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136 The Orson Welles of the Z Picture: An Interview with Roger Corman Wheeler Winston Dixon / 1986 From Post Script 8, no. 1 (Fall 1988): 2–15. Reprinted by permission of Wheeler Winston Dixon. On 21 April 1986, I invited producer-director Roger Corman to the University of Nebraska for a detailed public question-and-answer session as part of a week-long retrospective on Corman’s career as a filmmaker. Our interview actually began in the cellar of the theater where we were screening Cries and Whispers; a tornado siren sent the entire audience under cover, and ever conscious of time and money, Roger insisted that we begin the interview then and there. Wheeler Winston Dixon: One of the films that we’re running here in the retrospective, Little Shop of Horrors, was shot in two days and one night. You were shooting roughly forty-five pages of script a day. You used two cameras on that film? Roger Corman: Yes. WWD: Is that unusual for you? RC: Yes. It’s the only time I ever did that during dialogue scenes. We simply had to; we had no time. It’s customary to use several cameras during action scenes, if you’re going to cover it. But on that film, if I had a dialogue scene, I’d have a camera over on the left photographing one actor and a camera over there on the right photographing the other actor, and I might even—this is before the widespread use of zoom lenses—be on a dolly. Now I’d probably use a zoom. I might start on an over-shoulder shot, going into a close-up, and then an over-shoulder shot on the re- wheeler winston dixion / 1986 137 verse angle, dollying into a close-up, so I would have effectively four different angles to cut on the scene. It saves time. WWD: How much rehearsal did you actually have with the actors? RC: I had a fair amount of rehearsal because what I did—this was a standing set at the studio—I made an arrangement to use it for two days; but I got the head of the studio to give me the set, use of the stage, not to shoot on for three days but to rehearse. You have to know the union rules. Screen Actors Guild charges more if you hire an actor for a day; if you do that, it costs more than one-fifth of a week—for obvious reasons. So I hired the actors for a two-day shoot on a five-day week. I hired them for five days, rehearsed for three, and shot for two. WWD: Were they presold to the theaters with deficit financing (presales to theaters)? How did AIP generate the cash to make these films? RC: It was a complicated matter, different for every film. Sometimes they were presold to the theaters, that is, to the theater circuits. Sometimes they were financed out of cash flow. AIP, although a small company, was rather successful. Their budgets were limited because of the money available , but they always did seem to have some money available. WWD: Did AIP put out two black-and-white films on one double bill so they would control the entire double bill, so they wouldn’t have to give away the top or bottom half to another film? RC: Sometimes they did that. That wasn’t the regular practice, but in a period of time, it became normal procedure. WWD: What led into the production of the color films, such as the later Edgar Allan Poe cycle? RD: The first Poe film, The Fall of the House of Usher, had about a $250,000 budget. I was making black-and-white films generally on an eight-, nine-, or ten-day schedule for about 70, 80, 90, sometimes $100,000, and they would put them together as a kind of theme double bill, two horror films, two science-fiction films, something like that. And it was rather successful. Then AIP came to me and wanted two more black-and-white horror films, and I was simply growing a little bit tired of this. And also I felt that we were beginning to repeat ourselves and that other people were beginning to copy the concept. So I suggested that, instead of doing two black-and-white films on a ten-day schedule, that I do just one film [3.145.175.243] Project MUSE...

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