Officers
Officers was
an incomplete project that was conceived in the mid 1990s by David Rerecich and
Bill Wikstrom. It was a follow-up to Battles,
Homophobia, and Kristmas, all stories that took place in their established Bellerose/Floral
Park universe. The early concept
revolved around a typical day in the lives of Detective Bellerose and Captain
Floral Park. It was to include classic
cop clichés such as donut jokes and dry cop banter. Dave and Bill created and starred as two iconic
police characters. Bill played the dry talking,
rough and tumble, Detective Bellerose. Dave was the quirky Captain Floral Park. They filmed minor scenes but abandoned the
project due to lack of focus in the script.
It was late
2003, Bill and Joseph were at Dave’s apartment watching old videos Dave and
Bill created back in the mid-nineties. Joseph
was trying to come up with a concept that would cater to Matthew Swiatocha wanting
to create a musical score to a movie. As
luck would have it outtakes from an abandoned Officers movie began
playing. Joseph inquired about the
footage and what happened to the movie.
After hearing the story he proposed to complete the script for them. He jotted down some quick notes and ran
through some story ideas with them. They
dismissively agreed to his plot ideas not thinking he would actually write a
script. A few months later Joseph
completed his script and sent it to Dave for review. Dave shocked that Joseph was serious about
finishing an Officers movie read through the script doing his best to tear it
apart by making fun of all the static dialogue. When Joseph received the revised version he
thought it was brilliant, it was the comedic touch that his draft was
missing. The script was then sent to
Bill who made additional alterations and afterwards the three collaborated
together on one final draft before setting forth on production.
Joseph wrote
the plot in a simple format that was filmable but also called upon a plethora
of characters. Understanding he could
not amass such a large cast all at once he modeled the story around a film noir
mystery that would lead the main characters to different quirky people before
solving the case. The two main
characters were David Rerecich returning to his role as Captain Floral Park and
Bill Wikstrom playing the iconic Detective Bellerose .
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| An outtake still from the first attempt at an Officers movie and also used in the opening of the completed project. Joseph wanted to confuse the audience by showing outtakes of the film in the opening title sequence instead of the traditional way by showing such sequences at the end of a movie. |
Bill Wikstrom was a typical Bellerose underachiever, a quick witted boy with a talent for the arts but never quite got his due in life. His claim to fame was a stint as the lead singer of the band Endangered Feces. He was also the lead singer and guitarist for the lesser known rock band Idiot Squad. While Bill’s main distinction was in music he was also behind the creation of Detective Bellerose and would regularly collaborate with Dave on all his video ideas.
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| Bill doing what he does best! Rocking out! |
With the
script completed production began but it was riddled with delays and three
scenes required reshoots. The majority
of the issues were scheduling conflicts and also a lack of a crew. Joseph was directing and doing the
cinematography at the same time. He was
accustomed to the double tasks while directing music videos but it allowed him
to talk over the camera and give needed stage directions. While filming a talkie it significantly
limited his directing abilities during the shoot. The length of the script was also difficult
for the amateur actors to memorize which required close-ups for a majority of
the takes so they could read the script while performing their dialogue. The visual look of Officers became rather
static with stiff acting while on a time crunch.
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| A still from a much disputed take between Joseph and Dave's vision of the movie. |
The burden of
comedy rested on the main characters who kept trying to add lib with mixed
results while Joseph was trying to complete a page count during each scheduled shoot. Tension rose on the set when Dave and Joseph
disagreed with how some of the performances should be portrayed during the
shooting. Dave requested to edit the
film to his preference of a 1970s style cop show and was performing the role
accordingly. Joseph had a grander noir
spoof in mind which caused conflicts during certain takes. Bill, who was left with the burden of carrying
the film was handed much of the dry dialogue while doing his best to jazz it up
with a variety of vocal inflections. Officers
took more than a year to shoot but was finally completed in 2005.
Two known
cuts of the movie exist. Dave’s version
respectively known as Officers: The Adventures of Detective Bellerose and
Captain Floral Park (the editors cut) is modeled after a classic 1970s cop show
complete with 1970s style music, vintage commercials and a runtime of thirty
minutes. Joseph’s cut known simply as
Officers is compiled of mostly videogame and some pop music. The music track used for the film was supposed
to be an ample track that would be replaced by a score created by Matthew
Swiatocha. Unfortunately Matthew dropped
out of the project which left Joseph with an incomplete score. The runtime was
going on about 45 minutes when Joseph was discussing his venture with his
coworker Eileen at The Late Show with David Letterman. She advised him to cut the work down to
thirty minutes, Joseph decided to extend the piece to a full hour. He added two different segments into the
movie that consisted of Detective Bellerose and another character looking at
one another with no actual conversation happening. He also added a drawn out opening scene with
clips that included miscellaneous takes and items off the cutting room
floor. These segments are what most
people reference as their turnoff to Joseph’s cut of the movie. Dave’s movie premiered Christmas 2005 to a select circle of Dave’s
friends and garnered positive feedback.
Joseph’s movie had no such premier and was not available for a mass audience
to see until it was posted on YouTube years later.
The reception
of the two movie versions remain mixed.
Many appreciate Dave’s shorter running time but find his addition of
commercials burdensome in rewatches. With
the exception of the staring scenes and long intro, Joseph received better
praise for how he cut the scenes together.
Dave’s vanity prevented him from using certain takes in his version that
involved him performing funnier antics.
Joseph had no such apprehension when cutting together Dave’s performance
and thus demonstrated the actors in more powerful presentations. With
all of that many find it hard to justify a one hour amateur movie. When comparing both versions of the movie to YouTube
views, Joseph’s cut has a significantly higher count which makes his the winner
on a commercial level but perhaps not at a critical level.
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| A still from Dave's version of Officers. |
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Coming off
what Joseph perceived as the failure of Officers he decided to go back to his
roots with a music video. He wanted to
up the ante and chose to adapt a popular story.
He selected the Twilight Zone episode A Passage for Trumpet about a
drunk musician who has a near death experience and rediscovers his love of
music. Joseph included some dialogue at
the beginning to add some additional context to the video. He also decided to disregard his rule to use
black and white in a video, the cardinal sin of the amateur filmmaker. The story begins in color and after the
character is hit by the car it shifts to black and white to show he’s been
transported into another realm and also pay homage to its Twilight Zone origins.
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| A still from the episode A Passage for Trumpet |
Joseph casted “I Like To Play With Toys” Productions® regulars Mike Cody, David Rerecich, Angelica McKessy and himself in the video. The video also marked the first time Joseph created a shot list to work off of. The choice to use actors accustomed to Joseph’s prior works coupled with a written script helped the shooting be one of the most efficient directorial jobs by Joseph. Even the camera movements, though not as elaborately planned, were heavily influenced by Matthew Swiatocha.
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| A still from While My Guitar Gently Weeps |
When Joseph
premiered the video it was met with outstandingly positive feedback. Many praised it as “I Like To Play With Toys”
Productions® best work ever. Dave
exclaimed it was how Officers should have been made. The video even went semi-viral on YouTube
with a current count of almost 300,000 views.
