UPDATED PIRROMOUNT NEWS
February 2012

When I made my first short film, in 1970, I didn't give much thought to its commercial value.  I was 14, I had a super 8 movie camera, and I wanted to tell a story.  I created a crude little film called, "Death of a Vampire."  It starred a handful of classmates and neighborhood kids, ran about 10 minutes, and was very primitive in appearance and technique.  It took a little monetary investment - about $75, and a bit of time, about three months, to produce.

                                    Mark Pirro in his first super 8 short "Death of a Vampire" (1971)

My next film, Screen of Fate, was a bit more ambitious.  It dealt with a scientist, who invented a machine that could show him the future.  Looking into it, he sees his own murder, which as the 10 minute feature eventually reveals, he brings on himself with his knowledge of the future. This was followed by my Super hero project, Batman Jr.

Pirro as Batman Jr. (1973)

I went on to make three more short films in upstate New York, then moved to sunny California and went on to make two more shorts, Buns (1978) and The Spy Who Did id Better" (1979).

It wouldn't be until 1981 that I would start what many have come to believe is my defining movie and first feature length film, "A Polish Vampire in Burbank" (1983).  All my early films were cheap to make, but nowhere near the low cost films can be made for today.  I mean, even though there wasn't a lot of money spent back then (Buns -$300, Spy - $1,600, Polish Vampire $2500), there was still the cost of raw film stock and processing, not to mention splicing tape. 

I never dreamed, all those years ago, that there would come a time when filmmaking would be cheaper and easier than it was then.  As many of you know, my last two films, "Rectuma" and "The God Complex,"combined, cost less than the cost of Polish Vampire, produced almost 30 years ago.  I also never dreamed that there would be so many filmmakers on the playing field as there are today.  When I was shooting my little super 8 projects, there were a few hundred filmmakers out there doing the same thing.  There may have been more, but just didn't get their work publicized.  Today, that number is in the tens of thousands.  This is encouraging and discouraging all at the same time.  The encouraging part is that there are so many more filmmakers out there to exhibit their talents, whereas years ago wouldn't have attempted to make a movie.  The discouraging side of it is that, and I know I've said this many times before, there is so much product and content out there that breaking ahead of the pack is like trying to find an almond in a mountain of peanuts.  This is probably why so many filmmakers limit their projects to Youtube video shorts and clips. 

If you have a burning story within you and you toyed with the concept of making your own film, I can't think of a reason why you shouldn't. We indies have an advantage over major studio pictures: we can afford to experiment.  I doubt any studio would have greenlit a picture about a giant mutant ass or a guy who turns queer when the moon rises (although they may be steering in that direction).  You're not going to find the same lot of imagination and creativity in mainstream movies as you will find in the indie circuit.

I've been lucky with my films, I've managed to turn a profit with pretty much every one.  That's not as impressive as it sounds.  Remember, if a movie costs $1000 to make, then if it grosses $2000, it's made a 100% profit, which I can safely say all my films have done (some have even gone on to quadruple their budget or more).  And let's not forget the merchandising (the Submissive Jesus Prayer Answering Talking Head).  Needless to say, one can make a fairly decent living with a little creativity in today's world.

Of course, there's a downside to that too.  Unless your film breaks through the sea of numerous other indie films out there trying to get attention, it won't be the big blockbuster we all dream of producing, and it won't have the big financial returns of a Martin Scorscese picture.  But if you ask me, I find it more rewarding to be able to make exactly the movie you want to make without a committee telling you how to do it because they're afraid something won't play in Peoria.  Your only censorship is the limitations of your fear.  You don't have to be concerned with keeping your film to a PG-13 because your studio doesn't want you to lose that all important 12-17 year old audience.

I have a few friends who have a desire to tell stories via cinema and some of them have actually taken it upon themselves to go ahead and do it, despite the challenges  that came with working with no budget and numerous restraints. What drives them?  A passion that you won't find anywhere else.  It's like being a drug addict.  The drug addict needs the fix, no matter how he gets it.  A passionate filmmaker needs to express himself via his films, and even when many of them know that they will not see a profit, they continue.  That's what real filmmaking is all about.

The hard facts are that good stories are rarely mass produced in a factory. They come from inside a person’s soul located somewhere in the vast memory banks where their life experiences are stored. The big movie studios would love to harvest these stories on a corporate level, but the problem is you never know when a good story will come to life inside a person and take on a life of its own. And so they continue to produce movies that have more style than substance, for that is something that can be controlled.

However, even with the impressive advances in film production quality, people generally would much rather see a good movie with a low film production value than they would a bad movie with a high film production value. Of course, movies like Transformers and any of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies might appear to prove me wrong.  Studios have to test market their films.  If they're going to spend 100 million plus on a single movie, they have to be sure that it is a hit.  It doesn't matter what the thinking public wants, it's what will generate the most money.  Case in point: look at the monkey they have cast as James Bond.  That would have never flown in the old days.  Research groups told the producers that they needed a Bourne Identity clone and that's what they did.  Movie making by committee.

Talent and a good storyline are generally worth more to movie audiences than an expensive look. If you can just get a good story made into a low budget independent film, then people may take notice. If a buzz is created about your movie, it can lead to a distribution deal that is worth many times more than the money you invested.  

                          STILL WRITING
Well, I'm still writing away on a series of screenplays, hopefully one of them will be worthwhile enough for me to start production on.  I'm still not completely satisfied with anything that I am currently writing, but every day I keep at it.  Right now, I have no less than five unfinished screenplays in some stage of development.  I work on one until I get bored with it, then move onto the next one, and so on. 

I'm sorry to report that the website, Megaupload.com, where I parked my uncensored version of South Park's episode 201, got shut down by the feds.  It was the only site that I found where I could post this uncensored episode (even South Park's own website can't post it, and the Season 14 DVD has it censored). 

I'll try to find another website where I can post this again, for those of you who abhor censorship, especially out of fear.  I'll keep you posted.

OLD NEWS

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Boxed sets of four Pirromount films now selling exclusively on Ebay.  Here's your chance to get four of our classics; two vintage and two recent. 

In the future, I may package my four remaining movies; Nudist Colony of the Dead, Color-Blinded, Deathrow Gameshow and Buford's Beach Bunnies.  We'll see.  Since I don't officially hold the rights to Deathrow Gameshow and Buford's Beach Bunnies, that boxed set may be a little more difficult to put out.  Stay tuned.