THURSDAY, FEBUARY 4, 1999

Nancy Schafer, the festival director at SXSW, called me on Monday. She asked me if Rock Opera was going to be finished in time for the film fest. I told her it was. She said that they wanted to screen it at the fest. Hell yeah it’ll be ready.

Rock Opera will be in a group of other non-competitive films that will only screen at midnight. I guess it’s too offensive for prime time.

Barna brought in Jennifer and Fiona to do press & publicity. They’ve done this kind of thing in the past and know all the ins and outs of the biz. True assets to the team.

We’re going to have Tony Linder and Ben Davis hook up and do the poster, flyers, t-shirt and hat designs, stickers and all that jazz. Maybe we can get some cut rate silk screening at Green Goat Tees or some other hook up. Trade for film credit?

We’re trying to organize a pre and post screening party. Maybe some free Lone Star? We still don’t know when the film will screen, so we can’t lock anything down yet.

Speaking of, Barna is trying to get us a Friday or Saturday screening slot. It is the world premier after all.

We have decided to screen Rock Opera on video. There were many factors involved. First of all, the main idea is to show the film. It would be great to have a print, but if the movie is strong, then distributors and the general public should be able to overlook the image quality. Why should we pay an extra 30-50 grand to have a film print made when we can (ideally) show the film to the distributors and let them pay for the blow up and ne4gative cutting and the print. That’s the plan. Oh, yeah, some of the other factors involved us not having the cash to get the print and the time not being available to do so. But that’s all beyond the point.

The super 8 Muhamad Ali versus Kenny Norton fight that I bought off of Ebay came in the mail today. I watched it down at the Cinemaker Co-op. Pretty fine fighting.

Bonner Bellew at KXAN caught the flu and we rescheduled the shoot for next week.

Ted Jarrell called and might have landed me a job shooting a commercial for his boss at the Dunham & Casey & so & so law firm. If I could just line up a job for March, April and May, then I’d bee good to go all the way through the shooting of Viet’s feature in June.

To quote The Jerk, "Stuff is going to start to happen to me now." and "I think I found out what my special purpose is for."

SUNDAY, FEBUARY 14, 1999

Here’s the low down. Rock Opera (the official title) will have its world premier at the Dobie Theater on Saturday, March 13^th and the second and final screening will be also at the Dobie on Monday the 15^th. Both screenings are at midnight.

Kurtis is arraning a fund raiser, benefit concert to raise cash to cover the publicity and propaganda costs. The Pocket FishRmen and El Kabong are both down for the cause.

Barna has arranged for us to have a cast and crew screening at the Ritz Lounge on the Monday before SXSW. Voltage will play afeter.

I sat down with Jerry and we wrote an email interview for Film Threat:

DIY FILMMAKING: "War Stories from the Frontlines of Filmmaking"

===========================================

INTERVIEW WITH: Bob Ray, writer-director of the punk rock glory story, Rock Opera & Jerry Clark, the movie’s star.

WHAT'S YOUR STORY?

Bob: I met Jerry at the monster truck rally & Harley biker fest back in ’82. His uncle was a biker and mine was a monster truck racer. They got tangled up in a fight at the post race party. My uncle beat the shit outta that biker goon. I noticed that Jerry found it nearly as funny as I did that his uncle was getting the shit kicked out of him and we instantly hit it off.

Jerry: Yeah, but at least my uncle did get laid from a pity fuck. But I guess that’s neither here nor there as me and Bob hung out we realized how much we had in common being you uns at the biker fest. Needless to say we reeked havoc amongst the drunken and drugged up rednecks. I guess we seemed destined to have incredibly insane stuff happen to and around us over the years. Which led to a certain time in our lives that we just had to pseudo re-enact and dramatize it for the public to see.

Bob: That about sums it up. Me and Jerry played together in bands, and on the same kick ball team, we had our own pirate radio show and we shot a shit load of films together over the years. Shooting films is where we found our calling. We were like a well lubed tag-team, me behind the camera and Jerry in front. We would occasionally high five over her back and she would say, "Did you just high five?" and I would think "Cameras can’t talk."

SO, WHAT'S YOUR FILM ALL ABOUT?

Jerry: The film perty much revolves around a scraggly starving musician who wants to play music, delve into substances, get his band on the road and somehow wrestle a fire-breathing goddess into a chicken wing half-nelson. To do this he will pretty much fuck over half a dozen of the meanest sons o’ bitches in Texas.

Bob: And who wouldn’t? I mean, chicken wing? I think that it’s due to these little details of life that the film has a universal appeal. Rock Opera is a story that just about any one can relate to.

WHAT'S UP WITH THE TITLE?

