{"id":1472,"date":"2007-07-02T13:08:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-02T13:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2007\/07\/the-great-borscht-kidnapping-1989\/"},"modified":"2007-07-02T13:08:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-02T13:08:00","slug":"the-great-borscht-kidnapping-1989","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2007\/07\/the-great-borscht-kidnapping-1989.html","title":{"rendered":"The Great Borscht Kidnapping (1989)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

One of these days, I will get my old videotapes out of storage and post some of my old student films online \u2014 not because they\u2019re anything to write home about, but just because it would be handy to have them out there. In the meantime, I recently got back in touch with an old friend of mine who starred in The Great Borscht Kidnapping<\/i>, a video that I shot back in November 1989 for my introduction-to-film class at UBC. My friend asked if I was going to post this film online, and I said I couldn\u2019t at the moment, but he still had a copy handy, so he<\/i> posted it instead. And here it is:<\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=xraz5RbuKws<\/a>
Click here<\/a> if the video file above doesn\u2019t play properly.<\/p>\n

I sure hope my copy hasn\u2019t deteriorated as much as this one has; then again, the film is<\/i> supposed to be a sort of silent movie, so perhaps all the signs of age just add to the pseudo-antique charm.<\/p>\n

Some of the gags in this film didn\u2019t work out anywhere near as well as I wanted them to, and there are some continuity problems with the lighting near the end because we didn\u2019t have time to go back for another day\u2019s shoot. But I think it\u2019s okay for a video made by a bunch of teenagers running around in the pre-digital age.<\/p>\n

Two things I definitely learned from making this film:<\/p>\n

You have to be really economical with your dialogue when you\u2019re making a silent movie. My professor did not permit the use of synchronous sound in our videos, and this forced me to focus on the structure<\/i> of the screenplay, rather than on the dialogue, and to communicate as much as I could through the visuals<\/i>.<\/p>\n

That said, music can really make a film. I remember sitting in my parents\u2019 living room and watching my friend Jason improvise the score on my mother\u2019s piano as he watched the video. I was in awe then, and I am in awe now. I wish I had that kind of skill, and I simply cannot imagine this film without Jason\u2019s contribution. If I ever had a sense of how the film would sound, before I actually made it, it has been completely supplanted by Jason\u2019s music.<\/p>\n

Two further points:<\/p>\n

Yes, that is my sister Monica<\/a> playing Anna. Some of her outtakes are very, very funny, and yes, that footage is also in storage.<\/p>\n

Plus, any resemblance between this movie\u2019s characters and my own mixed roots \u2014 as a half-Mennonite, half-British kid born and raised on a continent of cowboys \u2014 is not exactly coincidental.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of these days, I will get my old videotapes out of storage and post some of my old student films online \u2014 not because they\u2019re anything to write home about, but just because it would be handy to have them out there. In the meantime, I recently got back in touch with an old […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Great Borscht Kidnapping (1989)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"One of these days, I will get my old videotapes out of storage and post some of my old student films online -- not because they're anything to write home\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2007\/07\/the-great-borscht-kidnapping-1989.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Great Borscht Kidnapping (1989)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of these days, I will get my old videotapes out of storage and post some of my old student films online -- not because they're anything to write home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2007\/07\/the-great-borscht-kidnapping-1989.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-07-02T13:08:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. 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