The life of a Willow Creek Asst. Head Projectionist / Facebook Manager and wanna-be blogger, writer and filmmaker is tough. No, it's not as tough as several other jobs in the world, clearly, but it's still a tough ambition to move through.
When I was five, I was toying with the idea of becoming a fighter pilot. In particular, I wanted to bolt through the sky in a supersonic F-14 Tomcat. I blame Top Gun for that, but I also blame Top Gun for striking up my interest in film. What an odd film to really start the discovery of filmmaking, right?
The point of telling you of all this nostalgia is that I was thinking about my roots as an aspiring filmmaker while working diligently on a retro project one afternoon. Then, almost as if some unseen force were coursing these thoughts of yesteryear through my subconscious and working to bring them full circle to a “what does it all mean” moment of clarity, I received a call from Retro Greg.
“I want to tell you more about the retros,” he said flatly.
I told him I didn’t fully understand what he meant, to which he replied simply that I’d find out at dinner. Greg went on to tell me over the phone that he had heard of this Italian place called Bacio. He mentioned as a side note that he had just finished watching Goodfellas and he said he had a “hankering” for some pasta.
So I guess that meant I was going to take a break from my retro project and go to dinner.
I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of procrastinating with a looming deadline, but then a little light when off in my head that suggested maybe this would be a fantastic time to sit down with Greg and chat about his origins as a film junkie and where the idea of the retros came from.
Tuesday, April 26th. 8:14pm. Bacio restaurant.
I pulled up to Bacio in the pouring rain which had been falling off and on since well before I woke up this morning. There was still a hint of light in the sky, but there was no sign that the clouds would soon part or the rain would let up, so I prepared to get wet in my exit from the car.
I ran up to the restaurant and did not even notice that Greg stood outside, already waiting for me, dressed in a long, black overcoat and a black fedora with a white trim.
RETRO GREG: It’s raining.
JUSTIN AYD: Yup.
In my head, I thought his powers of observation were astounding.
He said nothing more, but instead held the door to Bacio open for me and followed me in. He being much taller than me was the first to spot the greeter. He walked up beside me, held up two fingers to the greeter who grabbed two menus, and we walked quietly to our seats and plopped down.
JA: What are you having?
RG: I'm gonna get tortiglioni roasa. What about you?
JA: There's too many choices. I had the Smoked Salmon Flatbread the last time I was here and --
RG: Oh how was that?
JA: It was pretty okay. My expectations are so high, because I'm so used to enjoying the freshness of salmon from Knife River - er, up north, anywhere past Duluth - that when I eat it in the city, no matter how it's prepared, a flavor is missing.
RG: Gotcha.
JA: I'm gonna get the Walleye Milanese.
(waitress arrives at the table. we order)
JA: So what did you want to talk about?
RG: Yes, of course…can't just talk about food, then suddenly this becomes a restaurant review. Though the combination of a theatre and a, ya'know, that's for another time.
He paused, drank an enormous swig from his water glass, and then sat back.
RG: I feel like there should be some explanation of the retros to the fans. The origins, you know, the history. What is their purpose? What are their roots? Why do we think they are so important? That kind of stuff.
Another light went on in my head. This was going to be great! There were a million questions in my head that I thought fans might like to know the answers to, and this was going to be the perfect moment to ask them!
JA: So then you want me to conduct a sort of interview and then blog about it?
RG: Exactly!
He said it so loudly that the couple at the table next to us turned to look. I barely noticed, however, because I was busy wiping the drool from my chin.
JA: (laugh) So I'll get right to it, right to the beginning, right to the origins of you: Where did you grow up?
RG: Oh no. I didn’t mean I wanted to talk about me.
My enthusiasm deflated in a flash and for a moment I was silent as I waited for him to elaborate. But alas, elaboration was not in the cards.
JA: Dude, you gotta give people a little bit of insight into Retro Greg. You gotta let ‘em know who you are! You’re more than the tall guy who stands up every weekend to rant about movies….aren’t you?
I could see that he was uneasy and uncertain as he looked down at his place setting with a slight frown, and I felt bad that perhaps I had been presumptuous about the whole purpose of this evening’s meeting.
