EPISODE 246: Dead, White and Blue – A Green film
TRT 28:35
Note: this is an automatically generated transcript and may contain inaccuracies.
BETH ACCOMANDO Mike Davis just made a movie using old government films.
MIKE DAVIS It's like your patriotic duty to take these government films and do something subversive with them.
BETH ACCOMANDO Like a film about a rogue FBI agent who teams up with the United States Army to defeat the KKK, who have invaded the body of an innocent black man killed by a racist cop with the help of a shrink ray!
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BETH ACCOMANDO Welcome back to listener supported KPBS Cinema Junkie, I'm Beth Accomando.
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BETH ACCOMANDO Today I want to introduce you to a "green movie" made of 100% recycled footage from over 300 stock and public domain films repurposed with a brand new storyline and dialogue, Dead, White and Blue is a satirical sci-fi retro action comedy that takes aim at the absurdity of American racism. Filmmaker Mike Davis weaves this story out of old government films to create a wildly inventive and funny DIY movie that serves up a new age KKK boasting flashy new corporate promo videos and an evil plot to plunge the country into a race war with the help of a high tech shrink ray. It’s something that just has to be seen to be believed.
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BETH ACCOMANDO I need to take one quick break and then I will be back with green filmmaker Mike Davis to discuss Dead, White and Blue.
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BETH ACCOMANDO Welcome back to Cinema Junkie. I’m Beth Accomando. I can’t remember how I discovered Dead, White and Blue but it immediately won me over with its inspired DIY creativity. To give you a taste of it here’s the trailer, but so much of the humor comes from how Mike Davis repurposes old public domain footage… so as the trailer plays, think of those badly dubbed kung fu movies from the 1970s mixed with Blaxploitation.
CLIP Dead White and Blue Trailer
BETH ACCOMANDO I began my interview by asking Mike to explain what a green movie is.
MIKE DAVIS
A green movie is a film, a feature film made completely out of recycled material, which means that all of the footage in it has been previously produced. The stuff I like to use is mostly made in the '60s, '70s, '80s. And that footage is re-edited with a new storyline and new dialog, creating a brand new movie out of these old pre-produced materials. So it's good for the environment. It doesn't take up any energy, any electricity. I don't use AI. It's really repurposing something that to me is beautiful looking, but maybe not as entertaining today as it once was, and trying to make something new out of it, something that could entertain today's audiences.
BETH ACCOMANDO
People may have a certain expectation when you say like you're using old footage because people may put a value on it as being like archival, like you're using it in a documentary. But that is not, you your purpose. You're actually, like, using this old footage in a very creative, new way.
MIKE DAVIS
That's correct. These are not documentaries. What I like to do is, you know, I have a huge collection of old footage. For this film in particular, most of the stuff I used was produced by the United States government. It's a lot of training films for the military, FBI stuff, law enforcement. And I like to go through that footage and find anything that just strikes me, something that's weird, something that looks cool, and kind of put it aside and then start thinking about a storyline. Think about how I can use all this stuff to tell some other weird, wacky story. The footage kind of dictates the way that that goes because I can't— I can't imagine something that I don't have footage for. So I'll come up with a, with sort of a loose general plotline and then just put all this footage together in a way that makes some kind of sense. Not a lot of sense, but at least could hopefully work as a story with a beginning and middle and an end with somewhat consistent characters. Although I cheat on that a lot. You know, ideally make a new narrative feature out of those bits and pieces.
BETH ACCOMANDO
So describe a little bit of what this like scripting process is like, because the scripting I feel like is so closely fused with what the editing is. So just talk a little bit about that process of like going through. Do you— are you creating like bins with certain like people in it so that, you know, you can return to them or bins, you know, with like, oh, this is where this kind of thing is happening. And I can always like pull from here if I want a domestic scene or I want, you know, a global scene. So describe what that process is like for you.
MIKE DAVIS
Well, you know, I've made a few of these and this is my third one. Before, I would use public domain feature films as my base, kind of as my skeleton. I made a movie called President Wolfman, which was— which used a lot of this movie The Werewolf of Washington, which, which is a public domain '70s horror movie. And that kind of gives me the consistent characters. And then I can hang other footage from other sources off of that.
CLIP
The president is having a bad day. Bobby, watch out! First, the economy down the tubes. Now I know why they call you Madam Speaker. You never shut the fuck up. China is ready to take over this mother. Chimerica. Now the man done got himself bitten by a werewolf and is on a killing rampage through Washington, D.C. Oh no, he didn't! Where were you between the hours of 2 and 3:30 AM this morning? I was volunteering at a school for blind deaf mutes who would be happy to corroborate my story, except that they are blind deaf mutes and wouldn't know if I were there even if I had been, which I was. President Wolfman is a green movie made entirely out of recycled stock footage and public domain films. That's why it looks messed up. This movie is fun and funky fresh. The politicians want deadlock. Well, he gonna give them the deadlock. Hail to the teeth! President Wolfman, a Stag Films production. You're not angry at me? No, if I had been, you'd be face down in that gutter in a puddle of blood.
