At MIT, there often isn't an opportunity for students to participate in full-fledged movie productions. Unless producers are foolhardy enough to return to this campus for Blown Away 2, the MIT Student Cable Group has taken some initiative in involving MITin the process of filmmaking. The end result, an hourlong production entitled Speed Harder, will have its world premiere at the end of the "MIT-Made Media Spectacle" at Bartos Theater at 7 p.m. on Friday.
The film's auteur, Philip W. Tracadas G, has been involved with the film's production since its inception over a year ago. After shooting some footage last spring, the project lay dormant until this fall, when new recruits, Ivi B. Acuña '96 and Rob Wagner '97 infused new life into the film. Thus, the film can be seen as two separate parts: the outer frame of the film concerns the efforts of Tracadas and his cohorts to raise money for the Speed Harder movie - from Mafia sources, sleep-deprivation studies, and blood drives - at the risk of losing their sanity; and Speed Harder itself, a mock-action-adventure flick directed by Acuña and written by Wagner, in which the climactic scenes take place on a Safe Ride van wired with explosives.
A portion of the film will be recorded live at the premiere on Friday, serving as the bridge between the end of the filming Speed Harder and the showing of the featurette, which recalls a self-referential style that permeated Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 and Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles. "Originality isn't the main idea in our movie," Tracadas says. "We enjoy being self-referential." Tracadas hopes that this project will bring prestige to MIT Student Cable and will spawn interest in future student-produced films.
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