An Interview with Film Masters Founder, Phil Hopkins – Part 2 of 2

As promised, here’s the 2nd half of my recent conversation with Phil Hopkins, founder of the new Film Masters film restoration and distribution label. If you happened to miss the first half of the interview, don’t worry! I’ve linked it below.

 PHIL HOPKINS INTERVIEW – PART 1

Well, let’s not waste any more of your time and get back to the interview!!

 

PHIL HOPKINS INTERVIEW – PART 2

H&S: I’m going to change direction a bit here. For younger generations, titles like The Giant Gila Monster and The Killer Shrews… especially these two films… for better or worse, are best known for their appearances on “Mystery Science Theater 3000”. How does one convince those fans that there is more value to these films than their ability to be riffed on? Also, with younger film fans who have grown up with this barrage of big budget, CG fests like the Marvel films and Transformers, how does someone like me, or more appropriately, someone like you sell these older films to a modern audience?

Phil: There’s a lot there in your question. There’s MST3K, which for me was probably the definitive show nationally back in the 90’s, that so many of these films which were kicking around on VHS or public domain labels were then shown nationally and they became well-known because of MST3K. I think MST3K helped make a lot of these films popular and put them on people’s radars. That maybe led to an individual going deeper into genre film; collecting, learning, buying books and whatnot. We did a project with them when I was still with The Film Detective. We put out the Arch Hall Jr. film, Eegah!

H&S: Again, I’m glad you mentioned that. (MST3K) was my introduction to that film and films like Manos. Those are two films in particular that I don’t believe fans would still be talking about if it wasn’t for that show.

Phil: What happened for me was pretty amazing. When Joel (Hodgson) got in touch with me about wanting to take his new troop on the road, we had just done all the planning on the blu-ray of the newly restored 4K, ultra-awesome looking version we were putting out. I said, “Well, this is perfect!”, because now we can use something to celebrate all the work that was done in the restoration. So, he took that print all over the country to sold-out shows of mostly people who were fans of MST3K, but also a new generation. To see Eegah! in a theater with 500 or 1,000 people and to have people love it… I don’t think that they would have had the same appreciation if it was in the poor, crummy, 16mm dupe version that they had previously used.

I’m always disappointed when people don’t appreciate adding some sort of an element to a film that ultimately would have never been popular if it weren’t for MST3K. They try to become a little too precious and say, “Well, you’re making fun of it!” Damn! Without that show, that movie would still be obscure!

H&S: I’m a firm believer that you enjoy movies however you want. If you want to make fun of and talk over a movie, go for it! Just don’t walk into a theater and think that people are there to hear you. I want to have fun with my movies. Some of my favorite movies, I can still laugh at certain things within them. That said, no, I don’t think that some of these movies would have the attention that they do now if it weren’t for the show. So, double-edged sword, I guess.

Phil: Yeah. That was when cable TV was probably the most popular it ever was, during the 90’s. Everyone had cable. So, being able to watch MST3K, USA’s “Up All Night” with Gilbert Gottfried, Joe Bob Briggs… this is the stuff that I looked forward to more than anything. I mean, I still watched AMC and eventually TCM because that would be a different thing, right?

H&S: I also think that people of my generation who spent the bulk of their childhood in the 80’s, were blessed to have something like Commander USA, who showed a lot of films like Mako: Jaws of Death and Blood Song that you may not have otherwise heard of. I also feel incredibly blessed to have grown up in the Central Florida area where we had someone like Dr. Paul Bearer on the air, and who introduced me to tons of older films that I had never heard of. Something like that, where you have this charismatic (horror) host… he was just as compelling to me as the movies. So, it made me sit through movies that I may not have normally watched otherwise. Speaking of horror hosts, I’m glad that we have Joe Bob back, and we have Svengoolie. However, I think there’s this huge absence. Yeah, there are people who are trying to fill that gap online, but the fact that it’s not there on cable television or on your local channels is a huge loss for fans these days.

Phil: It’s a huge loss! I just don’t think that the programmers for these major companies, which have all gone into larger corporations than they were even 10 or 20 years ago… there’s less interest. Then, the people who are running them… they’re guys with MBAs, they’re data centric. They’re not movie fans by any means.

H&S: Number crunchers, basically.

Phil: It’s like a sausage factory.

H&S: Playing off of that… As the parent of two younger children, I’ve watched some of these older films with my children. Some of them they get into, some they don’t. As a fan of these older genre films, what can a parent like me do to not only help introduce these films to our children, but to also help convince them that they are important?

