My group decided to develop a very experimental and low-budget, almost documentary style, movie called "Truckin'." The plot of the this movie goes along with many Grateful Dead references because they were huge in the 70s and "Dead Heads" were part of the counter-culture scene. The movie starts off with a young man named Rubin, relatively straight-edge, who meets a mysterious, yet intriguing girl, named Cherise, in a coffee shop. He is instantly drawn to her. She tells him that if he wants to see her again, he must meet her at the next Dead concert. Rubin goes to the concert to find Cherise in her natural Dead Head scene, and he's completely caught off guard, but continues to follow her and the Grateful Dead around the country. Cherise, and her other dead head friends, adopt Rubin into their crowd and follow the band. He eventually stops following the band just for her, but because he becomes one of them throughout the movie. This happens after an acid trip, which opens his eyes to the reality of the world and the walls society and the establishment have set around him. Rubin then wants to go against the system and continue along with Cherise. They fall in love and are basically hippies together for their lives following the Grateful Dead.Our genre is entirely blended. One could call it a countercultural film, while others would say it's a romantic documentary type film. We were trying to go with a blend of genres to set the scene as a 70s experimental and independent film. The message of this film is to open the eyes of 70s audiences that maybe the "system" is flawed and wrong, and they have the ability and freedom to choose. Our director and producer was Dennis Hopper, who also starred in Easy Rider, because he liked to take on low-budget experimental films like this one. We also went with AIP as our studio, as it was very independent and down to make experimental and low-brow movies.
Dennis Hopper also starred in this movie as Rubin, and Brigitte Bardot starred as Cherise. We chose them because Dennis Hopper has had experience playing the role of a so-called "hippie" in Easy Rider and thought he would be a good choice as Rubin. We chose Brigitte Bardot as Cherise because she was known as the "sex-kitten" of the 60s and 70s, which fit the alluring and sexual attraction that Cherise portrays in the film. She also was mainly only a television star, so putting her in this movie went with the experimental style we were trying to achieve. Our main focus on this film was sound, as it was based almost entirely on music (Grateful Dead). We chose to have the soundtrack take over and not as much dialogue between characters to really let the audience feel the vibe of the movie. Cinematography was also emphasized in our film every now and then, especially during Rubin's acid trip, which was shot from a multitude of angles and chaotic shots to make it look very trippy. The rest of the film was basically shot from a handheld camera to set the documentary-style feel of the film, so the audience could see the gritty and true reality of the movie instead of an overly edited and fake film.
The MPAA rating system would give Truckin' an R rating, due to sex, drugs, illicit behavior, anti-establishment features, and many other references. We were going to make the film X-rated, but decided against it, so we could still have a wider variety of audience, but still mature.
There weren't any serious decisions that my group made that I disagreed with. We were all very content and pleased with what we had come up with, due to similar interests. We all liked our subtle, yet obvious if you're a Dead fan, references which made the movie fun. The only thing I would have changed or added to if I had sole control over the process, is make the movie a tad more anti-establishment like. I would have intertwined war protesting and government protesting to add to the 70s counterculture feel.
The movie ends with Rubin saying, "Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip it's been.." I love this element to the ending because it's a lyric from the Dead song "Truckin'", which is our title and it fits very well with the movie, as Rubin progresses from a straight-edge, relatively white-collared guy into a free-loving and easy-going, dead head hippie.
