seattlesque

Last year, while doing Christmas shopping, I saw a great product. It was a VHS tape of a fireplace with non-stop burning fire, complete with sound effects. The idea was that, if you had a spare TV and a VCR, you could arrange them into a fake fireplace, in front of which you could sit with your family and enjoy the oldest show in human history--the spectacle of fire.

As always, when I see a good idea, I try to expand on it. So first I thought of a cable channel--The Fireplace Channel, TFC, with a 24 hours of burning logs.

Then I thought of a DVD version. Of course a DVD has much more room than a VHS tape, so it just begs for some fillers.

That's when I came up with the idea of "Fireplace--The Director's Cut." Imagine a running commentary describing in detail how each scene (actually there was only one long scene) was made. How the idea first occurred to the director. How the appropriate logs had to be selected by a casting agent. And of course the careful choice of the location--the Fireplace.

The DVD would also contain premium material. There would be a theatrical trailer full of spectacularly bursting logs. Then a short, "The Making of the Fireplace," with an interview with the director, a fireman, a representative from the logging company, and many others. The director would explain the techniques used in the filming of one continuous take--there was only one other full-time movie made using this technique, the 2002 movie "Russian Ark."

Last but not least there would be a selection of hilarious bloopers: Multiple scenes in which the fire died out before it even started. The "Danmn it, who closed the flue!" scene that ended up being cut from the movie because of adult language. (It was important to get the MPAA rating--it was a family movie after all.)