Unfortunately, I found out about the class only a little over a week ahead of time and my ride ended up backing out. After days of searching for another ride, my mother was luckily able to come through and take a half day off of work to take me there. I was accompanied by my good friends Zane Crosby and TJ Rogers, who are also two of the actors from Raising The Stakes.
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Some photos courtesy of Zane Crosby |
After getting to Cathedral of Learning at University of Pittsburgh(which is a very beautiful building), we finally found the room that the class was to be held in. We were a few minutes late, but luckily it hadn't started yet. However, the room was so small that there wasn't a single empty seat to be found. So while I dreaded the fact that I'd probably be standing by the door for the entire night, Carl Kurlander
(Pitt In Hollywood faculty advisor and the writer of St. Elmo's Fire) announced that the class would be moved to a larger room in the basement.
My legs and back certainly did appreciate that decision. After an introduction from Carl Kurlander, Lloyd, Carl, and The Toxic Avenger(played by Meat For Satan's Icebox music composer Jason English) sat down to discuss what the class would be about. But that didn't last long, as Lloyd stood up to give attention to Carrie Pivlin (apologies if there's a mis-spelling), who was responsible for bringing Lloyd to the campus, as well as David and Diana Silvio, the creators of the new Troma release Meat For Satan's Icebox; Mike Watt and Amy Lynn Best of the film Severe Injuries; and Mike Hoffman, the director of the Scary Tales films. After that, Lloyd explained Troma's Dogpile95 digital filmmaking doctrine and the discussion between Carl and Lloyd began.
Most of the discussion is the same information that Lloyd has previously stated in both All I Know About Filmmaking I Learned From The Toxic Avenger and Make Your Own Damn Movie!, so I'll skip re-iterating all of that and get into what else was said. Lloyd and Carl obviously come from two different backgrounds of film. When we were on the elevator, one of the Pitt. students said "Man, I can't wait to see Lloyd rip Carl a new one." However, it was much less than what I had expected. |
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availible in the book was how you can make a movie for very little money
with the new available technology. Of all of the filmmakers in the class,
the Silvios had spent the most money on a film, which was only $5000. Lloyd
also discussed how bootlegging has been helping Troma. There were hundreds
of fans that showed up for a music video Lloyd was shooting in Russia,
despite no Troma movies ever being distributed in the country. He also
stated that the Russians used Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD for promotion instead of
the much more popular Toxic Avenger and how he would sign bootleg VHS tapes
with poor quality black and white covers. Those bootlegs and Lloyd's
appearance made a Russian distributor aware of Troma's popularity and they
now have distribution in the area. When Carl asked Lloyd how Troma gets their scripts and raises money, Lloyd quipped "...There are no rules to anything... we threw the rules out the window. Unfortunately, they killed somebody in the street, but he was never loved" and then pulled out a DVD and showed us an investors meeting for Toxic Avenger: The MusiKILL, which I assume will be included on the Make Your Own Damn Movie! DVD set (hopefully, because the songs were great). Unfortunately, some kind of technical difficulty caused us to miss part of the clip. Another amusing thing that happened right before the clip was played was Lloyd calling Carl by the name Don... then claiming he was sorry and blamed it on the acid he took in the 1970s. During the clip, Jason English overheated in the Toxie mask and had to be taken outside. He later returned with a jug of green tea in hand to recouperate.
Lloyd was then asked if he could tell when a star like Marissa Tomei walks in to audition, to which he denied and then brought up the fact that Madonna was turned down for The First Turn-On!, to which a student exclaimed "But all of her movies suck!" The questions from students then continued, but even more were asked by Carl, which some people were sounded a bit angry about afterwards. Other questions from students included inquiries about Tromadance, shooting on DV, and one student who felt insulted by the $70 price tag on Citizen Toxie pre-release VHS screeners and wanted an explination (please note that Hollywood VHS screeners usually cost well-over $100). Diana Silvio also suggested selling body parts to fund a movie, as Pittsburgh is a very big hospital town. Unfortunately, I was running low on tape and battery and I was still in hopes that I'd be able to shoot with Lloyd, so I turned off my video camera about then. |
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As the class continued, Lloyd showed us all
more clips from the DVD, most of which were quite amusing. The only clip
that was played that I had already seen was from Farts of Darkness: The
Making Of Terror Firmer, but it was the extremely funny segment where Yaniv
Sharon runs naked through Times Square (getting Troma's permit revoked for
the day), so it was all okay. The best clip of the night, however, will not be featured on the MYODM DVD set, though. During the first Master Class, the winner from a screenplay contest got the chance to have a scene from their script directed by Lloyd Kaufman and the rest of the class. The script was a drama about a Palestinian family and Lloyd felt that the class wouldn't be able to learn much from shooting it, so he spiced it up a bit. First, we were shown how the scene was originally according to the script. Then, the version that Lloyd directed was played. All of the dialogue was the same, but to show the students how dialogue could be interpreted, he had the actors' tone change and the finale included fingers being severed, all while the same dramatic dialogue was shouted out. I guess the writer is very unhappy about this and denied permission for the scene to be included on the DVD. It's a shame too, because it was absolutely hilarious. As the class ended, I ran down to let Lloyd know who I was. Lloyd turned to the crowd and shouted "This is Justin from the Tromatized site... the only fan site that ridicules and makes us look bad! He does interviews and lets people talk bad about us!" Luckily, he was only kidding and then agreed to shoot the cameo for Raising The Stakes. However, I had to wait on all of the fans to meet with Lloyd. But it was all okay, because I got to spend some time talking with Mike Watt (who gave me some positive notes on my short film Killing Gregory), Amy Lynn Best, and the folks from Kiss of Death Productions. After most of the fans had left, everyone that was still there helped out a bit on shooting the scenes, including finding a decent place to shoot and taking photographs. The scene turned out great too... including Lloyd adlibbing cracks on Theresa Heinz and Hilary Clinton. After shooting the scene, Diana Silvio awarded me with the mop that Jason English was carrying while in his Toxie mask and Lloyd signed it for me. After that, it was back to Fairmont...
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