INTERVIEW WITH JOHN QUINN

John Quinn who Directed CHEERLEADER CAMP now works for Playboy Film, what a great transition from horror..so much better than becoming a horror genre apologist and trying to convince everyone you can direct "serious" films...John still likes the young girls and damn who with a brain wouldn't... After much digging I uncovered this excellent interview with the man at the EXCELLENT SITE Luke Ford.Net.
 
Filography to date:

Sex Court: The Movie (2002)
Staying On Top (2002) (V) 
Hollywood's Hidden Lives (2001) (V) 
Beauty Betrayed (2000) 
Fast Lane to Vegas (2000) (V) 
Girl for Girl (2000) 
Passion's Peak (2000) (V) 
"Passion Cove" (1999) 
TV Series Beach Movie (1998) ... AKA Boardheads (1998) (USA) 
Key to Sex, The (1998) 
Sheer Passion (1998) 
Fallen Angel (1997) 
Magic of the Golden Bear: Goldy III, The (1994) ... AKA Goldy III (1994) 
Total Exposure (1991) 
Cheerleader Camp (1987) (V) ... AKA Bloody Pom Poms (1987) (V) (UK)

John: "I went to high school in Santa Barbara. I started at San Jose State thinking I'd be a business major. My high school girlfriend, who was a drama major, asked me to try out for the Edward Albee play "The Zoo Story." I enjoyed the experience and I decided to minor in theater. Then I transferred to UCLA and studied film, graduating in 1971. 

"I'm not cut out to be an actor. I started at UCLA with an acting major but I didn't feel at home. Most actors are so into themselves, that I didn't have many friends in the theater arts department. I had more friends in business, or painting, sculpture, still photography departments. So one day I went to the Royce Hall student film screening and determined to study film.

"After graduating from UCLA, I was admitted as a fellow to the American Film Institute. I worked as a line producer on this student project with David Lynch as the art director and Caleb Deschenel was the Director of Photography. Caleb likes to instill fear within the crew members while David is totally relaxed.

"I got sick of being in school. I dropped out of AFI and traveled around Europe for a year. When I came back, it was all about getting a job - crew member, grip, gaffer... I worked in film distribution for ten years. I had the rights to David Lynch's Eraserhead but lost them in a legal battle. It had been on the circuits and nobody wanted it. 

"I wanted to get back to the creative end. I made these 'Golden Bear' kids movies: Saga of the Golden Bear (1986), Search for the Golden Bear (1988) and finally The Magic of the Golden Bear (1994).

"One night a couple of buddies and I sat around drinking beers and talking about doing a horror movie. I said, 'Chicks, mountains, being killed.' Bloody Pompons was the original title for Cheerleader Camp but the American distributor didn't have the guts to use that title.

"It was the easiest movie I've ever financed. I went to the American Film Market in Santa Monica and walked the halls and said, 'I've got a horror movie. It's called Bloody Pompons.' It's like what Roger Corman used to do. You'd have the poster and the concept. After you sold it, you wrote the script.

"Barry Collier of Prism Entertainment dug the idea. He financed the American rights. Then I sold the Japanese rights and the rest of the foreign rights to Manson International. It blew me away how much of the money went in legal fees.

"We went up to Camp Nelson in the Sequoia National Forest where I'd shot the Golden Bear movies. I took four weeks to shoot. Now the features I make for Playboy take ten days. It was a good pace for a first-time director. It was good being on location because everybody was right there. They weren't stuck in traffic on the 405 freeway.

"There are always the emotional things going on. Who's schtupping who? Who's falling in love with who? Since it was up there in the forest, that happened a lot. Unfortunately, I had to go in each night and do my shot list. So there wasn't much [nookie] for the director. I was single at the time. There were a lot of lovelies in the film. My line producer was a female. She told me, 'Don't make the big mistake that all directors do when they start screwing their leading lady.' I said ok. I was really concerned about making a mistake. I look back on it and realize that I missed out on Teri Weigel, Betsy Russell... Teri Weigel was looking for a relationship.

