Unhappy End! Remastered

Unhappy End!
This is one of the new A New Kind of Terror PR sheets for the Remastered Unhappy End! series.

How To Shoot Low Budget

Shooting around the World with very little Money
Gator is now around for many years and over the years we shot projects all around the world inlcuding Germany, Austria, USA, Canada, Italy, France, Spain and Brazil, maybe I forgot some places. How do we manage to shoot with the most beautiful actresses and models in strange places like Honolulu, Hollywood, Vancouver, Vienna, Lecce doing all this low budget horror and thriller projects.
First I had some wonderful talent and crews, many of the actresses lik Katja, Barbara, Debby and Anja who are able not only to act but also to produce.

To know how to set up a production is very important. When I first worked for Disney they asked me if I had been in the army, as working for Disney is similar to be in the army. I do not know the US army but compared to German army Disney was really more fun. Anyway there is some truth in it. Big media conglomerates are usually very well organized and have all resources you need to do a proper job. So you have no trouble if you work for a company like Disney.
If you shoot low budget without being part of a multimillion dollar conglomerate things are different. You then have to operate like Robert E. Lee or Rommel with only small cast and crew. You can learn a lot from great army leaders like Hannibal, Ludendorff & Hindenburg, Rommel & Monty and the hilarious Robert E. Lee. And even better: It´s NOT a matter of life and Death (unless you shoot with Lydie Denier or Bette Davis). Movie Making is fun. Keep this always in mind.

I found out several things make my life easier while shooting low budget:

1. like Lloyd Kaufman I prefer to shoot scene after scene like a theater play.
It´s easier for the actors and everyone else and if something happens (an actor
gets sick or has an accident) you are able to re-act

2. I try to be a nice guy on the set. I do not scream or yell. Lubitsch always
treated his cast and crew nice and with respect. Otto Preminger (whom I adore as
as director and producer) acted on the set like an idiot. Cast and crew were
afraid of him. (thinking of Lydie Denier I am not quite sure, if this is really
so clever, what I am witing here)

3. Be always prepared and have only cast and crew on the set you really need.
If you need an actor at 2 pm don´t ask him to be on theset at 6 am

4. I found out you achieve more working 6-8 hours a day than starting at 6am and
shoot till midnight. We usually come to the set at 9.30 am and usually work
till 7 pm or 8 pm. The actreses / actors have their make-up done at 10.00 am
and we start shooting at 11.00 am. Around 2 pm we have lunch. Feed your cast.
It´s not expensive especially if you work with beautiful models and actresses,
I´ve rarely seen them ordering anything else than salad!
I prefer to go to a restaurant what was easy when we were shooting in the Hedler
studios in Berlin Tempelhof. There were plenty of Italian, Chinese and other
restaurants around. However if you are shooting somewhere with no restaurants
close, order at leat some pizza or pasta.
The worst thing you can do is shoot 14 hours a day with no lunch break.

To set up production there are also some books and dvds showing many important things how to do: I can strongly recommend the books and DVDs of Troma´s LLoyd Kaufman:

- Make Your Own Damn Movie and - Direct Your Own Damn Movie

Lloud Kaufman is not only a dedicated filmmaker, boss of one of the most independentproduction comaonies ever, he is also the chairman of the Board of the IFTA (Independent Film & Television Alliance)
The IFTA is a trade association of independent porducers and distributors of motion pictures and televison programming. The organisation, formerly known as the American Film Market Association was established in 1980 to create the now famous and most important trade show, the AFM (American Film Market).

The Perils of it All

A Touch of Gwendoline
I have recently been asked in several interviews why there are so many scenes in my movies and series with the beautiful heroines bound and gagged. I actually think bondage scenes are a very important point creating SUSPENSE in thriller and horror movies. I always loved Hitchcock and his fantastic dark tv series and also those faboulous Republic serials with Linda Stirling and Kay Aldrige always beeing caputres by the evil henchmen and left bound and gagged in countless deadly perils. Later many tv shows, ie The Avengers used this kind of suspense very effective with the very beautiful Diana Rigg tied to railway tracks and things like that.

