When I'm at school, I forget certain aspects about myself, but being back home brings many fun memories back. In honor of such a forgotten element of my past, I introduce to you an Emily you may not know.
Emily Anne, FilmmakerWhen my friends would come over in elementary and middle school, a favored activity was using our bulky Sony camcorder, circa 1991, to make short, choppily edited movies. Most days, we established a plot, then came up with lines on the spot, often roping John and Sarah into playing various roles. We did a news show once, and interviewed Sarah, who played a pop star. I acted the part of a rage-prone chef and gave an exciting cooking segment. Julie (my best friend from preschool all through elementary school) was the news anchor. I think that day I also played an inmate, who Julie interviewed on the family weight machine, also known as the prison workout room.
One movie I specifically remember making was called "Journey to Health," which had to be pronounced exactly, to eliminate confusion over the film content. In this compelling tale, two young orphan girls (Julie and Sarah) undergo a long and tiring journey to take their baby sister (Sarah's baby doll) to a doctor. They spend days subsisting on Ritz crackers and walking until their feet are sore, all while trying to keep their sister alive long enough to reach help. They finally reach the neighboring town (the neighborhood park) and the doctor (me) performs CPR (?!) on the infant in her office (picnic table). I don't think the baby makes it. The camera battery may have died before we were able to resolve the compelling plot satisfactorily.
After many impromptu films, I took my career to the next level by writing out screen plays. Two of these came to fruition thanks to the cooperation of friends and family.
"Bad Attitude"
Agatha Attitude (Tricia) was raised by dentists, who never let her eat candy. For such a child, Halloween was torture. Now an old woman, Agatha is still bitter over the sweets deprivation of her childhood. She takes out her revenge on innocent children by stealing their own Halloween candy.
I think this ends with two brave girls (Julie and Katie) tracking down Agatha A. and putting her in prison. The final shot of the film is of Agatha, crazed by love of candy and resentment toward children, leering from behind prison bars.
Bet you wish you could that on Netflix, eh?
And now for the crowning jewel in my flimography. I wrote this the summer I turned 12 with my cousins and siblings as actors. When we all got together in Steamboat Springs that summer, I spent two days directing them and bringing my vision to life. I even made props ahead of time and hilighted everyone's script with their lines. (Because who doesn't want to spend their vacation memorizing lines and being bossed around by their cousin?)
"Cold Feet"
Evil genius Mwa Ha (cousin Jack) and his hunch-backed assistant Hee Hee (cousin Ross) hatch a plan to steal the socks of everyone in the whole world by sucking them out of homes and stores with the Sock Sucker 2000. Shortly into this scheme, teenage detective Jamie Jameson (Charlotte) reads about the sock shortage over the morning paper. Never one to pass up a mystery (I was a big Nancy Drew fan) Jamie and her friend, (whose name I can't remember, except that it was cheesy and alliterated) played by Claire (do you remember your character's name?) get down to the bottom of things.
The case starts off with the questioning of three suspects (all played by John, wearing various outfits and at one point a homemade white beard).
Suspect 1: Calvin Crew, owner of a sock store. This sock shortage would certainly boost sales, but he comes off clear.
Suspect 2: Peter the Puppeteer, local sock puppet craftsmen and performer. Though a man in his trade would certainly benefit from stealing the socks from the world's population, he is found innocent.
Suspect 3: Lonesome Lou, homeless man who sits outside a Walmart and never has socks. Shortly after socks begin to go missing, Jamie and her friend pass him and see that for the first time ever, his feet are warm inside a pair of nice socks. Very suspicious. After some questioning, it turns out that Lou did not steal them, but was given them by an even more suspicious (though sympathetic toward cold homeless men) man who had a hunched back and a big sack bulging with socks.
Lou's tip leads the detectives to Mwa Ha and Hee Hee's secret lair (the furnace room of the condo where we stayed) where the girls corner the villains, hear a detailed description of their evil plot, complete with evil cackles, and hand them over to the authorities, but not before Hee Hee manages to escape with a sack full of the goods. The movie ends with a shot of my 11-year-old cousin Ross running down the street carrying a trash bag filled with wadded up newspaper.
So there you have it. Who knows where my talent would have taken me if the camcorder hadn't stopped working when I was 13?
**What's something that you did in your childhood but sometimes forget about now?**
6 comments:
I am dying of laughter as I read this, remembering the many summer afternoons you spent in such creative pursuits. This is an entertaining account indeed. I still can't believe I taped over Cold Feet. . . . I'll never forgive myself.
This is hilarious! I never anything about your filmmaker pursuits, so I'm glad you documented them here. I'm really impressed that you can remember both plot lines and character names!
"Because who doesn't want to spend their vacation memorizing lines and being bossed around by their cousin?" Favorite line. Almost as good as "Let's invite everyone over to paint the cabinets and call it a 'family vacation'!"
Let's see, some things I did in my childhood include: writing stories, "turning to crochet," and painstakingly typing in code from my dad's computer magazines to create games to play. Also, hiding my individual bag of rolls that Grandma gave me under my bed to savor while reading things like Doctor Doolittle.
I laughed out loud as I read all of this. I loved getting pulled into your film projects and still know that my milk spewing could use some help. You taught me that. Just sayin'.
I played hotel, wrote stories in notebooks that sported the warning "Do Not Read Until Published," and reenacted favorite movies all the time.
Those were good days!
What a fun post! Ans=d a good idea to pass on to my granchildren now that school is almost out :)
Let's see, my childchoold was a l.o.n.g time ago, but I do remember playing jacks, and jumprope and hopscotch and paper dolls and playing with my many dolls - eventually sewing their clothes - mostly by hand - until later when my mom would teach me to use her sewing machine.
Do kids play these games anymore?
This is HI-larious Emily! I had completely forgotten about your filmmaker pursuits. I say it's definitely time to break out the camcorder again!
I am so sad that movie got filmed over (or erased, I forget which) on accident. I had so much fun making that movie and letting the adults watch it.
Sadly, I do not remember my character's name.
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