"You're Not Getting The Point"

An serendipitous impressionistic documentary, with elements of expressionism

(the photo is linked to a discussion on Facebook)

 Recent thoughts;

October 2010 - I recently showed a copy of this film at "Cinema Under the Stars". It was an experiment to see how it projected from an S-VHS machine.  The copy was actually an old dupe of a VHS copy. It projected rather poorly. I found that it was very dark and the outside borders of the projected image were quite different that what is seen on the monitor, but interestingly enough, now that I have the exhibition capabilities, I am finding myself more encouraged to finish a number of the films I have laying around.

I'm also thinking that I will start a film festival of some sort at the Park.

This film needs a lot of work to make it presentable. I think, however that I will be able to do that once my editing bench is working properly.  It is unfortunate that my equipment is older and lacks the simplicity of the newer programs and cameras (that may very well be an illusion, because nothing is ever simple).  I have been having interface difficulties for some time now, because I feel as though I need to have a functioning composite interface, which I continue to hope will be a G3 that I have intended for that purpose, yet cannot seem to get working. A good deal of my older projects require the interface for transfer into Final Cut Pro (if I expect to do that transfer in-house and judging from the cost involved that is most desirable).  I've been hung up on this issue for a very long time.  Add to that the fact that my Uher 1000 Pilot needs rebuilding and (to the best of my knowledge) my material for this film needs to be transferred to ADAT using that particular machine. AG More later...


Synopsis: The film was initially intended to be my contribution to the events that were occurring in Buck County, Pennsylvania during the time period of 1982-85. I became aware of the plan to pump water out of the Delaware as far back as 1979 when I went on a tube float down the river to protest the plan.

Sometime later, when I found myself walking down the street in Doylestown, I took pause to watch a large group of people being herded out of the paddy wagons into the courthouse. I soon found out that they were arrested for protesting at the site of the proposed construction in Point Pleasant.
I knew that there was no way I was going to let myself get arrested. I had no desire to tangle with the police or the court system, I did enough of that with the Department of Transportation. So I wondered what I could do to help. I looked down at my Ziess Contraflex and knew that photography was the way, at least until I got back to my studio and saw my Beaulieu R-16 sitting there.

So I decided to film the events instead of photograph them. I begged what resources I could to buy 16mm film. I shot like a banshee, knowing I had a limited amount of footage. The way I saw it, 24 fps meant 24 still photographs, so I did not worry too much about how smooth everything was, just so I could capture the events.

My plan was to double & triple frame the areas that needed it. Of course, I never got around to that. Luckily most of the exposures were not too terrible. If you know anything about a Beaulieu you will know why I say that, since I depended on the internal meter.

At first I was viewed with great skepticism, the people involved wondered what I was doing with a camera. Very few people had ever seen a camera like the one I was using and so it was strange for them. It got down to the fact that, other than one friend with a Bolex, who shot a few rolls, I was the only person I could see who was shooting film. There were a few folks who shot some video, and there were numerous people who shot photography, but I shot film. Of course the news agencies, who also shot video, but none of that came from an inside perspective.

It is interesting to note that when Sandy & I were working on fund-raising, one of the places we went was - the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. At first they were very interested in the project and we even had a meeting in their Washington office about it, they told us that they would fund the film, but only if we took a centralist point of view.

HA! I said forget it. Of course I wasn't that blunt to them, but I was not about to spend my energy to give the very people who were using all their political clout, all the public resources (against the public's will), and all the deviousness they could muster behind closed doors to mislead and manipulate the local government into imposing an unwanted boondoggle of a project on the majority of citizens who made their voices known in a "non-binding referendum". This very public company, in cahoots the special interests who served to gain millions from the public coffers, scammed the county into spending huge amounts of money, because they likewise scammed the politicians into binding contracts that were signed without the citizens being informed of what was happening. The legal battles that ensued were a horrendous waste of taxpayers money and the project that resulted was ultimately disposed of by the county and sold to a neighboring county for a loss. The end result being massive over-development of the land and a plethora of other related problems, which I do not care to go into.

As you can see, I still get upset by this after 25 years. This is one of the reasons for my delay in finishing this film.

The shear volume of material that I have, which needs to be reviewed is going to take a huge amount of valuable time, which I am quite hesitant to spend on this subject. I get very emotional about it and I am not sure I want to do so.

Sandy & I spent and incredible amount of energy trying to get this story told. In New York, Washington, San Fransisco and Hollywood. We took the film around to numerous studios, who had the audacity to suggest that they could recreate the events for a film. We went to see Clint Eastwood when he was Mayor of Carmel and took the project to Martian Sheen, who said he was impressed, but too busy. The water issues in California were not what they are today, but we saw it coming and did an interview with Nancy Pearlman on The EcoNews Network and she offered us national distribution of the film if it was every finished.

Before we got married and went to California, I submitted grants to numerous organizations. The Film Fund stole or lost our original U-Matic which we edited at CBS in NYC with the help of Harry Canon. Sam Wells helped me to dupe the materials in preparation for that. In fact, the sample tape that we created from that editing session is the only edited copy I currently have. The footage in that film was duped by shooting the film on the wall in Sam's friends apartment using his Ikagmi U-Matic camera, which is the reason I don't want to release it. There's some ratty shots in there.

I used to belong to the Film-Five Coop and we met at the Bucks County Council on the Arts. Well, they came to us and said that they wanted to help us (meaning the struggling filmmakers) by sponsoring our proposals the the Pennsylvania Arts Council. So I submitted "You're Not Getting the Point" . You'd think I ate their babies they were so hostile. They said "Why should we support this film". Uh... why indeed? What about freedom of speech and artistic expression? What about truth in politics? Ha, what a bunch of hypocrites!

The American Film Institute liked the film and held their decision making process up for us to get the paperwork from the bank, proving that we raised 80 thousand dollars of the 120 we needed for the full film. Little did we know that the bank where we deposited the money was in favor of building the pump and they did not care to assist us in getting the money. They stalled the paperwork until I lost the grant from AFI. Well, that resulted in my giving the 80 thousand back, because that was given to help us raise grant money.

So there are many things that have happened over the years, not the least of which is being harassed by the police and having a car drive through the front of my studio.

This is an interesting story. The police were all over me. They kept issuing me bogus tickets until I lost my license and couldn't afford to keep my truck on the road. But that didn't stop me. I would pack my bicycle and my backpack with my camera and supplies and ride the fifteen miles one way to the pump site to film what was going on. One day I had the very strong feeling that my studio was not secure and that I needed to hide my film footage. So I took all the audio tapes and all the film footage and hid it all around the studio in boxes and in nooks and crannies where nobody who broke in could find them. I then packed my camera and rode over to the site.

We had a camp set up there, which we called "Valley Forge Two" and so I was camping there . It was a long ride and I needed to be there to film what was going on. People would come up to me and give me money for film, that was cool.

So I rode back to my studio the next day. When I got there- there was a giant hole in the front of the building. A car had driven into the building, smashing my antique rolltop desk in the process. Now you have to realize that this was a small cottage sitting in the middle of a field. The possibility that this was really an accident is very unlikely, especially when I had the overwhelming feeling that I was about to be invaded. That is just one more example of how controversial this film was and even still is. I have to confess that I am afraid that if I release this film the assaults will start again. I'm going to do it anyway though and hope for the best.

I'll continue this essay at another time.
AG