But then again, was this the same Retro Greg who, with such enthusiasm each weekend delivered an introduction to the retro films? The same Retro Greg who was so eager to talk about the movies, but when asked about himself suddenly turns into vegetable dip? Some sort of disparity existed which eluded me.
After a brief pause, he nodded his head a little as he cocked it to the side, looked up with a smile, and said:
RG: I see your point.
Feeling better and more confident about the situation, I asked again.
JA: So…where did you grow up?
RG: (he sighs-still leery about the interview taking this direction…it was as if he knew his plan to sit with me had backfired, and I felt bad again. Not really, though.) There’s a little town of about 400 people in Central Illinois called Saybrook. That’s where I spent my first four or five years of life. After that, we moved to the 3500 person metropolis that is Gibson City. Lived there ‘til I went to college, at which point I moved to Champaign, IL. All of these towns are within a half hour of each other, and are all collectively about 2 hours south of Chicago.
JA: Did you like living in a small town?
RG: Until I was probably pre-teens, I didn’t know the difference between small town, big city, and the closet at the end of the hall in my house. You don’t care about those things when your top priority is riding your bike to the pool to be the first person in to disturb the calm water. But the more I got into movies and television shows and such, I started to believe that life was not a Norman Rockwell painting, and that in order to be truly fulfilling, there needed to be more activity and more excitement. Things I thought could only be found in a big city. At that point, I couldn’t wait to shake the dust of G.C. off my heels. But then a funny thing happened after I went to college and moved around a bit. I decided that the environment you are in does not create excitement and enthusiasm, but instead that your own excitement and enthusiasm enriches the environment you are in. Not always an easy concept to grasp when you’re having a bad day, or when you’re feeling a little bit lacking of a compass. I wouldn’t say that I miss the small town and prefer the big city necessarily. Nor would I say the opposite is true. Sure, I miss home and all, and sure I love the big city, but I think I could be equally happy in both.
JA: What kinds of movies were you exposed to as a child?
RG: I was allowed to watch more movies than I probably should have been allowed to watch. But I am grateful for this, because it meant I was exposed to the greatness of the 80s. I was always a fan of good comedy, great action, and eventually horror. But Spielberg films particularly resonated with me. I was fascinated by his method of storytelling, and how he blended action or comedy with supernatural or sci-fi, all while telling stories of kids, and adults, who have to grow up maybe a little sooner than they wanted to.
JA: You and your friends made some movies in high school, right?
Greg laughed loud and hard, again making the couple next to us look up from their meal.
RG: I wouldn’t call them movies more than they were experiments in endurance. We were assigned in high school to write book reports, and instead of following the same formula as I had since middle school, I asked if I could adapt Francis Ford Coppolla’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula into a movie for the class. So, instead of a 3-5 page easy-way-out book report, I spent 2 months reading and taking notes on the book, another 2 months writing a 76-page screenplay, and then 4 months – the entire winter, and a cold one at that – shooting about 180 minutes of footage. Indoors, outdoors, upstairs, downstairs…I used about 30 of my classmates in this film, many of them playing multiple parts because I had felt that I had to get everything from the book into the movie as possible. After all that work, I got down to the deadline and had literally one night to use two VCR’s and a crappy TV set to edit it down into something that I will go ahead and today call watchable. When I turned it in the next day, the class cheered, and then when we watched it over the course of 3 days about 2 weeks later, they were all baffled by how incoherent it was. BUT, there were enough inside jokes in it to keep everyone entertained, and the fact that I used the English teacher in a small role certainly helped my grade. I made a few more movies in college after that and have played around behind the camera to make a few more films that ended up actually having plausible story lines, oddly enough, but none were quite as ambitious as Greg Edmonds’s Francis Ford Coppolla’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
The waitress brought us our food, and I have never seen someone dive into a plate full of food so enthusiastically. Greg held bread in one hand and a fork in the other and used the bread as a shovel for his mouth. What was even more amazing was how he never lost focus on the conversation even as I asked him questions and he answered. And, it was no small surprise as I watched him heave the food into his mouth that he never spoke impolitely with his mouth open and full of food. Not once. He must have been inhaling it.
JA: Jumping way ahead, where did you go to college? What kinds of films and filmmakers were you exposed to during those years?