Phil: The more you know about film history, the easier it is to bridge a different generation that’s new to film into taking a chance on it. I remember that there was this teenaged kid who was interning for me 4 or 5 years ago. He was really into Star Wars. So, I said to him, “Hey, you want to see something really cool?” I showed him the beginning of Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe. I said, “You see those scrolling graphics coming out of the screen? Does that look familiar?” He said, “Yeah. that’s the beginning of Star Wars.”

Once you bring in reference points to something that the kids like, whether it’s through literature or characters or music or whatever it is… there’s always some sort of common denominator that can get you to reference something from the past to the future… you have a better chance of getting the kids engaged.

H&S: I don’t see myself as someone who has a legacy to continue, but as a fan of these films I would hope that they do their part to help ensure that these films, or at least whatever films are important to them, are remembered.

Phil: Don’t forget too that the longer we live, and each decade goes by, something that we might deem too close to the present to give us a reason to want to celebrate it, by the time your kids are your age… it’s changed so drastically. If you think of when I first got into collecting and releasing films, that wasn’t even an option for the average person 20 or 30 years before that. There was no home video back then. You really had to be kind of an ultra-geek to be able to track down 16mm film prints or to know people who had access to films. You couldn’t go to your local Blockbuster and rent a 16mm. What you could get was those truncated Super-8 films, condensed versions that you found in department stores. That was amazing for a 12-year old kid to get! All the movies that you had read about. Then, you could play projectionist and have your friends over and have a monster movie marathon. It might be 30 minutes long for 4 or 5 movies, but you’re still getting that tactile side of seeing it, projecting it, and the ritual of doing it.

H&S: In regard to modern-day film reviewers and commentators, do you see this current generation as the future of film curation? Conversely, is it possible that by speaking negatively about a film or even seeking to draw more attention to ourselves than to the films themselves, we’re doing just as much damage to the legacy of these films?

Phil: It’s a great question, but it’s also a weird one too. When you think about what all these sites ultimately do… I don’t think anyone starts this to get rich. It’s an extension of their hobby and their passion. It has way more credibility when someone is doing it because they love it, as opposed to being part of a corporation or because they’re trying to propagate a brand that they’re attached to. It’s like a lobbyist with a politician. Eventually, the larger the platform gets, it’s going to be much different than me talking to you and it being a totally free and open association about what we say, because someone else is going to edit and say “This isn’t going to make us look good. Let’s edit that, or let’s not publish that.” Or it might piss off somebody who has a friend at that label. It becomes very political, and it also doesn’t become fully immersive in the way that it’s a collection of everyone. There’s sort of little cliquey groups. It’s a strange world when it comes to this whole thing with genre films, but I think the sites and the editorial is critical.

I think that horror fans have the largest footprint with blogs, review sites, and Youtube channels because it is a vehicle to get free product. I think it’s great as long as they are doing a good job; not half-assed and mailed in, and not just a way to get free stuff. I also think that a lot of them need to open up and diversify and go into different categories and not just stay myopic on one thing.

H&S: What about film fans and readers of sites like mine? What role do they play in film preservation? In addition to buying the films and supporting labels like Film Masters, what more should they be doing? What should they not be doing?

Phil: Fans should be supporting the labels by buying the films and reading the editorials. Just taking the time to read. Read about them and understand them so that they can share it with others so that they have educated information about the films. It’s not just amassing a huge Blu-ray collection. It’s more than that. It’s a community, and I think the more that we incorporate other things, such as going to screenings or supporting your local library… Do a movie night with your friends in the backyard. If you are really into this, go to your local library and have a movie night. Then, you can be your own host and talk about classic films. It’s like we talked about at the very beginning with fanzines. If you’re really into it, there’s so much more you can do. You can donate to the Library of Congress, who take care of so many films, or UCLA, who are always trying to get movies restored and need money desperately. 9 times out of 10, they don’t have the resources.

H&S: Going off something you said about film collecting, do you feel that there is a portion of the growing film fan populace that is blurring the lines between film hoarding and film collecting?

