What is Black Light about?

Well, it's about 110 pages long. Wakka wakka!

I apologize.

The short version is, Black Light is about Nikki Blue, a dancer at a tiny strip club located on a rural route in western Massachusetts. A few minutes down the road, there's a store that sells fossils, rocks, and dino-related items; the clerk at the store is Alice, a frequently stoned, perpetually nervous young woman with no plans to speak of. Black Light is about what happens when Nikki and Alice meet, and how it changes both of them. It's also about the women Nikki works with, and about being young and in the middle of nowhere.

I'm sure some variation of the above will make good DVD copy. But what's it really about? Well, it depends on who I'm talking to. My stock answer is that it's a romantic comedy, for lack of a better qualifier. Usually that satisfies people, but when the doorman at the Red Herring (the bar next to the cinema I work at) responded to the romantic comedy response with a snore and asked what else it is, I admitted that it might also be called lesbian erotica. "You know," he said, "You should really say that instead." And when I had to pitch the movie to the reasonably concerned-looking Whately board of selectmen so that Jimmy the Greek could get a special entertainment license for the shoot, I went for broke and used two very dirty words - I called it an "art film." It worked, but afterwords I went home and watched a slasher movie to purge the pretension from my system.

Why do I want to make it? I'm working on that. I want it to be sexy but also smart, and hopefully funny and relatable. Beyond that, I'm still figuring it out. David Cronenberg responded to this question by saying that he makes a film to find out why he made it - I like that. Another response from a more qualified source than I: once I got the chance to ask Werner Herzog about the brilliant, insane ending of Stroszek, asking why he lingers on that damn dancing chicken for so long. He said he just holds any shot for as long as he finds its subject interesting. That's maybe the best advice on filmmaking I've ever gotten, and I've tried to follow it since. Right now, what interests me is a dancer and a dinosaur girl. And hopefully in a little while I'll be able to tell you why.

Pitching Jimmy

The owner of Club Castaway is Jimmy the Greek. It's how he introduces himself, and it's the name on his business card. I can't quite bring myself to ask Jimmy his last name as I sit across from him in his spacious office, and I don't really want to. Nothing else could possibly sound as cool as "Jimmy the Greek," and Jimmy obviously knows it. I'm not sure what I expected the owner of Club Castaway - upon whose shoulders the fate of my first feature, Black Light, currently rests - to be like. Maybe like Robert Davi in Showgirls, or Paulie Walnuts. Certainly not this silk-clad, sixtysomething Greek gentleman of leisure sitting across from me.

The day before, I'd stopped by the club to drop off the script for Black Light, a script about a dancer named Nikki who falls for a stoned, neurotic gift shop salesclerk named Alice. It's a small club nestled in a rural stretch of farmland in Whately, MA (locals affectionately and not-so-affectionately refer it as "porn in the corn"). While the script was influenced by the experiences of friends, it's very much a work of imagination - I have little knowledge of how a strip club is run, and assumed the owner would scoff at the idea for any number of reasons. These might include the script's gay-friendly story, its somewhat critical attitude towards the sex industry and the possiblility that the club was actually a cover for Panda smuggling or something. In the year I've been planning Black Light with my company, Moth Films (made up of a few close friends), we'd always assumed we'd have to substitute a VFW or Elks Lodge for a real club. So when, the next morning, Jimmy called to ask if I'd meet him that night to talk about the movie, I half-assumed it was to threaten me with legal action for the use of his club's name.

I arrive at the club at eight on a weeknight, so the place is pretty dead - a few guys at the bar, and just one sitting at the stage. When the manager asks me for the five dollar cover fee, I tell him I'm there to meet Jimmy. "Oh yeah," he says, "the movie guy." A few minutes later Jimmy arrives, extending his hand.

"Hey Andy, I'm Jimmy the Greek. Let's talk in my office, okay?"

Jimmy leads me through the VIP area and the dressing room, stopping a few times to wrap his arms around dancers and ask how they've been, and then up the stairs to his office. The walls are decorated with Elvis memorabilia, framed black-and-white pictures of relatives, and a vintage poster of a naked Marilyn Chambers posing with a box of Ivory Soap. "Have a seat over on the couch," Jimmy says. I think of what has happened on this couch over the years. Maybe nothing. Maybe it's just for napping.

A minute later, Jimmy's manager, Jojo, sits next to us. Jimmy adjusts his glasses, clears his throat and speaks. "So this movie is about dancers who go to Reno and make a lot of money?" The first line in the script, a throwaway is "I'm thinking about going to Reno in September."

"No," I tell Jimmy, "Nobody goes to Reno. It's about the characters at the club and their relationships with - "

"So there is no hooking in this movie?" Jimmy stares at me suspiciously. I think that no studio exec I might someday pitch an idea to will be as daunting as Jimmy the Greek.

"No, there's no hooking. Actually, one character turns tricks after hours, and the other characters don't approve of this."

Jimmy softens. "You know, I've got to make sure I'm protecting my girls." This is how Jimmy talks about the dancers - he's affectionate, a womanizer, but in a harmless way, like a smarmy old uncle. I like Jimmy, even though he might be the devil.

Jojo interjects, "We're close here, like a family." Jojo goes on to tell me that most of the dancers are students, and I find out that she and I actually have the same degree. We move on to details about when I want to shoot, and for how long. I assure Jimmy his parking lot won't be packed with trailers or lighting rigs. I'm surprised by how much Jimmy knows about the moviemaking process, as if he's been waiting for this to happen. Then, the question I've been dreading.

"So, what do I get paid for letting you use my club?"

I start my prepared speech. "Well, in addition to the free publicity your club will receive, we can offer a substantial percentage of any potential profits, as well as a small advance."

"How small?"

"A hundred dollars a day."

Jimmy laughs for a long time. I'm ready to call it quits, when he says, "So how many of my girls do you need?"

"Pardon?"

"How many girls do you need for the movie?"

"So...we can shoot here?"

"Yeah, why not."

So not only have I just secured the movie's main location, I also arrange to hold an audition for real dancers to play roles in the movie. And with that, Black Light is a go picture.