Bob: Well, the good news is that there ain’t a lick of opera in the entire picture show. Despite that fact, the best title choices were Rock Opera and Rohypnol Summer. In the long run, I just figured that since there’s about as much date rape in the film as there is opera, it wouldn’t be proper to get folks all riled up about something like that and not come through for them. It just seemed wrong, the movie’s not about frat boys, after all. And, you know, who really cares about opera anyway?

Jerry: I dunno I wouldn’t mind slippin’ the old singin’ fat lady a ruffie or two…ahem..heh….aaaaaww I’m just jokin’ sheesh….Yeah, there were some other titles we had in mind as well, but screw it. Who wants to freak out over a title when what we really need to do is stab this ridiculous rock and roll story into the fragile eyes of the public?

Bob: Texas Crude was another option, but again, misleading. What we have here is a goof ball action-comedy-thriller about a band struggling in the Austin underground music scene. Rock Opera seemed to be the least misleading. And opera’s are a big production sort of like the main character, Toe seems to make of his life; non-stop trouble.

WHAT WAS YOUR BUDGET, SCHEDULE?

Bob: The production budget was around thirty big ones… thirty dollareenies …that’s thirty donuts. About half of that was raised through investors. The rest of the loot came from a combination of places, some was money I had saved while working as an iron worker-welder and the chronic abuse of my wife’s credit card covered the difference.

Jerry: Budget? What’s a budget? Hey did I mention I did this for the love and only the love of my director? Oh and maybe for the possibility that I might get laid since it will be premiering at the Dobie Theater in Austin, Texas for South by South West Film Fest. And maybe I might even be able to swing more acting jobs in the future.

DID YOU SACRIFICE ANYTHING BECAUSE OF BUDGET?

Bob: Only the drug induced WWII re-enactment hallucination scene and the Sasquatch love sequence.

Jerry: Not to mention I did all my own stunts which was worse than being attacked by a rabid herd of marmoset monkeys. Other than that just my sanity…….someone help me……

Bob: We couldn’t afford the marmosets either. But, we made the best of it and came out with a damn fine movie, I must say.

WHY DID YOU DO IT?

Jerry: I did it because acting and playing music are the two most important things in my life and I think it would be great if I could actually do this and get paid lots of money for it. Yep, I guess that’s a dream I share with thousands of others but dammit I don’t wanna dig freakin’ ditches for the rest of my damn life there’s no women throwing themselves at guys who do that…..and I don’t wanna end up in some tower shooting at the public with a high-powered rifle.

Bob: I did it on a dare. A triple dog dare. That and Lone Star beer gave us some free beer to use as props and we wouldn’t want to let them down (I hear they have hit men on the payroll). Needless to say, we had to make the movie. For the beer’s sake.

WAS IT WORTH IT?

Jerry: Was it worth it……? I could answer that question on so many levels but, I’ll be honest, if I get laid by a nice hot li’l mama because of it, then yes, it all will have been worth it entirely . So I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

Bob: Damn straight it was worth it. Now we get to write a Filmmaker’s War Story. And get to work on the next one. I wanna explode more stuff on the next one.

ANY ADVICE OR PEARLS OF FILMMAKING WISDOM?

Bob: Same old shit. Be really prepared. You are never really prepared. If you think you are prepared, you are wrong, prepare more. A lack of good organization will bite you in the ass. You’ve heard it a million times and here it is again, be prepared. Note: If your script sucks then all that preparation crap will just be a waste of time, so forget about that part and just get it over with. And finally, that’s why they call it dope.

Jerry: I know this may sound cheesy and gay but if you are following your heart and know you’re being true to what you wanna do I don’t think you could ever go wrong…..Jeez, does that sound silly?

WHAT'S NEXT?

Bob: We are having our world premiere at the South by South West Film Festival on March 13^th of 1999 at the fabulous Dobie Theater. SXSW put Rock Opera in the midnight slot, a time reserved for especially subversive type films like Rock Opera and Cannibal! The Musical (the Trey Parker and Matt Stone film that occupied the slot last year). I figure that I’d sell the film at the fest and collect a hundred million thousand dollars and then I’ll make a good old fashion trucker movie, or a zombie flick, or something about arson and justice or staple guns. Whatever it is I think it should involve exploding trailer parks and eighteen-wheelers. In the mean time, I’ll ride the festival roller coaster with Rock Opera, and squeeze in short films whenever possible.

Jerry: Well I’m gunna actually direct my own li’l short movie on super 8 and ride Bob’s coattails into glory being the next ridiculous character he needs for his next movie or he might just find himself held at gunpoint.

Keep up with the low down on Rock Opera and all the other antics of Bob and Jerry at the CrashCam home page: http://lonestar.texas.net/~crashcam

See the film at SXSW (March 13^th & 15^th at the Dobie): http://sxsw.kdi.com/film/festival.shtml

The super 8 reversal footage came in from Brodsky & Treadway. I’ll cut it into the film on Tuesday. Hopefully, the super 8 negative footage will be in by then. Super 8 Sound is doing that transfer.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1999

SXSW gave us a third screening on March 16^th same place, same time.

