What makes a Waste of Time Production?

The sine qua non of a Waste of Time production is frustration. To quote a certain president, this is hard work. A Waste of Time Production is not a waste of the viewer's time (we hope), nor is it truly a waste of our time. But in the darkest hours of the creative process, not to mention the even darkest-er hours of logging tapes, mixing sound, and getting that last cut just right, it's hard not to feel like it's all just a waste of time now and then.

But is it any wonder that the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune should conspire to make the production of a Waste of Time production akin to giving birth? Life imitates art. The human condition, as seen through the jaded lens of most any Waste of Time film, is rather frustrating. Our ketchup is missing, our pants don't work, our dress code violations never go unnoticed, our co-conspirators always let the hostage go too soon, and our would-be employers are forever challenging our commitment to vegetarianism.

It's not that life is a waste of time. A waste of time, in the literal sense, cannot exist in the absence of something you'd rather be doing. In the end, life goes on and we go with it, largely for lack of anything better to do.

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A Brief History of Waste of Time.

In the spring of 2001, the TV Studio at St. Peter's Prep, a Jesuit high school in Jersey City, New Jersey, was a shadow of its former self. Once the home of regularly scheduled news and interview programming, it lay idle most of the time. Enter Mike Lazorwitz and Jonathan Fedors.

With the guidance of moderator Jim DeAngelo and the labor of a merry band of friends with a lot of time on their hands, there was born Uncle Kenny's JUG-arific Adventure, the story of one man and his quest to stay out of detention. The next school year saw the epic making of The Life and Times of Marcus Walker, a team effort in every sense.

Marcus saw the first use of the Waste of Time name, as technical gremlins and casting issues pushed completion back again and again, prompting director Mike Lazorwitz and faithful lackey (now faithful webmaster) Mike Jiran to add a "Waste of Time Productions" vanity card to the final cut as a joke. In every joke there lies a kernel of truth...

More than five years down the line, Waste of Time (which is by now more or less coterminous with Mike Lazorwitz) is producing films far more sophisticated, both technically and stylistically, than those early efforts. But the commitment to examining the joys and sorrows (often the same) of postmodern life by way of quirky characters and a razor-sharp sense of irony remains. These years have indeed been time well spent.

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