If you've followed my movies at all you've probably noticed that my style travels back in time quite often. Rubber monsters, film noir types of "mysteries" and special F/X that pre-date the first Star Wars movie. The actual first Star Wars movie, that came out in 77, not the "Episode 1" Star Wars movie, although I guess they predate that too, by a LOT.
Anyway, Lumber vs Jack, which is premiering in Asheville, NC this week, is no different. It's a throw back to the creature features of the drive-in era. The 50s, 60s and 70s. Like a 1950s monster movie, we tried to tackle a scientific question relevant to our time. In place of the all creature mutating radiation from the 50s we used GMO manipulation as the questionable science which runs amok.
Back when I wrote the movie and while we were shooting it, all the way up until...well this past week or so it seems...GMOs have been the talk of the internet and the talk has been negative. Even the smiling Bill Nye the Science Guy seemed driven to stamp out the "dangerous" manipulation of plants and food.
However, my luck being what it is and people being the fickle species we are, the past couple of weeks have seen the internet come to the defense of GMOs and the corporations that create them. They are now being defended as good things suffering from bad propaganda. Bill Nye has been talking up GMO plants. The negative stories are being "outed as myths". Everything we thought we knew is being addressed, explained or proven false.
Just days before Lumber vs Jack is publicly screened for the first time.
Coincidence?
I THINK NOT!
OK, I think it probably it is, but doesn't it seem more exciting that our little movie has the big biotech companies so scared that they moved to preemptively squash the discussions Lumber vs Jack would inevitably cause?
Truth is, I think the movie's message still stands. Genetic Manipulation is not a science to be handled lightly. Much like the warnings about radioactivity from the 1950s have become cliché as we've grown into a world that uses nuclear power every single day, GMOs will undoubtedly continue as a science and may do great amounts of good. However, nuclear power has also given us 3 mile island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima.
All advances come with risk. Advances driven solely by profit come with even greater dangers. In order to remind the public that corporate driven science needs to be regulated and watched, we give them rubber monsters chasing women in the woods.
It's how Hocus Focus Productions does our part to keep the future safe.
If you're anywhere near Asheville this Thursday, you should come see the movie.
http://hocfocprod.com/lumbervsjack/lvjashevillepremiere
If you're not, look out for the online premiere the following week.
Anyway, Lumber vs Jack, which is premiering in Asheville, NC this week, is no different. It's a throw back to the creature features of the drive-in era. The 50s, 60s and 70s. Like a 1950s monster movie, we tried to tackle a scientific question relevant to our time. In place of the all creature mutating radiation from the 50s we used GMO manipulation as the questionable science which runs amok.
Back when I wrote the movie and while we were shooting it, all the way up until...well this past week or so it seems...GMOs have been the talk of the internet and the talk has been negative. Even the smiling Bill Nye the Science Guy seemed driven to stamp out the "dangerous" manipulation of plants and food.
However, my luck being what it is and people being the fickle species we are, the past couple of weeks have seen the internet come to the defense of GMOs and the corporations that create them. They are now being defended as good things suffering from bad propaganda. Bill Nye has been talking up GMO plants. The negative stories are being "outed as myths". Everything we thought we knew is being addressed, explained or proven false.
Just days before Lumber vs Jack is publicly screened for the first time.
Coincidence?
I THINK NOT!
OK, I think it probably it is, but doesn't it seem more exciting that our little movie has the big biotech companies so scared that they moved to preemptively squash the discussions Lumber vs Jack would inevitably cause?
Truth is, I think the movie's message still stands. Genetic Manipulation is not a science to be handled lightly. Much like the warnings about radioactivity from the 1950s have become cliché as we've grown into a world that uses nuclear power every single day, GMOs will undoubtedly continue as a science and may do great amounts of good. However, nuclear power has also given us 3 mile island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima.
All advances come with risk. Advances driven solely by profit come with even greater dangers. In order to remind the public that corporate driven science needs to be regulated and watched, we give them rubber monsters chasing women in the woods.
It's how Hocus Focus Productions does our part to keep the future safe.
If you're anywhere near Asheville this Thursday, you should come see the movie.
http://hocfocprod.com/lumbervsjack/lvjashevillepremiere
If you're not, look out for the online premiere the following week.
