Amity at 1K
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Flashfilms’ documentary, Amity or Bust, just clocked up its 1,000th play at Vimeo. I’m proud of that because (a) this is not a kitten video, (b) my documentary has a fairly substantial run time of 26 minutes, and (c) Vimeo logs actual ‘plays,’ 
not nanosecond clicks where viewers with ADD log onto a page and then click away after two heartbeats.
This video was my love-letter to the movie Jaws, which was filmed mostly on location in Martha’s Vineyard, Connecticut, 1974, then opened June 20, 1975. Six months after its Stateside premiere, Jaws opened in England on Christmas Day, ’75. The delayed release was common practice back then, and the wait whipped me into a frenzy of anticipation. My Dad took me to see the movie with a few friends the evening of my 12th birthday at the Regent Street Plaza on Shaftesbury Avenue in London, where the film was in the first month of its U.K. theatrical release.
Seeing the film was a traumatizing 
experience, but made me want to be a filmmaker. Years later, when Martha’s Vineyard Chamber of Commerce invited Cinefex to take part in a panel discussion during a celebration of the 30th anniversary of Jaws, I leapt at the opportunity to visit Spielberg’s ‘Amity Island’ and resolved to document my journey on video.
While attending Jawsfest ’05, I was honored to meet Jaws screenwriter Carl Gottlieb, production designer Joe Alves, special effects man Roy Arbogast, production manager Bill Gilmore and the shark’s first victim Chrissie Watkins, aka actress and stunt performer Susan Blacklinie (pictured below with Michael Haydn, the guy who played guitar in the Jaws opening beach scene). 
I also had the good fortune of befriending many other like-minded Jaws fans from around the world, including the makers of the feature-length documentary The Shark Is Still Working, who after our meeting in Martha’s Vineyard ended up including me in their own epic tribute to Spielberg’s film. It was an honor to be featured among the folks who made my favorite film, and a real thrill to be part of that whole experience.
Here’s to swimmin’ with bow-legged women.
Behind the scenes (in my living room, in shorts and Piggly Wiggly T-shirt) being turned into a talking head for the documentary The Shark Is Still Working.
Photo: J. Michael Roddy
A piece of the now-demolished cabin that Steven Spielberg rented on Martha’s Vineyard during the filming of Jaws, rescued and sent to me by Jaws fan Dana Goudreault.
