Rutger Hauer, actor, humanitaria, dies

Today, actor and humanitarian, wait... Humanitarian and Actor, Rutger Hauer passed on from this life.

Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty in Blade Runner

I'll just post this and  I seldom ever do this, but Rutger was of the type that this is well deserved. Here is a very nice summary of his life and I cannot do better... Variety

This is Rutger's website that I used to hang out on. There is much I can say about him. Too much and so I won't.

I will say that I had some dealings with Rutger back in 2004. I was on his website back them for a couple of years.

In doing so, and you can still do so, you get to know him. You can no longer post, but you can read his fans comments and his interactions with them. He traveled the world acting. He would get online with his fans when he had time and access. When he did a movie in the Turks and Caicos Islands, he was so affected by the travesty of the highest rate of AIDS in the world, he started his Starfish Foundation to help them.

A non-profit organization aimed at raising

help and awareness on the HIV/AIDS situation,

focusing especially

on support to children and pregnant women.

The Rutger Hauer Starfish Association announces with infinite sadness that after a very short illness, on Friday, July 19, 2019, Rutger passed away peacefully at his Dutch home. 

He leaves his beloved wife Ineke, after they have been together for fifty years. 

We at Starfish will always cherish the many unforgettable memories we have of Rutger and his dedication to the Rutger Hauer Starfish Association. 

One of Rutger’s last wishes was that Starfish should continue its charity activity and its fight against the AIDS disease, and with Ineke’s precious help, involvement and direction we will follow Rutger’s wish and will do our best to carry on Rutger’s inestimable legacy.

Who Rutger was... I once asked him how he chose his roles and he said he looked not for the movie overall so much as the part he would play and if it had heart. 

And that summed the man up for me. 

He will be and should be, greatly missed.

Gumdrop City, My Next Short Horror Film

The reasons I retired from my career in IT was to focus on writing and selling my writings, to continue writing in new ways, to branch out, to feel free to choose my directions. But also to start making small movie productions... of my own writings.

The Rapping was a POC. To test my new equipment and my methodology. This link goes to its place on the Once A Week Online Film Festival for the week of January 2nd, 2019. So I can do it. Well, I've done it before. It's just been a while.

Cover art by Marvin Hayes

Marvin Hayes did the original cover for the ebook so you can see the character in his "Rex Harrison" hat above in the cover art.

I decided on Gumdrop City as the first production of my writings into a short film. Mostly because I could simplify things and use little f/x. Even if it is to be a prequel and not the actual story itself. But that frees me up some as it can be an origin story, and I don't have to follow exactly the previously published story. It's working title is now, "Gumdrop Sampson".

Which also sets up an interesting dynamic on several levels. Creatively, artistically, marketing wise. I've written about this story on here before.

This will be my first narrative horror film from one of my published writings. The Rapping, is an Attic Tale, written expressly for filming it. As was the as yet unproduced film before it, Garage Tales. As I've moved houses since then and no longer have a standalone garage (or an attic), my next might be in that similar vein as, a Basement Tale. Or not.

Selling your writings is like trying to get unknown others to desire a certain drop of water in a lake of so very many others. Or from an ocean. Or so it feels anyway.

Producing your own works is like creating that lake yourself. Perhaps starting with a puddle for others to access, rather than merely a drop. Hopefully, an entertaining puddle. One that unknown others may desire. Who does not have to take from an ocean or a lake, but perhaps just a good sized pond.

Some of it is in your own mental image, in your efforts. Some are in your discovered reality.

An ocean: Google Books estimates that there are about 130 million books in existence. If you double that, it's probably more than enough to cover all the books that ever existed. UNESCO estimates that about 2 million books are published worldwide each year, but that includes older books as well as new ones.

A pond: It has been estimated that there are approximately 500,000 movies (of narrative fiction feature-length, theatrical-cinema films) currently in existence (Vogel 2011, p. 102).

Nothing really grisly will be in the film prequel of Gumdrop City, that's in the short story, the ebook, and Anthology of Evil, version. Eventually, there will also be an audiobook version of the original story. My hope for the ending of the film is to lead to a disturbing and satiating conclusion while setting up the sequel of the published short story.

I had also worked on Gumdrop City as a feature film length production with a producer in Hollywood a few years ago. We fleshed out the storyline. In that version, we added some characters and more storyline. While I liked this story for a film project, the producer liked another idea I had of a traveling angel.

Perhaps that story is now even more apropos than it seemed back then around 2011. I'll eventually get back around to it. Kind of a good feeling Frank Capra type story, only with more of an edge.

One that America may need more now than ever before.

As I indicated this film will be a prequel of Sampson in Gumdrop City, the weird old guy trope in your neighborhood that the kids (and adults) fear or at least, shy away from.

