A late 40's era hot rod movie in the making...

I am a producer working with a small time director and am currently in the pre-production of an independant film set in 1949 Los Angeles. The film revolves around interesting characters and stories taken from authors like Dean Batchelor and the likes. Real roadsters and local hero rods will be used and will be a part of casting later on, but right now I need feedback on who would like it, good sources of information and stuff like that. I am a hot rodder enthuist myself and am keen on the early history but any information that can be given is certainly useful.

 

bump

 

if you made it, i'd see it.

 

Mmmmm...
I don't know how I feel about you just hopping on here
And "spamming it up"
But I'd PROBABLY check out that movie...

Axle from "The Shifters" car club is a HUGE hot-rod-history buff,
And if you were real smooth,
(and I think you must be for posting this HERE)
You'd think about "advertizing" it at car shows,
Like TBOTC and FTB, VLV and that type of thing...

But why don't you tell us more about the movie...?

I would say do an intro, but we all know you WON'T be around LONG, and why waste Ryan's space?

That gives me a BIG CHUCKLE that you are a hot rodder,
and you are just NOW posting on HERE...

So tell us MORE about this "movie"...
Theme?
Color? B/W?
When is it gonna "hit the theatres"...?
Etc....?

 

I can see it now "Flat Head Hellians of Oxnard" terrorize the local dairy the ccows get so scared they refuse to be milked.
Dairy Farmer Gus calls it a disasterous and udder failure.
Local chrch group calls for outlawing of th outlaw hotrodders, but Fudly, the leader of the Hotrod gang saves the church secretary from going over a cliff and renews the towns faith in their rambunctious youth..

(How am I doin'?)
Make that movie and no one will want to see it.

make it real, make it a docu-drama get Jay Carnine (C9,on the HAMB) to write or at least edit the screen play. He know's his ****, because he's lived and can write about it, and is published too.

 

If you wanted to do it right, hire a pair of technical consultants. A few folks that have made a serious study of the cars and the period and make it worth their time to help you with a commercial venture.

I'd recommend Mike BIshop and Vern Tardell, Mabey JimA from Rod and Custom magazine, Hit up the editors of The Rodders Journal, Get in close with the Over the Hill Gang and the Early Times clubs (late '60s Street Rod clubs) Axle from the shifters club. Vern was recently the subject of a period hot rod museum show (Berkley I think) and would be my best recomendation. His son Rex could also be a good cantidate.

 

It looks like he did do kind of an intro, even if it is half ***ed, and he is trying to find out if there is a market for this movie before he spends a ****-load of money on it. It's called market research. So what if he hasn't posted here before, new people find the HAMB everyday. It looks to me like he is trying to see if "car" movies are marketable and can be profitable if they DON'T feature Honda Civics with sticker grafix and brontosaurus ribs mounted to the trunk and big budget explosions.

Think about it this way, my producer friend, if you put cool cars in it and get a consultant who knows their **** for period correctness, people will like it. The story can't be any worse than "Two Lane Blacktop," and people love that movie, myself included.

 

greaseball...Youre right, it is weird that a hot rod enthuist would just all of a sudden post something on the internet at HAMB because the internet is where all true hot rodders should find themselves, not in a garage. As for the film, it is in it's earliest possible stages which makes this prime time to get some feeback from our built in cult audience. It also makes this far too early to advertise a non-existent film to the m***es at car shows and such. I am not wasting space on this board, I have been a long time lurker to the boards but posting was something that I felt should be left up to you guys for the moment. I can appreciate the fact that my sudden appearence and seemingly off topic posting will receive negative feedback and some sarcastic comments, but dont waste your breath. The cinematic stuff is up to you too, if you want it in B/W say so, if you know of a colorful character then tell me. C'mon, lets be a bit more friendly here to someone who is simply trying to tell the story that has not been told on film yet. Thanks

 

Cast Germ Dean in a starring role.

 

well first thing that comes to my mind is to make sure that all the cars featured in the movie have all the period correct parts on them... like engines, tires, and parts no newer than whatever year you said you wanted it set.

you would have to use lots of restored stockers as background cars.

you would have to close streets... make sure the street signs are old styled, old style restraunts, stores,

it depends all on how accureate you want to get, but you might be looking at spending lots of mooola

but what do i know,,, i was born in '82

 

1.if it has cars in it i will try my hardest to see it.
2. if it has cool cars in it, i will see it twice
3. if it has cool cars, and period correctness i will buy it
4. if it has cool cars, period correct, good story line i will tell people to watch it.

