War Journal: WE NEED EARTH WOMEN

The Making Of... WE NEED EARTH WOMEN!
Oddball Feature Mixes Unused Footage with Aliens, Babes and Take-Out Containers!
by Joe Sherlock
It all started when I was writing an article for my b-movie zine, Dr. Squid, about how a lot of movies use footage from other movies (the Battle Beyond the Stars spaceship scenes and Planet of the Dinosaurs t-rex scenes have been used in dozens of other films). The article meandered into the realm of films put together with unused scenes from other movies. Fred Olen Ray gave me a great example from his work: "I wanted to have John Carradine play Dr. Frankenstein before he died and he was pretty damned old, so I gave it a shot. I filmed his death scene with Dawn (Wildsmith) and then recorded a bunch of voice-overs for his living brain to spout off about (in a feature to be called Frankenstein's Brain). I never made the film, but thought it might be good in EVIL SPAWN so I used the footage there and later used the voice overs in JACK-O LANTERN."
It got me to thinking: even I had footage that for one reason or another was not used in the final cut of my video features. I was inspired to see if I could craft a script to somehow tie a bunch of unrelated footage together. Since a lot of the footage involved a variety of women, I happened up on the idea of a couple of aliens sent to earth to look for the perfect female, allowing me to shoot new bits to bridge the miscellaneous footage. I managed to cobble together unused bits from both DIMENSION OF BLOOD (test footage, alternate takes) and MONSTER IN THE GARAGE (scenes shot before I recast the main actress) as well as some behind the scenes things I had lying around. John Bowker let me use some stuff from his DREAMWALKERS project (footage that was shot to be seen on a character's TV screen) and when my friend Tom Shaffer found out what I was doing, he offered up three unused sequences from his SHADOWS OF DREAD video feature (scenes shot before he had an actress drop out necessitating a recast). I made the sci-fi feature campy since I figured the humor would mesh well with the mix of extra footage.
During this time, I was shooting John Bowker's DREAMWALKERS and one day Tom was covered with foam latex and make-up to play a nightmare monster. Keeping the EARTH WOMEN project in mind, when the shoot was done for the day, I had special effects make-up artist Rob Merickel do some slight make-up changes on Tom's face and we dashed over to Tom's house to do some improved scenes. As usual, Tom was hilarious and we shot quite a lengthy sequence, taking advantage of a make-up job that was actually done for a different movie!
In the cafeteria at work one day, they introduced their new salad bar...and the take out containers that I instantly knew would be my alien spaceship. A few lengths of fishing line later, and I had a flyer saucer that was both cool and ridiculous. Even the model buildings that make up the space city in the opening were originally built, but never used, for an old project called STARCHASERS III. Given that this was already an "everything but the kitchen sink" project, I tried to squeeze in as many other weird things as possible: a fake skull, a Juggs Magazine, my Battle Beyond the Stars poster, my friend's giant fish tank, etc. Heck, this even features the movie debut of my 2-year-old son (a brilliant performance with a plastic skull). I also had several friends do short bits that helped me bridge the footage. In one of those bits, my friend Tami plays a phone sex operator and that opened up a whole new chapter to WE NEED EARTH WOMEN.
Tami has been featured in several of my productions, including the title role in VAMPIRISA'S VELVET VAULT OF HORROR, and has a blast in front of the camera. My original script ended with the aliens finding their perfect specimen and heading off into space. However, given Tami's enthusiasm and in the spirit of recycling old stuff, I pulled out an old script that I had started a couple of years ago about an alien bounty hunter. I rewrote some of it and created a way for the aliens and their "perfect female" to encounter the hunter on their journey home. In fact, this old script was written with Holly Bernabe (a talented veteran of nearly ALL of my video productions) cast as the alien hunter and I was able to cast her in the same part, as rewritten for WE NEED EARTH WOMEN!
This little stock-footage project had evolved into a much bigger project than I originally envisioned, but it was so much fun! I managed to work in cameos by a few characters from some of my earlier projects - just playing other aliens, but a cool inside joke for those who have seen my other stuff.
The big shoot for the "second half" of WE NEED EARTH WOMEN took place in a woodsy area next to a slow-moving river. Tami and the two aliens were to come up out of the water after the saucer crashed. Besides the river bottom being a bit slippery, John and Eric, playing the aliens, had to submerge themselves and then come up wearing rubber monster masks. The trick here is that after you come up, it takes a little while for the water to drain out of the masks and allow you to breathe. Further complicating this was the problem of staying under long enough to allow the surface to settle before coming up. We had several "float-ups" that day. After about 8 takes, we finally nailed it.
The other tricky part of the shoot was a fight between Tami and the "Predator Alien," played by Holly. Holly was covered head to toe with her outfit, including capes, a long black and red fighting staff and an Egyptian cat-like helmet. Needless to say, she was hot! Although I had blocked out a chunk of the fight, Tami and Holly both contributed great ideas, using fallen trees, rocks and the general terrain of the area. Both were great, whacking each other, falling down, slipping on mud and getting pretty bruised and banged up. In the words of my friend Tom, "they were troopers!" The hard work paid off in a great, extended fight sequence. Oh, and for the "spaceship holding pod" sequence, Holly finally got to take off that cumbersome helmet and show off her black leather bustier!
When editing WE NEED EARTH WOMEN, I tried to keep the cuts quick and keep the story moving right along. Humor is tricky - I figured that if some people didn't find certain scenes funny, at least there would be something else coming up right away. The sound and music play a big part in the success of this campy feature. From the hot rod engine of the flying saucer to the loud "blubs" of the fish watching their owner on the phone, everything was exaggerated or at least strange. The main music was more like spacey 50's movie sound effects created by synthesizers and sound modulation equipment.
The nice thing about this was the intentional cheesiness factor - if something looked a little goofy (like a take-out container on fishing line making hot rod noises), it was OK because it actually fit with the spirit of the production. So, what started out as a quickie hodgepodge of old footage morphed into a project filled with location shoots, props, costumes, special effects, models, aliens, monsters and cleavage! Sounds good to me!
You can check out the WE NEED EARTH WOMEN website at Dr. Squid
For more information about WE NEED EARTH WOMEN, contact Joe Sherlock, PO Box 856, Corvallis, OR 97339 or e-mail sherlockfam@proaxis.com