#Unusual Films

[wutbju]

This is a long, long, long story with a lot of data. Let’s comb through it. Lucille B. Green is the Greenville News staff writer who wrote the story.

A little flying angel, clutching a movie camera to his breast. is the trademark for internationally recognized Unusual Films, a Bob Jones University enterprise which offers in its scholastic division of cinema a bachelor of arts, a master of arts and a master of fine arts degree.

Unusual Films produces films for distribution on rental basis through churches and other organizations, operating independently of the university and paying the university 10 per cent of its gross, plus providing all promotional films to the university without charge.

It also must pay other departments on itemized billings for services rendered, from secretarial work to manual labor on sets when it can't manage within its own organizational set-up.

Headed by Mrs. Katherine Stenholm, director of the cinema division and Unusual Films, the division was recognized recently by the U. S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, -- no friend of BJU, with which HEW has been involved in a long struggle over Civil Rights Act compliance -- as being "better equipped in relation to the number of students being trained than any other institution's cinema division in the United States.

No friend of BJU? What the flip is that in there? What’s up with the Civil Rights Act compliance? Here’s a clue from 1974. The rhetoric in this statement is annoying.

Mrs. Stenholm, whose husband Dr. Gilbert Stenholm is director of BJU's extension division and ministerial training, initiated Unusual Films in 1950.

A need was felt at that time by the administration "to produce Christian and educational films of good quality." It was felt that most such films which churches and other organizations were showing were of inferior quality and that BJU could meet a real need in establishing a cinema studio.

This next strategy is typical for BJU. They imbue the young and uninitiated with a large dose of responsibility which creates a kind of trauma bond with BJU.

ANNOUNCED IN 1950

Dr. Bob Jones Jr. broke the news to Mrs. Stenholm at a rehearsal of "Cyrano de Bergerac" in 1950 -- when Mrs. Stenholm was directing plays and operas for the university and serving on the speech faculty. "Next fall," he said, "when you are working in our film studios...."

A few weeks later, when commencement activities were over, Mrs. Stenholm saw Dr. Bob Jones Jr. on the campus and questioned him further. He told her she would get money from the university to build the studios, to purchase initial equipment and to cover the costs of the first production. After that she would be on her own.

That summer she went to the University of Southern California to study motion picture making. "My ignorance of what I had to do could be compared with giving a child a large sum of money and telling him to furnish a house. . .But I was determined to do a good job and -- if it doesn't sound too pious -- I think the Lord helped me all the way."

She took a summer course. That’s it. USC still has that program. You can view it here.

AIDED BY STERNOD

Mrs. Stenholm feels she was guided in purchases of equipment -- "which frequently can become obsolete in just a short time." And she cites as an example the purchase of a camera in 1950 for $8,000 which today she could sell for "$16,000 if we wished to sell it." And she feels that she lived by the gospel -- "If you lack wisdom, look to God."

Instrumental in Mrs. Stenholm's orientation to the film world was Rudolph Sternod, then Stanley Kramer's production designer. ("A production designer actually does everything except film direction," she explains, "designing not only the set but the action.")

Mr. Sternod had worked with major studios for 20 years and had never paused to talk with a visitor to the set but when he saw Mrs. Stenholm watching his production for the second day, he went over to speak to her and asked her what she was interested in.

From that time on, he divulged secrets of the trade that guided his protege through her rough beginning years, and provided her with knowledge that smoothed the path she had to travel. He taught her set construction and camera angles -- and the special type of broken set construction to coordinate with camera angles.

It’s Sternad, if you’re googling. Usually you’ll see him as Rudy Sternad. And you’ve probably seen his work:

In California with Mrs. Stenholm that summer, also attending USC classes, was Bob Craig, a graduate student picked for the future cinematographer of the film enterprise. He remained with her for eight years.

Bob Craig was a member of the Class of 1951, btw. It’s not like she met him at USC.

Ground was broken for the studios in June of that year and the trademark soon had a namesake, a crane purchased in Hollywood by Mrs. Stenholm and known there as the "Mighty Midget" but rechristened "The Flying Angel." It's still in use.

Thus was born the Department of Unusual Films, later to become a precocious offspring of the"World's Most Unusual University.'

WELL EQUIPPED

This modern motion picture studio centers in gigantic sound stage complete with professional cranes and multi-directional dollies, cameras, microphone perambulators, cat-walks, arc and incandescent lights and light accessories.

