Night School (1981)

Bryan Thomas Norton (0:04)

Hi, everyone, my name is Bryan Thomas Norton. I am a filmmaker and a film historian, and I am so excited to talk about one of my favorite slasher movies, Night School, which I have a very personal connection with. And with me today is cinematographer Mark Irwin. And there's no way you haven't seen a Mark Irwin movie, especially if you're a horror fan. He did David Cronenberg movies, he did three Wes Craven movies, he did the Bill Fruitt movies, Scream, Farrelly Brothers movies. How many credits do you have, Mark?

143 So why don't you say hi to all of our...

Mark Irwin (0:46)

Hello, everybody. Thank you for allowing me to share my recollections of this film, which was in 1980 And luckily, I can't tell time, so that's at least five years ago. Well, maybe more.

Bryan Thomas Norton (0:59)

I was embarrassed because, you know, I track down people for a living and I do a lot of interviews and I thought because of your resume and the big pictures that you did, that when I mentioned Night School, you were going to scoff. And you actually, he didn't get emotional, but you got very serious and you said that Night School was a very important movie for you and you learned a lot. And it was really nice to hear that. And you have good memories of it. And I said, I have to get him to do a commentary.

Mark Irwin (1:26)

Yeah, so well, the memories from being on location, this was the first feature that I shot in America. I've been shooting since 73

To be honest, I just finished almost on New Year's Eve, a film called Scanners in Montreal.

Bryan Thomas Norton (1:44)

Never heard of it.

Mark Irwin (1:45)

Yeah. And then that was my third film with David and then Kronenberg and then got a call from, I don't know, this is way before the internet and before I had an agent. So somebody found somebody else's number. I got a call and ended up.

It was really my connection to Alfred Soule, who had directed Tanya's Island. And he and Dee Dee Winters, whose name came out of being similar to Donna Summers.

Bryan Thomas Norton (2:14)

Donna Summers?

Mark Irwin (2:15)

Dee Dee Winters. And he was on on board to direct this film.

Bryan Thomas Norton (2:21)

Well, Alfred had done a picture called Alice Sweet Alice, which was a wonderful movie. And anyway, he had done Tanya's Island, which I know that you were the DP on, and his muse was Dee Dee Winters, aka she went on to be called Vanity, correct?

Mark Irwin (2:37)

And her real name is Denise Richards, and she's from Niagara Falls, Ontario. But they were both part of the package, and that's why I was there.

And then as I got there, within a week, Alfred had quit and Dee Dee Winters had left with him. So they needed to get a new director and a new movie star.

Bryan Thomas Norton (2:59)

And oh, the stuff, the stories of how this went down are legendary depending on who you ask. Now, here we are, we're in a beautiful Beacon Hill area of Boston, and this was a quick story. I was 10 years old, I think. My dad wrote for the, he wrote sports for the Patriot Ledger, and this movie was being written about every day in the paper because it was a big deal, it was being shot, and I got my aunt to take me to the set, and I got to sit in practically in Mark Irwin's lap, not on a Fisher dolly, what kind of dolly was it?

Mark Irwin (3:34)

It was a Chapman dolly.

Bryan Thomas Norton (3:35)

A Chapman dolly, but it was in the daytime, and all, you know, I was cursed for life after that.

Ever since then, I've been stalking you and writing you letters, and thanks for the response, but anyway, this is a real nursery school in the Beacon Hill area, and what do you remember about this scene before we talk about other stuff? How long did this poor actress have to ride on this contraption?

Mark Irwin (4:00)

Well, the actress had to ride on it, and so did I. I was operating the camera, so we mounted one on, and we just got that shot whizzing around. Then the kukri came out, this shiny blade. This was one of the earliest scenes that the new director Ken Hughes directed. And luckily, I got to stick around, because to work with him, who directed all these great films, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and A Human Bondage. So this scene was kind of his style, that was edgy, and he hadn't seen any of the films that I had done.