Passport
Bowling + Heavy Metal = Striker!
June 8, 2012 Leave a Comment
Director’s Cut host Charles Monroe-Kane joins the blog today with this guest post about “The Making of Striker.” watch the film and an on-location interview with the filmmakers on Wisconsin Public Television at 9 p.m. Friday, June 8 and 10 p.m. Tuesday, June 12.
Ok, before we proceed I need to tell you a little about how Director’s Cut works. Mary, my awesome producer, normally hands me a DVD and tells me a date and time for the interview. I then watch the entire film without reading any background information or bios (that comes later).
Here, do it with me. This is what Mary handed me recently.
Yes. It’s a six minute and thirty second parody of a heavy metal bowling video (if you can parody something that doesn’t exist). I didn’t see that there was an extra on the video, a “Making of”. The extra was feature length.
It gets better.
Mary informs me we are taking this interview out of the studio – to a bowling alley. Sweet! “Get your best bowling shirt ready,” she says. Be shocked: I do not own a bowling shirt. But a quick email to all Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television employees brings me a plethora of choices (note to WPR and WPT employees who are reading this and have not gotten your shirts back, I promise to return them, I just like them near me).
Taping day was chaos. People were bowling during the interview. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to conduct an interview in a bowling alley but it’s kinda hard. All I could hear were balls hitting pins. The low ceiling in the bowling meant the lights were closer, and hotter (much hotter). Mary normally gives me instructions (how much time I have left, stop toughing my nose) via an ear piece. No ear piece in bowling land. Cue cards? Nope.
I was deaf, sweaty and cue-less.
But when I put that 16-pound bowling ball in my hand, the one with a human SKULL IN IT, none of that mattered. It was Striker time.
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Scott Hainstock says:
Jim pretty much covered it. Working with Dan and Brian was not only a blast, but a lesson in planning, organization, and thinking on your feet. It was a joy to watch them work, and to work for them, and I can’t wait for the next crazy-like-a-fox project they brew up!
Thanks WPT for helping share this with the world. We all need to have a little more fun in life, and that’s what this video reminds me of every time I see it. That’s a pretty cool legacy for Brian and Dan to leave us with. 🙂
jim hargraves says:
i’m 59 years old and being a part or “STRIKER” was just a gas ! i hadn’t had that much fun in a long time. the concept was a bit crazy but you know what they say about “after all these years” so i jumped in head first . watching dan and brian create this video with little or nothing to work with was just amazing. it blew my mind as they worked together so well to create what turned out to be so much more than just something home made . thanks to WPT for providing a media to give this astounding feat a chance to grow and congrats to dan and brian .