An Interview with Mark Pirro
The following interview was conducted on February 27, 1998, a few months after the release of Color-Blinded to video. Or so my age-defective brain tells me. This interview was part of a project I did for an honors course on pop culture. I got an "A." Yay!!!
Damon:
When did you realize that filmmaking was what you wanted to do with your life?
Mark:
I was about thirteen. I was given a camera for Christmas. At that point I pretty much didn’t really want to do anything else. Actually, I can probably go before that. I had a neighbor. A classmate who used to take his dad’s movie camera out of the closet. We’d do, you know, stupid things like vampire stuff or kids running around acting crazy. That was really where the inspiration started.
Damon:
Did you expect Polish Vampire to do as well as it did?
Mark:
No. I never even expected it to sell. When we shot it, it was made as a showcase. I had made a lot of ten-minute films or fifteen-minute films. Polish Vampire had been my first feature film at about an hour and a half. Once it was finished and we started showcasing it around, I actually found a distributor. More of a manager type of person. He said, “I’m going to take it around and see if we can get it in the market place. From now on, you don’t tell anybody the budget, you don’t tell anybody the format.”
We made a deal with a company called Simitar. They sold it for seven years in the home video market. Not too long after that we made another deal with the USA Network and ran it for two years. Now we’ve been selling it to territories here and there. But I never in my wildest dreams when I started the film had any idea that it was going to sell. Least of all for as much as it sold for.
Damon:
What are some of the films or filmmakers that have influenced your work?
Mark:
I suppose if you go way back, the early Woody Allen films. Probably early Mel Brooks films. Early John Landis films possibly. I would say the direct influence for Polish Vampire was The Fearless Vampire Killers, Roman Polanski’s film. Between that and An American Werewolf in London, that’s probably where the roots of that film lie. Other than that, today I really don’t have an influence. I’m not a big Woody Allen fan anymore. I’m not a big John Landis fan anymore. Or Mel Brooks.
Damon:
So, the key word for those three is “early?”
Mark:
Early, because I honestly believe that as you get older, you get less funny. I really believe that with almost every comedian-filmmaker that I’ve followed over the years, they just don’t seem as funny as they used to be. I would even say myself included. My last film, which is the best-received film I’ve ever made, it certainly got the best reviews, is probably my most down to earth film. It’s not as much a cartoon as many of my others are. The next film I do, I’m going to try and re-capture that spark I had in earlier films. But I think as you get older you get less funny. It’s a shame, but that’s what I’ve found in a lot of people that I used to like as filmmakers.
Damon:
I really did like Color-Blinded. The way I saw it, it wasn’t as funny as Polish Vampire, but overall, it was a better film.
Mark:
It was a different type of film. It’s like comparing Ghost with Airplane. Same director (David Zucker), two different films. Where Polish Vampire was more of a cartoon in the way people act, Color-Blinded was really more of an actor driven film. That wouldn’t have worked if the acting was as bad as in my earlier films. Well, I wouldn’t say bad, but not quite as convincing. We really had to have good performances to make this film work. It was well received. I think that everybody needs to have one or two semi-serious films in their repertoire just to show that you can do it.
Damon:
I read that on some of the bigger budget films you done, like Buford’s Beach Bunnies and My Mom’s a Werewolf, that there were conflicts between you and the companies that hired you.
Mark:
Well, whenever it’s somebody else’s money, they’re always going to be able to make the decisions. There’s this whole thing that goes, “Your dough, your show.” So, if somebody’s going to put up the cash, they’ve got the overruling statements. The case of Buford’s Beach Bunnies, which is probably my least favorite film: the problem with that was the money people wanted it to go in one direction and I wanted it to go in another direction. So, we wound up with something that went in neither direction.
Damon:
Have these experiences made you cautious when people call you and ask you to do a movie?
Mark:
If somebody calls and asks me to do a movie, it’s going to be just for the money. They’re going to have to make me an offer so that I can walk away from it and not care what they do. Sort of like being a surrogate mother. If somebody’s going to hire me to write and direct a film for them, then I have to dis-attatch myself from it. If they make cuts that I didn’t authorize or make changes . . . it really stains the filmmakers.
As a matter of fact, I have a friend of mine who movie to New York and she happened to find a copy of Buford’s Beach Bunnies in a video store. She said, “We’re going to get together and watch it with some friends,” and she had never seen it before. I felt like I had to apologize for it in advance because twenty minutes had been cut from my version of it and the twenty minutes they cut made the rest of the movie make no sense or make little sense. Nobody knows what you authorized and what somebody else authorized and my name’s still on it. So they might look at it and say, “Jesus, what was he thinking?”
