Flaming Creatures was shot in a controlled but drug-saturated and makeshift environment

Evidence

4 Preston was surprised at how “orderly” and “businesslike” the production was, although other participants remember an altogether more delirious environment. By Joan Adler’s secondhand account, paraphrasing Francis Francine, the central Rape-Earthquake-Orgy sequence was shot “in broiling sunlight with the set falling all over [the performers] high as kites, Jack pouring ceiling plaster all over them (a large chunk bruised Frankie, who got mad telling about those sufferings too) and careening dangerously above on some swinging homemade contraption”—actually a ladder supported by a large, rickety stepladder and the roof of Preston’s studio. While it would be an exaggeration to describe Flaming Creatures as having been created in a state of stoned ecstasy, the participants were well acquainted with New York’s still subterranean drug culture. Marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamine were at various times used on the set; indeed, Sheila Bick’s husband (a chemist) was busted for cocaine manufacture a few months before filming commenced. Among those caught in the raid was Ornette Coleman’s bassist Charlie Haden. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1892

Categorization

• FICTION: The homemade ladder contraption and dangerous shooting conditions are a vivid scene for fiction about amateur filmmaking in the underground.