And no, it's not an autobiography.

It IS, however, a true crime story I had first fictionalized in college after hearing the story in our popular and sometimes disturbing abnormal psych class at WWU. We all walked out of that class that day with a bit of dread and disgust. And I knew I had to write it as a horror story.

Tom Remick, my voice actor, is set to act the lead role. Should be pretty easy physically, in that he has to act like a somewhat hobbled, weird old man. Typecasting? No, I assure you. Tom is a great and compassionate guy. But he's looking forward to playing the role. It's easy to relish playing a character that is very different from your own personality or experiences.

As this is a prequel, things may evolve between this project and the published version. So if he lives one place in the film, that may change before the story timeline.

I am still working on the first draft of the screenplay, but it's coming along nicely. Tom is reading the short story this weekend and we'll get together this week to talk. he found a "Rex Harrison" hat at a store this week. We still need a tattered tweed suit jacket. And a burlap bag. And maybe, a teddy bear.

Yeah, see? You can already see this is descending into madness. But it should be, I don't know, if not fun, entertaining.

This is the fun part for me, the creative process. I'm making it as simple and effective as I can. There will be humor in it. Weirdness. And in the end hopefully, if I can pull it off, horror. And in that should come the fun for horror aficionados.

And in the end? I hope to have a viable film to submit to film festivals. If I can get it done in time, and I believe I can, I will even be able to submit it to our own local film festival here that I was among other things, a judge in during last year's first-ever Gorst Underground Film Festival.

We're looking forward to another great and second annual festival later this year. I had a blast and met some great new people. Like "Man in Camo" Ethan Minsker from New York and his awesome documentary.

Also, there is the next town over the festival which actually begins May 3rd: The Port Orchard Film Festival. And those here in the Pacific Northwest as well as others around the world.

I will also be at Crypticon Seattle that weekend of May 3rd at the Doubletree Inn in SeaTac. I've been to two now but not for a couple of years now. I also was at the first ever Seattle ZomBcon which was a blast and it's second year. Just a few years ago I'd never been to a convention all my life and now within a couple of weeks, I'll have been to five within a few years. I have my friend and horror filmmaker Kelly Hughes to thank for that.

I even got to meet and have a heartfelt conversation with actor Lance Henriksen last time, just standing at the latte bar one morning at the Hilton SeaTac hotel. We got to hang out and talk alone for a while and I tell you, that's the way to meet these celebrities. What a sweet guy but so scary on screen. And he was just one of those I got to meet and hang out with. These things can be a great deal of fun.

Being able now to show up as an actual filmmaker and not just a writer, author, and mere screenwriter should be a lot of fun. So if you should happen to go, I'll keep an eye out for you!

Cheers!

Hanging with Alison Arngrim at Dragonfly Film Festival

Last weekend was the first annual Port Orchard (WA) Dragonfly Cinema Film Festival. It was awesome! They have stated that they plan for a second one next year. I went to a film festival, and ended up getting to hang out all weekend with local director and friend Kelly Hughes and actor Alison Arngrim (Nellie Oleson on the TV show, Little House on the Prairie). Alison looks quite different now in Kelly's new horror film than her younger self did on that world famous TV show.

Alison Arngrim

I've known Kelly for a couple of years now. I first met Alison last year when her character killed me in a film. My first on screen death. So I was looking forward to having a fun weekend. It turned into a fun working weekend and potential for learning and making new friends. And getting to better know the town of Port Orchard, WA.

I got my weekend pass and showed up to do nothing by enjoy the festivities. Well, thankfully, that was not what happened.

Director Kelly Hughes with actor Alison Arngrim on shoot

Friend and fellow director, Kelly Hughes invited me to a shoot he was doing early on Friday May 5, 2017 on a friend's thirty some acres out in Olalla next to Port Orchard.

Last year I had the honor and pleasure to first meet and then play a scene with Alison in one of Kelly's film, The Mephisto Box, for his company Leprechaun Productions. Parts of that film, as well as the head shot of Alison above, which I had her sign at her recent book signing at the film festival, was shot at my old house.

For fifteen years we lived on a couple of park like acres and Kelly took advantage of it while we had time. I was also previously in Kelly's short horror film, Don't Kill Grandpa Until We Strangle the Babysitter. That's me as Grandma's ghost in the trailer with my son as crew dumping fuel on the fire. What a day that was!

I've since sold that home in Suquamish, WA and moved to Bremerton, right next to Port Orchard. As always it was a good deal of fun on this new filming and I learned new things simply from being on a film production set around an experienced director.

