videos:
real, ‘actorly’ cockroaches
real, ‘actorly’ cockroaches
the the – out of the blue – jan, 1987.
...pity the person whose apartment we borrowed, and let loose a thousand cockroaches, at a 'dollar a hit,' as they were real ‘actorly' cockroaches. each one had a little winnebago and there were a few cockroach style tantrums on-set. a few times we nearly died during the making of this one. when driving around spanish harlem, at an ungodly three-thirty in the morning, and after the cops had left saying it was too dangerous for them to stay, matt johnson decides to chuck a vodka bottle at a wall, as a pantie-less woman wrapped her legs about his neck in the white convertible. some nearby gang members seemed excited by what we were shooting and the explosion of glass only exacerbated this; nobody had told us that we were filming within a block of the largest crack house in manhattan. the atmosphere was viscerally electric. we filmed in a real-life brothel in harlem and business went on about us. the elderly lady who clutches her face at the doorway actually worked there as a cleaner and was determined to be in the video, without asking. ironically, it's perhaps one of the highlights. any of these the the shoots seemed always to take on a life of their own and we'd followw this impetus. perhaps i should have taken the hint, earlier on in the evening, back near the crack joint, when a rat scurries out of a nearby wreck of a building, rolls on to its back at my feet, and then proceeds to have an epileptic fit, then dies. true, on my producer’s life. [see my latest producer.] [photo of tim pope on shoot.] [ 3 photos of exterior harlem, car.] [see the brilliant shot of matt johnson on the apartment set of this video.] [matt at tim pope's flat.] [sounds article - sept 20th, 1986.]
...pity the person whose apartment we borrowed, and let loose a thousand cockroaches, at a 'dollar a hit,' as they were real ‘actorly' cockroaches. each one had a little winnebago and there were a few cockroach style tantrums on-set. a few times we nearly died during the making of this one. when driving around spanish harlem, at an ungodly three-thirty in the morning, and after the cops had left saying it was too dangerous for them to stay, matt johnson decides to chuck a vodka bottle at a wall, as a pantie-less woman wrapped her legs about his neck in the white convertible. some nearby gang members seemed excited by what we were shooting and the explosion of glass only exacerbated this; nobody had told us that we were filming within a block of the largest crack house in manhattan. the atmosphere was viscerally electric. we filmed in a real-life brothel in harlem and business went on about us. the elderly lady who clutches her face at the doorway actually worked there as a cleaner and was determined to be in the video, without asking. ironically, it's perhaps one of the highlights. any of these the the shoots seemed always to take on a life of their own and we'd followw this impetus. perhaps i should have taken the hint, earlier on in the evening, back near the crack joint, when a rat scurries out of a nearby wreck of a building, rolls on to its back at my feet, and then proceeds to have an epileptic fit, then dies. true, on my producer’s life. [see my latest producer.] [photo of tim pope on shoot.] [ 3 photos of exterior harlem, car.] [see the brilliant shot of matt johnson on the apartment set of this video.] [matt at tim pope's flat.] [sounds article - sept 20th, 1986.]
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