John Hendow

During the past few months, I’ve been working on a film project called Area 152. I happen to live in Burien, Washington, which is about ten miles south of Seattle. Among Burien’s many enjoyable weird characteristics is an annual event called the “Burien UFO Festival”, which always takes place on April 1st (yes, that’s April Fool’s day, but the event is real). The origin of the event is a movie called The Maury Island Incident, based on a UFO encounter that occurred in 1947. For the past few years on April 1st, Burien has closed a few blocks of 152nd and hosted a street party with a beer garden, music, and of course, aliens and “men in black”.

For this year’s festival, the organizers suggested that local amateur filmmakers should produce 7 minute movies featuring local businesses, and having a plot involving “men in black” or aliens. My wife and I, along with another couple who are friends of ours, decided this sounded like fun, so we started brainstorming plot ideas and potential filming locations.

We wound up with about four hours of filmed footage (!) that I eventually edited down to six minutes and fifty six seconds. This was the first time I’ve done chroma-keying for video special effects, and I was pretty pleased with the silly UFO + fiery crash + smoke plume that I composited atop a video of a local restaurant.

Once I had the film edited to its required length / sequence, I spent another few days completing the score. Because our title being Area 152, I decided to use 152 as part of the music:

• The chord sequence in the main theme is I-V-ii
• The main theme is stated using a rhythm of 1-5-2 pulses, matching the chord functions
• I used groups of instruments reflecting the 1-5-2 theme as well

Elsewhere in the score, I created individual musical motives for

• The “men / women in black”, played by the four of us
• The “MIB headquarters building”, for which we used the Burien fire station on 146th
• Our official MIB vehicle
• The “interview” theme music, played under the four business interviews we conduct in the movie
• The “UFO” theme, associated with the craft as it attempts to land

When I put together the final movie, I wound up removing most of the original camera audio and replacing necessary sound effects with Foley and post-production voice-over. All in all, pretty satisfying to have worked on this, and definitely an enjoyable project. We’re already scheming to make our next movie for the 2016 festival.

Blade Runner is my favorite movie. I’ve seen it in the theater on each of the various releases and it continues to hold its position as my #1 fave. I’ve been considering the purchase of the film in DVD but with so many versions – and now the various BluRay versions – it seemed like a huge effort to determine which one to get. Well, it was made pretty simple earlier today when I found this special online offering the 5 DVD BluRay mega-mondo-ubercool edition for $14. As of mid-day 2/17 it still worked, so if you’re reading this post and it interests you, get on over there and start clicking.

So spake Rutger Hauer, reciting the final lines of replicant Roy Batty: I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams … glitter in the dark near Tanhauser Gate. All those … moments will be lost … in time, like tears … in rain. Time … to die.