Friday, June 6, 2008, 12:55 AM [
General]
I've been asked several times by various naturists
why I never followed up on filming "The Naked Place," the fictional
film that was in production in the documentary, "Naked in the 21st Century." (now on Video on Demand at Vudu.com)
Nudists
have no product to turn to for their own entertainment, except for
ClothesFree Nudecasts (informative, but not entertainment),
documentaries made by their own (often BOOOORRRRRRING), and the cult
movies of the 1960s like Monster at Camps Sunshine.
So I wrote "The Naked Place" in college at a time when I fell in love with the nudist philosophy and read all I could about it. The
title came from an eleven year old girl at Lupin in Los Gatos, whose
mother told me the story of how she used to say, "Let's go to the Naked
Place" every summer, especially in public. (!)
The storyline follows: Michelle Shimizu grows up at "Nature's Paradise" located on the beautiful North Shore of Hawaii. At three stages of her life, we see her as a teenager falling in love with a haole boy named Dan. They
break up a year later; she marries a conservative Asian American
lawyer. Five years later, she comes back to try to save Nature's
Paradise from anti-nudists determined to shut them down.
She
returns to the same campground in her adulthood as Nature's Paradise is
now a state park now open for camping. Her daughter has no idea she's a
nudist, but there reunited with Dan and his new family, the secret is
out and both families have secrets related to being modern-day nudists.
I
decided not to actually do this film for one particular reason. It's a
melodramatic romantic comedy written at a time in my life when I had
still believed in romance.
Anyone who's ever read my poetry will attest that I'm not a romantic guy. So
I developed two screenplays as a result of what I went through in
dealing with actors, old school naturists, reviewers of "Naked in the 21st Century."
The
comedy "The Screening Room" was the result, and it's currently in
pre-production. Inspired by South Park and American Pie, this comedy
boasts fart jokes, crude humor and outrageous lampoons of public
figures such as Congressman Mark Foley and "that self-righteous
fear-mongering bitch" Nikki Craft.
Am I just conforming to the current market of youth-oriented films? You better believe I am. This is a business and anyone who doesn't understand that better start studying it. A
wild comedy, I feel, is the best way to express the anger and the
frustration I feel at all the misinformed and ignorant public figures
trying to shut down nude beaches left and right, and at the same time,
make pointed commentaries at the nudist themselves for deviating from
the original intent of naturism as spelled out by Adolf Koch, and then
Kurt Barthel when he founded the American League of Physical Culture.
As I made my current revision of "The Screening Room" notable differences stood out. These are some of them:
1. The Naked Place" features nudist teenagers who have a strong moral grounding, They are chaste, obedient to their parents and very well read on their nudist history. In "The Screening Room," the teens participate fully clothed, are rebellious and only know as much about nudism as the internet can provide. This is far more realistic, and one has to look at how do teens rebel. Alex Keaton in the tv series "Family Ties" becomes a yuppie, much to the chagrin of his hippy parents. Similarly,
my character of "Joy" is the promiscuous (but discreet) daughter of the
resort owners. The main character "Micky" rebels against his dad by
applying for a job at the resort where his dad once had membership when
HE was a teenager.
2 Anti-nudist
parents, cops and preachers are portrayed as shrewish, misinformed and
very threatening people in "The Naked Place." In the "Screening Room," I asked myself, what if I did the exact opposite? The
Congressman who shuts out all the minors from the resort is based on
Lex Luthor, and he is more informed on nudist history than our hero
Micky. And like Congressman Foley, manipulates the press into believing
that children are actually at risk at these nudist facilities, despite
their existence for 80 years in this country.
3. In the "Naked Place" the haole (Caucasians from the mainland) are the outsiders. In the "Screening Room" they are the majority and nudists of color are portrayed as "different." This
is very much how I feel much of the time at a nudist event and I DO get
sick and tired of those few people asking me if I speak English.
4. There
is very little humor in "The Naked Place." The tragedy that befalls the
camp is no laughing matter and it's clear that a large portion of their
lives were taken away from the nudists when Nature's Paradise shut down. I
felt it was time to be a little more light-hearted in my take on
naturism since a nudist film should not take itself too seriously, but
just serious enough for you to understand the characters. Quite often a person becomes a nudist because it
simply feels great, not because they're dying from cancer or were in
therapy for sexual harassment and want to change their behavior.
So
there you have it. Look for the Screening Room to come out in the near
future. And if the Naked Place should get filmed, chances are it will
be as a short and end up as a DVD extra. Nudists need good
entertainment that does them justice. They don't need soap operas,
although that doesn't sound like a bad idea . . .
T. L. Young
Send Message
Add Friend
Block User
Happy to see you back..
crutchmovies02:31 AM CST