By Scott Shaw
For obvious reasons, I’ve spoken and writing a lot about my film work with Donald G. Jackson. We created a new brand of cinema, ZenFilmmaking! Whether it was via interviews, through the articles and/or the books I’ve written, or via my teaching seminars and courses on filmmaking, I have presented a lot of the facts about how the films we made, (as a team), were created: the philosophy, the story development, the goings-on behind the scenes, the trials and the tribulations, and all of that kind of stuff. The reason for these presentations are obvious. I mean, let’s face facts, those films, and particularly the Zen Filmmaking philosophy we created, has become a big part of my life.
As I’ve said in the past, Don was a Comic Book guy. Me, not so much. This may have all had a lot to do with where and when we each grew up. Don, in a midwestern, semi-rural/industrial town, Adrian, Michigan, during the 1950s and me on the dark side of L.A. during the 1960s. He evolved one way and me another. He loved the fantasy of the Republic Serials and Comic Books. Me, I was more drawn to the urban nature of Motown and Blaxploitation cinema. We did, however, come together with our love for Spaghetti Westerns, Samurai Cinema, and the abstracts works born from 1960s Psychedelic Cinema.
Due to Don’s love for Comic Books, and Comic Book Cinema; especially on a few of the early Zen Films we created together, there was a Comic Book, Super Hero element presented in each of them.
The main Donald G. Jackson and Scott Shaw films that I can say were the most Comic Book, Super Hero influenced, were: The Roller Blade Seven, Max Hell Frog Warrior, and Guns of El Chupacabra. In each of these cases, it was Don who came up with my character’s name. Where the idea(s) for the character names came from, you would have to ask him, as I don’t know. I just heard them and agreed. Sadly, you can no longer ask him that, however, as he passed away over twenty years ago. The character and the character development were, conversely, created by both of us contributing ideas. We were a dynamic team.
Was Hawk in the Roller Blade Seven a Super Hero? Was Max Hell in Max Hell Frog Warrior a Super Hero? Was Jack B. Quick, Space Sheriff, in Guns of El Chupacabra a Super Hero? Those answers are, of course, debatable. I would say more of an Anti Hero. But, the Super Hero, Comic Book influence is present in each of those characters and active throughout all of those films.
There are truly some grand Super Hero’s in Comic Books and on the Silver Screen. In Comic Books and Graphic Novels, and with films that have large budgets, anything is possible. The sky’s the limit.
In Comic Books, anything can happen. The mind of the creator dreams it, puts it to paper, and the character lives. In high budget films, again, what comes from the mind of the creator can be made into a reality. On films with a shoestring budget, like the Zen Films Don and I made, this is not the case, however. You need to keep your ideas bound by the realms of your reality. The reality of your budget.
So, was what we created in the realm of Super Hero Cinema on par with the Bigs? Of course not. We knew they could never be. Thus, what we presented to the audience were the characters exhibited via the understand that they are living in an abstract reality. What is witnessed by the audience is the intent more than the actualization.
For example, in Armageddon Blvd., we presented a character named, The Rag Doll. Simply her physical movements, and the way she completely embraced her character, was a true presentation of Comic Book Mentality and Cinematic Art. This is the same with the character, Mime Girl, who appeared in a couple of our Zen Films and Music Videos; most notably in, Mimes: Silent But Deadly.
That actress completely embraced her role. To watch both of those actresses, they completely OWNED their characters! True art. True acting.
What I am saying here is that what Don and I created, via the very limited budgets we possessed, was at least partially inspired by his love for Comic Book Culture and our combined love for Artistic Cinema. Thus, though we did not possess the budget to take our productions to the place where they could be compared with the high budget Action Character Genres, what we did was to make Cinematic Art within the constraints or our limited resources.
Aside from Super Hero Central, the Zen Films I made, not in association with DGJ, were not Super Hero Orientated. I was and am far more interested in presenting the urban landscape. As abstracted as my film presentations of that urban landscape may be to some people. Certainly, my Zen Film like Samurai Vampire Bikers from Hell and Samurai JohnnyFrankenstein have a Comic Book quality to them. But, that it is not really their focus. Their focus is human interaction in the character’s living of their life.
More to the point, I believe what we, and particularly I, created was a genre onto itself, defined by nothing created before. Namely, a Zen Film.