Unfortunately, it’s because whoever made the cuts didn’t have the same vision that I did. It’s like somebody chopping your daughter’s fingers off and you have to watch it and take it. So I made a promise to myself that if I ever do a project with somebody else’s money, it’s going to be something that I can easily walk away from and not get attached to.
Damon:
Are you satisfied with having “underground” status, or would you like to break into the “mainstream” world?
Mark:
I don’t even know if it’s that important as it may have been twenty years ago because there are so many filmmakers who are struggling their whole lives just to make one film. I’ve made six and I’ll continue to make more. To be able to make a living doing what I enjoy doing is kind of satisfying. It’s a very, very tough business to get into and it’s tougher to sustain yourself. There are people who make theatrical films in what we would consider the mainstream that are barely getting by.
A friend of mine, Frank Darabont who did The Shawshank Redemption, he started out the same way doing super-eight films. We did a thing at a local theater out here years ago where we ran a bunch of our films. He did that film three or four years ago. He’s working on some other films right now, but it’s a struggle. Here’s a guy whose film was nominated for seven Academy Awards. He’s had a mainstream film but I don’t think anybody knows his name unless they’re in the business (note: Since this interview Frank Darabont has also made The Green Mile and The Majestic). There are a lot of filmmakers out here. I don’t even know if you’d consider them underground, but they’re all doing their own thing. Their movies may wind up on cable or on pay-per-view.
There are so many different levels of films. You’ve got your mainstream theatrical films that usually star Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis. Then you’ve got a second strain of films that usually get into festivals and wind up on cable or home video. It’s hard to define what is considered underground. Out here there are so many filmmakers that I’m aware of that are doing very well. Very successful and you’ve probably never heard of any of their films. Especially in the more mid-western towns. A lot of places don’t even get those unless they get them on cable. Deathrow Gameshow had a theatrical release, but it just went into some of the major cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
Damon:
So, it wasn’t given a wide release?
Mark:
No. Usually, what they’ll do is they’ll release it in forty major cities and that’s just to give the video sales a little more credibility. That’s pretty much the way it works. If you can get a theatrical release in major cities, it helps boost the video sales.
Damon:
Out of all the movies you’ve done, what is probably your favorite one?
Mark:
I think it’s tough to say what’s the favorite. Again, that’s like asking a father which one of his six kids he likes the best. Each film I like different elements of. Color-Blinded, I liked because I think it’s my most commercial film. Queerwolf, I think is my funniest. It’s probably a film that I can watch over and over again with different friends. I can laugh at some of the things that happen there because some of the comedy is just so broad. I like Nudist Colony of the Dead because I like the music. We even revived that as a live stage show in Hollywood two years ago. So, that has a certain charm to it. In that respect, Polish Vampire, I think is cute. I can look at that as an entirely different person. I don’t see me. I see some little kid that made this film for nothing. So each one of them has something going for it. Right now I would say the movie I am most proud of would be Color-Blinded. I hope that answers your question.
Damon:
I understand what you’re saying. Is making movies all you do for a living or do you have a “day job.”
Mark:
(Laughing)A day job. It’s hard to even answer that because I do other things to have an income. If I was going to rely on the income that a movie would bring, it takes about two years to make a film. So during that two-year period, there’s no money coming in from the film. Then it might take up to a year to sell the film. So we’re looking at three years.
There have been times in the past where I had enough stock pile that I could literally get away with that, but that’s when I was living more on a week-to-week basis and I didn’t have much of an overhead. Now I own some property out here. I own a condo. I own a house. So I sort of have to keep an income coming in even when I’m not making films. I might edit other people’s projects. I also do demo reels for actors. I do commercials. I do industrials and independents. I do other people’s projects occasionally. I’ll consult on other people’s films. I could be a ghostwriter for other people’s projects where, again, I just work for hire. I don’t take any credit for it and basically don’t let anybody know because if it doesn’t turn out to be the project that I would have liked it to be, I’m not attached to it.
Damon:
After doing Color-Blinded for such a low budget ($500), do you plan to continue shooting on video?
Mark:
You know, at this point it’s hard to say what’s going to come down the road. Like right now, my plan for the next film that I do is digital video. Using mini DV. That could change. A lot of it depends on what kind of a budget I’m working on. Depends on what kind of deals I could make.
I think it’s a lot easier to shoot a film digitally on video. You can sneak in a lot of shots that you couldn’t do if you were shooting film. The scene in Color-Blinded when they’re in the hospital at the very end -- the hospital room is a set we used at somebody’s place – but when you see him (actor Luke Vitale) walking through the hospital coming out of the elevator, that whole thing was just shot one afternoon when we sneaked into the hospital with a little Hi-8 camera. You can get away with it and no one’s really going to know. As far as they’re concerned, you’re just a couple of people in the hospital with a camcorder.
