Have you ever shot porno before?

Once, well you always leave yourself open, somebody approached me and wanted me to be the cinematographer for it, but it was a horrible experience. It was so uncontrolled. The so-called director had never made a picture before and you know they get ready to do a scene and you ask, "What is going to happen because I want to know where to put the camera?" It was a horrible experience, totally horrible. Nothing came of it, and he wanted help with the editing, and I knew I wasn't going to get paid, and I knew it was a bad kind of a thing, and it was very....I said okay I'll give you a crash course on editing. I'm not going to edit it for you....and I said make a VHS copy of thing, and so I showed him the ropes and gave him some tips in editing, and he forgot to take home the VHS tape so you know what I did is I kept some of it, and I used some of it. I salvaged some of it and used some of the footage in "Pagans and Christians". Well, it's my work...and the picture never got made. Two days of shooting and all of this stuff, but it never got made. But then there is you leave yourself open, he meant well, but the whole thing fell apart. Sometimes you get involved with other people and you really get involved in fiascos, so you stick with oneselves own work...but then again you leave yourself open also. I mean if anyone asks me to do anything, I do it if it's not too draining on me.

Have you ever shot any industrials / commercials / etc?

No, I have not.

Would you if you were asked to?

Yeah, I would do it. I'm in the phone book. I would do it. Like I said before, I don't need them. If I got a picture to make I do it. I won't wait around and try to sell the idea. Most likely you can't....you gotta go to committees and....though I'd be game for it. I've been cinematographers for others...mostly people that knew me and I knew them, but no. My brothers been in a couple. Acted in them. We know people in the industry, well they know about us. I think it's because they say, that's your thing, and that's their thing, you have your own kind of pictures and they know it, and they have their own kind of pictures. Like that guy Todd Solondz....He's a fan of George and I. We know John Waters. I met him at a party. He said "Sins of the Fleshapoids" inspired him to finish "Pink Flamingos". I was very flattered to hear that. I love his work. I love those 16mm movies. Those Baltimore pictures in 16mm. Those are the masterpieces.

What film makers / actors inspired you as a child?

Well, I like Errol Flynn. I used to know Paul Bartel...he used to make 16mm pictures...he made this one who the star in it was Donna Mills. This was before she got, like "Naughty Nurses" or something. She was in it. We shared a room together at a film festival or whatever and it was underground 16mm films categorized as underground, I had a student in the Art Institute and he went on to make one of Divine's last pictures, with Karen Black in it....He produced it. Divine was playing a cop in it, kind of a psychopathic serial killer picture, I think there was a clown in it..."Out of the Dark" or something....He produced that. We also know the brothers, Nicolas Cage's brother who went to the art institute. He's put my brother in some movies, three brothers, the older one writes plays...it's all part of the picture making people...it all blends together.

What advice do you have for people today making underground movies and trying to get them shown out there?

Just make the picture. Do it because you have to. Do it with what you have, and you make it, and then who knows what is going to happen afterwards. But nothing will if you don't make it. Something might come of it and something might not, but you know if you don't go broke doing it and you had some fun and you learn something, then it wasn't a total waste (laughter). As for pushing, I myself can't push myself. I feel like Dr. Frankenstein. Maybe I've made horrible monsters and now I'm going push them on people. At premieres and screenings I'm right near the exit door....inside we release it the best we can. You know if you got the choice on whether to make a picture or not, just don't make them (laughter). But if you do, just make it and if anything will happen then it might happen because you made it but the thing is, make it available if somebody asks you to show it or if you have an opportunity to show it. Like I said you never know who is there and something they may want to put it in another screening or some curator for some joint or something. Maybe we make a masterpiece and maybe we don't and make an atrocity or just a bomb.

What films / videos that you have made do you like the best?

Well, they are all my children. It just depends. Sometimes you look in the mirror- you hate yourself and you hate the pictures. Sometimes you are around them too much that you can't see clearly or you just have to get away from them. And then you see them months later or years later or you are forced to look at them, and they've got their own personality. To tell you the truth I don't know. I do the best I can with every picture and each one was motivated for a certain reason, and they have that reason and probably I won't be able to make it again because that reason is gone. So whatever that reason is, it is on the picture. So I leave it alone and that is it. It's that way. I don't really have a favorite, and I also like this one and then months later I like this ne...sometimes maybe I don't feel well, and I don't like any of the stuff. You know because they are- basically they are all you or all me. It depends how you feel about yourself. If you detach yourself because you tried to make it speak. I could never put myself in my pictures because they are all about me in a way. That would really topple, tip over the boat. So I get other people to play the characters. But they are all me really. They are my impulses, my plots, whatever- my reactions of people that I'm using. My brother puts himself in his own pictures. He doesn't mind, but I can't.

