REwindvideo.com, based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and headed up by Jon Ashby and Wally Fong, is a website and video magazine dedicated to the no-budget filmmaker. They held their first ever Camp REwind awards festival in Rapid City, South Dakota during July 2001. This was the first time that people from these amateur filmmaking groups, many of whom were already fans of each other's work, had met one another. It was Random Foo's Jason Santo who, showing an insane amount of generosity, actually bought Garrett a plane ticket to attend this amazing shindig. Garrett gave Jason a Ghostbusters t-shirt as a gift, and immediately got an idea.

In addition to the awards ceremony (at which Orange Cow and GMP, who created this film, won nothing), a short motion picture called "Transients" was shot there by, yes, Mr. Jason Santo. That was a serious film. But during the goof-off time, while hanging out with Santo, Stoklasa, Bauman, and the other filmmakers there, Garrett shot some footage which was edited by Mike Stoklasa into the short we know as "Ghost Busted." The Ghostbusters theme was inspired by an article Jason Santo wrote for crazymofo.com about wanting to be a Ghostbuster for real.

With the exception of the waterside scene with Jason and April Santo, the entire movie is improvised. Even that scene has an improv feel to it. A script was written, but there wasn't time to shoot it as scripted. The movie is considered unfinished, but has an off-kilter sense of fun to it, since the cast, while making it, were almost never totally aware what they were supposed to be doing or whether this was even a real movie or not. Pure vacation fun, a good tribute to this rare event.

Director Garrett did have a clear idea of what this footage should be used for and what order it should be in. Editor Mike Stoklasa ignored this, however, and made his own sense of the footage. Known for comedically experimental editing in shorts like "Monkey Man Gets His," Stoklasa put his own stamp on the movie, placing scenes in a different order, making his own scenes out of outtakes and footage not intended for use in the film, cutting at odd points, not cutting at all during many scenes and overall turning the thing into a weird hazy trip that's almost certainly far more interesting than what Garrett would have done with it. Garrett has approved this edit of the movie, saying it's funny as hell, but will take no blame for it. So there, Mike. Hee hee.

A side note - Linn Productions, who hosted the Fest, actually had a working Ecto-1-like car and many neat props which would have come in handy in making the film, but there was no time to finish the film and include these items.

Fun Facts:

During the opening Orange Cow Productions logo, an animated man peeks out and says "Ow, my groin!" This is Rich Evans, star of nearly all of editor Mike Stoklasa's movies. I wish Rich was in this movie for real, he's a funny man.

The opening scene was shot at the Dahl theater, where the Fest took place. Tempers flare when Marc Linn (playing "Marc Evans," his character from his brother Michael's movie "Indiana Jed") refers to Alan Winston as "Adam." In real life, Alan had been referred to as Adam in a newspaper article, and was then referred to as "Adam" for weeks, prompting him to create an episode of his local cable show "Delusions of Grandeur" entitled "My name is NOT Adam!!" (At the end of the film, [real-life girlfriend] Erin Arbogast also calls him Adam.) Refences are made to Alan playing a Jedi, Alan referencing Scream, and Alan making 60 episodes of a tv show (Delusions of Grandeur). Alan has done all these things.

The bathroom make-out scene with Alan and Erin is a spoof of a similar scene in Jason Santo's "Transients," also shot at the Fest. In both scenes, Erin asks, "It's only our second date. Am I a tramp?"

When Jason drives up to the ranch and meets Jon Ashby, Ashby refers to Jason as "Max Bookwalter." This refers to b-movie maker J.R.R. Bookwalter, and Max Von Sydow (who played Ming the Merciless in the 80s Flash Gordon movie - Santo's online nickname is Ming).

Jon Ashby is called "Jon Calgary," after his Canadian home. Count how many times Jon says "eh" in this film. His REwind co-host Wally Fong is called Jackie Lee, after Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee - Wally fancies himself an action star. (Although at the end of the film, Jon still calls him Wally). The rest of the REwind/Infiniti team appear at the end to say "I love you, Canada."

In the movie, Mike Stoklasa is referred to as "Eddie," or "Big K." This refers to the "Eddie/Big K" character Stoklasa first played in Jay Bauman's comedy "The Trouble With Her Uterus."

In the film, Mike and Jay are usually accompanied by an evil doll head known as "Mooshoo," star of many of Mike's movies including the feature "Blunt Justice." Mooshoo does indeed "get his ass kicked all the time," usually by Rich Evans (though on this trip, since Rich wasn't there, I kicked Mooshoo's ass). Mike's catchphrase "Whaaaat?" has been heard in GMP pictures before.

Jay Bauman at one point is seen leafing through pictures of the cast from his movie "The Trouble with Her Uterus" (another "guest appearance" by amateur comedy stars who couldn't attend the fest for real).

Mike, Jay and Garrett were actually kicked out of Arby's for making fun of their calling horseradish "horsey sauce." They shot the scene at Shaky's instead.

Jason Santo disappears partway through the movie, as he had to run off and edit "Transients."

The acting by Mike and Jay in many scenes is bad on purpose.

Garrett REALLY wanted to play "Louis" in the movie but didn't get to. Ah well, next time.

All told, this movie contains performances by members of Random Foo Pictures/Pangaea Films, GMP Pictures, Blanc Screen Cinema, Queequeeg Films, Infiniti Productions, Bravado Entertainment, Linn Productions, Chubby Ninja Films, Deviant Films, Rusty Hoot Motion Pictures, and Orange Cow Productions - everyone who showed up for the REwind Fest. Thanks to everyone.