indifferent teenagers that don’t know what to do with their life; what would you do if you had a million dollars? …start a death country & western band… well that’s exactly what you should do my friend, start a death country & western band.
Anyway I picked up a camera and started ordering other people around. So, whenever I have any doubt about my calling I think about that.
If I had a million dollars I would pick up a camera, get back in touch with my brother, and start to work out scenes for another film. But wait, then I would immediately fire my brother because I would remember what a little starlet he was to work with, he didn’t follow my stage directions, and he didn’t hang up the phone when I told him repeatedly. Punk.
Here it is then. A film that ended the genre: Dinosaur! (a lot of people’s been missin’)
- J Roland Kelly
thank this film is great detail of minds