Vampire Child | Scott Shaw.com

Vampire Child
A Julie Strain, Donald G. Jackson, and Scott Shaw Zen Film

By Scott Shaw

A while back, someone contacted me about the movie, Vampire Child. The guy told me he was a fan of Julie Strain and that he really wanted to see the movie but couldn’t find it.

For those of you who may or may not know, (and that’s probably pretty much everyone), Vampire Child is a movie that Donald G. Jackson and I produced, creating a vehicle for Julie Strain to direct. This was back when Don and I were hanging out a lot with Julie and her then husband Kevin Eastman, Co-Creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Anyway, this film was put together around this one beautiful young girl, and a few of her friends, with some of our Zen Filmmaking standby cast thrown in to round it out. It was all a very natural production with ad libbed dialogue, set in the many settings Julie and Kevin had in their house and their backyard.

The young girl’s mother was an adult dancer, among other adult orientated things. Very nice lady. I remember right round that time my friend and I had gone to this strip club in Hollywood and I noticed that she was dancing. It was a very thin crowd that night and no one was tossing down any money. I felt very sorry for her, so I threw down a wad. The interesting thing was, at least to me, is that I could tell she was totally zoned out. She didn’t even recognize me. But, that’s okay. I get it. In a line of work like that, it must really take its toll on a person and you need to check out.

If I remember correctly, the movie was shot in one day; maybe two? I edited it, and all of that good stuff. Then, I guess Julie and the mother of the young got into it or something, and she, (Julie), asked that the movie be buried. It was.

What got me thinking about this movie is that just the other day I was going through some old industry paperwork and I came upon the handwritten performer release that the mother of the girl had signed.

That brings us to today. Every now and then, when I have some time on my hands, and I get the inclination, (which is very-very rare), I pull out some old footage and look through it. To see if there’s anything I may have missed.

Remember, these movies were all done prior to the digital age. All that movie stuff is on various versions of film or tape. So, it’s not an easy process to look through it.

One of the things that I came upon was the original footage for that film. I popped it into the appropriate deck and took a look. It was very genuine. But, knowing now, what I guess I didn’t know then, I would never release a film like that, focusing on a beautiful young girl. Too many pervs and pedos out there.

While I was on my quest, I also came upon the footage from a film that Don had brought up. It was a film that was to be called, Skate Angels, based around his obsession for the whole Roller Blade concept. It was another one of those Don ideas that went up and went nowhere. I wasn’t a part of that project, as I was off doing my own thing in Japan. But, it was fairly big for being small. He had a full-on Panavision 35mm camera, a full sound unit, and a cast that had never been in front of a camera before. What else is new?

But again, it was big. Big, for being small.

I can’t even imagine how much the production budget for that film must have been. I mean, renting a Panavision camera, in and of itself, is not cheap. Plus, all of the pre-production that must have gone into that film: the casting, the set rental, the production insurance, paying the cast and the crew, etc., etc., etc. But, all that is left of that misadventure is like forty-five minutes of behind the scenes footage. What happened to the 35mm film that was shot, I have no idea.

When Don and I reconvened, he never really spoke about that debacle. Just that he fired one of his longtime cameramen, and never worked with him again, as the guy was trying to shoot it his way, not Don’s way.

The sad truth is, there were a lot of Donald G. Jackson project that went up and then went nowhere. I rescued many of them, after his passing. But some, like this aforementioned one, I have no idea what happened to the footage.

The fact is, if it wasn’t for me, most of Don’s films would have been lost. Like Vampire Child. I'm the only one left with a copy, though the actual answer print is hidden away in my film vault at the studio—hidden from time and from space and from the eye’s of the viewing public based on the request of Julie. Me, I can only hope that I have someone like that, (like me), to maintain and manage my catalogue when I move on.

Anyway… What all this shows us, and provides us with an atomic view into is, how much art is created and then it is lost to the hands of time. Maybe it is only seen by the artists themselves. Or maybe, like in the case of a movie, it was lived by a number of people, but then, as it was never finished or moved forward into some sort of finality, it is only locked in the memories of those individuals who lived as part of its creation. When they are gone, it will be gone.

What does art truly mean if no one ever sees it?