RG: University of Illinois. I started out Pre-Med. It lasted about two semesters, until I had my first biology class. I learned way more than I ever wanted to learn about drosophila melanogaster…
JA: (I interrupted) Drah-what?
RG: Yeah, I didn’t learn what it was the easy way, so I’m not gonna tell you about it and spare you the research either…anyway, after Bio 120, I thought I had had enough of science. Then I switched over to English Literature with a minor in Cinema Studies. We studied Hitchcock, of course, and the French New Wave, we looked at German post-war films, a whole class of Bergman. All of that is great. The great directors of today used the great directors of yesterday as their influences and borrowed ideas from them, developed them, and made them their own. I am all for that. But I am a HUGE fan of full on exhibitionism. I like giving people a show. Not necessarily with big budget blockbusters, or exploding cars, or exploding bodies…but more so with the presentation. The presentation of a movie is so important to me. One of my film professors, one with whom I had several film classes, would always show up to the movie of the week with some notes about the movie. Things to watch out for. Themes to try and pick up on. Cameos to catch. And then the next class would be spent analyzing the film to death. I loved that! All of it! And then we were set to watch Jaws. Now, our film classroom was a mini theater located in the basement of the University of Illinois Graduate Library (the 3rd largest university library in the country after Harvard and Yale at the time, in case you were wondering). Even though the screen size was not as big as an actual movie theater screen, it was a good 30 feet across perhaps. It was my first time seeing it on a screen larger than that of a television. What I was most surprised by was how many of the students in the class had raised their hands that they had NEVER seen it before PERIOD! As we started to watch the movie, I witnessed people holding onto the edges of their seats during the opening scene. I heard people shrieking at certain scenes. I saw people holding their agape mouths. People were shocked and horrified at this Spielberg classic 23 years after it was made. And I felt electrified! I had never had more fun watching a movie than that day in class when the audience was as entertaining as the movie itself. That is what I mean by being a fan of exhibitionism and presentation. Giving people a show they won’t soon forget. Making it memorable.
JA: So is that why you wanted to do the retros at Willow Creek? To give people a good show?
RG: That was a huge part of it, yes. But also, in the mid-90’s, my older brother was the manager of a theater in Champaign, IL. He had the idea then that they should get their hands on some prints of 80s movies and see if anyone would show up. Their first midnight movie was Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Sold out. 250 plus tickets sold. And I was in the 4th row watching this larger-then-life presentation of a movie that I grew up watching as a kid, fascinated by the magic of that simple story that Spielberg himself has referred to as a B-movie.
JA: Well then how did you get from Raiders and Jaws in college to Raiders and Jaws at Willow Creek?
RG: My brother got me the job at the movie theater in college. It was a good college job, and I loved the people I worked with and the amount of movies I got to see for free. I worked at a different local theatre a little later, but then after graduation from college it was time to move on. Fate, however, led me to a residence directly across the street from the Willow Creek. I started out part time there as a manager, mainly to regain access to free flicks. Then I took on some additional responsibility as a projectionist, and I started to get a real connection with the place. I became familiar with the building top to bottom.
I almost didn’t notice it, but a little sparkle appeared in Greg’s eyes when he finished that thought. It was the pause that caused me to look up from my plate, and when I looked up he was staring at me with a fixed expression. That was when I noticed the sparkle, but then it was gone and he continued.
RG: And then I started to think of how cool it would be to try and get those classic movies back up on the screen but add some additional flavor to them. What if we can get some old trailers, either on film or online? What if we can get some old commercials? What if we run some music from the movie or from the time period of the movie before the show in the lobby and in the auditorium? What if I go and talk about the movie like my professor used to? After several months of proposals and planning, we launched the retros in October of 2009 on Halloween weekend with The Shining. It was perfect.
JA: You really like getting up there and talking to the audience, don’t you?
