THE SERIAL YOU NEVER SAW - PART 3

This was actually the first segment we shot. We had tried to film this fight segment at a using the location's picturesque wooden railroad trestle as the set in 16mm two years earlier with several different cast members, but the cost was prohibitive. One cast member was nearly blinded when he knelt too close to light a line of black powder poured on the ground that lead to the dynamite keg. It flashed in his face and signed his hair. Fortunately, he was wearing glasses in the scene.

We ran those precious few minutes of film at Houstoncon '71 to a standing ovation. Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate the 16mm footage in decades.

When we went back to the same location on Cypress Creek near Spring, Texas, the wooden trestle had been torn down and replaced with a new, studier concrete structure. It still served the purpose but didn't have the character of the original trestle.

Csat members for this sequence were Glenn Kessler, Marc Schooley, Walter Irwin, Roy Bonario, Ken Donnell and yours truly, Earl Blair.

Thanks to the abundance of white sand on the location, the black and white film gives the appearance that it was a cold day when we shot this segment. Nothing could be farther from the truth!! It was a miserably hot, Houston summer day. We began shooting as soon as we had enough daylight, and the temps had risen into to the high 90s by the time we finished,

Like most of our shoots, we only had four or five unexposed reels of Super 8mm black and white. Once they were used, filming was over. We usually worked without a written script, just a general idea in my head, though Glenn Kessler did finally write a script for the whole serial. We pretty much did everything in one take....but not always. There's a blooper reel that I'll eventually post....

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• retro
• serial
• cliffhanger
• Houston
• Captain
• America
• HCCA
• trestle
• railroad
• bridge
• amateur
• filmmaker
• 1970s

[akadkins]

I loved the cliffhanger endings...but will always be in wonder of how Captain America escaped!?!

[SPANNERmkV]

"Undaunted by the fact..." A masterpiece on SO many levels!

[KINZOisHERE]

well done, thxs for posting