At the rear of Rodeheaver Auditorium, the studio's main building has three divisions: the air-conditioned, Fiberglas-insulated soundstage proper -- 40 by 80 feet and 30 feet high; the scene storage and machine-shop area, 20 by 80 feet; and the general offices and workrooms that spread over three stories.

The second floor contains Mrs. Stenholm's office, production offices and the editing, re-cording-machinery and sound-mixing rooms. The third floor is divided into a film storage and checking room, the art and film drafting room, the distribution and advertising office and a classroom which doubles as a projection room.

The Rodeheaver auditorium stage, vast and magnificently equipped, is accessible from the studios as is the university's collection of costumes, armor and jewelry, valued at $300,000 and readily adaptable for use in motion pictures.

An exterior studio lot has been used for shooting Grecian and Roman scenes with their public buildings and squares, for Palestinian streets and buildings, in "Wine of the Morning"; and for exteriors in "Red Runs the River," a story of conflict, both personal and national, during the War Between the States.

Both of these films are evangelistic in theme and have been prize winners with international acclaim.

“War Between the States”? :|

'MACBETH' FILMED

A few months after the studios embarked on shooting promotional and religious films -- featuring Dr. Bob Jones Sr.'s sermons and other early releases -- the demands on the part of students for participation led to the decision to create an accredited course in film making at the university, and later an accredited division.

Soon Dr. Bob Jones Jr. transferred his talents in Shakespearean roles from the stage to film. And soon "Macbeth" with Dr. Bob Jones Jr. in the title role, became the most spectacular production yet of the young company. The studio was on its way to establishing an international reputation.

The studios won their first award in 1952, from the National Evangelical Film Foundation, for the musical production, "Vesper Melodies. The following year the same foundation gave them its award for "Heavenly Harmonies."

Mrs. Stenholm was now an experienced and knowledgeable director and the studios embarked on an ambitious two-year production based on Dr. Bob Jones Jr.'s book, "Wine of Morning." The story details the life -- as it might well have been -- of Barabbas, who was spared in the choice before Pilate between Barabbas and Jesus. The university also composed the original musical score and students worked in every phase of production.

Some of the technical problems solved by the director and her students have been written up in magazines as well as cinema textbooks. Included among such texts using pictures and technical explanations of problems from BJU are Dr. Raymond Fielding's "Special Effects" and another text by David Mascelli, as well as the HEW manual.

True!

SEA SCENE FILMED

Mrs. Stenholm recalls that she was tremendously worried about filming a sea scene in "Wine of Morning" and decided to go to California on her vacation to talk it over with Mr. Sternod. Again it seemed as if the conference was almost divinely inspired -- for Mr. Sternod had just spent nearly $1 million in studio research for the production of "Mutiny on the Bounty" to determine the most realistic use of miniatures in filming such scenes.

So successfully did she film the sea scene (in miniature) that the pictures of the scene and technical descriptions have been included in texts, including the HEW manual. "Wine of Morning" was chosen to represent the product of American colleges and universities at the International Film Festival in Cannes, France, in May 1958 and the International Congress of Schools of Cinema, meeting in Paris a week later.

In a report on the sessions given to a committee of government agencies interested in motion pictures in Washington, Mrs. Stenholm was cited by Dr. Don Williams as having presented "a full-length, feature picture . . . . one of the most ambitious pictures ever undertaken by a university group . . . and she took with her the most complete set of lecture notebooks I have ever had the pleasure to look through. She also had a picture showing the facilities at BJU studios called "The Flying Angel."

Unusual Films did get listed with the Dept HEW in 1963 as a cinema school of note. The films it brags on though:

“You Can’t Win”? Was that a remake of “Unbeatable Game”? Tell me more!

CIVIL WAR MOVIE

A few years later Mrs. Stenholm met even greater challenges when she embarked on the filming of the spectacular full-length Civil War movie -- in color. Students, staff and faculty decided the only way to learn the creative, technical and production aspects of film-making was to make one -- a real one, a big one, a long one, a good one.

Research teams were dispatched to the Manassas Battleground (the battle is reenacted in the film), to the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress. Again the solution of a technical difficulty made textbooks in picture and descriptive matter, this time on the blowing up of a railroad trestle at the moment that a period railroad train passed over it. Visitors at the 1967 Festival of Arts last spring saw the set and could learn how the scene was done.

