Cliff Dix is a movie buff. He and his partner, Glen Eckman, at one time averaged seeing 50 movies a year in theaters. Now, with the ability to stream movies at home the duo don’t go out quite as much.
“Still, there’s nothing like seeing a movie at a theater with an audience around you and the movie is up on the big screen,” Dix says.
Recently, Dix’s love of the movies is playing itself out in a fun and entertaining way—he’s recreating famous movie scenes using his imagination, some paper bows, and sometimes Glen and his dog, Roxie, and posting the photos to his Tumblr, Facebook and Instagram pages.
“I have always loved movies as a kid. This project is fun because I can put myself in some of my favorite movies,” he says.
“I actually started recreating old family photos first. Then my first movie photo recreation was earlier this year of ‘Poltergeist.’ It was fun trying to match the look and make it as close as possible to the original.”
A friend who does a podcast called Game Night Guys saw the “Poltergeist” recreation and asked if Dix took requests.
The request? That scene from “Basic Instict.” Yeah, you know the one.
“I thought, ‘Why not?’ Then the requests started pouring in,” he says.
So far, Dix has recreated 13 movie scenes, from “E.T.” to “Pulp Fiction” to “The Wizard of Oz.” And he’s got about 30 requests lined up.
“I am surprised at how popular it has gotten. I was just doing it to have some fun with my friends by interacting with them online,” he says. “It has expanded to friends of friends and beyond.”
Upcoming recreations include scenes from “Harry Potter,” “Dumb and Dumber,” and “The Breakfast Club” in which Dix will portray all five main characters, as requested.
The most difficult remake? “Coming to America.”
“We probably took over 30 photos to get the pose and smile as close as possible,” he says.
Favorites are the ones he gets to do with Eckman and Roxie, with “Pulp Fiction” and “E.T.” the box office winners in his indie project.
“My most difficult request that I am still figuring out is how to recreate the ‘Flashdance’ water dance scene,” he says.
“The most fun I have comes from figuring out how to recreate the scene. I use anything I have on hand to get the look right,” he says. “I have also borrowed items from friends including the milk crate for ‘E.T.’ and the animal print pelt for the ‘Coming To America’ shoot.”
The masks for “Silence of the Lambs,” “Spiderman,” and “The Dark Knight” are just paper color prints he cut out, he says. He also didn’t have a blue bow for his Dorothy Gale look so he made one out of paper.
“My goal is to not buy anything. Maybe being a graphic designer helps me figure out how to think about color and composition to get it as close as I can,” he says.
Is a sequel in the works for “Cliff Cinema”? At least one horror classic is on the to-do list.
“I would like to make a few videos. I already have an idea to recreate the prom queen scene in ‘Carrie,’” he says.
As far as how long he will keep his cinematic features going, Dix says he’s having way too much fun to stop any time soon.
So, no “fin” just yet.
Check out all of Dix’s film scenes at http://cliffcinema.tumblr.com/.