Last week John Hughes passed away at the age of 59 from a heart attack.
John Hughes. Writer / Director of The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Sixteen Candles, etc.
John Hughes, who helped me survive high school by sharing his outlook and his humor through his films.
John Hughes who has influenced literally everything I’ve done or tried to do as a filmmaker.
What do I mean by that? I have never made a film that was overtly John Hughes-esq, true. But as much as I sing the praises of Spielberg and discuss the processes of Coppola, whenever I sit down to write or start to shoot a new film, it’s John Hughes’s work that I’m thinking about.
I wasn’t really movie going age when John Hughes was making the majority if his films. The only Hughes movie I remember seeing in the theater was Home Alone, and I was quite young. Despite this, The Breakfast Club came into my life at just the right time. I was in Jr. High School, at a friend’s house. He told me he had this great movie that we should watch, and put in a VHS copy of The Breakfast Club. I watched it in stunned silence, not even really understanding everything that was happening in the film, but knowing that I was watching something important. From that experience, I walked away thinking that The Breakfast Club was a good movie, but not much else.
As time continued on, I would come back to The Breakfast Club, watching it and rewatching it. Growing in appreciate for it at every viewing. I started recognizing people that I knew in high school. There was the Criminal, the Athlete, the Weirdo, etc. But as I recognized people that I knew in those molds, I also recognized the intent of The Breakfast Club, which is to say that these people are not just these people. They are layered and complex and … valuable.
Of course it’s impossible to watch The Breakfast Club without recognizing yourself in the characters. I saw the best and worst bits of me.
I think about the scripts that I have written, or am writing. When I heard about John’s death, I thought about a few scripts in particular that I’m working on that I lovingly think of as “my John Hughes picture.” What I came to realize is that all of my scripts are my John Hughes pictures. Some just resemble Pretty in Pink or Some Kind of Wonderful more than others.
I may try to emulate the filmmaking power of Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, or a handful of other filmmakers that have influenced me, but I think it’s because of John Hughes that I have filmmaking in my soul. His work has impacted my life in ways that I didn’t even realize.
He will be missed.
Christopher Johnson, Director, Easy Water Films, L.L.C.
I have never used this platform to make recommendations before, however I was made aware of Diane Birch. She is a singer / songwriter who recently released her debut album Bible Belt.
Being set in my ways, it’s extremely hard for new musicians to make their way onto my iPod. Ms. Birch, however is the only thing I’ve been listening to since getting the album. She is a fresh voice and a stunning talent. Please check out her website for links to samples, and ways to purchase her album.
Here’s to hoping for a long and fruitful career.
Christopher Johnson, Director, Easy Water Films, L.L.C.
If you’ve been following Easy Water Films, then you’ve noticed a lot of changes recently. The heart of those changes are based in social networking, web 2.0, and new media. I’m not entirely sure what all of that means, but we’re involved with it now and in a big way.
Well, the new website is up. We’re excited to have the site live and to represent Easy Water Films on the web.
We’ve also got our page on Facebook where we’re publishing exclusive Production Diary Videos for our newest film project Limitations of Clarity.
We’re also working on a few new surprises and will have more to announce soon. Until then, enjoy the new site!
Christopher Johnson, Director, Easy Water Films, L.L.C.
My apologies for the lack of posts recently. Just so you know Easy Water Films has not been as quiet or as slow as it appears. We’re working on launching a redesigned website filled with more information and interactive features. We’re hard at work writing scripts, preparing a few short films, and putting a feature together. Expect announcements regarding these very shortly. And on a personal note, we welcomed a new baby girl into my family.
More posts are coming soon as well, including my take on the status of Video on Demand, filmmaking in this down-turned economy, as well as many others. If you have something you’d like to hear me wax eloquent on, please e-mail your blog suggestions to contact@easywaterfilms.com I’ll be happy to share my perspective.
Christopher Johnson, Director, Easy Water Films, L.L.C.
The other day I was browsing my favorite local second-hand DVD store and happened upon a Blu-Ray copy of Baraka.
This was significant for two reasons.
The Dark Knight is an excellent film. Christopher Nolan has essentially made a modern Godfather or Heat staring Batman and the Joker. It is an intelligent film that doesn’t feel the need to spoon feed information to the audience. It deals with complex issues: Duality, justice, morality, terror. All while being confident that the audience is right there along for the ride and capturing every nuance. But this post isn’t just to praise The Dark Knight, rather to talk about the elephant in the room that no one seems to be acknowledging.
Perhaps “new” is a misnomer. The idea of ads that are longer than the typical thirty seconds has been around for some time, but I wonder if it’s making a comeback.
Taking into account the state of the thirty second spot today (some of which we’ve discussed in previous blog entries) the opportunity to do something a little different is presenting itself more strongly than ever before. Enter Jerry Seinfeld. » Continue Reading
I’ve been chewing on this one for a while. Recently IGN reported that Warner Bros. has decided not to make a sequel to Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns, instead opting for a reboot of the series to make a “darker and more edgy” Superman film. This decision was reportedly based on the disappointing performance of Superman Returns at the box office compared with the record-smashing success of The Dark Knight.
Before I go any farther, let me clarify. I grew up a comic book fan. Batman is the hero for me. He was, is, and always will be my favorite character. Batman is dark. He is edgy. He’s a dichotomy and that makes him infinitely interesting to me. The Dark Knight was also a masterfully crafted movie and I have nothing but praise and respect for Christopher Nolan’s latest.
But, I’ve seen this mistake before. » Continue Reading
I’m going to go out on a limb with this post and make a prediction. Now in all fairness I must say that my clairvoyance skills have not exactly batted a thousand in the past, but this is a theory I’ve been working on for a while, and I’m reasonably sure that A) I’m right or B) I’ll be vague enough that I have plausible deniability if anyone ever calls me on it.
The story of American Zoetrope is an amazing one. For anyone not familiar with it I highly recommend a documentary called A Legacy of Filmmakers: The Early Years of American Zoetrope. You can find a copy on the 2-DVD Director’s Cut release of George Lucas’s THX-1138. I’ll let you discover most of the details yourself, but as a primer for my theory you need to know that at this time the studio system of filmmaking was collapsing. Jack Warner and the big studio barons were retiring and corporations were purchasing the studios. There was a shift from storytelling to marketing. Even before that, Hollywood was on the decline. People were not coming to the box office at the rates they had been. Cookie-cutter pictures with the same actors that everyone had seen for the past however many years just were not sparking an interest with the film-going public. Students at USC and UCLA were told to find other careers. Entire departments at the big studios were closing. It looked bleak.