Phil: (Laughs) Well, I was a film hoarder until I realized that I needed to get from underneath it. Most of my career has been rescuing film out of storage facilities that were at one point owned by film hoarders. Probably the most shocking was the late Elvin Feltner, who had thousands of films. He had acquired the rights to Producers Releasing Corporation and a bunch of other libraries. He had thousands of films that were destroyed in a nitrate fire; hundreds of films that were destroyed because of poor ventilation. Many of them went to Vinegar Syndrome, and they were just decaying and unusable. One of the films that was saved and rescued from his collection was Carnival Magic. If he had taken better care of his films, a lot more would be available. I’ve learned to not hoard. At some point in my life, I realized… do I want to do this selfishly and have films from, like, a mental illness standpoint where if you ever drop dead, you have to hope that someone like myself shows up and tries to save it and do stuff with it.

I’m dealing with this right now (in regards to) the late Wade Williams.

H&S: Ha! That was going to be one of my next questions.

Phil: It’s shocking how much stuff Wade Williams has. It’s overwhelming! This is probably one of the most important collections in the world that’s in private hands.

H&S: From what I’ve seen of the list of films that were in that collection? Oh, yeah!

Phil: Wade, sadly, was not in great mental health towards the end of his life where he was able to do much for himself. When we started this journey together, we were going to do this for a long time. We were going to put every title (in his collection) out on blu-ray and 4K.

H&S: Didn’t Flight to Mars and Monster from Green Hell come from his collection?

Phil: They did. Thankfully, we were also working with Paramount, who had better materials than he had. He had co-owned certain distribution rights with Paramount on some of his films. Paramount does a lot of restoration and has a great team of people who are highly motivated to do others if we can get access to bringing negatives to their facility. They did a lot of the restoration work for those films. We worked in conjunction with a major studio with Wade Williams material, and this stuff came out and it looks damned good! Better than it’s looked before. For now, we’re just happy that we are able to get some of these titles out into the market and available for collectors. Frankly, the people who really care about them the most, they’re not getting any younger. That’s why I do believe that the more boutique labels, the more people that are willing to put the energy into this, the better for the longevity of these type of films.

My whole life, whether it was what I did previous with Elvin Feltner with his collection, up to (my work with) Sam Sherman… Sam owns a lot more than that! There’s hundreds of titles and films that are still in storage that need to be accounted for and put in an organized archive. Hopefully, we can make good 4K scans of them.

H&S: Speaking for the fans, I think that would be very much welcomed. Now, this may be just for personal interest, but can we expect to see more films from Wade Williams’ collection released or possibly updated versions of the previous releases?

Phil: We’re fairly confident that the answer is “yes”. It’s a challenge because Wade’s not around, and it’s really about getting people who are involved from a legal perspective to wrap their heads around enforcing copyright. There’s a bit of a misnomer about Wade Williams. A lot of people believe that he didn’t necessarily have the rights or that he made up rights or that he did things that were sort of unscrupulous, but that’s pretty far from reality. I’ve gone through documents. I’ve done the research. Yes, there might be some mistakes where a film was published without a copyright notice, but I think Wade just got a bad rap from people who think he didn’t own the films. That he was almost like a bootlegger or hoarder. I think the opposite. I think Wade did an amazing job saving films that otherwise might have gone into dumpsters.

H&S: I think that’s something that a lot of fans tend to overlook. There is more to the process than just cleaning up the prints and re-scanning and putting it out on disc. There’s the legwork of finding the films and dealing with whomever may own them or whomever the legal representatives are.

Phil: It’s incredibly challenging to explain all the touchpoints that go into it.

H&S: As someone who loves these films and wants to learn more about them, I thank you and the others who are doing this work. It’s definitely appreciated.

Phil: That’s why I love talking to colleagues and people like yourself, because you get it. If I were talking to a mainstream magazine, their eyes would gloss over half the things we talked about because it sounds like shop talk, right? But it’s really just us geeking out over what we love.

H&S: Again, I don’t want to feel like I’m damning some of these other outlets. They are, at least, educating the fans on some things. They’re keeping the conversation alive with their target audiences. However, I do feel that when you have a bigger (media) outlet, and you have so much to talk about and so many articles to put out there… eventually you start treating it as just “product”.

Phil: I couldn’t agree more. I think that the whole thing is that if you’re passionate about it, it’s not necessarily a product that you love. It’s a love affair that you have for most of your life, and I think it’s a very different way of talking about something you’re so passionate about. Again, I think that if people like us were the head of programming for these giant corporations. we’d probably have 10 Turner Classic Movies on network TV.

FILM MASTERS WEBSITE: http://www.filmmasters.com