"When I'd see Teri, she'd flash me. This was 17 years ago. Nudity was less prevalent. And she did it so fast, nobody would catch her but me. But I thought I was doing the right thing in staying home and doing my shot list. The producers, the ADs, and crew had a great time.

"There was only one bar nearby. After you got off work, you'd go there and have a drink. The only time I've had similar was when I shot a video for Playboy last year called 'Girls of the Hardrock Casino.' After we finished shooting at the Hardrock, we partied on.

"I love that Cheerleader Camp plays on late night cable like USA. It's one of their highest rated films. 

"After Cheerleader Camp, producer Jeff Prettyman and I wanted to do higher budget films. We both had a ball doing Cheerleader Camp. But it's very hard to move up. We developed some good scripts and got close to a movie with Miramax. Countless times we came close to having a $20 million movie. But we couldn't make enough money to sustain a company together. Looking back, we should've stuck with the low budget erotic thrillers. And now, 12 years later, I'm doing erotic thrillers. 

"Total Exposure [1991] was my next movie. That wasn't a fun shoot. The executive in charge of production Steve Beswick and I didn't see eye to eye."

Lynn Dahlgren and John wrote the script and future Hollywood producer Dean Devlin played an adult bookstore manager.

When the ambitious photographer Andi returns from a modeling session in Mexico, she finds a kilogram cocaine in her bag. In panic - and thinking of her prior convictions - she immediately dumps it in the sink. She suspects her star model Cathy and calls her to account for it, but she denies everything. When Cathy's found dead shortly after, Andi is under suspect. She employs ex-cop Dave Murphy to help her out and to protect her from the psychopathic dealer, who wants back his cocaine from her. 

John: "We did The Magic of the Golden Bear kids movie in 1994 with Cheech Marin and Mr. T.. I wore too many hats in that film. I directed, co-wrote, co-produced and acted in it. You can do that when you're really experienced, like Woody Allen or Clint Eastwood. But since it was only my third feature, you're still grasping. 

"The reason that I acted in it... When you're producing a low budget movie, you're taking on credit cards, you're borrowing money from your mother, you're taking from your grandmother's bank account, you're stealing money from wherever you can... We couldn't pay for another person to be on location. I took one of the minor character parts. While I'm making sandwiches, I'd jump in and do the part. Jeff and I split up and I went for seven months without anything to do.

"Our Hispanic neighbors had a friend who was a limo driver. He came across the street to me and said, 'I'm driving these really rich Philippino people and they're looking for directors.' I look at my wife, who's psychic. She says, 'I think Victor is going to change your life.' I said, 'You're kidding? Phillipino people who have money and run a blood screening lab?'

"The Philippinos, the last name was Jaren, had an office in Van Nuys in a funky building. I sat in front in my car and wondered if I should get out and see them. One of the things in this business is that you never know.

"Mrs. Jaren had less than $100,000 to make this movie [Broken Rose]. I couldn't believe that I was going back to my roots. But they were willing to pay me $10,000 to direct and $5000 to work on the script. I asked who will be the actors? They said, we have stars. We have two girls who just won the Miss Phillipino contest in Los Angeles. They were beautiful girls but they'd never acted a day in their lives. And they wouldn't do nudity.

"I asked, 'How do you plan to do an erotic thriller if the leads won't take their clothes off?' They say, 'No problem John. We will cast pretty girls around them who will take off their clothes.' I said, 'I'm sorry but the guys watching this are still going to be disappointed. If you've been watching a film and you're getting hot and steamy watching this beautiful Asian girl, and then she never takes her clothes off, it can be disappointing.' But that was the way they wanted to make it. They were also setting up a management firm and they wanted to manage these two girls. 

