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Photo Illustration courtesy of Johnny Dixon
Which Witch?: Shawn Flanagan's spoof film, 'The Bald Witch Project,' made it to video stores on Friday--the same day as 'Blair Witch.'
A Flair for Blair
Valley filmmaker releases spoof of Gen-X blockbuster
By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Shawn Flanagan of Almaden Films is definitely from the let's-get-it-done-and-get-the-heck-out-of-here school of filmmaking.
He and his crew are filming a scene from their new movie, The Bald Witch Project, at Allie's Corner Cafe in downtown Campbell. "Crew" might be an overstatement. There is an actress playing a waitress who is being interviewed about the appearance in town of a legendary spirit called the Bald Witch (a takeoff on the surprise film blockbuster of the season, The Blair Witch Project). There is Flanagan himself, peering through a hand-held camera and chipping in dialogue at the same time. A female assistant operates a microphone boom; another couple of helpers stand behind Flanagan and watch the filming. That's it.
The scene is shot in four short takes ... actually, four different takes in which Flanagan and the waitress/actress pretty much make up dialogue as they go along.
"Do you ever go into the woods around here?" Flanagan asks.
"No," the waitress replies, "I'm afraid of those, those ..." and for a moment she can't for the world think of whatever it is she is afraid of out there (a fact she readily admits once the cameras are off). Another director would have hollered "cut!" in disgust but Flanagan keeps shooting. The waitress/actress finds the word she's looking for, and in the final film it will probably all look like it was planned that way. Though the cafe is closed for business through the shoot, workers clean up in the back and clear the registers as if nothing at all is going on. Filming goes quickly and smoothly, with less than half an hour passing from the time they enter the cafe until they put the equipment away and move on to the next set and shot. It's nothing like the shoots of the Hollywood big boys, where takes and retakes of a single cinematic moment can consume an entire day while directors struggle to get it just right.
Of course, since Bald Witch is a spoof of Blair Witch, a sort of built-in, jerky hastiness is supposed to be part of its charm. This is the second film for the decidedly low-budget, year-old Almaden Films (www.boneshakers.com). The first was Boneshakers, released earlier this year, described on the video box as "fast-action gunplay and adventure [which] kicks off when ... [a] free-wheeling crew of San Francisco bicycle messengers crash a secret Mob scheme to kidnap homeless and harvest their organs for sale."Bald Witch, of course, runs on a different, decidedly more low-tech concept made popular by the equally low-budget Blair Witch.
"I saw Blair Witch three times in a row and took notes," says Flanagan, who studied film at De Anza College and later worked as an extra in 15 movies, including The Right Stuff. "People were going, 'What's that guy writing?' "
After viewing the finished Blair Witch, Flanagan's partner, local entrepreneur Dan Connolly of Connolly Entertainment, who also financed both of Flanagan's films, pitched the idea of going to Burkittsville, Md.--the birthplace of the Blair Witch "legend"--to film some sort of documentary.
"I just got off [making] a movie," Flanagan recalls telling Connolly. "I wanted to do something new and original."
So what was the original idea? A spoof, of course. He collaborated with friends and wrote the script in 20 days, shot the movie in seven--in Campbell, San Jose and the woods and canyons of the Santa Cruz Mountains--and edited it in six.
"We didn't copy [Blair Witch] completely," says the 36-year-old Gunderson High graduate. "We had some fun with it."
Once production wrapped, Flanagan sent Bald Witch to Trimark Pictures in Los Angeles, which was compiling Blair Witch satires. Out of 200 entries, Flanagan's spoofer made the cut, along with 16 other finalists. The Bald Witch Project was released for distribution by Bradley Video Store in Campbell last Friday--the same video release date of Blair Witch.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