 

I can't be sure but from the way he speaks it sounds like Dr.Knobcheese has made yet another appearance.I hope I'm wrong.
safariknut

 

Realisticly, If those old, b&w hotrod movies that DrJ described were any good, people would still watch them, and we'd still have them around. Thing is, most of them ****ed., and no one cares about them anymore. But, if you make a really good cl***is hot rod movie, with good actors, good script, good storyboard, and good photography, people will watch it. better yet, people who aren't hotroders will watch it.

Putting together a period correct car is pretty damn hard. Finding enough of them to make a movie with wont be easy. Surely this is a noble quest, and certainly i wouldn't mind having a part in it's production. Personally, I've considered writing something like this myslef, but came to the realisation that I didn't have the abilty to see it though production. Dave

 

I've been thinking of doing the same thing on a very limited basis for fun, not for money. Just to gain some personal satisfaction and I believe this is prime time to do it.
Right now, there is a huge resurgence in traditional hot rods and customs. This is the clearing house for the most hard-core of them, the HAMB. The HAMB drags [August 23rd] was overflowing with this very type of car and the people that make 'em go. You could have gotten a **** load of background material there, I did.Home video footage...
I believe it should be shot in black and white and every effort should be taken to ***ure it be "period perfect". I have no idea what kind of interest there is in such a flick but I can tell you the people on this board would welcome a fresh car flick. There are close to 3000 people registered on this board from many countries. That sounds like a pretty small audience to me but the HAMB caters to a very slim slice of car fanaticism..........we love traditional-only rods and customs. We could make our own movie using our own cars if we just had the financing and expertise.
Long story short------I'd certainly come to watch a traditional'styled car movie. Even a bad one! Can't get any worser than "Hot rod girl" or some of the other 50's grade C movies.. bring it on!

 

11 years in motion pictures, 37 productions later, I could comment, but I won't. Still too new around here...

 

who are you? what have you produced? who's the director? what kind of budget are you talking?

I'd kinda like to know. I like movies.

also, there's no need to get snarky. if you've hung around this board any length of time you'd know you've got to approach all of this with a certain amount of patience. I don't suppose you just walked into the film industry and expected to be instantly embraced, didja?

I'm just saying, is all.

 

I have to say that the books by se.hinton are still my all time favorite and that the movies were done right if you could do a hot rod movie with that at***ude it would be a hit!!! cars with cheese just dont cut it!!! gotta have grit

 

Here's what I think...

I think it should be a do***entary... American Grafitti was a do***entary... and it worked.

I think it would be *****en' to take an interesting piece of many of the different pioneers in the sport and tell their story... an interest in cars in high school, early street racing/ lakes racing and rodding before the war, going off to war, kid learns skills that he apply to his hot rods after he gets out of the cervice, starts applying those skills to his hot rods, starts kicking everybodys ***, people want to buy his ****, he starts selling them out of his garage, and then the next thing you know, he's advertizing in HRM, he's involved in street racing, lakes racing then salt racing and drag racing... the whole time selling his **** to moonshiners and oval track racers too... he went to Indy... or at least some of his parts did... and the whole time he's screwing this betty page wanna-be (gotta keep the greasers and rat rodders interested)... anyway, tell the story...
Sam.

 

American Graffiti was an example of a good car movie. Maybe not a great example, although everyone pretty much agrees they liked it. It was a look at a time in our history reported fairly accurately that a lot of us could relate to. It had a story and some nice cars that were reasonably correct for the era. If that could be done for the late 40's car flic it should work. Although the Graffiti movie dealt with the baby boomers and a period when there was a lot of car activity. Getting some individuals from the era as tech consultants for the cars and car activity is job 1. There are lots of car guys and clubs in SoCal that were there at the time, basically been there and done that. Guys like Isky, Winfield, Tardel, etc, etc, must have some great stories to base a film around.

 

I'd pay 8 bucks to see the Joaquin Arnett story.

 

Some thing that irritates me about most movies that are set in a certain period (because they almost never get it right), is that all the cars look like they are freshly restored.
If a car is 10 or 15 years old in that movie, it needs to look 10 or 15 years old.

 

Hey Loren, I'm in entertainment advertising (I design movie posters) I'd love to talk to you about your project. Anybody making a film about hotrodding is O.K. in my book. PM me. I live in L.A. -stick
P.S. Go to Bakersfield this weekend if ya' wanna be schooled.

