Y'all know me. Know how I earn a livin'. Quint here freshly back from the bowels of hell (aka Chicago's O'Hare Intl. Airport) and my adventures in Martha's Vineyard which was transformed back into Amity Island last weekend to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of JAWS. Having the nickname Quint, I had no choice but to be there.
The below isn't so much news as it is one JAWS geek's experiences at Jawsfest. I have tons of pics of original props, shooting locations, events and some of the people attending the fest. If you're a JAWS fan and couldn't make it out to Amity this past weekend (with what it cost I'm not surprised if you couldn't make it) this is especially for you.
To start off, I flew from Austin to Chicago (O'Hare is still the devil) to Providence to Martha's Vineyard. The plane to Martha's Vineyard was this little 9 seater prop plane. You literally sit behind the captain and watch him fiddle with all the controls. It was a tad disconcerting to me to watch the fuel gauge drop as we flew the 25 minutes from Providence to the Island, especially since it was this area where little John John crashed his tiny plane. The Kennedy's don't have much luck in this area as this is also the same general area where Teddy Kennedy had that little car accident that killed the girl he was driving with.
The Island is much bigger than I expected. From what I understand it's about 14 miles from edge to edge. Their airport rules the earth. My post office is bigger than the Martha's Vineyard airport... take a look:
That's about it. My back was about 10 feet from the front door when I took that pic. It was such a relief after having to walk the 28 miles around O'Hare just to get to my connection to Providence.
So, my lodging was at a place called The Dockside Inn in Oak Bluffs, which is the town that was redubbed SHARK CITY during the filming of JAWS because that's where they kept the 3 different full sized sharks. They did all overnight repairs and modifications in Oak Bluffs.
I spent that first afternoon decompressing from my flights, wandering around Oak Bluffs, looking at the Atlantic, grabbing some authentic New England Clam Chowder, etc. The next morning was the official kick-off of the festival, the ribbon cutting ceremony.
They also gave the key to Amity to Peter Benchley... As much as I respect Benchley as the originator of the basic idea and characters, I'm a little confused as to why a fest celebrating the movie gave him the top honor as I'd say that out of the guests they had at the fest Benchley had the least to do with making the movie the classic it is today. The characters are better in the film, the structure is better and the ending is certainly better. And his original script wasn't very good, either. But the Jawsfest people thought it best to give him the honors, so good on 'im as they say down in the southern hemisphere.
I spent most of that first day walking around Edgartown, mostly looking at familiar streets and old signage... check out a couple of them:
That is one of three surviving original signs used in the film. This is the exterior of the store Chief Brody goes into to buy material for the Beach Closed signs. The interior was another store a few buildings down.
At this point I was walking around with an old friend of mine named Marc Gilpin. I met Marc at Butt-Numb-A-Thon 2 way back in the day. He's in computer animation now, but back in 1978 he played Sean Brody in JAWS 2. We grabbed some free pizza (I snuck in as it was a VIP only event) where we ran into KNB's Greg Nicotero (another old friend), got to see JAWS screenwriter Carl Gottlieb catch a (loud) nap and was surrounded by all the people invited as guests, with the exception of Benchley. It was creepy eating pizza across from the skinny-dipper Susan Backlinie as Lee Fierro (who, while older, is unmistakably the slap-happy Mrs. Kinter) walks by and Jeffrey Kramer, another familiar face who was Deputy Hendricks in the first two JAWS films, chats up Joe Alves and some fest organizers. Surreal for a JAWS geek like me.
After lunch, Greg, Marc and I got together with Michael Roddy, who is doing the JAWS doc THE SHARK IS STILL WORKING and we all went to explore the Edgartown Town Hall where the introduction of Quint was shot. Surprisingly enough, a lookalike from England showed up and decided to reenact the "I'll find 'im for three... but I'll catch 'im and kill 'im fer ten" scene. Totally geeky, but I must admit it put a smile on my face.
Although that wasn't where the scene took place. They've added on to the Town Hall since 1974. In reality, Robert Shaw sat here, which is now in the hallway outside the above room:
From here the gang gathered together to go visit the display of original props, a 25 minute drive away. Lotsa good stuff there. Check 'em out:
Isn't that cool? If I understood correctly, the fin on the bottom left is from JAWS and the fin on the right is from JAWS 2. Also note the bigger dude in the background. His name is Chris and he owns most of the props in the display. In real life he is first mate with the dude who Benchley based the character of Quint on. Also note the buoy in the back... that's from the opening with the skinny dipper.
