I watched the movie Be Kind Rewind last night. This is a light-hearted tale about a couple of guys who set out to save a video store after accidentally erasing all the tapes, by recreating the movies with an old camcorder and some very low-budget special effects. Here’s the trailer for the movie:
Be Kind Rewind introduced the term Sweded to the world, and the concept has become something of a You Tube phenomenon. I was actually introduced to the term reading the completely awesome blog Go Into The Story, which I recommend to anyone interested in writing or movies, and especially to those interested in both. Sweded refers to the idea of making amateur versions of feature films.
Watching Be Kind Rewind and the Sweded movies they created, I was reminded of my own early filmmaking efforts. As children, my sister and I had access to a camcorder and an excessive amount of free time. We did not necessarily make Sweded movies so much as we made our own original sequels or short films styled after popular cinema. Our first movie was something we called Karate Kid Part 57 and showed a gray-bearded (the beard in this case was an old Ginny Doll “mink” stole) who puts aside his old man’s cane to engage in one last match. Like Jerry and Mike in the movie we began with only two actors and no extra camera person. The result was a bizarre and hilarious film that never failed to crack us up no matter how many times we watched it.
Some day I will figure out a way to convert those old video tapes to digital files and upload them to You Tube, but until then I will just share with you this great example of a Sweded film:
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