RG: No. The physical act of public speaking I hate. It’s sharing my thoughts about the movies I love. It’s the presentation aspect of the retros that I love. The movies that I grew up with are as big a part of me as the people I grew up with and the people I associate with now. Some of these movies I’ve seen so many times I know ‘em by heart, and most nights there are people in the audience who either have seen it only once or maybe even not at all. So if I can share something with them that makes them see the movie in a way different than what they had seen it before, then my job is done. If I can make someone as excited to see one of these movies as I was when I saw Raiders and Jaws on the big screen by hyping it up a little bit, then my job is done. But that first night when we did The Shining, I wrote up a speech, rehearsed it in my living room, sweated bullets for the entire day, and was a wreck prior to entering the auditorium. Having done this every weekend for coming up on two years now, with the exception of I think 2, maybe 3 weekends, I think I am certainly more comfortable now than I was that first time, but public speaking is still my least favorite thing about the retros. But if that is what I have to do to give people the experience I so desperately want them to have, then I figure there are way worse things to do in this world than public speaking. I’ll take one for the team. Hopefully I don’t develop ulcers. If so, I could probably file a workers comp claim, right?
JA: When will it be decided exactly what films will run during the Summer 2011 Series?
RG: Soon.
JA: How soon?
RG: Soon, I said.
His tone had changed a bit. He had been much more forthcoming with information in the conversation up ‘til now. He wasn’t rude in his tone…just abrupt.
JA: Can you give us -- er, particularly the fans reading this, an idea of what the summer titles will be?
RG: No. All I will tell you is that, well, from the pieces of info I've seen, this Summer should promise some excellent titles.
JA: Any repeats?
RG: Possibly. There are several people out there who were never able to experience some of our earlier titles on the big screen, so some good ones might come back for a second time. Also, don't you already know all this stuff?
This time I did detect a bit of irritation at my question, so I backed off. Instead of answering his question, I allowed him to continue.
RG: Look, what I really wanted to get together and talk about with you has been said. I just wanted to explain to you what I felt the retros were all about. I want them to mean something to the people. I want them to be an important event on a Friday night that people won’t want to miss. It’s kind of like when Disney releases DVDs from its “vault’ or whatever. They have this brilliant strategy of only letting these movies out for a certain amount of time and getting people worked up enough that they are afraid that if they miss their opportunity to get it, they might have to wait until they thaw out Uncle Walt. I’m not crazy about their money-grubbing motivations behind this strategy, but I do like the fact that we similarly convey the fact that these retro movies are difficult to obtain, they are released in a very limited capacity so much so that missing it might mean never having a chance to see it in a theatre again. With digital conversion happening all over the country, the opportunity for 35mm prints to be exhibited in all their scratchy glory diminishes. We can’t stop that. What we can do is show people these movies the way they were meant to be shown…on a big screen, on film, with lots of people laughing, screaming, crying, and having the time of their lives! That is the point of the retros. That is why we do what we do. And I just felt like I needed to remind people of that this evening.
The waitress came out and started to clear our table. She asked us for desert and I saw Greg reach into his pocket for his wallet.
JA: Well…before you go, can you tell me about the process of picking those new retro titles?
He stopped, looked up at me, and the corners of his mouth raised slightly into a tiny smile. He took another drink of his water…only the second time he took a drink the entire night, and this sip not nearly as gargantuan as the first. He set the glass down carefully and sat back in his chair again, as he had done before.
RG: It's an interesting process. The audience has a huge say in it. I review all of the suggested titles, compile the master list myself, which is coming up on 600 titles, sort it according to popularity, and then let people vote on the most popular suggestions…
JA: (I interrupted him again) There's nothing more to it?
RG: Are you suggesting that there is?
He glared up at me, making me slightly uneasy. The irritation I thought I had picked up on before was now full-blown annoyance.
JA: Come on…give us a hint about the summer titles…
A very long pause this time.
RG: Nothing is set in stone.
He paused again, and this time the sparkle in his eye was practically a fire. The smile that had once formed only in the corners of his mouth slowly spread to both ears. He looked at me squarely in the eyes.
RG: But this summer’s titles will be…
A final pause as he looked back down at his now empty place setting and started to nod slowly, still smiling.
RG: …perfect…
Without saying another word, he reached into his wallet and pulled out 2 twenty dollar bills and laid them on the table to pay for both dinners. He stood up, put his overcoat and hat back on again, and walked out of Bacio.
By the end of the dinner I learned new things about Greg and about his passion for the retros…things that I didn't even know I wanted to know.
Want to know more about the Retros?
Be sure not to miss
Sunday, May 8th
at 9:00pm
only at
facebook.com/thewillowcreek