Did I ever feel like a Super Hero in those films? No. I knew I was just a guy, with a background in the martial arts, trying to make a piece of Artistic Cinema.
The ultimately question becomes, when you attempt to pigeonhole any artistic project into a specific genre is, are you giving it credence by doing so or are you simply diminishing what it was truly created to be? That’s the question you need to ask yourself whenever you observe any piece of art, via whatever form it may take on. Are you judging it based upon what you believe you already know, via comparing it to projects of a similar category, or are you allowing it to be its own singular presentation, dominated or judged solely on its peculiar unique boundaries of creation?
To take this conversation a bit further, I recently thought about that multi-part parody that was made about Zen Filmmaking and myself, created by students at Grand Valley State University. I popped over to YouTube, where it is presented and found it was filmed seventeen years ago. Wow, time flies!
As I have stated in the past, I never met or conversed with any of the actors or filmmakers associated with that project. Except for one of the participants who contacting me before filming, asking me about where we got the Chupacabra monster, but when I told him that it cost like thirty-thousand dollars to create, I never heard from him again. I wonder where those people are now?
The guy who played Scott Shaw did a very funny portrayal, I thought. As did all of the actors. They truly hit the nail on the head, (as the old saying goes), in their presentation of the wildness of the Zen Filmmaking mindset. Particularly the Zen Films I created in association with Donald G. Jackson.
That parody was done at a time when Zen Filmmaking, Donald G. Jackson, and myself were on the lips of many people in the film industry and the surrounding communities. Times change, however. As is always the case. Now, it seems, not as many people speak about Zen Filmmaking.
Zen Filmmaking is not the only Art-Based and new style of cinema to fall from mass public discussion that rose near the end of the twentieth century. New styles of cinema like Dogme 95 have also seemingly fallen by the wayside.
Still, there are those who do discuss and attempt to describe and pick-apart Zen Filmmaking. The thing about those who do is, they generally get the understanding of Zen Filmmaking and the motivations of Don and myself totally wrong. But, that’s okay, that’s just life. People who aren’t busy living their own life and creating their own brand of cinema, or other artistic endeavors, need something to speak about.
The thing is, at the root, at the heart of all artistic endeavors, is the artist. They are the one(s) who create.
Not everyone is an artist. That’s fine. I’m sure people like that are doing other important things that contribute to this Lifescape. With this being said, as the artist is the creator of that something uniquely their own, this always needs to be at the forefront of any discussion about what that artist created; not simply a judgmental overview about what one individual thinks or interprets or claims to they understand about what and why that artist was doing what they were doing.
Don and I came from vastly different foundations, yet, we came together and created a new style of cinema. Sure, it was me who laid down most of the formation and philosophy for the method. That’s just who I am. Don was way too scatter for all of that. But, it was our coming together that created the inception and the means for this ratified method of filmmaking to be developed. Without that meeting of the minds, the formalization of Zen Filmmaking may never have taken place.
With all creative teams comes the input of the two or more people lending their understanding to the project or the projects they create together. This was the case of Donald G. Jackson and myself. Like George Lucas has stated about the characters he created for Stars Wars, he envisioned himself as the Luke Skywalker character. Though created on a vastly larger scale than anything Don and I ever did, what we each brought to the table was our interpretation of that Hero, Super Hero, Anti Hero, or just that Unique Character that was not just your average Any Body, because no character, in any of our films, was just that average anybody. They were all unique pieces to the puzzle of a cinematic universe created just slightly outside the boundaries of average reality.
I believe that the key to viewing, studying, researching, or discussing any form of cinema, or any type of art, you must step into the mind of the person or persons who are the creator. You must understand it from their perspective; their advantages and their limitations. For if you truly wish to understand the inception and the truth in any piece of art, via whatever form it may take, you must remove yourself from the equation. As is stated in Zen, if you wish to truly understand anything, you must become nothing. For all the things you believe you know, is only your ego talking. You can never know what any other person knows. At best, you can only guess.
If you wish to truly understand and appreciate any art, be silent, let the piece of art be what it is. For there is the only place where a true understanding of art may be gained.
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Zen Filmmaking & Super Hero Zen Cinema From Hawk to Max Hell to Jack B. Quick Space Sheriff
