San Francisco Sentinel
August 23, 1990
Street Talk
Behind the Scenes
By Doris Fish
You have no idea how dull my life can get. At my age it’s often a delight to be bored and not to move for hours at a time, but it does bring back memories of busier days.
This week I’m going to a private screening of “Vegas in Space”. Most of you have heard of it, some of you will be at the screening, and a few of you lived through the grueling filming.
It seemed such an innocent suggestion; “Let’s make a movie next weekend. I’ve got over $100, and the house is still okay after the party.”
Phil Ford was a student filmmaker, and his hesitancy amazed me. It would be easy, I thought. Miss X and I threw together a thirty-minute script and finally finagled Phil into it.
The first day of filming we had almost everyone from SF State film class, including a teacher who became our cameraman. A straight girl who was in love with the young, pretty gay lighting technician volunteered to do continuity. We called her the “detail queen”. “Why do I have to have the same earrings as yesterday?” But she managed to keep us Drag Queens in some kind of recognizable garb. She quit at the end of the weekend (we all should have!) over her romance problem (he turned out to be straight!) and the macho Mexican cameraman was gay). Then she threatened to have me deported and the crew hauled off on drug charges.
“Speed and beer” became the boys’ mantra, which they would start chanting when they were near death. We countered with “food and sleep”. I had no idea one could go 48 hours without sleep and still look fabulous but many of us did. Ginger Quest would shoot her last scene at 5 a.m. then wash off the day-glo green goo covering all her exposed flesh, then rush off to start her shift at the bakery. A short nap in the afternoon and back into greenface.
Some of the crew lost their day jobs and were piqued when Tippi refused to quit her three-hour-an-evening job at a video store. She would be home by 9:30 p.m. and sometimes be ready to shoot by 1 a.m., then eight hours of drudgery. Ironically, she did quit just after filming finished. The girl has great timing!
Why was I ruining my health and killing my friends, not to mention depleting my back account and whizzing right through Earl and Camille’s savings (Phil’s innocent parents?) The answer was simple; the rushes were an incredible rush. The days and hours of zombie filmmaking would be distilled into this brief but breathtaking flickering few moments. We were hooked.
Foolishly I insisted on doing everyone’s makeup. The results were wonderful, but the delays were ridiculous. One time we had about fifteen extras to get ready and it took almost twelve hours before I could do my own face, but by then the first ones were in need of massive repairs. Not to mention that I had to organize most of the costuming except for Tippi and Miss X, who came up with some extraordinary ensembles.
Tippi draped herself in plastic fringing, added a French period pink wig and some bits and pieces and voila! — a 23rd century princess. Miss X, who played the Queen of Police on the planet Clitoris, draped herself in old remnants but tricked it all up to look stunning. She wore a period wig in royal blue.
The sets were mostly cardboard and plastic and so was some of the acting. We didn’t set out to make a great ‘bad’ movie, but time will classify us. We even tried not to let the strings show, but they do, especially on Freida.
The little film grew and grew. At one point we’d accumulated five hours of footage and all of it priceless! Now it’s been ruthlessly hacked down to a viable 90 minutes and is close to completion.
So, am I about to become a bona-fide movie star? Well, I’ve been acting like one all my life and it would be so nice if reality finally caught up with my fantasies while I’m still thirtysomething. But reality has so many ugly ways of fouling things up.
The harsh reality is that we need an Angel to help complete the exacting and costly final edit and print work. Phil is sure an Angel and will be at this screening. I hope so, because I’m ready to become rich, famous and shallow.