The months and the years have spun by and the cinema division at BJU averages 38 to 40 students a year with six to eight receiving master's degrees.

Most recent of the productions to be completed by Unusual Films that merits praise is the promotional film on the university, "Gateway to a Miracle," which covers the campus and classrooms and was used during the summer on the banquet tours by the president and vice president of the university and on the nationwide summer tours of the four "BJU Ensemble" groups. It will be available to churches for showing this fall.

Anybody remember that one? Gateway to a Miracle? I’ve heard about this next one. So typical. Thurmond was a real piece of work in the late 60s.

Earlier in the year, Unusual Films produced a film depicting in color the charms of South Carolina, "Products of Freedom,” made on contract for Sen. Strom Thurmond, a member of BJU's board of trustees. Either film would be a revelation in beauty and knowledge for the average South Carolinian.

In addition to films produced for rental, to recover their cost, the studios do some commercial work -- but are somewhat restricted as to sponsors and content.

The text underneath the picture up above is as follows:

So successfully did Mrs. Katherine Stenholm solve the technical problems involved in filming the storm at sea for "Wine of Morning" that this picture of the actual filming, together with the technical descriptions, has been included in a number of textbooks -- including a manual put out by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Raymond Fielding's "Special Effects" and another text by David Mascelli. The metal barrels at the side were used to create waves, fine spray was blown through the air and the ship was perfectly proportioned to permit the oar strokes, etc., to appear real--not mechanized or in miniature.

[rhade-zapan]

Psycho ~ Alfred Hitchcock ~ 1960

Feat: Anthony Perkins

Follow Rhade-Zapan for more visual treats

[halcyoncyrus]

Abbot brothers behind the scenes

[katiajewelbox]

Incredible glass figurine stop motion animation! How in the world did they make this? The little glass figures have so much personality. Shared with permission from the Tik Tok page Old Beautiful Clips.

[mariocki]

La tarantola dal ventre nero (Black Belly of the Tarantula, 1971)

"Yes, I've always told you to drop it, it's true. But now... you're not giving up. Not now. And I don't really care about the movie. If they're out to get you, it means the murderer is afraid of you. It means you know what you're doing. He's afraid of you."

[jadeclaymoresworld]

Apparently they were filming scenes for Heartstopper season 3 in the town over from where I live yesterday!

[leona-florianova]

Today when walking home through the still shiny from rain and quiet night city, I have encountered three party trams. They were absurdly overpacked with people, who sung and danced to a very loud music, while strobe lights shone through the windows. When passing the third tram, it stopped at the red light, and while the machine itself wasnt moving forward, it still bounced slightly to the rhytm and I could hear the squeaking of metal on metal. Suddenly a big cloud of smoke wafted out of the accordion like midsection and for a second I thought, that something broke in the mechanisms and caught fire, but it was just all the weed smoke finally finding a way out. Even after the tram was gone, the weed smell and smoke lingered a while. 

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

The skeleton of John Aasen, a silent film actor, best known for his unusual height.

[spadoodle]

My Tav Juana, my first Tav. Luv u btch

[jimmyspades]

Graham smiles. He has an unusual face, a face that fluctuates between remarkably handsome and just plain strange. GRAHAM: I know you're uncomfortable with my appearance. But that's okay.

(sex, lies, and videotape, screenplay by steven soderbergh, second draft 21 feb 88)

[bl-bam-beyond]

Three Friends. On a mission to help one. Feelings surrounding them. Hikaru (YABANA REI) is enamored by the unknown beauty in a found film he watched with Chika (YOSHIDA MIZUKI) and later with his best friend Ryo (FUKADA RYUSEI.

Ryo appears to be nursing unspoken feelings for his best friend Hikaru, while Chika appears to be feeling Ryo.

They stick together to find the girl in the film none of them aware of the other's feelings though it seems Chika notices how the boy she likes (which is Ryo) likes his best friend Hikaru.

MY STRAWBERRY FILM (2024, JAPAN)

Episode 2

Then low and behold a new student arrives Murasaki Minami (TANABE RIRIKA) and she is a beauty. And she looks like the girl from the film. Yet she seems focused on Chika. What is in store for these 4 people. Is Minami in to girls? Or will she be interested in Hikaru? And how will that affect the nonchalant Ryo who happens to have feelings for his best friend. Hmmm..

@pose4photoml @lutawolf @kingofthereblog-boysloveed

[wutbju]

Who has seen Red Runs the River? We all need to watch it again.

