American Skin II Episode 1 Eagles Gathering clip 1

This was an experimental format, and a continuation of the original underground classic American Skin. The idea was to take the storyline and continue it some dozen years later and put it into the political and social context of 2005. The original plan was to tell the story in 6 episodes, each about 60 minutes long. In the end only 3 were completed. The opening scene of this clip features Mike Rohr, the original screenwriter, director, and star of American Skin on the streets of Wahington DC, close to the famous 933 punk club featured in the first movie. Another interesting facet of the production, and the one that most likely prevented its completion, was that director Thomas Griffith had solicited 8 other directors of indie films in 8 other locations to create independent productions. The idea was basic. Griffith would create script, and send it to each of the filmmakers. They would cast, shoot the scenes, and send the raw tapes back to Griffith. Scenes from all the locations would be edited together to create the finsihed episodes. The idea was to increase production value by giving the movie so many different looks, and to add to the overall creativity by having the visions of these filmmakers and actors from these different locations included in the product. This sort of “location” production value is generally well beyond the reach of barebones underground filmmakers. This plan eventually was better conceived than executed. There turned out to be a myriad of …