"We made the film for under $100,000. I have a couple of shots on my director's reel. It never got a domestic release. We tried to sell it to Playboy and they turned it down. Not enough sex. But Playboy became interested in doing joint ventures. We made Fallen Angel starring Kira Reeds and Samantha Phillips (Penthouse Pet 6/93), who now has a talk show on KLSX.

"I served as executive-producer and show runner for Passion's Cove, a 26-show series that Playboy made for HBO. So many of the erotic genres are done indoors. We broke ground and took a lot of love scenes outside. We rented a house from Fred Segal in Malibu with 200 acres. We had privacy. That's a typical problem you run into when you rent a house. You have neighbors looking in. We found private beaches, which are hard to find. There's a lightness, an airiness to the show. It's not all dark and red velvet.

"My first feature for Playboy was 1998's Sheer Passion. We do these features in ten days for under half a million dollars."

A lingerie model has been strangled inside a wealthy fashion designer's house, and the designer is the obvious suspect. When the police appear to be dragging their feet on the investigation, private detective Cassandra decides to do her own investigation, posing as a model. 

John: "Playboy's competition is shooting features in as few as six days. Playboy is shooting 12 features this year, in eight to ten days each. I produced four movies for Playboy last season, directed two movies and wrote one. You'd think that with these smaller budgets, this would be where you could break in your first time directors. It's not. When I did Cheerleader Camp, I had four weeks. But with ten day shoots, you have to your stuff together. It's not a place where we are breaking in first-time directors.

"With the series, we shot the 30-minute episodes in three days each. I got hired last week to produce 13 episodes of this new show, Sexy Urban Legends, which will premiere on the Playboy Channel. We're shooting them in two-and-a-half days each, starting March 11. There will be two segments per show, about 12 minutes each.

"Last year, on a similar show, they had a serious Rod Sterling-like host. "To true to be real? Or real enough to be true?" It's hard to find these real urban legends. We're finding them. We're not making them up. We're going through these comic books. There are books written about urban legends. I could tell you stories that you've heard."

Luke: "Would Penthouse Forum count for urban legends?"

John laughs. "I guess so. They figured they'd lighten up the show this year and make it more filmic. Instead of re-enacting, use more creative film style and editing with younger hosts. Two collegiate guys, more mature than Wayne's World, more like the guys on Friends. 'Hey man, did you hear this? This guy was driving around a country road and he saw this beautiful girl and he picks her up...'"

Luke: "When did you marry?"

John: "My first marriage was in 1979 and I divorced in 1986. I was single for Cheerleader Camp. I needed a mercy fuck. I was single and not knowing how to date. Then I married again in 1990."

Luke: "How does your wife feel about you specializing in erotica?"

John: "She's doing fine. She goes, 'I met you when you were doing kids movies.' We have a strong secure marriage. She's very secure in herself. She was nervous. 'Jesus Christ, all that screwing.' She saw some of the movies. What blew the whole bubble, was when I brought home the dailies and she could see me saying, 'Now more your hand over her breast.' She saw how mechanical and unerotic the process was. It reassured her. She realized it was just a job. She never smelled me with perfume. Maybe I was just lucky? 

"I've had this conversation with other directors like Bob Cubellus, C.D. Harding, Valerie Landsburg. We are sure that less boning goes on on erotic sets than on regular sets. On erotic sets, you see sex in front of you and you behave more professionally. When I did childrens films, the crew members seemed to shack up all the time.

"Two of my leads on one of my movies. They had never met before. And the love scene I directed got them so turned on that after wrapping, the PA was trying to get the wardrobe out of the guy's trailer. The window was open. She looked in and saw them doing the nasty. Instead of stopping when the PA looked in, the guy, without missing a stroke, reached over and pulled the shade down. They let him go at it for a bit longer but the crew wants to get out. So they got one of the line producers to get the wardrobe.

"I heard about it the next day. It was sweet. They were both single. 

