Wednesday, April 19, 2000

Local filmmaker's 'Golem' ready at last

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Computer meltdown delayed film for two years

        Every director strives for the greatest suspense in a movie, that moment of panic when the blood chills and the heart races.

        Unfortunately for Scott Wegener, that moment occurred to him — not to the audience — which was why The Golem has been delayed for two years.

A scene from The Golem (WCPO photo) | ZOOM |

        “The whole movie was virtually finished in July of 1998 when it imploded as I was trying to transfer it from the (editing) computer to tape,” said Mr. Wegener, whose two-hour film debuts Saturday (8 p.m., Channel 9).

        “I'd hit "play,' and images would start corroding and disappearing. I was able to save only six shots. Everything else was gone.”

ON THE AIR

What: The Golem When: 8 p.m. Saturday Where: Channel 9

        About 60,000 video and audio edits evaporated in the special effects-laden film focusing on a 16th-century legend about a Prague rabbi who creates a giant out of clay (a golem) to protect his people. Piece by piece, Mr. Wegener had to reassemble the film, shot on a Warren County farm and in Prague.

        “When the computer went south on me, I was in a real bad mood for a real long time,” admitted Mr. Wegener, the Channel 9 news photographer who wrote, directed and produced the film.

        “I was so fried, I had to take some time off and vacation with my family.”

        He had been sleeping in a tent in the Channel 9 attic to work almost around-the-clock on the film for a July 1998 premiere party. He didn't get back to it until the following January.

        “It was like your foot is in cement, and the only way out is the hard way. You've just got to keep putting one foot in front of the other. It became kind of my nightmare.”

        The Golem began as his grand dream, the largest production of his three films produced on a shoestring, in his free time, for Channel 9. He also wrote, directed and produced The Mutants (1993) and The Spider's Web (1995) under his company, David Garrison Productions.

        The Golem lists 147 actors, many from the Ohio Renaissance Festival and Society for Creative Anachronism. Hundreds more helped construct a Prague ghetto near Paramount's Kings Island three years ago, made costumes, loaned horses and livestock, and provided off-camera assistance.

        Delta Air Lines donated transportation to Czechoslovakia for Mr. Wegener and photographer Larry Deal to shoot exteriors. Local business donated about $2 million in goods and services to The Golem, Mr. Wegener said. His out-of-pocket expenses were $600 to $800.

        On the screen, The Golem looks more toward the lower figure, than a big-budget Hollywood production TV viewers expect.

        Mr. Wegener wrote the script, a fairly straight-forward tale of good versus evil, after studying the Golem tradition and looking at German Golem silent films made in the 1920s by a distant great uncle, Paul Wegener.

        Richard L. Arthur stars as Rabbi Yehudah Loew, who creates an incredible hulk (Steve Ratcliffe Jr.) during the Inquisition. The golem, named Yossel, tries to rescue the maiden (Emma Carlson-Berne) who falls under the spell of Father Thaddeus (Ernie Rowland), a crazy hermit.

        The rabbi's house was built by Mr. Wegener as a tribute to his great uncle. He found a book with the actual plans for the structure used in his great uncle's best-known film, Der Golem, Wie Er in die Welt Kam (The Golem, How He Came Into the World). The Sacramento, Calif., native had first learned about Der Golem, and his distant relative while attending a San Francisco film school.

        If ratings are strong this weekend, The Golem may be offered to other Scripps Howard stations, he said. Television executives in Israel, the Ukraine and Czechoslovakia also have inquired about the film, he said.

        Asked about his next project, Mr. Wegener gave me the same response he did seven years ago after completing The Mutants,a half-hour Channel 9 special.

        “I've got to figure out a different way to do these things. I didn't see much of my family,” he said. He and wife, Joan, have two sons, David, 15, and Jason, 13.

        “Joan and I have agreed that I won't do any more movies in my spare time.”

        He has resisted the temptation of Hollywood to stay put in Sharonville. He has continued to dream the impossible dream — opening a Tristate movie studio.

        “Everyone says you can't do it, but I think we've found some ways of starting a movie studio in town,” he said. “By making movies here, I'm able to have creative freedom and control.”

        Freedom and control, until another computer meltdown.

        “I knew I would get The Golem done, but it was enormously frustrating,” he said.

        This film has a happy ending: It will finally get on the air.

John Kiesewetter is Enquirer TV/radio critic. Write him at 312 Elm St., Cincinnati, 45202.