Santa Cruz Sentinel from Santa Cruz, California • Page 35

Spotlight Santa CruzSentinel Friday, March 13," 1992 3 Local couple hit it big making "The Lawnmower Man' By WALLACE BAINE Sentinel staff writer I iV a 4 1 i 111 nmmm predictions in the film 'The TO SANTA Cruz filmmakers Brett Leonard and Gimel Everett, reality is a fluid concept these days. On the one hand, there is virtual reality, the futuristic high-tech concept that provides the dramatic device on which their latest film, "The Lawnmower Man," is built. On the other hand, there is actual reality: a new film everyone's talking about and big box-office numbers nationwide that are shooting their respective careers into the Hollywood stratosphere. The husband-wife team has labored for nine years in the film industry, a business that can often make for a rather brutal reality. Now, they are looking at something that not too long ago they would have regarded as fantasy: "The Lawnmower Man" finished in second place to "Wayne's World" in box-office receipts its first weekend, earning $7.8 million for New Line Cinema.

Not bad, considering "The Lawnmower Man" only cost about $10 million to make. In per-screen revenues, it finished on top, besting "Wayne's World" by a comfortable margin. "I can't tell you how satisfying it is," said Everett, the UC Santa Cruz grad credited for founding community television station KRUZ almost a decade ago. "When you work for nine years on something, pouring yourself into it with everything you got, it's really great when it works out." Everett produced "The Lawn-mower Leonard directed it. Together, the two wrote the screenplay, based on a short story by Stephen King.

"The Lawnmower Man" is more than just another movie at the multi plex. Though it has gotten mixed reviews from critics, it is the first major film to deal with the subject of virtual reality, the emerging technology that allows you to move about in a totally artificial computer-generated atmosphere. The movie's storyline is secondary to its stunning, jaw-dropping computer animation. The technology of virtual reality is still relatively young. It works by means of a specially equipped helmet and glove.

The helmet presents you with an artificial world of computer animation. The glove allows you to manipulate objects in this often colorful, exotic, futuristic landscape. You can fly, fall, stretch, reach, do any number of things that the physical laws of the universe prevent you from doing. As dazzling as it looks on the screen, the film medium still limits the scope of the technology. The reality of virtual reality is limitless, as portrayed in the film.

In the film, Pierce Brosnan plays a scientist obsessed with the potential of virtual reality to increase the dimensions of the human mind. After his favorite chimp is killed in a bizarre after-effect of his experiments, he chooses as a subject the mentally stunted man who mows his lawns. In the course of his therapy, however, the hapless The monster in the computer 'We'd be really happy if Santa Cruz were proud of Gimel Everett, writer-producer of 'The Lawnmower Man. gardener turns into a menacing cy-bcr-hero who goes on a violent rampage, a la "Frankenstein." "We believe that (virtual reality) is coming on fast," said Leonard. "Our film is a cautionary tale.

It points out some pretty negative potential as far as this technology is concerned and it raises some ethical questions." Leonard admits, however, that the science in "The Lawnmower Man" is specious. "It's designed as a fairy tale. It is a stylized fantasy. It is not meant to be some kind of docudrama on the dangers of virtual reality. The props we used were more advanced than what is now available in virtual reality.

But we do know that the government is funding it and NASA is doing research on the applications of it." At a time when virtual reality is being talked up as the next technological wonder, Leonard and Ever- could be you if some of the Brett Leonard, Gimel Everett ett felt compelled to put some perspective on the issue. "I'm excited about virtual reality. As a visual artist, it is something that can revolutionize what I do. But I think there are also extreme dangers to it," said Leonard. "The people who only pontificate on the positive side are naive.

We've seen what happens when technology comes on too fast and it's not always positive." Leonard said he was attracted to the idea of virtual reality by living in proximity to Silicon Valley, 1 Lawnmower Man' come true. was filmed at Agnews mental hospital in Milpitas. The budding filmmakers were then commited to staying in Santa Cruz and the Bay Area. But they soon found out there was a price to pay for their loyalty. Now they have a place in L.A.

in addition to their home in Santa Cruz. "We tried to stay in Santa Cruz for nine years." said Everett. "But there came a point when we had to come to grips with coming to L.A. because if you want to make mainstream films, this is where the industry is. You have to be here.

But I do miss Santa Cruz." Though, she said, they have no immediate plans of leaving Santa Cruz, chances are big-time Hollywood success would dictate their not being able to spend a lot of time in their hometown. As for the future, Leonard admits that he's chewing on a sequel idea to "The Lawnmower Man." Everett said that the couple has several options, including a project based on a novel by cyberpunk writer William Gibson. Though good times loom for the two filmmakers, Everett, speaking by phone from her (second) home in Los Angeles, seemed eager to talk about the weather in Santa Cruz, the progress of downtown construction, the tragic burning of the Trust Building. "We'd be really happy," she said finally, "if Santa Cruz were proud of us." mml have a hit film on their hands. where much of the research is being conducted.

The two have lived in Santa Cruz for about 10 years now. They have worked in nearly every aspect of filmmaking from writing to camera work. Before "The Lawn-mower Man" came along, Leonard and Everett accomplished a first when they developed digital sound for the film "The Rendevous." Their first producingdirectingwriting effort was "The Dead Pit," a horrorthriller that employed many Bay Area actors and.