Dream XLIV

We were visiting some friends in the mountains. He was an amateur astronomer and was going to help adjust my telescope, after which he, his wife and I were going to visit my younger brother. However, we happened to see my brother driving away in his old car, so we decided to wander around the mountains for a while.

There, we met a film-maker we’d met a year or so ago, Brian Bond. He and his wife, who was an actress, were shooting a low-budget fantasy film. His wife (whose professional last name was Allen) had been in a couple of low-budget horror movies and a National Lampoon film. She was petite but very pretty.

In addition to his movie-making gear, Brian had also brought up a whole raft of books he was selling, some of them by him (on low-budget movie making) and his new, co-written novel (about vampires and Nazis).

After introductions were made all around, Brian decided each of us should have a role in his new film. Since I had played a disembodied head in a previous film of his, it was decided that I should play a disembodied head in this film as well, in case fans recognized me. The others were chosen to play wizards and so forth.

I didn’t want to be a disembodied head, however, so I spent most of my time wandering around the sets and trying (unsuccessfully) to avoid the camera and doing my scenes. I wandered around the impressive forest and boulder set, which began growing CGI castle walls all around. I met one character who was a wizard carrying around a midget who in turn had a huge energy weapon. It turned out both the midget and gun were made of wood, in a quite elaborately made mechanism.

When it was time for another of my scenes, I tried to hide beneath a table, but the camera found me. I noticed that there were stacks of magazines under the table (Brian was also selling these). One of them was an issue of National Lampoon from the 1930’s. But I looked closer and saw that it actually said Eire Lampoon.

I thought the movie was really too jumbled and uninteresting to be a success. But I was stuck. I had to do my part to help in its production.