MIKE DAVIS
But for this one, I really didn't want to rely on a pre-existing feature, so I just use bits and pieces. So if I found some government film that was like 3 minutes long, but it had a character in it that I thought looked cool or who I wanted to use, I would just find every bit of footage I could with that person and then maybe some other footage with people that I could kind of cheat as him, almost like stand-ins or stunt people, maybe just seen from behind that had similar hair, something like that. And try to create a consistent character. And then of course, whatever it is that character is doing, that kind of dictated what happens in the story. But generally speaking, it's like making a film backwards because I start with the footage which has already been filmed, and then I edit that together in kind of a silent movie, like a silent version of the film with, with, like I said, sort of a general beginning, middle, and end story. And then I go back and start writing the script. Like I said, the script is dictated by the footage and what happens.
MIKE DAVIS
And as I'm writing, I'll get other ideas like, oh wait, I could cut to this, or what if this happened? And I know I have that little weird piece of footage of a cat flying, how can I put that in? And I'll just, you know, I have notes To answer your question of all the footage I've collected, sort of, I'm not that organized, but, you know, again, if I see something I like, I'll just make a note of it, and then I'll remember where to pull that scene from and throw it in the mix. Once the script is written, then I get the voice talent and record the dialog and make almost just like a radio play version of the movie. Which is just dialog. And then I take that and I lay it on top of the footage of the, of the rough cut and start tightening the editing and trying to make it work together. And all the dialog is dubbed in. It looks like a bad kung fu movie from the '70s, basically. So, you know, it doesn't look great, but I have found with my audiences that they're very forgiving. And once you kind of set the tone for like, okay, this is what this is.
MIKE DAVIS
It's not supposed to be perfect. It's not even supposed to be that good. It's you just have to kind of go along with the ride. People seem pretty willing to do it.
BETH ACCOMANDO
And what inspired you to go on this path? I know that like when I was a kid, there was a film which initially confused me. What's Up, Tiger Lily, the Woody Allen film
CLIP What's Up Tiger Lily? trailer
BETH ACCOMANDO
So I don't know if that played a part in your doing this, or is it like a financial thing where, hey, this gives me the means to make a film, but I don't have to invest a lot of money in actually going out in the field and shooting? Like, what inspired you to take this path?
MIKE DAVIS
It's really a combination of both of those things. I am a fan of that Woody Allen film. There are some other examples of similar things, but it really was, you know, my real inspiration are the great exploitation filmmakers of the '50s and '60s, the Roger Corman, Herschel Gordon Lewis, Ed Wood. John Waters, filmmakers who really had very little in terms of resources, or they just really wanted to make or had to make very low-budget movies. And how were they able to do that and still make them entertaining and include things like crowds and explosions and animals and kids and all the things they tell you you're not supposed to write into a script because it's too expensive to film? You know, hey, if you have it in archival footage, then you could— you can have all that stuff, explosions and armies. And, you know, my film has like a cast of thousands, and most low-budget independent filmmakers don't have that option. You know, ideally you have 3 or 4 characters in one location. You know, that's kind of the general rule. But I'm able to basically go wherever I want and do whatever I want as long as the footage exists.
MIKE DAVIS
By using that technique. And that was very exciting to me because I was trying to make my way as an independent filmmaker, and the thing that always just stops everybody in their tracks is money. You know, there just isn't enough money. Filmmaking is very expensive. I mean, it's— with the technology, it's gotten a little easier now, but however you slice it, you have to have a big chunk of change to make a film. And I just didn't want to deal with that. I got sick of trying to beg for money and, you know, knock on doors of producers in Hollywood. And I just figured out a way to do it myself, you know, without having to go through all that. And I had always been obsessed with this old footage. I love the look of it. I love movies from that era. I love old exploitation movies that look like crap, but they, you know, they're grainy and dirty and maybe a little blurry, but That's all okay with me. So it's a technique that works for me and I really love doing it.
BETH ACCOMANDO
For this particular film, where did you find this government footage and kind of the material that you drew on for this? Because I have to say, some of that footage was crazy. So I'm just curious, like, where you got your hands on it.
