Note: You can now download this entire film of mine (if you want) on the last page of this tale.
Back when I had a whole lot of free time on my hands & would just lay around in my Basement listening to music, I would occasionally think up an idea for a film project. On the occasion that my film 'Our Invaded Earth' came to mind I was listening to none other than classical maestro Igor Stravinsky's 'Rite Of Spring'. This 30min piece of music had always entertained me, & I believe was an inspiration to some of John Williams movie scores - Most notably, 'JAWS'.
During the beginning of fall 1977, I was listening to this music & I suddenly got a thought & envisioned an alien being landing his craft here on our Earth & exploring a familiar neighborhood (my own). As the music played on, I started to develop a plot & storyline that went right along with the music. After my extreme failure with my 'Son Of Jason & His Argonuts' film I started to crank my mind with the question, am I able to make this new project - and actually complete it? I decided yes. Why not? After all, I wasn't doing anything anyway. In fact, I thought, this might be a whole lot easier with the story following a piece of music, rather than trying to play recorded dialogue to something that could never be correctly timed (see 'Son Of Jason' for those problems). This way, once the film would be complete, I'd just simply play 'Rite Of Spring' with the film & all will be well. Yeah, right.
So on again yours truly took the dive into his next film project
'Our Invaded Earth'
The Story:
An alien spacecraft lands on our own mother Earth. Out walks an alien being. He wanders from his landing site (the nearby prairie/park) and makes his way to the neighborhood, picking up various specimens along the way (rocks, plants, etc.). He comes across a home where a little girl is playing with a volleyball in her yard. It is accidentally kicked out of the yard & lands at the feet of the alien. The alien picks it up, examines it, moves to the yard, & hands the ball back to the girl. The girl says thank you - not afraid of the alien at all, who continues down the block. Meanwhile: A drunk is leaving a local bar, makes his way to his car, and proceeds to drive home. As the alien reaches the corner, the drunks car approaches him & stops. The alien examines the large metal vehicle. The drunk who can't see a thing with his blurred vision proceeds to honk his horn. This suddenly drives the alien mad, grabbing it's head in pain. To stop this raging noise, the alien pulls the drunk from the drivers window, throws him about, & then smashes his head into the back window of the car. This does not stop the rage in the aliens head and he continues down the block clutching his head in pain. He comes across a man working on his automobile. The man goes into his house. The alien moves to the house. As the man comes out, the alien grabs the man, lifts him up & throws him off the front porch and the mans head splits upon landing. As the alien rages on to the corner, he is hit by the car of an off duty policeman and continues on. The cop who is shocked to see the thing turns his car around and proceeds to follow the alien. The alien then pulls out a 'ray gun' and shoots. The cop jumps out of the car as it disintegrates. The cop shocked then pulls out his gun & starts chase after the now running alien. The alien makes his way back to the prairie/park where a shootout between the cop & alien commences. The cop dodges the laser shots, and the alien is shot up bad. It makes it's way to it's ship but turns back for a final plea, but the cop takes a shot to the things head. Barely alive the being makes it back to the ship & it takes off. As the cop watches, the ship, totally out of control hits the power lines above the prairie/park & explodes.
The End
Alright, are you done laughing yet? Hey, I was a kid with a simple & not to great of an idea. I didn't care, I just wanted to make a movie. Which I then started to do.
My ol' buddy Perry liked the idea and soon we were working out all the basics. The cast, props, effects, & of coarse the alien.
We decided that Perry
would be the alien. He was Jason in my last project & did have experience in front of
a camera, so I thought why not. This was before I was into doing makeup so we decided to
find a suitable mask that would be our visitor.
A quick visit to our local Izzy Rizzy's, a couple of decisions were made & our alien had a face. Now we needed a costume, or spacesuit. I'm not sure who but one of us thought of these sauna suits that were advertised in the back of magazines. A quick trip to our local Jewel/Osco & we found one. Only problem with it was that it was only a big baggy silver bag. We wanted the look of those Lost In Space spacesuits. So once Perry put the thing on we used silver duct/gaffer's tape to tighten it up in the back. Perry's shoes were also covered in this silver tape. He wore thick rubber chemical gloves that we painted silver. In his full outfit he was the man from space! One last addition was 2 plastic tubes which we stuck in the air holes of the mask & led into the silver suit.
Our alien was ready!
Our friend Bill, who always was creating interesting little inventions, was called upon to make our Laser Gun. We also needed to fill out the rest of the cast & Perry asked his friend Joe who was more than happy to play our drunk. The 'man who is thrown off the porch' was going to be played by Perry's father Nino. The cop on the other hand was a little more difficult to find. We didn't want a kid dressed up as a cop, we wanted a real looking cop. I did have a neighbor who lived 2 houses down that was a cop but was iffy on asking him to play the part.
The Special Effects of the Laser gun & the alien ship exploding at the end of the film was going to be handled by a buddy I met in school. We would hang out in empty classrooms with other sci fi geeks & talk special effects. Roberto Tauler claimed that he had been doing some experimental effect work with double exposure shots. I asked if he could do those Star Wars type laser shots & he said no problem. With this matter out of the way I felt totally confident that this film could be completed & would be great.
Preparation on this project was really taking up some time but all in all it was coming together pretty well. Storyboards were mapped out by me to make shooting easier. I also had to time out certain shots to the music I was going to be using. That was going to be the most important part. That way some of the editing could be done in camera and while projecting the film the timing would play right.
Perry & I were really anxious to get rolling the celluloid. In fact by this time it was already mid Winter.
What the hell we decided. Let's just go out & start shooting what we can. We'll pick up the other shots later & edit them all together in the end. Why not seems easy enough.
Yeah....Right.
On to...
Copyright ©2000 Roger B. Domian