Escape to New York

"Escape to New York" was one of my very first student films. I made it together with my high school friend, Tom Andrews. Tom and I wanted to make an irreverent little film that we could shoot on location in New York, which would express our shared attitudes about our home in the post-punk New York City of the 1980s.

So, we bought a couple of rolls of 16mm black and white reversal film and got a hold of a Bolex and a tripod. The only problem was that we didn't have an idea for a film.

One night I was passing a movie theater in Manhattan that had been playing John Carpenter's film, "Escape from New York." Workers had just disposed of the old title lettering from the marquee, so I took the lettering that spelled "New York" home with me.

Tom and I now had our very first prop. We decided that it might make a good film if Tom were to candidly film me as I ran frantically around New York with the 'New York' sign under my arm.

We shot the film in, around the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and in Central Park behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We did the last sequence up the street from the New Yorker Theater to emphasize our New York theme.

Tom handled the camera for all the shots except the very last one in which I filmed Tom stealing the broken New York sign from the garbage can after I break it in two over my knee and throw it away.

I edited the film as a silent film while I was still a film student at Bard College and we would then subsequently play various music tracks along with it as accompaniment during the film's projection.

I am very proud of what Tom Andrews and I were able to accomplish with our little film, "Escape to New York". For a silly little piece, it has a lot of heart and attitude. The fact that it's shot on black and white 16mm film complete with tons of real scratches and in New York City in the 1980s seems to make it all the more iconic.

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