A few years back, a friend and I were talking. Since we both fancied ourselves as filmmakers, we were naturally talking about making a film. “So let’s do it,” he said.

“Do what?” I asked.

“Make a movie!” he replied.

“We don’t have a script,” I retorted.

“Who cares,” he countered. “We’ll just make one up as we go. All we need is a crew that will also act, a hooker or two to flash her tits, and some equipment.”

Since I was the one with the DV camera and access to SVHS editing gear, I knew what he meant by “equipment,” but that’s not what threw me. It wasn’t even the mention of hookers, though the thought of paying some toothless, drug addicted, diseased Pomona Ho to strip in front of my camera did give me pause. But that wasn’t what worried me.

He had no story, and that worried me. Over the years I’ve been approached by a number of individuals who wanted to retain my services (read: they wanted my camera) for the purposes of producing some sort of stüpid video (stüpid is beyond stupid – it’s über stupid). I was once asked to go to Mexico to help shoot Mexican porn. Another fellow insisted a documentary on Route 66 was a terrific idea (never mind it has already been done to death). Politicians and Political Action Committees that wanted something or other put to tape. Junior high school students that were sure they could make the ultimate skating video. My brother’s stoner friends that had this “great idea for a video”, they just couldn’t put it into words. Do I even need to tell you that none of these people had any budget at all?

My personal favorite was a couple of guys that walked into my office (back when I was a public access coordinator) and wanted to use my studio, my edit bays, and any of my field equipment. They wanted to produce a puppet show. I leaned back into my chair, tapping my finger tips in quiet anticipation, for you see my brother and I (before he became a stoner and started to care only for his esoteric poetry) had produced a puppet show of our own, and I was eminently familiar with the entire process. I decided to let them talk. I need to pause to give you a brief description: One talked a lot, and the other said hardly anything. Both were black, which make no difference to me, but it’s important because the talkative one had an Afro on only one side of his head, giving him the appearance of having had his skull caved in. They both wore torn sport coats and polyester pants. And they both smelled like the word ‘shower’ was outside their vocabulary. Needless to say, I pegged them as stüpid very quickly. Having made their introduction and request, they now produced tapes, asking me to air them on my channel. This I had to see.

I escorted them to my edit bay where I intended to view their masterpieces. I opened up one dusty case to find a tape covered with some sort of dirt and grime.

“There is no way I’m putting this in any of my decks,” I told them.

“Oh,” replied Halfro meekly. “Well, try this one.”

I opened it, and found it dirtier then the last. Eventually one tape was discovered to be clean enough. On it I found the worst program I have ever seen in my entire life. It had been produced in the facilities of Santa Monica Public Access, under coercion no doubt, because I’ve seen other product from SMPA and this was not up to their caliber. There was some sort of priest on the set and next to him sat a Charlie McCarthy type dummy – the kind you can get in catalogue stores with the pull string in the back of the neck.

The poor plastic doll had a large black wig on its head. The show started with the doll trying to talk. The voice of Halfro could be heard, and the dummy’s mouth opened, but didn’t close. The jaw was stuck. After a few minutes of nonsensical quasi-religious monologue, the dummy shut up (though its mouth still didn’t close), and the priest started to talk. What he said I’ll never know because his accent was too thick to make any sense out of what he said. Then the music started and the dummy started to sing, badly, and throw its head around erratically. I was barely able to contain my laughter when the effects started. The director, either because he thought it was cool or he wanted to completely ruin the video, used every video effect at his disposal. The video flashed in patterns and colors that should never be used, and I started to laugh.

“There’s no way I can use this video,” I told them between guffaws.

“Why not,” they asked.

“Because it’s awful! The video signal is way too high, the audio is over modulated, this is obviously a third generation dub, and I haven’t even mentioned the content!”

“What do you mean?” they asked.

I’m not going to subject you to the honest assessment I gave them of this garbage, but despite my admittedly harsh treatment they still had the gall to ask me for gas money.

But I digress. My point is there are a lot of people out there that have the desire to put their garbage on tape. Kevin Costner is one of them. Unfortunately, they have many means of accomplishing this, including public access. Public access channels are forced by city charter to allow any and all members of the community access to the necessary facilities to make these hair-brained ideas a reality. A good coordinator has many tools at his disposal to prevent the worst of them ever happening (one time all I had to do was show the producer what he had shot and he saw for himself how not-funny he was and I never had to deal with him again) but sometimes a persistent would-be producer manages to get his or her nonsense on the air (Hi, Crystal). But that’s a public access problem, right? It doesn’t effect us indie filmmakers, right?

Wrong. If you have skills, and more importantly, equipment, you are a target for every nutcase with an stüpid idea. Working the occasional wedding or bar mitzvah, while you might think it below you and your artistry, isn’t what I’m talking about. Those gigs stretch your creativity and actually pay the bills. I’m talking about the “I’ll put on all my coats and run around Claremont looking for werewolves and you video tape me” kind of ideas.

“But Greg, how do I know the difference between a stüpid idea and a legitimate, original, cutting edge idea?” Good question. Follow these rules:

1) Is there more to the crew, or are you it?

2) Is there a script?

3) Does the producer have money for the project; specifically, does he/she/it have money to pay you?

4) If the script calls for something special like explosives, firearms, makeup, or, oh, I don’t know, maybe audio, have the appropriate people been contracted?

5) Is the producer stüpid?

6) Will there be catering supplied? (Believe it or not, this is a vital indicator of a professional, well thought out production. After all, it doesn’t take much brainpower to order pizza for the cast and crew.)

That’s about all I have to say on this topic. If you need anything clarified, you want to add to my commentary, or you want to tear me up, go ahead! gcwyatt@adelphia.net - I’ll just leave you with one final thought. The next time you come up with an idea and you approach people to join the project, are they going to look at you and ask, “are you stüpid?”