We should also not forget how important those DID scenes are in comic books especially in the 40s and 50s, Lois Lane and Wonderwoman, like Emma Peel another two feminist icons who happen to be bound and gagged so often.
The ultimate comic however concerning DID is certainly John Willie´s "The Adventures of Sweet Gwendoline". Willie just concentrated on the important DID scenes in his classic comic and I admit frankly that I prefer to do the same in my projects.

John Willie, this charming, nice man who not only did all those terrific drawings of Gwen, U89 and the evil Countess, he also pioneered this special kind of DID photos. I can only wonder what John Willie would have done, if he had our modern HDV camcorders, while living in the Hollywood of the 40s and 50s with all those uneblievable beautiful Californian girls.

Copyright of John Willie´s works are with Belier Press. There you can also learn more about the works of John Willie.
www.belierpress.com

The Birth of a Gator

You probaly know our Gator Logo drawn by Ingrid Littmann, but few may know that Mr. Al Gator at first came to life as a comic-book character. Mr. Al Gator is a ruthless businessman, raised by the ignorant philosopher Saturno who thought he could make a young alligator he once found in the swamps to a philospher-king who rules the world.
Young Mr. Gator however decided it´s more fun to make money and to rule the world as a bad, bad alligator. Using his great knowledge and wisdom Saturno taught him, Mr. Gator creates not only a million dollar conglomerate selling cockroaches all over the world but also an own country, Gatoria.
Here are some drawings artist Isabel Schenk did showing The Birth of a Gator, also showing Mr. Gator making some extra money selling his girlfriend to a Zoo and dictator Esteban who is about to be thown out of his country by Mr. Al Gator and his secret army of gator-warriors.

Copyright 1986 / 1996 by Michael Huck & Isabel Schenk

The Moonlight Orchids

The Moonlight Orchids

We just finshed shooting of the new feature The Moonlight Orchids.

Starring Lloyd Kaufman and Kim Baldwin. The famous Rolf Eden guest stars as Kaufman´s driver while Troma Boss Lloyd Kaufman plays a ruthless producer who is making some deals during Berlin Filmfestival. Kim Baldwin portrays a young actress who desperately wants to become famous. We learn a lot about movie making including that real cool producer´s don´t need a casting couch - they have a casting Rolls Royce!The Moonlight Orchids is produced and directed by Michael Huck and will be released in summer 2010.

A new dark comedy is planned in 2011: The Parrot. A professor gets a strange gift: a parrott once owned by the sinister Dr. Goebbels. What starts as a dark comedy soon turns into a weird, ceepy horror-thriller nightmare.

photos: Copyright 2010 by Diana Beppler.
Lloyd Kaufman, Rolf Eden, Kim Baldwin, Juliane Wallensteig. Actress Katja Bienert visits the set.

Gator International

Gator International
Last year we shot episodes for the The 7 Nightmares Girl series in Berlin,Vienna, Los Angeles and Hawaii and we are now shooting in Vancouver and later again Hawaii. We will shoot new movies and series including a comedy, working title The Moonbeam Orchids, a horror-thriller working Title The Ratface and we are looking for DPs, actresses and models in St. Petersburg and also Brazil and Israel, South Africa and Australia to set up new productions, in the US also in New York.

You can contact me at MichaelMHuck@aol.com

Unhappy End! Remastered

The new 2010 versions
It´s amazing to discover what computers can do. When we started shooting Unhappy End! we shot with some wonderful Panasonic SVHS camcorders, edited with Panasonic editig recorders and the great Panasonic WJ MX 30 Mixer. Titles were made with Amiga computers and Genlocks and music with a Yamaha keyboard. However neither the music not the editing was really as good as it should have been. With new computers, excellent software like Magix we are now able to re-master some of our old Unhappy End! episodes. I just finished a new version of Die Schulfeindin and Unhappy End!1-3.
Over the next months more episodes will follow. There is all new music now and most of the old episodes had been shot in stereo but have been released earlier only in mono. Now we are able to re-release in stereo with new music and new effects.
The newer episodes are shot digital with DV and HDV camcorders.
Copyright photos by Michael Huck and Christine Blohmann (Die Rivalin)