 

If you go through with it I don't think B&W is the way to go. It needs to be color, not Technicolor but the real grainy color that the forces started filming in towards the end of WW2. Better still film it with period (color) equipment.

 

[ QUOTE ]
who are you? what have you produced? who's the director? what kind of budget are you talking?

I'd kinda like to know. I like movies.

also, there's no need to get snarky. if you've hung around this board any length of time you'd know you've got to approach all of this with a certain amount of patience. I don't suppose you just walked into the film industry and expected to be instantly embraced, didja?

I'm just saying, is all.




[/ QUOTE ] Yeah, I'm with Foiled on this one. It's weird, too, because much of my family works in Film, one uncle is an exec. producer who owns a building of movie sets in L.A., featuring great sets for this genre, another uncle is a music editor. And so forth. But this isn't the place to pop in for a random source, jim boy.
See ya on the silver screen.

 

Aren't you this person?!

[ QUOTE ]
Nov 23, 2000
22:23
Loren P*******
Contact: Take2theAir@aol.com

I am 15 and looking to start racing and I need a bicycle.I weight conscious as well as price conscious.My budget is $500(US). If you could help me please contact me at Take2theAir@aol.com

[/ QUOTE ]

Or am I just confused?! Same email and all, hmmm... So your what, 19 now?!

Sorry, I'm snoopy, at least we now know you like bikes, or something. Need a photographer?!

Not to be rude, but I got so much more **** than this when I signed up a couple of years back, because I was stupid, didn't watch the trends, just signed up, and posted an ad for this chevy truck I used to have, Yup, the cardnal sin! So post a little info about yourself. And I'm not joking about the photo ****, if you need some help, and your really going to do what your saying your doing, send me a line.

Good luck!
-peter
www.rodnkustom.com

 

[ QUOTE ]
greaseball...Youre right, it is weird that a hot rod enthuist would just all of a sudden post something on the internet at HAMB because the internet is where all true hot rodders should find themselves, not in a garage. As for the film, it is in it's earliest possible stages which makes this prime time to get some feeback from our built in cult audience. It also makes this far too early to advertise a non-existent film to the m***es at car shows and such. I am not wasting space on this board, I have been a long time lurker to the boards but posting was something that I felt should be left up to you guys for the moment. I can appreciate the fact that my sudden appearence and seemingly off topic posting will receive negative feedback and some sarcastic comments, but dont waste your breath. The cinematic stuff is up to you too, if you want it in B/W say so, if you know of a colorful character then tell me. C'mon, lets be a bit more friendly here to someone who is simply trying to tell the story that has not been told on film yet. Thanks

[/ QUOTE ]

Sounds like a bunch of B.S to me... i was in the L.A streetracing scene when fast and furious guys were coming around to check everything out everyone was always telling how the scene SHOULDN'T be portrayed and look at how that flick turned out. These hollywood guys are all about money they dont give a **** about opinions they just want to find the next big trend...i bet this guy has a dozen crisy clean VON DUTCH shirts in his closet that make him a TRUE enthusiast...

 

Just do a movie about the HAMB. There are pleanty of colorfull characters here.

We'll work for car parts

You would have to change the names to protect the "Guilty" though

 

Things I look at if I were makin' a late '40s period Hot Rod movie.

Read everything I could about the SCTA
Rocketeer
Catch Me If You Can
Landspeed (I know how lame it is, but...)
The '50s version of The Fast and The Furious

Stay away from
The Outsiders
That NY Gang movie with '50s cars....

 

John Lithgow would make a modern day Dan Andrews as the pissed off wimp fighting back against the evil rodders. Or possibly Justin Timberlake as the rooder saving the town from the giant radioactive spider. I think I just summarized every early hot rod movie. Seriously if cars are the star it won't be seen. How many of you even watch the VCR tape you get with renewal to whatever group? If you want to do it, go ahead. If you are looking for feedback, this is mine.

 

A Google search for your E-mail address turns up just one match: an ad written two years ago by a 15-year-old looking for an inexpensive racing bicycle.

It looks like now you're 17 years old, and you're an aspiring movie producer. You want us to help you with your demographic research, and tell you where to do your other research.

I could put you in touch with some of the most well-informed hot rod historians alive, as well as the world's leading expert on old hot rod movies. (Twelve years ago, he and I co-authored a very thorough book about the history of hot rod movies.)

If you're real, you're welcome to phone me at (602) 233-8400.

Another suggestion would be for you to add your real name, Loren Petersen, to your profile.

Dave Mann
http://www.roadsters.com/