MIKE DAVIS
I mean, the beautiful thing about it And one of the reasons I wanted to use government footage is that this stuff is available to everybody. I mean, you can go on to the Library of Congress, the NARA, which stands for National Archives and Records something. You can find this stuff. The US government produced a lot of films. You know, they had, they had a big film department. And all through the years, they had to teach soldiers how to shoot guns and build tanks, but they also had to tell soldiers like, hey, you know, don't take LSD, you know, don't smoke marijuana on the base. And they made all these weird training films to communicate that. And, you know, the footage is amazing. And like you said, it's really— a lot of it is really weird. And the best thing about it is that it's all in the public domain. Which means that it's free to use. It's free. I own it, you own it, we all own it because the law is that anything produced by the United States government, by the federal government, is automatically public domain. So all this stuff is out there and it's available for anyone to use.
MIKE DAVIS
When I first started doing this, I thought, hey, this is great because a bunch of people are going to start making films like this, and that hasn't really happened. One thing I've discovered is that you have to have kind of a twisted brain to really put all these pieces together and make it work. But I still hope that, you know, young filmmakers get inspired and start making films this way because it's like your patriotic duty to take these government films and do something subversive with them.
BETH ACCOMANDO
So is there like a piece of footage or a film that was just the wackiest or the one that you were like, oh my God, this is a gem?
MIKE DAVIS
You know, there's a film, it's called like Marijuana: The Chemical Tomb, something like that. And it's hosted by Sonny Bono from Sonny and Cher. It's an anti-drug film. It was, you know, it's produced by the government and it's just got amazing clips of like psychedelic acid trips, and that's one of the weirder films. But there's a lot like that. I gravitate towards the drug movies because those are just really funny. But, you know, there's all kinds of stuff. You know, they train— they— people need to be trained to do everything. There's a— there's a film about training people how to blow their nose and how to, like, not cough in each other's faces to get each other sick. There's a lot of weird surgery. Stuff that they filmed for medical training. There's a lot of weird tests and a lot of nuclear stuff that they did with like setting up towns and setting off a nuclear bomb to see what happened to the town with like mannequins melting and things like that. So there's, you know, there's a lot of crazy stuff out there.
BETH ACCOMANDO
The film is mainly a piece of entertainment. I mean, you watch it, it's hilarious. There's a lot of fun stuff in it. There's a lot of cleverness on your part in how you put it together. But is there also a kind of a level of social commentary, just in the sense of like looking back on these films, looking back on how the government like depicted Black people or what they saw as social problems or, you know, fighting wars? I mean, seeing this footage now, even with like a plot, a silly plot laid over it, Like, do you feel there's something about seeing this footage with sort of fresh eyes that, you know, makes us see it differently?
MIKE DAVIS
Oh yeah. I mean, Dead White Blue is total social commentary. You know, the inspiration for me was really just the crazy political situation that we're in right now in this country. And that's been going on for the last 10 years or so. And then of course the kind of resurgence of racism, and I wanted to kind of express my feelings about those things and vent my frustrations and my anger, but do it in a comedic way. That's just kind of my style. But I did find that this footage, especially the '70s stuff, just kind of lent to that. I wouldn't say that looking back on these old films, it's not like looking back on old Hollywood films with, like, blackface and stereotypes. There aren't really many examples of that, I'm happy to say, in the government films. But I am a big fan of Blaxploitation movies from the 1970s, and so I kind of modeled this film in that vibe and found characters who kind of fit in with that just, you know, that looked that way. I thought that that worked as a good vessel to kind of make this statement about the current state of affairs today with the racism and anti-immigrant stuff.
MIKE DAVIS
You know, for me, it was just kind of a fun canvas to work with and express those things in a not-so-serious way.
BETH ACCOMANDO
I think the film actually opens with this, but you had some, like, Ku Klux Klan commercials or documentaries. What was that footage from?
MIKE DAVIS
Oh my gosh. Yes. The story of Dead White and Blue, it involves the KKK, which in its sort of fictional current form has modernized and is almost more like a corporation, like a high-tech corporation like Apple or something. You know, they put on these high-tech conferences and introduce their new technology that's, you know, gonna, gonna cause all this racial strife. There is footage of the KKK that's out there. The KKK as it's represented in the movie isn't really what the KKK looks like. It's more just like '70s gangster type guys. But the footage that I did use of the actual Ku Klux Klan comes from— well, a lot of it comes from Birth of a Nation, which for anyone who doesn't know, it's one of the very first feature films ever made. It's from 1915, I think, and it's a silent film, but it's actually about the KKK. In fact, in that film, the KKK are the heroes of the film. Um, and because that film was made, uh, pre-1930, it's also public domain. So you can use that for free and repurpose it however you like. Some of the other footage is just the government kept track of, of the KKK, and there's a lot of photos and, and some footage of their activities from, from that era.
MIKE DAVIS
And so I use that too.
BETH ACCOMANDO
So do you make these films kind of on your own, one-man band type, or do you have kind of a team behind you?
