What You’ll Find in Part II of the Video Diary
First off, we cheated a bit. The real reason that Liz has red hair or that Nat doesn’t have a goatee isn’t because we’re that committed to a role– it’s because the footage you see in Part II of the Summer 2005 Video Diary was actually from Christmas Break, 2004.
Yes, we decided that Parts II and III of the Video Diary would be part of a Video Scrapbook, otherwise known as dumping grounds for homeless footage we had no where else to stick. What you see in Part II is the only remaining footage of a project we diligently worked on for some time. The working title was either Spendthrifts or Slightly Used (we can’t remember which), a mockumentary in the style of The Following is a Paid Advertisement. The one major difference between TFIPA and the Thrift Store project is that all the characters’ lines and actions were completely improvised. Only the major personality traits and history behind each character was ever thought out amongst the three of us; everything else was left to the imagination.
The original plan was to plan, shoot and edit the project within the month or so we had free for Christmas break, but because of conflicting schedules, no budget and a production team consisting of three very poor, busy and overworked college students, the Thrift Store doc was never finished.
It should be noted that all of the costumes (which also were only half-complete) came from local thrift stores, and several scenes were planned to shoot inside shops, with the each character in their comfortable niche, improvising with things found on the spot. While it’s really a shame that the characters we created for this project were never fully realized, we find this “lost” footage to actually compliment the phantom characters more than a completed film could. Just a brief glimpse into these people’s lives is really all you’d ever need (or want) from them. But to show we really truly care about the well-being of our filmic friends, here are a few notes about them, and what they could’ve been:
Charity White
Affectionately referred to as “Cigarette Woman,” Charity White was the sole creation of Liz, who breathed life into her perfectly (as she ironically could not with a cigarette). Liz’s glaringly obvious inability to smoke proved hilarious on set, and she used it to her advantage, as she played a character who supposedly had been using tobacco products for the past fifteen years.
Charity’s interview locations were the most thought out: on the steps of a trashy-looking cellar entrance, the back loading dock area of a grocery store, the flannel section of several thrift shops. Liz suggested that Charity would be the one to buy dozens of shirts, all flannel.
Myrna Darrin
Nicknamed “the Cat Lady,” Myrna Darrin became Corri’s only role that ever made it on screen. Because we hadn’t found a suitable environment yet, Myrna was one of the four characters that was test shot in front of a blank wall in the basement of Corri’s house. The ideal background would’ve been a very dated house with handfuls of useless trinkets and knick-knacks placed on every availible flat surface.
With more time, we would’ve really made up Corri to look much more like an old woman with too much time on her hands. Instead, we were forced to have her appear as a very young-looking 53 year old.
Robert Lenmar
Also known as “Record Man,” Nat thought it might be interesting to feature a character who not only collected old records, but strictly religious titles at that. After a lifetime of perusing milk crate upon milk crate of old musty albums, one is very likely to find a handful of fairly odd-sounding titles such as Let’s Sing and Follow Jesus, Thank You Lord, For Letting Me Contribute to the Cause, Jesus Wants You! and Satan Has Been Paralyzed. There was no real harm trying to be done to any specific religious fanatic in his portrayal, Nat just thought that, with any similar situation, someone who devotes their entire life to the searching out and collecting of one very specific type of thing is probably pretty boring to be around.
Robert, who had his name changed to a more fitting “Donald” Lenmar, had several scenes planned out where he would shuffle through various record sections in shops and randomly ask passersby if they had seen the obscure titles he was looking for. If they said no, he would give them a homemade business card which read “Donald Lenmar, Religious Record Collector” and tell them to get in touch with him if they did come across some. His most sought-after Grail of Records (pun aside) was a limited press LP called The Pope Sings! Live at the Vatican, which was a fictional title that we came up with after seeing a recording similar to it made from Pope John Paul II’s visit to Iowa in 1979.
Syd & Fritz
Syd and Fritz, or the “Emo Kids,” were Liz and Nat’s personal attack on the subculture they loved to hate so dearly. Sick and tired of trying to shop at Thrift Stores while having to push through droves of wafer-thin high school students clutching at the skinniest of baby t-shirts with obscure sayings on them, the two decide to dive into the lifestyle themselves in a fit of angsty self-loathing. Syd and Fritz were the direct results, and after applying heavy eyeliner and hair product, they were interviewed to bring a younger generation into the documentary.
Syd and Fritz shopping trials were enthusiastically talked about, featuring the two depressed kids as they went through racks of t-shirts with a fine-toothed comb, telling the documentary crew just why each shirt didn’t fit their needs. The Emo Code: Put On Much Pretention Ostentatiously, Universally and Subjectively and Always Screw the Sell-outs (POMPOUS ASS) was discussed, but never filmed.
The Unfilmed Couple
Corri and Nat were to have played two more characters, married, only known as “The Spice Namers.” Very little was planned for this couple before the project was abandoned except for a few vague ideas. The Spice Namers got their nickname from the idea that they had a very large family of several dozen kids whom were never seen, only heard off-screen. Each kid they had named after a cooking spice, but after having so many, they had to resort to titles like Bay Leaf for their most recent infants.
So now you probably know just as much as we do about this project. Sit back and rest assured that anything you might not understand about Part II of the Summer 2005 Video Diary is because of your own lack of intelligence. Enjoy!
-The PfO Team,
Motivated Players