What do you think about the film "Thundercrack" that George is in?

It's good. It's an odd thing. It's really odd. That found an outlet in the midnight movies. It was originally made by an ex-student. A real party boy. He died of AIDS. He got consumed. He was a sex fiend. I mean that in a good way. But anyway he loved pornography, and he loved my brother's writing and what. My brother over-wrote. It's far too long and it's there's not enough. Kurt tried to sell it in the pornography market, and there was too much talking, and you didn't make black and white pornography films, you made color and so it was like this two and a half hour dinosaur. The main actress in it, she's good. I'd never use her, she's a little too.... Well, I used her once but the actors are probably....my brother and I....there wasn't motivation. I couldn't even figure it out myself. Also my message didn't work and anyway she liked the writing, this older women she liked the writing and she wanted to be in this picture. She was very good in it. But it eventually found it's place in the midnight movie circuit, and it's got a following, a cult following...they finally restored the 2.5 hour version of it. They used to cut it out to try to adapt to try to fit it into other markets but yeah.....he made pictures. Kurt McDowell made his own pictures, 16mm claustrophobic as hell but all full of these erotic exploits, he puts himself in the pictures and boy, it's like being stuck in a closet with this guy and no holds barred, but you know but why now, that's okay. Somebody's gotta make these type of movies. Sometimes they get kind of personal...

What are your favorite films currently that you have seen?

I'm a big Sci-fi fan. I like Sci-fi movies, from the 50's and whatever, all kinds of stuff. There are all kinds of movies with those elements. I do like those Hollywood pictures from the 50's. They always had this sort of glamour and style. It was kind of evident and I like the process. Sometimes I make it evident in my pictures and I'm fond of it. I like it. I like the stars. I like to find my own stars and build them up in the same way if I can. But there are all sorts of pictures that have elements in them, and you see possibilities and then you take it a step further. There's a certain language you speak with film that we somehow sort of all understand when you see it up on the screen. I guess we all sort of use it or use it for the means or something like that. I don't go to see movies at the movie theatres now. I pick up DVD's and VHS. I have my own collection and stuff which I like looking at again and again, just like I have a library of books and things.

What kind of music do you listen to?

I like some modern symphonies, I like classical. Modern symphonies. Stuff like that, I like impressionists, orchestra type music. I've always been a big fan of that, always liked that kind of stuff. Like the stuff you hear in my films. We've got hundreds....my brother and I have collected records for years. We've got tons of LP's. Over the years it all piles up. It's kind of like this guerilla moviemaking. You do everything you can to get the picture on the screen and to score it and to do whatever you can to make the damn thing work or watchable (laughter). Like in the video "Face the Night" , I didn't have a title for the picture. Sometimes I go on a psychic binge when I get towards the end of the picture and I think I'm gonna go to the budget bin, and I'm going to pick out some budget CD but it's on a psychic ride, but I'm into the picture so I feel that it is often is the case that I'm picking out things unknowingly that will hit the bill. In that instance, I would never listen to this myself, I buy orchestral works, but they are songs I hear, and it has this melancholy thing, and it says, "I face the night" and I heard "Face the Night", and it's the theme song for my picture. The other ones, I see little episodes and I hear the bridge music I need to bridge this shot into hear. It's kind of like a psychic kind of thing really, it's a channeling. I think anything when you are in a creative endevour you are channeling and flow with it and there are signs. People will come and say they want to be in your picture and I see it as a sign. Let's get to work. I mean they are telling me something. You follow it. The road is now open and you are able to make this picture. It's like they are the first signpost and now go with it. And of course somehow everything falls together and if you are on the right track usually there is a need and the need makes it happen. Of course there are signs that we have to be aware of to like give up, it's like a no go, it's like getting tough. This picture will kill you. Go. Stop. But I believe fully that they are the signposts. I mean I have stories that I wrote with my brother and I tell of strange things that people out of the blue will tell you something when they aren't even interested in something but they are right. It's like these guardian angels filter through them, and then you forget to throw something away and you need one shot later, and then you look, and you see in a paper bag- there is the shot that you need- that will make the picture worth. Where as while you are editing all the outtakes I throw away. I think, "Why did I save this?" Somehow I knew, but the thing wasn't planned. You know what I mean. But it's also a strange, psychic, channeling, and somehow the pictures are already made. They are on another plane and physically now it is up to you to manipulate it physically into a medium cause they are there and they are ready to come out now, and there are people who are winding up to be in it, and all that has been pent up inside of you is going to come out and is given the road because everything is lined up to do it, so that is what I found is interesting about making pictures. This kind of style anyway. So be aware of it....