"PURGING OF THE HIVE" was my first pretentious, arty
college short. It was inspired by Patrick McGoohan's brilliant TV show of 1968 THE PRISONER. It was fun to make and has some
interesting stuff in it but it is also embarassing for me now in some ways. I guess everyone's first films are too
pretentious.
It was shot in film with a Super 8mm camera and sound was added in post. I used
the music from, NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN I think. John Shea helped with some of the camera work shot around Brookdale Community
College but allot I did solo too.
I played the McGoohan part myself and I looked normal. Society was represented
by white, blank faces and hands on everyone else in the movie. I was the only individual in a world of faceless people and
those faceless people were after me because I was different from them! The title "Purging of the Hive" came out of that.
As my character fled I encountered faceless police. Asbury Park officers actually
helped by supplying a police car and two uniformed cops that agreed to dressed in the white masks and gloves too! And I played
a faceless Priest emerging from a church to confront myself.
The film was I guess only 10 minutes. As I said, it had energy and on some
levels worked. It ended with me dying I forget how now.
In a NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD style scene, there was this artwork hanging on
a wall at Brookdale which consisted of alot of black squares with white hands in them. I photographed that, put the picture
on a record turn table and rephotographed it with the Super 8 camera as a sea of swirling white hands and I slowly shifted
the hands out of focus so it became this moving pattern.
I haven't seen the movie in years. I don't think any pictures were taken while
we shot but if I find avideo of the movie I'll do frame grabs and post them here.
John Shea was a very good friend of mine for a period. He was going to Jersey
City State College as a film student studying 16mm film production while working at Brookdale in the Media Department. I would
ask him a ton of questions about what they were teaching him at Jersey City.
Later when I transferred from Brookdale to Jersey City State and lived at
440 Kennedy Blvd, John was still there and he appeared as the star in my 16mm black-and-white scifi comedy PIT STOP.
Campus life was fun, lonely, exciting and depressing but I was still learning
more and more about making movies and kept focussed. Even at the film department I was known as "The Film Guy"!!!
