THE MASSES

If you haven’t heard about Dragonslayer yet, you are seriously missing out.  Directed by Tristan Patterson and produced by our friend John Baker, the documentary tells the story of a young skateboarder as he picks his way among the suburban wreckage that the economic crisis left in its wake.  Named one of “Ten Movies People Will Be Talking About One Year From Today” by True/False’s David Wilson, the film recently nabbed the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary and Best Cinematography at its SXSW premiere.

So just how did this little film get so big? John Baker, producer of the documentary and friend of The Masses, gave us the inside scoop.  It seems director Tristan Patterson’s wheels first started turning in May of 2009 after he met Josh Sandoval (Skreech) at a house party in Chino.  (In case you’re unfamiliar with the area, Chino is not exactly renown for its bumpin’ nightlife; in fact it doesn’t have much of anything to offer other than cheap rent.)  But Tristan went and, luckily for us, befriended one of the most interesting people there.  According to a statement by Tristan on the film’s website, “He had a lime-green Mohawk and was wearing a matching Screamers T-shirt, in honor of the L.A. punk band that never recorded an album. He looked malnourished and lost, and claimed he was on 5 tabs of acid. It was impossible to talk to him. His head was lost in the clouds. Then I saw him skate. I think Josh is like a lot of kids from his generation–smart enough to know a potentially bleak future looms and scrambling to figure out a way to survive in it. He’s also on a wavelength all his own.”

So naturally Tristan called up John and told him about this guy that was just too interesting not to film.  They set out to make a twelve-minute art film but realized pretty quickly that it could be something much more, especially when a girl had entered the picture.

“When we realized we were capturing two people falling in love in this quiet original way, we just kept on filming.” – John Baker

So they did just that for the next nine months.  There was no script, no agenda, no plan other than to take a snapshot of these lives.

“Going into each day is so different, you don’t know what’s going happen- you don’t know what people are going say or what you’re going to discover so every day was incredibly exciting. You get complete trust and access from complete strangers which is something you don’t want to take for granted.” – John Baker

After they put together a trailer and raised enough money to edit the footage into a documentary, Dragonslayer was officially complete.  And though John described the recent press as “a complete shock, humbling, wonderful and totally unexpected,” we think it deserves every positive review that it gets.