MIKE DAVIS
You know, my team has gotten smaller. It's hard. I made this film over a couple of years, and it's, it's hard to get people to kind of stick with a weird project like this for that long because they have their lives and they have other things they need to do. So I did end up doing a lot of this on my own. I did work with an editor who happens to be my son, and I worked with some voice actors who are really talented and they helped out. But generally speaking, this was like a mad scientist project that I did in my dark little laboratory, mostly by myself. But I enjoy working that way, so So yeah, it was fun.
BETH ACCOMANDO
And what kind of outlet do you have for something like this? Where can people find it?
MIKE DAVIS
Well, it played at a lot of film festivals, which was great. A lot of sort of offbeat underground festivals over the past year and also in Belgium. And then it's going to be screening in Long Beach near Los Angeles on June 7th, which is very exciting. But we are also in distribution streaming. We are on Tubi TV, which is free, and FOSUM TV, which is free. So for anybody who isn't in the area of those festivals, please go on Tubi or FOSUM and check it out.
BETH ACCOMANDO
And do you plan to continue to work kind of in this realm, or do you have hopes of going out and shooting films? Like, what do you see as a future for this?
MIKE DAVIS
I do plan on doing more of these. I, I kind of made this one like it was the last one I was going to do because I just didn't know if I was going to have it in me to do another one. And I just, for that reason, I decided to just not save any footage. Like, any footage I found that was crazy in the past, I'd maybe put that aside and say, well, I'm going to save that for another project. But for this one, I was just like Nope, I'm gonna find a way to use it in this movie. But since then, I have actually started a new green movie project. It's called Hot Heat Hawaii. It's more of a drug smuggling, surfing adventure. And so I'm working on that one right now, and I think I am just going to keep going because it's just too much fun. And, you know, the nice thing about it for me, unlike other filmmakers who who I feel bad they have to spend a lot of money on their films and it's a risk. I've kind of gotten this down to where I could do them without spending a lot, and so I'm not dependent on making a huge return back.
MIKE DAVIS
So I mean, yes, I want to, but that's not why I do it. I do it just for the fun and the creative outlet. So yeah, I'm going to keep going. I don't actually have a lot of aspirations to become a real director. I'm not necessarily comfortable on a big set with hundreds of people running around yelling and screaming. And I sort of came into this really as a writer. That's my passion. That's what I like doing. That's my passion. And I kind of directed out of necessity because it was too hard to get other people to make my scripts. So I kind of like doing it this way.
BETH ACCOMANDO
Well, and you mentioned voice actors. To do the voices for a film like this requires a special talent because it's not like you're not trying to lip sync. You're not trying to sound the most realistic. Like, you have to strike this sort of interesting balance of finding that surreal sort of like area where it'll work best. So how are you directing these people?
MIKE DAVIS
You know, it's actually a lot like animation. I used to work at an animation studio just in production, not really doing anything creative, but I saw how they would do it and they would record the actors not even necessarily up against the footage. You know, they would just do it in a studio and just tell them, "Read the lines," and then they would do the animation around their performance and their words. So this is really similar. I mean, at first I thought, well, you probably have to see what your character is doing to get it, but You know, these actors are great. They don't really need to see it. I just tell them, be funny, be crazy. They read the line, and then I make the footage work around what they've recorded. I kind of just fudge it a lot. And again, it's like a bad kung fu movie. It's not always in sync. It's actually rarely in sync, but it's close enough that people are okay with it.
BETH ACCOMANDO
And where can people follow you or find more information about what you have coming up?
MIKE DAVIS
Well, my company is called Stag Films, so you can find Stag Films online. We have a website on Instagram, probably most active on the Dead White and Blue Instagram right now because that's what I'm promoting, trying to get out there. And I really appreciate people like you helping to do that and taking interest in these— in this weird film. So yeah, look, look for Dead White Blue Movie on Instagram. All right.
BETH ACCOMANDO
Well, I want to thank you very much for talking about your film. It was a wonderful revelation to find it. I don't even remember how I came across it, but I just enjoyed that kind of creativity and just the wackiness of it.
MIKE DAVIS
Well, I really appreciate your support, and it was great talking to you. Thank you, Beth.
BETH ACCOMANDO
That was Mike Davis, the mastermind behind Dead, White and Blue – a green movie.
Dead, White and Blue will be playing this Sunday June 7 at the Art Theater Long Beach. If you can’t make that, check it out for free on TUBI.
That wraps up another edition of KPBS listener supported Cinema Junkie. If you enjoy the podcast, then please share it with a friend because your recommendation is the best way to build an addicted audience. You can also help by leaving a review.
Till our next film fix, I’m Beth Accomando your resident Cinema Junkie.
