Some people look at low-budget, B-movies that mix aliens, vampires and robots and see something to ridicule. Documentary filmmaker Daniel Griffith sees someone’s ambition realized.
Whether or not “Bride of the Monster” and “Vampire Circus” belong in the ranks of high-brow cinema doesn’t diminish that they survived the creative gauntlet, said Griffith, 34, a local filmmaker who has worked for the last three years producing documentaries of such films as extra material to accompany their releases on DVD.
“I feel like, in some way, these are people who are human beings who had dreams,” he said. “While what they accomplished doesn’t live up to Orson Welles or Cecil B. DeMille … they’re still human beings with a dream.”
In the last few months, Griffith’s filmography has swollen with the release of three projects from Ballyhoo Motion Pictures, his one-man production company.
The first, a documentary of the film “The Beast of Yucca Flats,” was included in the June nationwide release of the 18th box set for the B-movie lampooning show “Mystery Science Theater 3000.” In August, Griffith released a project chronicling the making of the Audie Murphy spaghetti western “Apache Guns.”
On Oct. 26, Griffith released “Let There Be Light,” a two-hour behind-the-scenes look at the making of “Dark Star,” a cult classic student sci-fi film that helped launch the careers of director John Carpenter (“Halloween”) and writer Dan O’Bannon (“Alien”).
Tuesday, three more of Griffith’s documentaries will be released to accompany the 19th box set for “Mystery Science Theater,” his third release with entertainment company Shout! Factory.
Jordan Fields, Shout! Factory’s senior director of acquisitions, said Griffith’s passion is obvious and has been crucial to his work on those projects.
“Daniel has done some extraordinary work for our box sets,” Fields said. “He brings together passion for ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000’ and the films they are riffing on.
“He also has a very unique visual style, which I’ve come to appreciate. I think it gives our box sets a distinctive quality and helps them sell.”
Reel to reel (to reel)
Despite the volume of material he produces, Griffith also works as an editor at Video Ideas Productions, a local multimedia production company.
Finding time to conduct research and interviews with cast members, which often requires travel to Los Angeles and other far-flung locales, has been difficult, Griffith said.
Multi-tasking is key, he said. During his most recent trip to Los Angeles for five days in April, Griffith recorded all the material for the “Beast of Yucca Flats” and “Dark Star” projects as well as some material for “The Bloodiest Show on Earth: Making ‘Vampire Circus,’ ” which will be released next month.
The work can be stressful, but Griffith said he’s driven by his passion.
“(I) don’t ever treat it like a side project, or it will never get done,” Griffith said, adding that he hasn’t taken a vacation in four years that wasn’t work-related. “It is my life. It is my ultimate goal. It is my career.”
Griffith’s interest in films began as a child when he gathered neighborhood kids together for impromptu productions and recorded stop-motion films cast by GI Joes and Lego toys.
After studying film at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, he eventually relocated to San Diego, where he took on work for several TV series as a lighting grip. While working there, he said he decided to leave after he became dissatisfied with working alongside 30-year veterans doing the same job he thought would be a stepping stone to more creative endeavors.
“I was like, ‘Wow, I don’t want to be you,'” he said. “I have things I want to say and get off my chest. I want to create. I feel like I have something more to offer.”
Wonderful world
Although he said he tried initially to create narrative films, he eventually opted for documentary work so he only had to rely on himself instead of an unpaid or under-paid cast and crew.
About four years ago, Griffith began his own trip down the creative gauntlet by undertaking his first documentary, “Wonder World of K. Gordon Murray,” a feature-length tribute to the work of a little-known distributor of pulp cinema.
“Wonder World” helped him build relationships with distributors as well as establish a rapport with actors and directors vital to his other films, but its release has been consistently delayed in favor of other projects.
On Dec. 10, “Wonder World” will finally be seen by a nationwide audience as an episode of the Turner Classic Movies series “Underground.”
Because he’s progressed so far as a director since beginning work on “Wonder World,” Griffith said its release is somewhat bittersweet.
“It’s scary, because people look at what you do, and they don’t consider how complicated it was for you — what you were doing at the time, and what length or budget you had to work with — they just care if it’s good or bad,” he said. “I had to make a decision to just let go because art is never finished, it’s just abandoned, and the same could be said of films.”
In their corner
Over the course of the last three years, Griffith’s films have set him up as a kind of champion of the cinematic underdog. As a result, he said he feels pigeonholed, but that is offset by the responsibility he feels to show how, despite the many ways these films or directors fail, in one crucial way, they succeed.
“We live in this post-‘Mystery Science Theater’ era where, if you watch a B-movie, your instant reaction is to berate it,” he said. “Doing a documentary about [K. Gordon Murray], who brought B-movies to the public, gets the same response.
“You’re like, ‘Really? Why waste your time? Who cares?’ The thing is, you don’t know who K. Gordon Murray is, but you will, and you will because of what I do.”
SEE IT
Griffith’s feature-length documentary “Wonder World of K. Gordon Murray” will premiere at 2 a.m. Dec. 10 on Turnersic Movies (Comcast Cable channel 69 in Chattanooga) as part of the channel’s “Underground” series.
FILMOGRAPHY
* 2008: “Dark Side of Eden: The Making of ‘Stanley'”
* 2009: “Everybody’s Doin’ the Shanty Tramp”
* 2009: “Hobgoblins: Revisited”
* 2009: “Santa Claus Conquers the Devil: A 50-Year Retrospective”
* 2010: “No Dialogue Necessary: Making ‘The Beast of Yucca Flats'”
* 2010: “Please, Hold the Spaghetti: ‘Apache Rifles’ and the End of the Conventional Western”
* 2010: “Let There Be Light: The Odyssey of ‘Dark Star'”
* 2010: “Citizen Wood: Making ‘Bride of the Monster'”
* 2010: “Larry Blamire Geeks Out”
* 2010: “The Puppet Master: Making ‘Devil Doll'”
* 2010: “Wonder World of K. Gordon Murray”
* 2010: “The Bloodiest Show on Earth: Making ‘Vampire Circus'”
WEB
Find out more about Griffith’s films on his website: ballyhoomotion pictures.blogspot.com