Filmumentaries

Here is my new short documentary – Dave Barclay. Do or do not. There is not try. More details about its creation in an earlier post.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/dave-barclay-do-4809752

A couple of years ago I was interviewed by documentarian Donna Davies for a her forthcoming film, Fanarchy, about how film fans were taking control of the movies they love.  Donna and her cameraman travelled from Canada to my house to conduct it. Although it didn’t make the final cut, Donna has kindly allowed me to post it here on my site. So here you go.

Here’s the trailer for Donna’s film. –

During my visit to the BFI with Toby Philpott (see below) I was also lucky enough to speak with Garrick Hagon about his role as Biggs Darklighter in Star Wars (1977). Garrick kindly agreed to an interview a few weeks later. This is the result!

Back in December 2014 I was planning to purchase tickets to attend a British Film Institute screening of the Original Star Wars Trilogy in London. Unfortunately I missed the release date and the event was also instantly sold out! I made a brief reference to this on Facebook and Toby Philpott, who I’ve know for some years now, kindly offered me his “plus one”. With this came access to the green room, where on the day I also managed to have conversations with Anthony Forrest, Garrick Hagon and Paul Blake. Sandtrooper, Biggs and Greedo to you and I.

During the fun proceedings and screenings I suggested to Toby that we do a short interview about his experiences on Return of the Jedi as one of Jabba the Hutt’s puppeteers. He kindly agreed.  So a couple of weeks later in mid January 2015 we spoke a length over Skype. It was soon apparent that this interview would be better suited to a longer, but still mini, documentary.

My friend Pete Starling who made those amazing posters for Raiding the Lost Ark and Inside Jaws agreed to work on a more accurate illustration of how Jabba was worked by the puppeteers. We were soon all in a Facebook chat group along with Animatronic Engineer John Coppinger and Toby’s fellow puppeteers Dave Barclay (right arm and lipsync and Mike Edmonds (tail).  Thanks to fantastic input from all, we were able to piece together just how Jabba worked and finally debunk the lazy drawing that was shown in The Making of a Saga, Lucasfilm’s official doco from back in the day. I hope you agree, Pete did an amazing job!

Scott Burrows kindly offered to do a Jabba animation showing an over enthusiastic Toby-operated tongue licking Carrie Fisher. His pitch of a funny Terry Gilliam style animation turned out better than I could have imagined.

So with all the pieces put together, including a last minute stop motion animation effort also by Pete Starling, I was able to make Slimy Piece of Worm Ridden Filth – Life Inside Jabba the Hutt. Pete’s young son even managed to make an appearance on the closing credits, albeit in disguise! A really funny way to finish things off.

Click here to check it out. I hope you enjoy it.

For some time now, several people have suggested I get my projects crowd funded. But given the nature of my filmumentaries (the unofficial and non copyrighted nature that is) I couldn’t really go down that route.

So the solution was to change the type of projects that I do. Whilst I am continuing to pursue getting my filmumentaries into the sphere of officialdom (I currently have three routes developing, albeit slowly), I thought I would start a Patreon account to get some smaller projects under way.

Much in the same vein as my interview with Kevin Pike, I intend to use the connections I’ve made to release standalone interviews, approximately one per month (no more than that). These interviews will be audio, but augmented in the usual Filmumentaries fashion.

If you would like to support me in this endeavour, please visit my Patreon page. Thank you.

In the final part of my interview with Kevin Pike about Back to the Future, I asked him what it was like to be on set the day he heard about the major cast change. You can check it out below.

Whilst I continue to endeavour to make my filmumentary projects in an official capacity, with the studios’ support, I have decided to make some short docos and interviews about and with people in the film industry. You may have already seen my interview with Kevin Pike about his work on Back to the Future. Well now I want to produce some more. To make this all viable, I would really appreciate  your help. Please visit my Patreon page here – http://www.patreon.com/jamiebenning

If you’d rather donate a single amount, please use the donate button on the homepage (or just below). To be clear, these donations are to allow me to continue to run this website and produce the short videos and interviews, like the ones I recently did with Kevin Pike.  Thanks so much for your support.

For part two of my interview with Special Effects Supervisor Kevin Pike, we spoke about bringing the inanimate car alive. Of course the DeLorean is one of the most fondly remembered characters in Back to the Future but without the likes of Kevin Pike and his team, it just wouldn’t be the same.

Whilst I wait for my deal with the studio to come off – keep your fingers crossed for me – I’ve decided to start Going Back…to the Future. For now it will take the form of some “painted” interviews with those involved with the film.

First off, I spoke to Special Effects Supervisor Kevin Pike (now the owner of Filmtrix). Here is part one of the interview in which Kevin talks about the opening sequence of Robert Zemeckis 1984 masterpiece.