Nice, eh? That one belongs to Mike Roddy and I will steal it one day.
This will someday be mine as well.
I love this. The above is the original production office sign from the shooting, survived all these long years on the island.
After lovingly adoring the original props from the film, we all started a caravan, taking off towards Menemsha and a part of the island with the amazing name of Gay Head. Menemsha was where, in the film, Quint's shack was built and was also the area where the Jawsfest people unveiled "Bruce On The Loose."
Greg and his crack team at KNB had constructed this 1:1 scale replica of the Shark's head (snout to gills) for Jawsfest and boy did it rock.
Isn't that friggin' cool? Now you might have noticed a little gap in Bruce's smile... It seems that although it had been out for less than 3 hours, already 4 teeth had been plucked by souvenir hunters. Greg wasn't very happy, but got on the horn with those dudes at KNB to overnight him some replacement teeth.
It was around this time that I was introduced to the deviant Root Bros, Kurt and Todd. These guys were something else, man. The kind of guys that'll make you laugh every minute of the day and always seem to have some sort of hard liquor in their hand. We pal-ed around for the rest of the weekend.
After checking out Bruce, we hightailed it over to some shooting locations. Can you guess where this was used in the film?
This is in the Gay head area... Let me give you a hint... "I pulled the tooth the size of a shot glass out of the wrecked hull of a boat out there..." Need more help?
"See that? Sick vandalism. I want those little paint-happy bastards caught and hung up by their buster browns!" Fuck yeah, the above is exactly where the Welcome to Amity sign was and this area was where the whole "I'm familiar with the fact that you're going to ignore this particular problem until it swims up and bites you in the ass!" scene was shot. Nifty, eh?
After some photo ops we all assembled into our caravans again and headed off to Menemsha, to pay homage to Quint's neck of the woods. Not only is this area completely unchanged, Michael Roddy took me up a little hill and through some poor bastard's backyard and found the exact area where Spielberg set up the camera to shoot Quint's boat, the Orca, leaving the harbor as the three leads begin the great white shark hunt.
See that beach at the top of the photo? One of the 2 Orcas constructed for the first JAWS film was beached there for years. Lynn Murphy, who worked on constructing the Orcas, had it there on his property forever, but decided to take a chainsaw to it right before Jawsfest in order to curtail the souvenir hunters from trespassing on his property. Before you get angry enough to spit (like I did when I first heard this) what was left of the Orca had been left to the elements for decades. That coupled with almost 3 decades worth of JAWS fans picking it to death left almost nothing recognizable.
After exploring this area of the island for a bit, we all hightailed it over to a fancy little VIP party to precede the big showing of the film at an outdoor screening with some special surprises from Universal. The party was a bit stuffy... filled with seafood. I didn't get to each much as I've never really been able to stomach seafood beyond some tuna.
However, I did get to play a little bit of the video game based on the film called JAWS UNLEASHED. This was a ton of fun. I don't know how it'll keep fresh after the novelty of playing the shark and tearing up divers and sea animals wears off, but I can tell you it was a blast to play for the couple minutes I played it.
It was around this time I met a couple geeks from West Virginia named Kevin and Brian, who ended up being my Jawfest buddies for the rest of the fest. We all got together and headed for the screening. We got there late and as a result didn't have a seat. The place was packed... easily 400-500 people were there spread out on the lawn before a big screen. Unfortunately they were projecting the movie on DVD and not film... well, I guess fortunately for us, because that made it an easy decision to bail out and grab a bite to eat.
Before we did so, though, we stayed for Spielberg's video welcome message he recorded for the event. You can see video of it here:
Slow QT here!
Medium QT here!
Fast speed QT here!
That's about the first half of the intro... He also went into specifics about the island, going over fond memories like eating at Black Dog restaurant (nice place... very pricey, but good food) and finishing it up with an apology to the owners of the Kelley House for a notorious food fight that was had there during production. Very cool gesture and it invigorated the crowd.