I have plans for the next film to do a whole thing in a cathedral. With a camcorder you can do it. If you tried to shoot it legitimately, you couldn’t. I like the freedom you have. The down side is that you can never go widescreen theatrical unless you start looking into transferring over to film. There are processes now that will take a clean video image and transfer it to film. So who knows what the future might hold. The next film we do is going to be in color and it’s still going to look like film. (note: Color-Blinded was originally done in Black and White. Since then, a colorized version has been produced.)
You can’t beat thirty-five millimeter film. That’s certainly the medium of choice, but the downside to shooting that way is you have to play a little more by the rules. You have to get the permits. You have to get a larger crew. You have to do all the usual crap and you lose freedom, so it’s a double-edge sword. On the one hand, I like the freedom I can get by shooting digital video. On the other hand, I miss the clarity and the sharpness of thirty-five millimeter. So you sort of have to weigh out the difference. I could never have made a movie as inexpensively as my last one shooting it with film. When Polish Vampire was shot for $2,500 that was kind of the record. I never thought I could ever be able to shoot a film less expensive than that.
Damon:
The ironic thing is that Color-Blinded looks a lot better than Polish Vampire did.
Mark:
We went to great pain to try and make this look like film. And there are little subtleties that you may not even notice on video, but if you look at it carefully you’ll find a lot of scenes where there are tiny specks of dust and tiny scratches on the picture. They were put there purposely because that subconsciously helps the viewers think that they are looking at film because video’s too perfect. Video doesn’t have scratches. Video doesn’t have specks of dust. By the mere nature of video, you wouldn’t get dust on it, but film does. All film attracts dust and scratches. So by putting in slight amounts, not enough to be annoying, but just enough to subconsciously get the viewer to think they’re looking at film, it helps to achieve that illusion. Also, the letterbox was added and it runs at a simulated twenty-four frames a second. All these elements combined help achieve an illusion. It’s an optical illusion, but in many cases it works.
Damon:
Could you describe your fan base?
Mark:
It’s funny because I’ve been getting fan letters for years. It amazes me how these people find the films. Of the six or seven films I’ve done, there’s always somebody who finds one of them and a lot of times they’re not even aware that there are other ones. Using Ed Wood as an example, I was a big Ed Wood fan for years before anybody knew who he was. He had made a lot of movies that I didn’t know he had done. I had seen Plan 9 From Outer Space. They used to run it on television at two in the morning every other month and I watched this thing going, “God, that’s terrible!” And I kept thinking, “You know, somebody made this film. Somebody wrote it. Somebody got it out. Somebody sold it.” I started tracking things down and I found out that there was this filmmaker named Ed Wood who really couldn’t get it together, but he had always managed to get these films out and about.
What I find is there are so many people out there who have discovered Ed Wood’s films now and by that same token there are a lot of people out there who have discovered my films. I find a lot of them are cult movie fans. I also find a lot of people who have discovered my films are filmmakers. A lot of either low budget or would-be filmmakers have stumbled onto some of these because, in many cases, a lot of people have heard the back story of how the movies were made, which makes them appealing in their own way.
There was a friend of mine out here who had a friend who was this big cult movie fan. He invited my friend over to watch a double feature of The Fearless Vampire Killers and Polish Vampire in Burbank. My friend didn’t tell him, but he wanted me to come along as a surprise guest. Nobody knew who I was. We’ve all aged a little bit, so I don’t know if I look exactly like I did in the movie. At the end of the movie he introduced me. These people, you’d think they’d met the Beatles. It was so funny. They were all awe stricken and I’m like, “Come on, it’s no big deal, I just made this film twenty years ago."
There’s a whole group of people who are discovering these things. I got an e-mail from a kid who’s like fifteen years old and he’s talking about how Polish Vampire is the funniest thing he’s ever seen. I mean, the movie’s fifteen years old! That cracks me up. This kid wasn’t even born when we were making the film and now he’s talking about how much fun it is for him.
It’s kind of a nice feeling that there are people out there who appreciate it. As a filmmaker it’s nice to know that there’s folks out there that get it. I’ve certainly gotten my share of bad reviews over the years, but I look at it for the big picture. These movies are always going to be around, probably long after I’m gone. Maybe ten years after I’m gone these movies will become even more famous.
Damon:
That’s usually how it works. Look at Ed Wood. Nobody had ever really heard of him until after he died.
Mark:
Yeah, now everybody knows who he is. It’s funny because now all of his friends are making money from just being his friends. Like I say, it’s always nice to know that there are people out there that appreciate it. I think that if people are truly devoted to their craft, and I’m not talking about the ones that just go out and try to make a buck and make some “T and A” movie with girls running around naked on screen. Which I did too, but that was for the money, which some times filmmakers do that. But if you really care about your craft, the reward is having people out there who appreciate your work.
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