There’s an art gallery called Art-Plex and they are organizing a display of props from films. Some of the films are Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Lone Star, Slacker, and of course Rock Opera. The Film Art exhibition will have its opening party just hours before the Rock Opera world premier

Nashville Pussy is supposed to play 3-12 at Liberty Lunch w/ Voltage. Will poster and sticker club.

Jennifer Hill, our publicist, sent out press releases.

Wrapped kxan shoot. Talk of an interview.

I copied a shitload of posters & handbills.

Locked picture.

I go up to Dallas to do the transfer on Monday. We start at 5am.

Some email correspondence w/ sxsw:

Subject: Rock Opera screening times + list of distributors

Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 20:24:47 -0600

Angela,

I was wondering if you could help us narrow down this list of folks to

send invitations to see Rock Opera to. Also if there is anyone else

that should receive an invitation that we might have overlooked or that

has singed up since the mailing out of the SXSW film brochure…

…If this is too much, can you point us in the direction of someone who

could help?

Thanks,

Bob & Barna

Subject: Re: Rock Opera screening at SXSW 1999

Date: Tue, 23 Feb 99 20:56:48

Bob and Barna-

You should also include this blurb (edit to fit) on your invitations:

"Rock Opera could very well be the consummate SXSW Film. Never before

has the underground Austin music scene been brought to such glorious,

pot-reeking life to the screen by a home-town film crew. First-time

feature filmmaker Bob Ray perfectly captures the spirit and energy of

low-gauge filmmaking...

...brought to the screen with a delicious sense of the absurd that so

many indies strive for but very few achieve, Rock Opera could very well

be the next Austin film to inherit the low-budget crown worn by Slacker

and El Mariachi. -SXSW Program Notes"

There's more to it, but that's a good part, ya think? You have

permission to use our name at your discretion for publicity purposes.

By the way, for press questions, you should contact Elizabeth Derczo, our

publicist at 467-7979.

Excited about the Fest yet, guys? I am.

-angela

Subject: Re: Rock Opera screening at SXSW 1999

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 01:49:14

Angela,

i think i'm getting high off all the smoke ya'll're blowing up my ass and i

like it...naw, but really, that's one hell of a write up. thanks for saying

so many nice things.

i was wondering one thing though, is the following quote some higher form of

grammar or perhaps an email problem/typo? it confounds me:

"Never before has the underground Austin music scene been brought to such

glorious, pot-reeking life to the screen by a home-town film crew."

thanks again for the great write up.

---bob

Subject: Re: Rock Opera screening at SXSW 1999

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 99 11:23:37

Bob,

>"Never before has the underground Austin music scene been brought to such

>glorious, pot-reeking life to the screen by a home-town film crew."

It's a higher form of grammar. You wouldn't understand.

Kidding. I know the sentence is a bit cumbersome, but it is

grammatically correct. The synopsis I sent you will probably be a bit

different once published. It's only gone through one edit so far-- it

generally goes through three before it gets printed.

Glad you liked the write up. I was worried you'd be offended by being

compared to lesser films such as Slacker and El Mariachi. Yes, the sun

does indeed shine out of our behinds here at SXSW.

Anyway, to give credit where credit's due, Bryan Poyser (one of the

programmers at Cinematexas) wrote the synopsis. I just edited it and

spiced it up a bit. Thank Poyser for loving your movie.

See y'all soon.

Angela

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3, 1999

I just got back from Dallas where we re-transferred the footage. 9 grand. It looks baadasssss. I will put it together and fix the sound over the next few days. We should be completed by Sunday, the 7^th.

The motels I stayed in up in Dallas were the biggest pieces of shit on the planet. I couldn’t have imagined a scumier dive than these. The Delux Inn on Harry Himes Street takes the cake. A worker tried to sell me a lap top on my way to my room. The carpet was peeling up, the 1960’s era TV was hanging from the wall. There was no spool to hold the toilet paper, the shower curtain was torn up, no lamp shades and electric wires were exposed. The particle board dresser was busted up and on its last leg. Graffiti and holes in the wall. The dead bolt only worked if I lifted up the door, so for extra safety, I stacked the furniture in front of the door. When I peeled back the sheets to sleep, I found pubic hairs. I ended up sleeping on top of the blanket in all my clothes so as not to touch much. Classic.