We decided to go grab a bite to eat and chose the Newes in Edgartown, the bar/restaurant in the Kelley House, the place where a ton of cast and crew stayed during Jaws, including Robert Shaw (when he wasn't off in Canada trying to avoid having to pay taxes to the IRS). On the way, we stopped into a book store where they had a few selections for us JAWS nuts. The one I grabbed first was a book by a lady named Kristen Kingsbury Henshaw called CRAIG KINGSBURY TALKIN'
For those who don't know, Craig Kingsbury played Ben Gardner in JAWS... a bit role, but his influence on the film is felt every time Robert Shaw appears onscreen. Shaw based his speech patterns and character ticks on Kingsbury, a colorful local. Kingsbury died a couple years ago, but his daughter just recently published a book that is full of his stories, recorded in the years leading up to his death... These tales are tall, short, wide, thin... everything. The man was a character and it has been a pleasure reading up on his life. Click the link below if you want to purchase this book:
CLICK HERE!
The other big book of note is Carl Gottlieb's famous THE JAWS LOG, a chronicle of the troubled filming of the movie has been released in a 30th Anniversary edition. It's the same Jaws Log as before, but for the first time it is hardbound and in an edition that won't fall apart if you decided to do a silly thing and actually read it.
So anyway, with my new purchases in tow, I grabbed a bite to eat at the Newes restaurant, enjoying the evening with the boys. I thought after having dinner my long day was going to end... however I was wrong. One of the highlights of the fest was to happen.
Greg and the Roots lead us lucky JAWS geeks to a very special place. I'm not a religious man, however I felt what the diehards must feel in the holy land. To the outsider or casual JAWS fan, the cabin we went to wouldn't be much of a deal. However, to top shelf geeks like me and the rest of the Jawsfest gang, this was like Mecca.
Now, I don't know what kind of lascivious act is going on in that above picture, but beyond that is the cabin Spielberg called home during the filming of JAWS. This is also the location where the majority of the key players gathered every night to get some home cookin' courtesy of Verna Fields (the editor, known affectionately as Mother Cutter). This is where the movie became the classic it is today. This is where the brainstroming with the cast members, Spielberg, Gottlieb and Fields happened, where they came up with the small ticks that turned each character into a living, breathing person instead of a caricature.
The "go to the edge of the barrels" scene was thought up by Dreyfuss, Scheider and Spielberg within the walls of that cabin. The desk at which Carl Gottlieb sat nightly and typed up the rewrites for the next day is still in the cabin. In short, my favorite movie's creative force was driven primarily in this cabin, so it was a big trip to pay it a visit.
The next day was much less hectic. I woke up and headed off to the effects panel, held at a Church in Oak Bluffs. Joe Alves, Roy Arbogast, Lynn Murphy, his wife, Greg Nicotero and a writer for Cinefex magazine were on the panel...
Not too much was gone over that can't be found in JAWS books. Sitting here thinking back to it, I don't remember any real revelations about the filming or a story that stood out in memory. However, Murphy did whip this out:
That is the original device that controlled the shark. You can see "Head up" and "Head down" still on the duct tape. Nice eh? I got to touch it!
That night there was a party at a place near the airport where there was all sorts of crazy stuff, like a bit called "Stump the Screenwriter" where Carl Gottlieb got up in front of the audience and had people come up to give him a line from JAWS 1-3 (he had a hand in writing all of them) and he had to guess which movie it was from. He only got stumped 3 times and both were lines from JAWS 2...
They also got Jeff Kramer up to do a recreation from JAWS. The twist was he wasn't going to be playing his character of Hendricks, but that of the drunk teen from the opening of the movie and girls from the audience had to come up and play Chrissie.
All in all, as fun as that was this party was more of a last hurrah get together where all the Jawsfest attendees could mingle with the Jawsfest VIPs. Sometimes to scary effect... check out "Dr. Love" with Chrissie.
That was pretty much my highlight reel for Jawsfest. I hope those that wanted to go, but couldn't now feel as if they've shared my experience and I hope the rest of you had fun watching me geek out for a couple thousand words and 2 dozen pics.
I'll be back soon with more goodies. 'Til then this is Quint bidding you all a fond farewell and adieu.
-Quint
