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If I made this film today I'd probably get arrested.
She was only 16 at the time (maybe 15). I can't remember her name but she was my little brother Randy's girlfriend (we'll call her Tina) at the time. You can also see her in Teach Your Children, but in that film she was a sweet, innocent prep school girl. These two films were made a couple of weeks apart. The lyrics for Lucretia MacEvil was about a heartless, irresistible young vamp – no way of getting around that. Since The Now Explosion producers got records prior to them hitting the Top 40, Tina wasn't familiar with the song. I played it for her and she squealed and said, “Oh my God!” Then we listened to it a few more times and she started getting into it and would say, “At this point in the music, what if I did this?” We continued to toss around ideas. I told her I wanted the camera and her to be constantly moving. I already knew she was a good dancer (one of the reasons I chose her) and had an energetic way of moving about – lots of energy. I told her that her expressions were most important to me and I wanted them to be sexy and naughty. She laughed and covered her face bashfully, then said she'd try her best. We shot most of the film in the backyard of my parents' house off Campbellton Rd. in SW Atlanta. The drum set was provided by brother Randy, who went on to play drums for several professional bands in the coming years. He coached Tina off-screen while I was shooting. I had my portable 45 RPM record player for her to follow the beat and to get into the mood of the song while she was dancing. “I said things like, “Come on, more, more! Seduce the camera!” Okay, so I was a dirty old man – even though I was only 22 at the time. But I got what I was after, even though Tina would occasionally burst out laughing. The sun flares helped hide her blushes. We then went over to Greenbriar Shopping Mall (the first one built in Atlanta) for the remaining shots. This location was less than a mile from where I shot The Long and Winding Road only a few weeks earlier. I just wanted shots of her high-stepping around in a confident and sassy way in every woman's favorite environment, a shopping center. I also wanted the sense that the camera was stalking her and had her react to that, sometimes with irritation. This was pure personality filmmaking and I think it turned out pretty good. |
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