When not investigating fraud for a multi-billion dollar trans-national computer company or running a “full service multimedia visual design company“, Taylor Boston and Philip Lee (respectively) of Austin, Texas, spend some of their off-hours writing riffs and improvising host segments for their own Mystery Science Theater 3000-style fan-made video series.
They call it Bromance on Film. The first episode of BOF appeared on the YouTube on September 10, 2016, with the Todd A.O. feature film Grizzly as the inaugural experiment.
As the premise goes, Phil and Taylor are strangers, whose girlfriends have demanded that they both hang out and become the best of buds. They reluctantly submit to the demand by getting together to do the only thing either of them has in common — watching bad movies. BromOnFil doesn’t have any mad scientists, just a pair of ladies (life-long besties Ashley and Rebecca) who want to go on couples’ dates with their beaus without their beaus ignoring each other. PhiliTay would be watching the movies anyway. Which is pretty unique, and lands Broofi squarely in the realm of what Mystery Science Theater 3000 Fanvid and Live-performance Database, The calls “non-standard”.
While non-standard as far as emulating MST3K goes (For example, Ryan K. Johnson’s two episodes are considered “standard” while Mystery Fandom Theater 3000 is just slightly non-standard.) Bromance on Film has a commonality with the turn-of-the-century fanvid Count Xigeous’ Halloween Bloodbath, as far as the shadowrama goes. Rather than fill the theater segment shot with the experiment and sitting in front of it, they both position the movie on a smaller screen in the middle of the shot; with the characters tossing asides from the darkened peripheries without obscuring the film, except occasionally for a visual gag. Like Count Xigeous, who is trying to do a horror-host show by watching a movie on the TV in his living room, sometimes Phil and Taylor watch movies in Phil’s living room. But, mostly they sit in the back of a small local theater which seems to specialize in bad movies.
{Left} Phil of Bromance on Film attempting to cover on-screen nudity. {Right} Count Xigeous trying to pull off Grandpa’s mole.
According to Phil, the plan is to release an episode about once a month for a year and then decide where to go from there. They both have day jobs, and don’t want the show to become a chore or get in the way of paying the rent:
[T]his is a labor of love, so we are just enjoying doing what we are doing for now, and taking it as it comes.
When choosing suitable movies and shorts to use, Phil says that due to his love of old horror and scienty fiction movies, he was aware of some of the experiments already. But he also does online research to make sure that whatever he chooses as an experiment is either public domain or appears to be abandoned. (Nobody needs a copyright strike on their YouTube channel to be sure.) He mentions archive.org as a potential source for PSA’s and movies, but since even some of those are getting flagged on YouTube, there is still some peril associated with grabbing media from that site.
What’s next for B-on-F? For seven episodes, the only people in the show were Phil and Taylor. But, in episode eight, Ashley makes an appearance in the opening host segment. In real life, Phil and Taylor have mused about having “guest riffers”, but nothing is set in stone. Though, Phil reveals, for sure, the ninth episode will feature Night of the Demon. It’s a movie with Bigfoot in it. And, this time, he’s not supernatural friends with a kid who escapes from boarding school.
Other feature-length movies which have had their day in front of the Bromancers are Hospital of Terror, Home Sweet Home, Don’t Open Till Christmas, The Giant Claw, Invasion from Inner Earth, and The Cremators. And, sometimes there’s an educational short: Good Eating Habits, Are You Popular?, and Sniffles and Sneezes. You may remember The Giant Claw from the final episode of Media Center Theatre 3000. That fanvid series also riffed on Starcrash, which appears also in an episode of Mystery Fandom Theater 3000. But, more recently, Starcrash was used as an experiment in the newly released eleventh season of the official Mystery Science Theater 3000 series. So, Bromance on Film has two degrees of separation from Joel Hodgson, the Great Creator himself.
You can follow Bromance on Film on social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Plus.Google. Or, check them out on their website or the YouTube. Phil’s got a Vimeo, too.
A new episode of Ken’s Cinema of Shenanigans is scheduled for release this coming Tuesday, April 11, 2017. It will feature the educational short film For Health and Happiness.
T5D
