“We just kept doing it over and over, and it was like, OK, this is what we do now, and we’ll be doing it forever. It’s funny, in general, what I remember from the set I remember in great and terrible detail, but also there’s a lot I forget. After a certain point in the filming, I only remember the filming.” – From Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay
It’s 2007, and the Ashland library’s iconic front steps swarm with activity. I’m right in the middle of it, balancing multiple cardboard drink carriers and handing out cups of coffee I’ve just purchased down the street.
It’s a lot of coffee, enough for 30 people or so. They are a flock of actors – mostly extras – who will soon occupy a series of shots; specifically ones for an hour-long movie I wrote and am producing and acting in. I’m making it with my friend, Brittany – our fearless director – for her Southern Oregon University capstone project, and the Ashland library steps will serve as our backdrop for this scene.
Picture this: A man, arrested, brought out of a fictional police station in handcuffs for embezzling extraordinary sums of money from a fictional city called Eden Point, the name of our film. Our extras are here to line up along the steps, Eden Point citizens who leer and scowl as he’s brought down to a fake police car and taken to a fake jail, post-fake booking.
Eventually, we press record on the camera we checked out from SOU’s film program, call “action” and “cut” multiple times as we grab different angles, different takes. The clouds stay right where they’re supposed to, and we get all the shots we need. We disperse. The Ashland branch goes from a police station back to a library.
This memory – this wrangling of bodies and purchasing of overly priced coffee drinks – is one I cherish so deeply that I think about it every time I drive past or to the Ashland branch. Because despite the difficulty and expense and stress at herding dozens of people and getting all the shots we needed, it all resulted in a story that’s uniquely ours, and that we got to tell.
I didn’t think of the gravity of that until recently. Horror writer Paul Tremblay’s latest novel Horror Movie called “action” for a deep nostalgia, a time in my life when I didn’t just get to make art; I got to share that excitement with others who gave it right back.
Horror Movie tells the story of a group of young misfits making a uniquely disturbing independent film. Told through recollections of its method actor star and selections from the film’s screenplay, Tremblay weaves a frightening story that is steeped in ambiguity and big question marks. He excels at making us second guess ourselves and say “I’m sorry, what just happened?” when pivotal plot points conclude.
But chills aside, Horror Movie contains a second, equally profound layer of human understanding. Tremblay wrote an incredible story about creating art; the kind that sometimes takes hold of you and becomes an object of obsession, despite its sorely lacking guarantee of success.
“Like everyone else in their early-to-mid-twenties on set, I believed we were invincible, despite our making a film about vincibility,” a passage from the book reads.
Yes. Yes.
How did such a horrific story also manage to communicate such beautiful truths about the creative process and delusion and inspiration that comes with it?
“I think that when people who are enthusiastic about creating art of their own give a peak behind the curtain to those who aren’t themselves creators of art, the perspective is always going to be of someone who has chosen to create art and gets joy from it,” Ashland branch manager Kristin Anderson says. “So it will inevitably make it seem like a cool/fun/joyful thing to do (even in those dark novels of King’s like Misery…that dude loves to write) and so because of the empathic nature of fiction reading, it will lead to more people wanting to create art.”
Horror Movie did precisely that. Even though much of my job at JCLS is producing videos, Tremblay’s latest book got me thinking about creative endeavors beyond my usual day-to-day. It got me thinking about Eden Point, about writing that 60-something-page script, memorizing lines, balancing coffee on the steps of the Ashland library for extras, and hoping the clouds stayed put so our lighting was consistent.
Ultimately, it reminded me of the chaotic joy that results in nailing a difficult shot or finishing a manuscript or getting the shading on a difficult painting just right.
How richly fulfilling it is to create, even if your creation goes nowhere after you’re finished.
“You can, you should,” says Stephen King in his sort-of memoir On Writing. “And if you’re brave enough to start, you will.”
Brittany and I did, and we continued for a bit following this collegiate project and others. Shortly after Eden Point, we got another short film of ours, A Book By Its Cover, into the San Fernando Valley International Film Festival. It’s less than four minutes, but we packed a lot in there. We got to do the whole red-carpet bit and everything, attending the main gala with one of our actors.
Then we both moved away. I eventually returned to the Rogue Valley, but she didn’t. I haven’t seen her for close to two decades.
I miss her, the depth of her skill and the richness of our collaborations.
Horror Movie – primarily a horrific, grim tale about the ease and danger of blurring the lines between fantasy and reality that also happens to crystallize the need to create so perfectly – made me realize the depth of it. Creating is an electric endeavor, but I’m of the belief that the best art isn’t made in isolation. It’s shared and critiqued and pulled apart and put back together with people who trust and know you.
JCLS believes that creative tenet whole-heartedly. They’ve got numerous writing group and workshop offerings available for the remainder of 2024, all available for free for anyone who is interested. You can see a full list of dates, times, and locations here.
And if you want to find some creative inspiration in other works about making art, we’ve got you covered with this list of recommendations.
The Disaster Artist by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell, one of the entries on that list, contains a line that’s always going to spur memories of the movies Brittany and I got to make. The book, and recently adapted film, gives a behind-the-scenes look at The Room, an overwhelmingly-panned, unintentionally comedic melodrama that’s simultaneously become a beloved cult classic. At book’s end, Sestero – also one of The Room’s stars – joins Tommy Wiseau, the film’s writer and director (and main character) at a premiere. Months of difficult work, chaotic sets, and everything else that goes into making a movie comes down to this.
And all Sestero and Wiseau see, if only for a moment, is each other.
“Tommy removed his sunglasses and glanced back at me. He had tears in his eyes. He smiled, nodded, and turned toward the screen. It wasn’t often that you got to see a man whose dream was literally about to come true, but then the lights went down, and I couldn’t see him anymore.”