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The king of mockumentaries, Harry Shearer
(writer/director/producer/actor/comedian) joins forces with
a lot of his former running mates for the production of
"Teddy Bears' Picnic". Some may recognize the name, but not
the face, since Harry Shearer is the voice behind pop
culture characters like Mr. Burns and Ned Flanders on
television's "The Simpsons". He also penned and appeared in
front of the camera on television's "Saturday Night Live",
"The Truman Show", "Independence Day", "My Best Friend's
Wedding", and "Le Show". Many may be familiar with some of
earlier projects done by Shearer and other collaborators on
projects such as: "Best in Show" and "This is Spinal Tap",
the film that defined and continues to define the hybrid
genre called "mockumentary". For this socio-policital
satire, Shearer aims the "mocku" element at the Bohemian
Grove, an elitist society headquartered in San Francisco and
the Wine Country.
(Shearer) explains: "... Basically, one of my purposes
for the movie was to say: 'hey, did you know that this is
going on? I bet you didn't.' So I wanted to be pretty close
to what I learned about the real place."
Some people think you could have gone further in terms
of the controversy surrounding the real life Bohemian Grove
group.
(Shearer) "Well, I put in what I knew... There are people
who think all manner of things go on there, including ritual
child sacrifices... So I basically was trying to adhere to
no more than what I could vouch for what is going on there.
Because I didn't want it to be silly, or sillier that is to
say, than what they actually do; because I kind of wanted
people to believe it. Since I know it is true. So I didn't
want it to be outlandish or dopey."
I believed it because where I went to college, there
were a lot of secret societies.
(Shearer) "... The thing is, once you have high ranking
people assembled and you close the doors, the fantasizing
and the paranoid musing just goes hog wild. So, as I say, to
a certain extent I felt it necessary to be constrained by
what I actually knew- like what I had actually seen or what
people who were there or who remembered told me, or what I
had read annals of the club itself."
So, what became your motivation for making a feature
film about the group?
(Shearer) Well, the motivation was to make a movie. I
just happen to like movies that are funny about what really
goes on as opposed to fantasy... You know, our lives, thanks
to the media, are chopped filled of- there is no danger of a
fantasy shortage in the United States, at this point. The
rumors of a fantasy shortage have been wildly exaggerated.
There is a little bit of a reality shortage... The stuff
that really entertains me is how goofy we really are. I
don't think any imaginative fantasy comes close to being as
funny to me as actual human behaviors. My goal is always to
just observe how people really are and then maybe just tweak
it just a little bit.
What are some of your objectives for this
film?
(Shearer) "Well, to have it survive its first weekend.
[Originally slated for a March 29th release, "Teddy
Bears' Picnic" was pushed back to escape the need to compete
with all the Oscar buzz]... It's such a tiny little
project, in the world of modern movie-making; we have an
advertising budget that has a minus sign in front of it...
And we basically have me going around and shouting on my tip
toes, trying to draw attention to it... So to have it
survive that first weekend is sort of a major goal."
I (KA) hope that the many familiar faces of "repeat
offenders", as Shearer would call them, but the average
person would call them members of the cast and crew like:
Michael McKean, Morgan Fairchild, and George Wendt, among
many others, will attract audiences to go see the
film.
What was it like directing so many of your
friends?
(Shearer) "Well, for me directing friends- listen, if I
could do a movie with nothing but friends as cast and crew,
I would be the happiest person in the world... There is
enough tension and stress in just getting a movie made, you
don't need strangers around. But the good thing about
working with colleagues and friends is that hopefully you
have that shorthand. So that if you need to correct
something or if you need to get something other than what
they are doing, you don't need to struggle to find the words
to say..."
So is it more intuitive like siblings who play sports
together?
(Shearer) "Exactly! You have maybe some reference point from
a project you were on twelve years ago that resembles this
moment and you can just say that one word and they get it.
So, you know, that is a big advantage... and also it's fun.
It's tough sometimes when you have just lost a location to
remember this, but the goal going into a comedy, I think, is
to have fun... If there is a focus to it, it is always
better for people in comedy to have fun. It can be
infectious, in the best cases."
Yes, I think so. Especially comedians of that caliber,
since so many of you have done live performances, you will
probably be more in sync with what will fly and what will
not with the audience, even though you never truly know for
certain.
(Shearer) You never always know and you never know from
one moment to the next. I remember when 'This is Spinal Tap'
first came out, critics didn't even want to review it... And
with 'The Simpsons', when we first started as a show
[Although I (KA) remember it and loved it when it was on
"The Tracey Ullman Show"], there was stuff about it was
a bad role model and it's a bad example, and it's an immoral
show. And now there are cover stories in Christian magazines
about how it is the most religious show on television... You
know you stick around long enough and you are going to hear
everyone say everything about it, no matter what you
do.
Shearer describes himself as a comic actor, like Martin
Short and Michael McKean. Unlike a lot of the other members
of the Saturday Night Live Not Ready For Prime Time Players,
he did not come up the route of stand up comedy. However, he
has a lot of experience as a child actor doing live
performances, and as a result has mixed feelings about live
television today. He tends to prefer comic characters skits
to joke telling. [Some of his favorite live comedians
are George Wallace and Eddie Izzard]. Although he
considers Rodney Dangerfield a "jeweler of jokes" because he
is so talented when it comes to minimalism.
Do you have a preference when it comes to acting,
directing, and producing?
(Shearer) Well, they all scratch different
itches. Producing, is the least interesting thing to me.
It is associated with directing only in that it seems to
be in some ways the same kind of work, just focused in a
different direction because it is all
problem-solving.
Directing is about 9/10 problem solving. It's just,
you had an intention, and that can't happen for one
reason or another. So now you kind of have to think on
your feet- 'all right, what do we do now?' In any low
budget, I mean, in a big budget movie you just throw
money at it and go back to your trailer until somebody
says it's ready. But in low budget directing you're
constantly being called upon to be a
problem-solver.
Writing's interesting. I don't trust anyone who
says that they like writing. I like having written. You
know the fun in writing comes from having completed it or
done a number of pages that day. Sometimes I will make
myself silently chuckle at what I am writing. I am
writing a screenplay and a book right now. But a lot of
times it's just, especially in long form stuff, you are
just trying to get something on the page that day. And
that's not that much fun. Directing is sort of a way of
completing the writing task. When you have written a
movie, you really haven't made anything, you have just
done a blueprint of something to be made. So, directing
is sort of in a sense, the second half of the writing;
it's the completion of the idea.
Acting is almost like a vacation... I think it was
Spencer Tracy who said, 'remember your lines and don't
bump into the furniture' and that is pretty much all
there is to acting... It basically is a pretty simple
art, that is not to denigrate when it is well done how
powerful it can be... And as an actor, you are not
responsible for anyone besides yourself... The scope of
your concerns doesn't go beyond your epidermis. ..I know
what an actor's fear is and that is humiliation and for
me that is being 'bigger'.
How much of this movie was scripted versus improv
since you have so many comedians involved?
(Shearer) "We had such a short shooting schedule that we
couldn't really afford to shoot or edit in that style
(improvisational). So what I said to the actors is 'I know
you will come up with ideas. I want the ideas, just tell me
what you are thinking about before we get to the set and I
will incorporate them into the shooting script.'.. So that
we knew what we were doing. A lot of the stuff in the movie
was contributed by the actors."
"Teddy Bears' Picnic" has some absolutely hilarious
moments that made me laugh so hard I think I may have
alarmed some of the other critics. The film does meander a
bit when the chaos begins during the third act involving a
fire at the Grove, however, the film merits a rental at the
least.
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