For all my life, I’ve always been in love with film. In my elementary years, I would splice together eclectic mashups of whatever I thought was funny or was interested in at the time in a pirated premiere program I had downloaded, and attempt to string a narrative together. I always kept that passion. I was incredibly lucky and blessed, as in my sophomore year, my school started a film program, which I’ve been a part of, and have since become the de facto head. With my skills, tools, and mentors, I can pursue a professional career working in film production. As my Senior year is coming to a close, I’ve decided to reflect on some of my biggest influences that inspired me to go out and create at a young age.
James Rolfe
For better or worse, I’ve been on the internet since George Bush was President. While it probably wasn’t a great idea for my parents to give me unsupervised internet access, I really wouldn’t wish for anything else. During my early days online, I discovered the work of James Rolfe and his series/character The Angry Video Game Nerd. It was everything I loved as a young kid. I had a lot of hand-me-downs so I grew up with a lot of old retro technology, so while my classmates were playing the newest Call Of Duty, I was still stuck with Super Mario World. James Rolfe’s AVGN Series is a staple of early internet media and a pioneer of the lost art of the “Angry Reviewer” character. The Angry Reviewer character was a bit of a trend in online web series around the early 2010s, which typically revolved around an outrageous exaggerated character critiquing media, typically movies, TV, Comics, and in James Rolfe’s instance, old video games. Rolfe’s series, while being comedic and slapstick in nature, felt like it truly did have a lot of love put into it. With the elaborate sets, costumes, characters, and props, it felt like a modern-day Pee Wee’s Playhouse. Besides his comedic series, Rolfe’s other work was an early inspiration to me. His 2012 documentary on his behind-the-scenes process of creating an AVGN episode, really had a profound effect on me, as it was the first time that I realized that I was more intrigued by the production aspect of film, more than just viewing it. Besides the AVGN series, Rolfe would often do out-of-character reviews or analyses of films, often the horror or kaiju movies of his youth, which taught me about a lot of great films that I would otherwise never learn about. Overall, James Rolfe has to be my favorite filmmaker of all time for being the one who sparked my interest in film production and inspired me to pursue it.
John Waters
I was always drawn to the taboo, and an early pioneer of that in film and culture was the creative mind of John Waters. I always found something so beautiful about Waters’ transgressive piece of work. As an edgy chronically online middle schooler, I was introduced to Waters’ 1972 classic, Pink Flamingos, through IMDb lists of the most transgressive or shocking movies. While I won’t say that a drag queen performing coprophagia was necessarily charming to me, there was something neat about the movie. Pink Flamingos is a very content-heavy film, which is one thing John Waters is great at: packing a lot into his films, without it feeling dull. I don’t think there’s one boring point in any film John Waters directs. It wasn’t until I was about 15 and saw Polyester one night as it was playing at the Hotel I was staying at, that my true love for John Waters’ style sprouted. The absolute gritty and foulness Waters portrays fits so perfectly in the vibrant and campy worlds he creates in his projects, and I truly have to give my hat off to him for it.
Jackass
At a formative age, I got a lot of my media through whatever my older cousins or uncles were listening to in the car or were watching. A media empire I was exposed to was the Jackass franchise. Again, it was something I was way too young to be watching or enjoying, but I loved every ounce of it. It was a lot more than guys getting hurt or nutshots. There was just something so counterculture to and anti-everything else at the time that made me love it. The creativity and elaborate stunts, the skateboarding, and punk rock were the coolest things ever to me. Jackass was a pipeline to my passion for filmmaking, and discovering its predecessors, Big Brother Magazine’s Skate Tapes, the predecessor to the franchise, Big Brother Magazine’s Skate Tapes, and Bam Margera’s CKY film series, only pushed me further. The fact that anyone could pick up a camera and make something out of nothing with their friends, sparked a fire in me. Whether it was Wee-Man dressing up as an Oompa-Loompa and skating down Venice Beach, or Steve-O snorting wasabi, there was something so against the grain about what they were doing that it triggered something in me. While a lot of people were inspired by the stunts, the purity of picking up a camera and shooting inspired me to pursue film growing up.
Eric Fournier’s Shaye Saint John
I’ve always had a big fascination with horror and the taboo, and it happened to mix well with my early internet access. Growing up with a fascination with horror online in the early 2010s led many to the same destination I discovered: shayesaintjohn.net. A portal to another world led by a hyperactive disfigured supermodel rebuilt with mannequin parts by the government as an MKULTRA project, designed by the late surrealist punk rocker, Eric Fournier. Eric Fournier was the mayor of the uncanny valley. I was afraid at first, hiding underneath my covers. But then subtly, year by year, I was drawn closer to it, like a moth to a flame. When the childlike terror was over, I was able to pull back the curtain and see the beauty in Fournier’s creation. Shaye Saint John is a culmination of Americana and California from an inside-out view. The purity of an American Sweetheart and an outsider’s view of Hollywood, are juxtaposed with body horror and mad ramblings that would make Charles Manson look like Shakespeare. Shaye Saint John is in the same column as something like the Church of the SubGenius; a take on culture that devolved into its cultish entity. Everything about it was abnormal, however, once you take the puzzle pieces apart from the picture, it reveals itself as reality. Eric Fournier was a master of pure camp, and his collection of short films, or as he titled them “Triggers,” involving the character of Shaye Saint John has been one of my biggest influences and inspirations to create all the crude works I have held in my heart all my life.