"I think my wife would prefer me to go back to making kids films. But the people at Playboy are an excellent group of people to work with. It's a good gig. When I'm not working for Playboy, I'm trying to develop other projects that are not erotic. One is horror script that should do well called Fear Dotcom."

Luke: "I was interviewing producer Moshe Diamant who just made a movie called Fear Dotcom."

John: "Who?"

Luke: "Moshe said it was coming out this year."

John: "God no!"

Luke: "There's a movie coming out this year called Fear Dotcom."

John: "Oh no! Moshe Diamant? He's pretty big. What's it about?'

Luke: "It's a horror movie about a ghost that travels through the internet."

John: "Oh good, it's a ghost. We were always worried about this idea. Our's is about an intelligent group of college kids who get killed one by one. The onboard computer in the car is taken over by someone with a satellite who can drive people over a cliff. Everybody's killed by those technological means. But if his is about a ghost... Our tagline is, 'The boogie man turned in his hook for a computer.'

"I enjoy what I'm doing and every film is different but it is the same genre. You want to do a different genre. I say that to some of my friends and they go, 'Oh God, you've got the best job in the world. You look at beautiful women all day.' I can't complain. It's funny when you are on a break from films and you get used to looking at ordinary people. One day I was driving along the freeway and this good looking blonde in a convertible... And I almost broke my neck and caused an accident trying to look at this girl. And I started laughing at myself, 'Jerk, what's the matter with you? You used see girls like this constantly, and now you're acting like this panting dog.' You get away from it and you forget. I don't think there's a man out there that gets tired of looking at a beautiful woman.

"Teri Weigel was great in Cheerleader Camp. I liked Teri more when she was fresher. She's a little bit in your face now with the porn thing. Kira Reed is a tremendous actress.

"My favorite films were The Key To Sex, Fast Lane to Vegas and Girl to Girl.

"I have found only one of these actresses to have an attitude. They're eager to do their job and come across as a professional. While in my other films, it takes a long time for me to break down their better-than-thou attitude. The most difficult thing with the bigger budgeted films is dealing with people's egos and getting people to get along. 

"In the erotic genre, the main thing is to be very specific with the male and female actors about what they will have to do. What kind of camera angles. Where the guy may touch the girl... You have to do that in the casting. I've never had a problem with Playboy. I've never gotten into an embarrassing situation where the girl said, 'I never knew I had to kiss the guy.' 

"I had that happen to me on one of the Phillipino movies I was doing. I had to get angry with the girl. I knew she knew what was happening. But she kept going, 'I didn't know that.' She'd been in a movie with me before. She kept saying, 'I thought this was a lovey scene.' I go, 'Yeah, but you have to move your body. You can't just embrace the person. You're having sex. It's not tantra sex. You've got to show some enthusiasm. You've got to have an orgasm. I've got to hear something. What you're doing is not translating back into the film.'

"We lost 45 minutes until she was ready. I felt like a sleazeball, like a guy trying to take advantage of a date. I talked to her afterwards and said, 'I feel really bad.' And she replied, 'No, no, it's fine.' I think she thought she could push back once she got the part, and wanted to be a prima donna and back out of the part.

"I have been in a situation where somebody came up to me and said, 'We want the girls to be really going at it.' And I reacted, 'No, we didn't cast the girls to be really going at it.' 'Well, if they want to really go at it, let them go ahead.' 'No, no, no. Those weren't the parameters we set up.'"

Luke: "Would you direct hardcore?"

John: "No. I'm just not interested in it because so much of it is not creative. We're still trying to make a film. You can take these movies from Playboy, snip the love scenes down, and they're in Blockbuster. They're still an entertaining movie. Playboy only asks that the love scenes be longer with more genital shots, but they're not hardcore. They're supposed to look like they're really doing it. I've directed hardcore actresses who are trying to make the jump up... I've been surprised at how many are talented. I guess they get into hardcore because the money is so good."

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