My first time on a film set was in 1986 in Seattle. It was the set of the pilot for the TV version of the John Carpenter film, Starman, with Robert Hays. A single season sci fi series, it was an interesting day. I got onto two set locations that day (the other on Queen Anne Hill) and was befriended by the location manager. He put me right next to the 2nd unit director and camera at the Monorail at the Seattle Center. We were all there until about 3AM. Extras were all over the place off camera, just hanging out and being bored as is normal. The location manager was starting and stopping all the rides and lights in the background as the camera and director required. Nice guy. It was a busy set.

Robert Hays, with costars

It may have been even later that night that we got out of there but I wasn't leaving until I had absorbed all I could. I'm being conservative here since I don't clearly remember what time they broke for the night.  I do remember that I was exhausted. I would have been standing just to the right of the camera that took that photo above, only with the stand ins. I never got to see the lead actors.

But back to our shoot at my old house. I wish I had a cell phone back then with a camera as I have no record of that night.

Alison slashed my throat in our scene, during that, my, first ever working with a SAG/AFTRA actress. Even though I'm related to one myself. Like my brilliant and beautiful niece Brandi Nicole Wilson, my sister's daughter. But I have never actually acted in a scene with one before. It was a lot of fun and we had a great day. Alison is a funny, bright light of a professional. Because of some scheduling issues, I even got to host her for the night at my house.

I showed up this past weekend just to help out as I have many times on Kelly's shoots. But I got wrangled into a speaking part (yay!) in his film from which Kelly said he saw some real acting from me (Yay, finally! Progress!).

See, I never wanted to be in front of the camera, just behind the scenes as writer, producer, perhaps director. Indeed, I have resurrected my old production company from the early 90s (Last good Nerve Productions) which produced one of only two 25th anniversary documentaries of the 1960s TV show, Lost in Space. The other was by an Australian production company.

My current and first new small horror film project, The Rapping (no, not Rap music, think, Edgar Allan Poe), will be much higher production values and is using much better equipment. And, it has Alison as The Narrator, an awesome win for our first project.

We shot Kelly's latest project, a continuation of his Mephisto Box project, in the woods. I had read my lines, but hadn't had time to read the script, so what I saw being shot in the woods was pretty unusual. To say the least. There was a lot of work, and laughter, as usual.

Actor Jennifer True after losing an eye to Alison's character

Aside from my scene, five guys around a  fire in a kind of guy's anti adultery support group, I shot footage for a behind the scenes piece, something Kelly has been lacking. Also, I shot some footage in such a way that could garner me some 2nd unit IMDB credits. Racking these credits up!

Me on left shooting, Kelly back to camera - photo by Stan Wankowski

After we shot for the day, and we were running late to get to the film festival, we headed into Port Orchard. I for one was beat and headed home for the day, only to return on Saturday.

JZ Murdock, Ernie (thanks for photo) and Alison Arngrim in Port Orchard

I showed up on Saturday in a hooded sweatshirt and a black leather jacket, thinking (mistakenly) that I could just watch films and take it easy. Instead I ended up (happily) as Kelly's assistant and Alison's support team. It was an experience.

Alison and "King" Louie

We went to the opening of the season" for the local museums and Alison cut the ribbon. The Mayor of Port Orchard was even there. A log cabin museum, another called the Snider Museum which is situated in an old Freemason's Lodge. I am a Mason myself as was my Grandfather who was also a Shriner.

Louie and Allison at Sidney Museum in period costume

I made new friends, got to see two museums in Port Orchard, met "King" Louie who runs a couple of museums and is a photographer in his own right. Also met filmmakers and got to see Alison do her show. She was brilliant.

Screen 2 at Dragonfly Cinema Film Festival

35mm print of Rocky Horror Picture Show - Dragonfly Cinema

As I told her at one point, the more I get to know her, the more impressed with her I am. She is one huge bundle of professional and talent in a rather small package. After her show (I highly recommend seeing her do this if you ever get the opportunity), we held a book signing for her at the next door Bay Street Bistro.

Alison Arngrim book signing with fan and actor Ernie

Alison at book signing at Port Orchard Bay Street Bistro

How to sum up the weekend?

That's difficult. I made some great new friends. Got to know Alison better, more impressed with her at every new encounter. And I heard some amazing stories (like the William Shatner one if no other, and learned about "shipers" (relationshipers who wish characters in shows would get together, if not the actors themselves), and really, just so much more. Yeah, I'm not getting into that mess....

Film festivals are a lot of fun. Especially when you get to meet new and interesting people and see such creativity played out before you. Get out, check out, support your local creative community, if you're so inclined. Because if you wait you're really just keeping yourself from a good deal of what makes life so great to live in. And in these times, can't we all really use a healthy does of that?