Filmmaker Mike Wendt's 107.9FM Radio Odyssey
...and The End of the World as We (and He) Knew It

Filmmaker and University of Akron grad Mike Wendt offers a humble grin when explaining the genesis for a film on a storied FM radio station. The former Tribeca Film Fest/Robert DeNiro intern and Cleveland Film Society Short Films Coordinator (they run the Cleveland International Film Festival) has quite the tale. Both opportunities helped him find his voice as a film student and realize that he wanted “to do narrative features down the road.”

In fact, Wendt has ended up in much broader roles in his early career than maybe even he expected. An Associate Manager at the Middleburg Heights Regal Cinema and MLB.com employee when the Cleveland Indians are at home, Wendt has quite the narrative of his own. And yet his most intriguing narrative, or cinematic moment du jour if you will, is the original story of one-time Cleveland alt-rock station WENZ-FM 107.9… known to most of its devout listeners simply as The End.

“Right before I graduated from college, [WXRK-FM] 92.3 "K-Rock" did a Smells like The End weekend where they played a lot of those great songs.” Wendt adds during a recent interview at Talkies Coffee in Ohio City, “I remembered being locked to the station that entire weekend, listening to the old jocks and End music and to me, that really summed up my childhood! Sit by the radio, tape the songs and play them over and over, you know? I clearly was not the median age for End listeners, but it really made an impression on me nonetheless. I think that weekend sent me down the road to making a film about the station.”

The radiothon was but one signpost of many suggesting Wendt's latest topic. “In Akron, I worked at WZIP-FM [88.1] and thought that WENZ was the direction we should head in – basically to sound like The End. It didn’t exactly go over with everybody,” he laughs. “But the people who remembered the station still had a great longing for it. And I think after that weekend of non-stop listening -- and knowing about that longing people had for The End -- I started thinking about how cool it would be to do documentary film about [the] station.

“I know I wasn’t old enough to go to a lot of those concerts they put on,” the youthful Wendt adds, “but [the station was] still a big influence on me. I figured a lot of people would be interested in seeing this film and learning about the inside story. And that’s really how it all came about. I think I had no idea about the depth of the scene in Northeast Ohio before making this film, and I’m not a part of Gen X that lived that scene, but I think [the film] sort of serves as a love letter to Gen X’ers that I looked up to.”

Wendt says that the inspiration for constructing his film The End of the World As We Knew It -- which debuts at the Cleveland Institute of Art's Cinematheque with another local film, Catching Salinger -- came from Phil Hoffman's ZTV Rock Docs about the Akron punk scene. Hoffman's It's Everything and Then It's Gone (about the band Devo) and If You're Not Dead Play (about Chi Pig and other Akron bands) appeared on Public Television in the Akron/Canton area.

Wendt apparently surprised a lot of folks with the news that he was making a WENZ documentary. Though surprised at his age (Wendt's in his 20s) people started calling after Wendt locked up former WENZ jocks "Pat the Producer" (current host of the "K-Rock" local music show) and Jim Benson, getting them to agree to help with the project. Before long, contacts came out of the woodwork and warmed up pretty quickly to participating in his film project.

“Honestly, a lot of the jocks and folks who have been in the business were surprised, but I was just as surprised at how receptive they were -- especially with someone from outside the radio industry like me,” Wendt recalls. “But then we started to get even more calls. And then Maria Farina called in from Pittsburgh and soon calls started coming in from all over. We accommodated as many people as we could in the project; once the train started rolling, every day was a new surprise.”

The biggest shock during the process of making The End film came in contacting iconic alt-rockers R.E.M. As listeners may remember, R.E.M.'s stream-of-consciousness hit “It's the End of the World as we Know It (and I Feel Fine)” ushered in WENZ's official entry and exit on Cleveland's airwaves. Wendt took the one-in-a-zillion shot of asking for use of the song in the film. One would guess he should have dropped some money in Vegas on the odds, given what followed.

“It was sorta random,” Wendt recalls with a shy smile. “I signed up for an IMDB (Internet Movie Database) pro 4 day trial, typed in the words Michael Stipe, got the email for their office, which was infoATrem.com or something, wrote an email and forgot about it. I didn’t expect to hear anything, but 48 hours later, management had us send some details on the project and decided to let us use the song in the context of the film, license-fee-free. It was a great day, man... brought a tear to my eye!”

In the end, Wendt found out a lot of interesting things about the station in talking to many of the usual WENZ suspects. While he's not about to give away the plot, so to speak, he hopes that viewers come away with a unique appreciation for that time period... and with a positive message about the Northeast Ohio area.

“Even despite the end of The End, for younger people, the film shows that there were great things in radio that happened in Cleveland, even after the well-publicized heyday of stations like WMMS. And even more importantly, I think it shows great things can happen with some vision,” he says. “Sometimes you have to search for the good stuff -- which is really what you guys at Cool Cleveland do -- but there are still plenty of stories and people that can make great things happen here in every category.”

The End of the World as We Knew It debuts at the Cleveland Cinematheque on Saturday, June 14 starting at 9:30PM. You can meet Wendt after the screening and participate in a Q&A when the flick is through. Check this week's CC event listings for more details! Learn more online at http://www.myspace.com/1079_the_end and http://www.cia.edu/cinematheque.

Interview and Photo by Cool Cleveland Managing Editor Peter Chakerian peterATcoolcleveland.com
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