Film within a Film (A Brief Sketch)

In the movie Peeping Tom there is this incredibly beautiful camera that the main character carries around. I asked around and found out that it's a Bell and Howell Filmo, a heavy industrial 16mm portable camera that makes a sound like a coffee grinder. It's the kind that was used a lot for newsreels back in the day.

Seeing that great camera gave me the idea to do a film within a film. There would be a director filming his movie on an Eyemo, the 35mm version of the Filmo. It would be sort of a sequel to VIVA, (my boyfriend calls it "Viva Deux," which sounds dreadful), shot somewhere in southern Europe, possibly on the Riviera or in Greece.

Anyway, I had this dream where John Klemantaski, who plays the British sleaze theater director in VIVA, and Jared Sanford, who plays the alcoholic husband sleaze in VIVA, and I were all staying in the same beach house somewhere on the Riviera. We were all wearing these dresses or tunics made out of the same colorful striped terrycloth. Mine was one-shoulder and so short in back that my bare rear end was totally exposed as I walked around, but I didn't mind at all. And we were all hugging and kissing effussively like disgusting Hollywood actors, so pleased to be shooting a new picture together.

So I was thinking I'd put John's character, Arthur, in the new film as the director of a comedy in Europe. But he's totally neurotic, and he insists that all the acting be method. So the girls (Bridget and me) have to join the police force in order to play cops in his movie, and some crazy mix-ups happen, including our involvement in a real murder.

Some images I have so far are a man in a gorilla suit on a motorboat (See my post "Cinema on LSD"), girls running in tight beige police uniforms with corsets underneath, a blah love scene on an ocean raft, speeding down the road in Ferraris, and scenes at the wharf with the director trying to capture his crane shots, inspired by How to Murder Your Wife.