A Bit of History
In 1988 I, John Plunkett, had my first exposure to home video when my grandfather bought a camcorder. I was an instant director. I created a silly little variety comedy show which featured myself called "The Plunky-Boy Show". Soon after, I started getting my friends to join in and we made a mockery of all things decent in home video making. This was when Bootleg Video, Inc. was created. Granted we weren't a company, but we liked to think we were back then. We used what little money we had to make stupid little short movies. The first attempt at making a movie probably came about in 1992 when "Fight Scene 1" was shot. It starred Tim DeWitt and Bub Taylor and all they did was fight for about 15 minutes. In 1993, we returned with "Fight Scene 2" which was nothing special. After that came a slew of stupid little filming experiences that are too numerous to mention.
Summer of 1994 was when I attempted to make my first "real" movie. Real meaning "not funny". I can't exactly remember what it was called, but it had to do with a drug basketball league. We had a really inventive scene with a bunch of people doing lines of cocaine, but it we did it with powdered sugar and a bendable straw. I remember that it wasn't funny, but instead was really boring and the audio sucked horribly. After that, I just went back to making goofy movies. We didn't make any more movies until 1997. We got together and wrote a script for some movie that involved a murder plot or something. We ended up not doing anything with it, but it remained one of those things that stuck with us. After that, we really didn't have much else to do with it for a few years.
In 1999, Tim DeWitt came back from a stint in Canada to show us his stop motion animations that he had made. They were funny as hell, although they weren't that long and had no sound. This rekindled the flames of old, and we set off to make more movies. After returned, he borrowed his brother's Hi8 Camcorder, and we began to shoot what would become our very first movie together which was "inanimaniacs". Soon after, Tim bought a Digital 8 Camcorder and we began shooting a new entirely stupid movie that was a parody of The Blair Witch Project called "The Grither Project". We never finished it, but we learned alot from it. The Grither Project was our first attempt at seperating audio and video so we could have shots of people talking off camera.
In the last half of 1999, Tim bought a computer and soon after a digital video capture card. I eventually bought a computer as well and we began working on something that we called "Opaque Productions". It was a video production company that we started in hopes of turning a profit, unfortunately we were underequipped and we forfeited the idea. We all kind of went our seperate ways there for a bit. In 2000, I was going through some weird turmoil in Beardstown, Sean was living in Jacksonville and Tim was living in Macomb where he was attending WIU. We really didn't do anything until 2001 when I moved to Jacksonville. We were sitting around bored as usual with Tim's Digital 8 camera and I decided to shoot a movie. So I dressed Sean up in a Nazi-esque helmet and a trenchcoat and had Tim put on a sombrerro and one of my wives old dresses and we shot "Loooo! The Musical". We dumped it into my computer, edited it and re-recorded all of the dialog. By the end of the night we were watching the finished product laughing our asses off. Basically it snowballed from there.
A Little F. A. Q. for you.
Q: What's with the name "Trenchcoat Mafia Films"?
A: Well we named it that after the Columbine killings of course. After hearing about this Trenchcoat Mafia for a few weeks, and subsequently discussing it for a month, we decided that Trenchcoat Mafia Films would be the best name for us since it would be easy to find on an internet search engine.
Q: Don't you care about the families of the victems?
A: Nope.
Q: What if it was your family?
A: Then I would probably care, but it wasn't so there you have it.
Q: Then why are you trying to trample on the graves of the dead by exploiting the horrors that occured there?
A: Blame the media. I wasn't there when it happened, but I was near a TV. I wouldn't even have known that the kids were part of the "Trenchcoat Mafia" if TV hadn't told me so. If anyone was exploiting that catastrophie, it was the media. I would still be making stupid movies even if I didn't know about what happened in Columbine.
Q: Aren't you afraid that if you get big enough they might sue you?
A: Nope. If we get big enough we will either have lawyers that can take care of that sort of thing, or we will just change the name. Either way, I don't care as long as we get big!
If you still have more questions about our name, then you need to get a life.
Q: Why do you shoot in black and white?
A: I'm not sure if you've ever used a digital camcorder or not, but they suck. They don't look very good at all, unless you shoot in black and white. Also, shooting in color adds an extra element of complexity. We are trying to focus more on storytelling and the basics of movie making. Besides, shooting in black and white doesn't date a movie as much as color. It's easier to pick out the year a movie was made when it is shot in color rather than black and white. Plus it just looks cool.
Q: Will you ever make a movie in color?
A: Maybe when we get some better cameras. Tim might make a movie in color though. You can never really be sure.
Q: Can I be in your next movie?
A: That depends. First of all you have to be available as much as we are. (which right now is every day, all day). and you have to want to act in a movie. If you just want your visage on tv, then go commit a crime.
Q: Do you show any other independent DV movies on your site?
A: Currently no because we don't know anyone else that is doing them. We aren't in the business of going out and looking for other people who do it either. We are just doing this stuff for fun and putting it on the internet for others to enjoy. If you have made some DV movies, by all means send us an e-mail and we will arrange to show your movie on our site.
Q: When are the tittie-flicks coming?
A: As soon as we get some chick to show us her tits on camera.