Film Focuses on General Who Turned to Religion

"Red Runs the River," the latest feature length production of Unusual Films, a Bob Jones University enterprise, details not only the conflict of North against South in compelling col-or, but focuses on the conflict the heart of Gen. Richard Stoddert Ewell, who found religion on the battlefield.

Starring in the film, indeed running away with the picture is Dr. Bob Jones Jr. university president, whose talents as an actor have earned him recognition both nationally and abroad. As a young man, he turned down offers from Broadway and Hollywood for his ministry in evangelism and education.

In the role of the rough, tough, blasphemous, bald-headed Gen. Ewell, who scoffs at things spiritual, Dr. Bob Jr. turns in a convincing performance from beginning to end of the 90-minute film. His maturity, his diction and his seasoned stage abilities result in an outstanding performance.

In sharp contrast to his father, is Dr. Bob Jones III as Gen. Stuart, a flamboyant and colorful character, He measures up well to the demands of the role of the daring and capable cavalry officers who still paused in the press of war to give Christian testimony. But it is Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, as played by Jack Buttram, who carried the burden of evangelistic appeal. A Virginian himself, he is said to have voice, build and facial features that admirably fitted him for the role. He also had histrionic experience that rang. ed from Shakespeare to radio program production.

Historians have described Jackson as a devout Christian who considered the spiritual condition of his men as much as his responsibility as the winning of battles. He is quoted as declaring that "I always take time to bury my dead and care for my wounded," but he took time, too, to read the Bible, pray and hear testimony.

Directed by Mrs. Katherine Stenholm, "Red Runs the River" is from an original story by Miss Eva Carrier both are of the BJU faculty--and the screenplay was adapted by Charles Applegate.

Primary responsibility for the filming lay with the students in the division of cinema of the school of fine arts, but the student body and faculty were also involved in producing the epic.

Two months before filming started, students began growing beards and long before that research teams were off to Manassas, to the Smithsonian Institute and the Library of Congress. More than 600 actors were outfitted with uniforms, muskets, bayonets, canteens, cups and haversacks. "Ordnance" crews made working models of Civil War rifles to augment real muskets and hundreds of dummy guns were made, so real "only a woodpecker could tell the difference."

Equally realistic are the scenes of Virginia's rolling hills and red soil filmed actually a few miles from the campus. Nothing was stinted -- the cavalry action, the great train wreck when Gen. Stuart dynamited a trestle, and the battle scenes with their realistic mortar and cannon explosions and musket volleys. Mention should be made, too, of the fine music track produced by Dr. Dwight L. Gustafson, who composed and directed the mood music.

The world premiere was held at Bob Jones University in the spring of 1963, two years after the original story had been conceived and a full year after the cameras had first rolled. The award-winning film is now available on rental basis through application to Unusual Films. Seeing it is a memorable experience.

[taylorrepdetective]

The nfl posting their recorded convo 😯 this pr is too fckn on the nose, my goddddd

Come on now, she just wants to bejeweled after 6 years in the basement 😍

[mudwerks]

(via How the Hidden Sounds of Horror Movie Soundtracks Freak You Out - Atlas Obscura)

The way composers make the most out of their musical tools to induce fear is both an art form and a science. Since horror movies rely on music, movie score composers carefully consider how to use familiar sounds in unusual ways;  this distortion of reality unsettles us even if what we’re hearing is, in many ways, obscured.

“The sound itself could be created by an instrument that one would normally be able to identify, but is either processed, or performed in such a way as to hide the actual instrument,” says Harry Manfredini, whose music score for Friday the 13th was cemented in the thrasher film genre of the 1980s...

[mariocki]

Final Exam (1981)

"Why are you so apprehensive? When are you going to realise that the whole world isn't made of psychopaths skulking about?"

"But they are out there. They do exist. People are killed every day for no reason at all. Perfect strangers wake up in the morning and decide, 'Hmm, I think it's a good day to snuff somebody". And these are people who eat at our restaurants with us, use our highways and vote for the President, which probably explains something about him, too. I'm not paranoid. I'm just facing unhappy facts."

[poptropicacheats]

Can commentary YouTubers react to something that is true and beautiful PLEASE I’m so sick of videos criticizing manosphere tiktok cringe alt right bullshit like I’m not having fun I’m just watching alt right content with someone saying “that guy sucks” every few minutes. I hate this