Stephen Blackehart

EPISODE 114: WATCH NOW

Guest: Stephen Blackehart (Producer)

Project: “Lollilove”

Starring: James Gunn, Jenna Fischer, Sarah Sido, Linda Cardellini, Jason Segel, Lloyd Kauffman

Mockumentary about a wealthy couple who set out to make a difference in the lives of homeless people by giving each of them a lollipop with a cheery slogan on the wrapper.

Distributor: Troma Entertainment

Hey I’m starting to feel like this is a professional show with the quality of filmmakers we are getting in here. Tonight, Steven Blackehart was terrific. Lollielove left me very impressed. Sometimes you like an indie film because it’s an indie film and you take into account the limited resources the filmmakers had in putting together their work. This mockumentary was just plain hysterical. I didn’t feel like I was watching an independent film. If a friend invited me to go to a movie and I paid ten bucks to see Lollielove, it would have been the best ten bucks I spent to see a movie in a while and that’s including the fact that the running time is only about sixty four minutes. Gunn was brilliant, Fischer is outstanding as his wife and as the director. The DVD has three hours of extras, which include thirty minutes of cast and crew interviews on the making of. We showed a few clips during the show if you missed it. I found what they got done and all the extras to be great for filmmakers and fans alike to get insight into the process, the vision and how it came together.

The humor is definitely in the neighborhood of ‘SouthPark’ and Troma. Intelligent satire that makes you laugh and think. But don’t be fooled or offended, for the homeless are not the target of the mocking, rather the wannabe celebrity and artist would be do gooders are the targets here. (Well I guess if you are a celebrity wannabe do gooder you might be offended)

This film was made for an unbelievably low budget of around $2,000. They had a tiny crew where all wore multiple hats and worked only on weekends so that they could make their living during the week. Forget the fact that these names justify a higher budget. This work is an inspiration as to what can be done with passion, talent, hard work and a minuscule amount of money.

When shooting a film of this budget it’s important to have a trusted core group of talented people who can fill multiple roles (i.e. Peter Alton, co-writer, cinematographer, editor, original music, graphic artist, sound recordist).
The Lolli crew had that but also a fair amount of newbees as well ( So I guess a little luck was involved too).

As several guests have pointed out, as did Blackehart, a good script is vital. These guys really flushed out and developed their material through rehearsal, improvisation, shooting and re-shooting to make it work. This patience in developing, writing and editing their material was crucial to their success. In the pre-production and writing stage you have the flexibility to be patient… once the crew is in place, once production begins, it’s go-time.

Granted on a budget this low your monetary risk factor is minimal; however, most of the time it is difficult to pull something this good off for so little. And besides, the artistic emotional investment often exceeds the monetary no matter what the budget, so you want to be fulfilled by the end result.

Where I’m going here is filmmakers can be so enthusiastic about making a movie and not knowing when it’s going to come together that when a project presents itself, they rush through the process because they’re so excited to get something done. Lollilove has a group of really talented people, as many of their credits since Lollilove suggest, however it was their dedication and collaboration in the pre-production and editing process that made Lollilove the artistic success that is as well as one of Troma videos best sellers.

Below are links for more info. on Stephen Blackehart and to purchase Lollilove.

www.blackehart.net
www.myspace.com/lollilove
www.myspace.com/blackehart

Thanks for tuning in! Let me know what you think!

EPISODE 114: WATCH NOW

Jeff Schubert
www.myspace.com/powerofnow