Sent out the following press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT:

February 25, 1999 Jennifer Hill / ThemePark

512/472-5266

ROCK OPERA TO PREMIERE AT

1999 SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST FILM FESTIVAL

Flamingo Cantina event kicks off week of screenings

(Austin, TX) -- Rock Opera, a comedic tale of the underground Austin music scene, will premiere at the 1999 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival at midnight on Saturday, March 13 at the Dobie Theater located at 2021 Guadalupe. The film will encore at midnight slots on Monday, March 15 and Tuesday, March 16. Rock Opera is Austin filmmaker Bob Ray’s debut feature.

The film, shot entirely on location in some of Austin’s most well-known local clubs, tells the story of Toe, a local musician who goes through endless struggles to put a tour together for his band. To achieve his goal, he experiences a litany of hardships including betraying friends and becoming an unwilling player in shady drug deals gone bad. Several bands who define the Austin music scene are featured in the film including Fuckemos, 16 Deluxe, Pocket Fish-R-Men, Voltage, Honky, Ed Hall, El Flaco, Horseshit Gunfire, Cherubs, Pigpoke, the Crackpipes, Pong, El Insecto and others. Live performances by the Fuckemos, Pigpoke, and the Grammy nominated-fire-breathing Nashville Pussy showcase the gritty punk rock underbelly of the "live music capital of the world."

According to SXSW organizers, "Rock Opera could very well be the consummate SXSW Film. Never before has the underground Austin music scene been brought to such glorious, pot-reeking life…. First-time feature filmmaker Bob Ray perfectly captures the spirit and energy of low-gauge filmmaking... brought to the screen with a delicious sense of the absurd that so many indies strive for but very few achieve, Rock Opera could very well be the next Austin film to inherit the low-budget crown worn by Slacker and El Mariachi."

Preceding the week of screenings, a fundraiser at Flamingo Cantina will take place on Tuesday, March 9th at 9 p.m. Bands represented in the film will perform including Pocket Fish-R-Men, as well as El Kabong, Charlie’s Unholy Happy Hour and

special guests. Tickets for the all-ages show are $5, and proceeds will benefit the film’s post-production costs. Flamingo Cantina is located at 515 East 6th Street.

SXSW Film Festival is one of the leading independent film festivals in the country, attracting industry representatives from major production companies and studios in Los Angeles and New York. In its sixth year, it has premiered films by Richard Linklater, Atom Egoyan, Steven Soderbergh, Bill Paxton and many, many more. The film conference will take place March 12-16. Screenings will run at venues throughout Austin March 12-20.

Passes for the festival can be purchased through Star Ticket outlets at 512-469-STAR and individual tickets can be purchased at the theater before each showing. For more information, or to schedule an interview with writer/director Bob Ray, please

contact Jennifer Hill at 512/472-5266.

P.S.

The Art Plex ,1705 Guadaluope, will open the Texas Film Art exhibit just in time for SXSW. The show will feature props and art pieces from several Texas movies including The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Faculity, ROCK OPERA

and more. The opening party will be on March 13^th from 6-11pm (that's when you leave to go catch the ROCK OPERA world premier at the Dobie at midnight).

more info:

http://lonestar.texas.net/~crashcam/

Monday, march 8, 1999

We had the cast & crew screening tonight. It was a blast, we got all drunk and shit.

I worked until 7am last night, 3am the night before, 4 am the night before & I don’t even remember the night before that. Repeat.

Marc Savlov called and is going to do a write up for next Thursday’s Chronicle..

I’m doing an email interview for Citysearch.com.

Barna’s girlfriend, Mierelle is doing a documentary on myself and Rock Opera.

Film Threat gave us some press:

FILM THREAT WEEKLY

"Hollywood's Indie Voice of the New Millennium"

=============================

Take 9 : March 1st, 1999

=============================

http://www.filmthreat.com

=============================

"Your eyes are full of hate, Forty-One. That's good. Hate keeps a man alive. It gives him strength."

- Jack Hawkins meeting Charlton Heston among the slaves in "Ben-Hur"

<===========Deluxe======Widescreen======Edition ===========>

INDIE MOVIE PREMIERE:

"Rock Opera," the debut feature of Austin filmmaker Bob Ray, will premiere at the SXSW Film Festival at midnight, March 13th at the Dobie Theater. "Rock Opera" is the comedic tale of local musician Toe's struggles to put together a tour for his band. Through selling dirt weed, stabbing people in the back, and double crossing half a dozen of the meanest sons of bitches in Texas, Toe puts himself in a position to achieve his

dreams. Screening Saturday, March 13th at midnight, Monday, March 15th at midnight--both screenings at the Dobie Theater, 2021 Guadalupe.

http://lonestar.texas.net/~crashcam/

http://sxsw.kdi.com/film/index.shtml

Of course, the screening times have changed since this went out: Saturday the 13^th, Tuesday the 16^th, and Wednesday the 17^th of March at midnight are the confirmed times.

Wednesday, MARCH 10, 1999

I did an interview on Citysearch: