Another 48 Hrs.

7/22/09

Leonard contacted me about the 48Hour film fest. It’s Part film festival Part Amazing race. The goal of the contest was to create a film from scratch over 48 hours. Friday night you would receive props and keywords you would have to incorporate into your script. Then you would spend the next two days, shooting, editing, and scoring your production. It sounded difficult as hell, and a whole lot of fun. This also wasn’t the first time we had a desire to enter, Back then we never even got into the planning stages. Hindered by the same old problem.

“Are they providing a camera” I asked. I knew the answer was no already. I just wondered if Leonard had any specific ideas on where we would get one.

“No we’re going to have to provide that” he said. I had recently gotten back in touch with Serge via facebook. And he seemed anxious for a new project. I told Leonard that he had all the equipment we needed and now would be the time for collaboration. Since we couldn’t prepare in advance, except for gathering the crew. We would all be in the same boat and have the same level of investment in the project. It seemed perfect. Leonard had few go to guys when it came to scoring the music. So it was beginning to click into place.

The film’s genre was also to be decided on Friday night. It was to be a 4-7 minute project. I was confident I could write it and write it fast enough. Even If I had to turn in my own version of Laser Cats. We both knew that with 4-7 minutes the only way to win the contest, was to have a real flashy movie.

“Dude, what if we pull a romance movie?” Leonard asked.

“That’s where my scripts shine the most” I assured him. “Don’t you remember all that girly-ass dialogue in Last Call.”
“Yeah but how do we make THAT flashy?” He had a good point and I began to get concerned.

I decided to contact Serge and see if he was down before we went any further. He got back to me in with all his usual excitement and fervor.

“HELL MOTHER FUCKING YEAH IM READY DUDE! COME UP TO CORAL SPRINGS AND HAVE DINNER WITH ME UP HERE, I HAVE MY STUDIO SET IN MY CRIB WITH ALL THE SHIT WE NEED, I JUST TOOK A 3 WEEK VACATION TO START NEXT WEEK SO IM GOOD!”

7/23/09

I began to request actors on craigslist. The idea was to create a list of actors who were available that weekend, and sort them by genres that they felt comfortable with. So when the time came we’d have a contact list at our disposal. We had a meeting setup with Serge on Sunday and I asked Leonard to come along so we could all familiarize ourselves with each other. I had also invited Eric on to the project. That way we both could take a turn at script writing. There was way too many restrictions, and I didn’t want to choke when all the pressure was riding on me. A backup writer made complete and perfect sense.

7/26/09

We patiently awaited Serge’s call for our meeting later that evening. I felt stupid now because the only contact info I had for him was email and facebook. We didn’t have a choice. There was no contingency plan. So we wait around all day like a girl that got stood up for high school prom.

“Maybe he’ll call later” I said.
“Yeah he did say he wanted to meet up for dinner” said Leonard.
Fuck you serge. *cries* I’m sitting up here with my corsage on. And you didn’t even call.

7/27/09

“Any Luck?”

“No he never called” I said. “It’s strange cause he’s been after me to collaborate on something everyday. I really wish this could happen. Just so we could prove we could do something”

“Don’t we all. Oh well there’s always next year”

“No. No there isn’t. Not this time. Not again” I just refused to give up. I was going to try something. Anything.

“Don’t know anyone with the equipment. The guy I know from work. Says his group is full”

The truth was that there was no limit to how many people can be in your group. There was no point in telling Leonard that. Since his co-worker didn’t want us on the team anyways.

“What kind of camera you got?”

“Leonard you seen my camera. It’s not even HD. But if you want to just go for it and shoot and not have it look entirely professional. I’m down with that.” No one said we had to win. Just get it done.

“No, I was hoping it was HD at least. it will look like ass otherwise.”

7/28/09

We used the powers of the internet to try and find ourselves a new crew. There was a yahoo group trying to match up crews together. No one was looking for two losers with no equipment, though. I posted a craigslist ad, looking for people with equipment ready to join the crew. The 48 Hour film fest also had a website setup for crew members looking to volunteer their time. But all the contacts we’re people needing grips to lug equipment around. No one was needing writing or directing talent.

“The guy at work said the groups were like 6 or 7 people”

“I didn’t see any size limits,” At this point I told Leonard I was willing to get like 30 guys together to pitch in like ten bucks a pieces so we can rent a camera and gear. It was going to be like a PYRAMID scheme for filmmakers.

8/4/09

I was beginning to get a few contacts from Craigslist.

“Hello. I read your post in craigs list and I'm very interested in joining your crew. I have a Sony FX-1000 HDV camera and Sony Vegas Pro 9 Editing program. My girlfriend is a professional make-up artist and would be interested in working too. Let me know if you're interested. Best regards Raul”

“Hi There I would like to help you with your project, I have a workstation setup for sound production, but sometimes I use it for video editing, also I have a couple microphones. I'm not interested in money, I just want to learn film production and meet people. Let me know if you think I can help you. Sincerely Gio”

“I was about to volunteer but then realized that I would be in Hartford on those days. But please let me know if you're doing any other projects. I took part in the 48Hour contest a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. I don't much equipment to speak of (Panasonic DVC60, some Home Depot lights, etc..) but will be getting a XHA1S at some point in the next couple months. I have A couple vids on YouTube - search for Notarized and HydroBLADES team vid... All the best, Kwan”

“Hi! I am an actor and did a 48 hour film project last year and it was a lot of fun. My husband and I would both be interested. Sing”

So now we had leads on a cameraman. Editing software. Sound studio, makeup artist and a couple of actors. Our first step was to invite the camera man to the 48 Hour film fest kick-off event that coming Thursday at a Star Bucks. There would also be a good opportunity to meet up with actors.

8/7/09

We had not heard back from Raul the new camera guy. Yet we still weren’t worried. The goal of the 48 hour film festival is to put together something at the last minute without any sort of preparation. If it works then great, but if it all falls apart then we’d have lost nothing but time. Maybe we could get a few reels, some bloopers or some bad reality TV behind the scenes drama to hoist up on YouTube.

“I just really want to make sure we have some sort of equipment”, Leonard said. “Everything else we can just deal with. I really want to do SOMETHING. It’s all i got left” He definitely seemed desperate, for him to leave himself open like that.

“Dude we can make something. Even it its just for laughs, Or YouTube. Why are we always so hampered?”

“Seems like shit always gets in the way. Now I feel like I’m just doing time. And I’m not even behind bars.”

“Yeah but it’s more than that. Filmmakers live and breathe movies. They’re always kicking around ideas and writing down scripts”

I couldn’t even remember the last time we sat together and discussed a script. Or the last time we had seen a movie together. And fresh ideas were things that neither of us had talked about in a long ass time. All our old scripts predated the birth of all of our children. Family had taken just about every ounce of extra and energy and thought we had.

“I was watching Entourage the other day and watched As Eric went through all these scripts, faceless unknown writers had sent into to studios, and I thought to Myself. Why? Why haven’t I sent in one original idea. Just to see what would stick. So it’s not just you, it’s me too, sitting around dawdling”

“I did send yours in…”

What the fuck!? He sent my script in without telling me? I hadn’t even copyrighted it yet.

“To who?”

“Fox and CBS. I got the standard rejection letter.”

“That’s because the opening of ‘Last Call’ sucked” I could admit that now. I always knew it was slow. But I had hopes it would work out in the editing room. The movie itself would have been golden.

“I even had query letters. Those are a 2 page synopsis with which audience types it would be aiming for. Just to see if anyone would pick up the script. Or if and Agent would like it and shop it around.”

“Doesn’t matter. It would have worked as a movie. tightly edited I would have turned it into American Graffiti.”

“Well on premise alone, everyone told us to fuck off.”

Leonard had seen my script for “Last Call” as his version of the Breakfast Club. It’s not a vision that I didn’t share. But at the time teen movies were complete and utter failures. I explained this to him and we talked about new trends in Hollywood. Judd Apatow had becomes successful by cornering the male romantic comedy. Film’s like 40 Year Old Virgin and Forgetting Sarah Marshall were just at their core romantic comedies. And that's what ‘Last Call’ was also.

“Sure I could see it” Leonard said. “What i couldn’t do is make OTHERS see it”

“Not at that time.”

“SO what do you think is the next curve? Seems like everything is remake city nowadays. All I know is that I’m just waiting to die”

“ I feel your pain Leonard. But you’ve forgotten how to enjoy yourself. You seemed to have accepted your fate. We got to change our mindset. We stopped being filmmakers long ago, because we stopped talking about making films.”

“That’s, true. I know. So what’s the Plan? Are we going for it?”

“What the fuck, am I going use My Cock and Balls to shoot the Movie? But If the guy contacts me. Then yeah. We’re going for it. Even if it sucks. Even if its just Eric and Josh acting.”

“Sigh. So we are just hanging on equipment then?”

“Yeah. I can’t afford to rent it. it’s not just camera, but lights, microphone, and we need to able to edit.” The 48 Hour film fest sounded like a blast. But realistically we needed to be looking further down the road. Shooting something on our own time.

“Feels like I’m suffocating under the weight of continuing to do the same shit” said Leonard. “Any word from that dude yet?”

The 48 Hour film Project came and went, and we filed it away under E. For EPIC Fail.

Lunchroom Conversations

Cut to:  4 Years later.

At this point, Leonard had long since returned from his Texan Odyssey, and his family now had 3 additions. I myself had now adjusted into family life as well. Dreams of filmmaking, were just dreams now. We talked about it now and then. But nothing ever really came of it.

The Lunchroom was part of one of those typical discussions, when it first entered my life.

The following are a series of IM and SMS messages centered around the Lunchroom short. They show the evolution of the script and the project to what it became today. 

4/21/09

L: You have Final draft installed?

J: I have a copy of it. Why what’s up?

L: I need you to look over a script of mine. I want to enter that contest that Twan sent me. So I’m putting something together. 

( I have no idea what contest he originally planned to enter. But it’s not the same one we are shooting for now)

L: But there is only a 20 minute time frame. So I'm trying to crush everything in that time frame.

(Our current goal is to edit the Lunchroom down to 4 Minutes!)

You have successfully received lunchroom.fdr!

J: I don’t know what this script is about but i got to say Lunchroom is a rad name for a teen comedy. The name alone has my head spinning with possibilities. Lunchroom can be like a PG13 Superbad!

(I think this is the very first time that the name was even discussed to be ‘Lunchroom’. I think Leonard always planned on changing it later)

L: Its an office setting. About a straight girl trying to get a gay guy. The point is that they are acting Like they are in Junior High.

J: oh okay.

L. I only got three pages. I'm trying to tighten the dialogue

J: So do you have another draft or is it filed in your head.

L: in my head. I'm putting down a few sections at a time. There are 3 incidents. The Lunch room. The car ride home. and the Obscene Phone calls

(Interestingly enough, the obscene phone calls never made it to either the final draft or shooting scripts and In fact I had forgotten all about it)

L: I'm off to work. I'm going to punch a few more pages out today. I’ll send them.

4/22/09

L: Should Victors voice be used in the Flashbacks? Even when a female speaks?

J: in flashback you can always just do the intro voiceover. and then have people use their regular voice. Or he can do the voices for everyone. Which are good for shorter flashbacks.

(It should be noted that the flashback scenes contain no dialogue now, except voice over.)

6/7/09

J: Eric moved back.

L. back where? Home?

J: Yeah right back in with his mom and dad.

(This information is irrelevant for now. I only included this because Eric would eventually rejoin our team)

7/1/09

J; You finished that Gay script you were writing?

L: Yup. But the co-writer bailed on me. You ready to jump behind a lens?

J: I been ready, You’re the one dawdling all the time. But seriously all these years and we never made even 1 short? That’s hard to believe.

L: Well at this point I can’t really do anything with the gay script. It’s sort of in limbo.

J: What about ‘Family Ties”

L. I was just looking for that script. You got the stomach to try and rez that…….

And just like that The Lunchroom was destined to be another forgotten project. Many months would pass before I’d hear about it again.

Serge’s Gotta Have It!

 

The first Collaboration I did with Serge was soon after Leonard had departed. I was still filled with the desire to make a movie and I half-assed looked around for a partner and Serge was the first to come to mind. I gave him a copy of “Last Call’. He gave me a copy of ‘Norwood’. The script was a bit bare in terms of direction, but since he was the one directing it, I guess he knew what he wanted in his head. The big problem with Norwood though, was that it took place on New York subway. And Serge had long left the Big Apple and now residing in South Florida. As a writer I did the only thing I could do. I took it home and re-wrote it.

Norwood dealt with a couple’s first meeting on a New York subway. Much like a train, their relationship only travelled at a fast speed and only moved forward. And when it made a final stop, everyone got off. At the end we learn the male lead seemingly continues this pattern in future relationships, always dooming them to fail. The script originally had this New York black and white gloomy feel to it like Spike Lee’s She’s gotta have it.

 

But the best example is the black and white opening sequence of Scorsese’s Bad video. Watch the specific time code HERE or below.

 

And that was fine. I mean these movies make me think of New York. But I’m not from there. There’s more Sunshine here in Florida then skyscrapers. So a huge inspiration for me was Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind. The Rework It starts off Gloomy at first in my head and brightens up as the girl enters the picture.
Eternal Sunshine also has these great train riding sequences. And this couple who’s relationship is filled with turmoil, even though you’re rooting for them, they’d rather just forget it. The characters in Norwood have given up on each other as well.  I kept most of the dialogue intact. But I made it a bit sexier, and gave the male lead what seemed like an underlying motive to continue this behavior.

Check out this music video for Eternal Sunshine it really conveys the feel I was going for in the reworked script.

 

I had written the action on Miami’s Metro-rail system. Which at the time Serge wasn’t aware existed. So it had given him a sense of hope that ‘Norwood” could be completed finally..

I had gone through a similar event with Leonard. He had written a short feature “Family Ties” that revolved around a man hiring a hit man to take out his entire family due to the constant disappointments they always brought him. I’m not sure why he didn’t like my rewrite, but Leonard took the script away and promised to return a 2nd rewrite. Imagine that, a rewrite of my rewrite! But that was the last I ever heard of Family Ties.

So I was never really sure Serge liked my reworked Script. People are funny when you take their words and rewrite them. I know How I acted when Leonard threatened to cut dialogue in ‘Last Call’. So even if Norwood now read better to me. Maybe Serge thought I had ripped the soul of the script out and replaced it with my voice instead. As of this moment ‘Norwood’ still remains unfilmed.

I soon left The Answer Group where we both worked and Serge and I would lose touch, thereafter,

This is the end, the end of our elaborate plans..

It seemed that all work on Last Call was coming to a standstill. Leonard was avoiding meetings to discuss any aspect of moviemaking. We talked at work sure, but there was no roundtable discussion to discuss our artistic expressions. It began to seem that he felt it was a waste of time. At least as long as we were languishing in pre-production. What was the point of talking about production if we weren’t getting there?

Principal characters in Last Call were Rook and Monique. Their names looks and hobbies may have been taken from people I had encountered on the road of life. But the soul of the characters they were Leonard and his longtime girlfriend. Just like Rook and Monique they too had their ups and downs, and their complicated relationship was also on and off. And just like Rook and Monique, for better or worse they just couldn’t stay away from each other. The only real difference was that in the course of the story Monique found herself with child. And Rook has to come to terms with the impending fatherhood, get a respectable grownup job and embrace the future. You know that stuff they say about Life imitating art? Well Leonard was about to become a father.

When he told me this, I now realized the impetus for going full speed ahead on his dream like this. The clock was ticking. He was going to have to get a respectable grownup job and embrace the future. I think he felt that this was his last shot while he had no responsibilities. Like Eminem he wanted to lose himself in the moment, own it and never let it go. But it just wasn’t happening. Time was running out and the project was at a standstill. This time though the dream died a slow miserable death. I saw this guy who for awhile now had been excited to come to work, just kind of sink back into old behavior. His life now was only about the three w’s. Wake up. Work. Warcraft.

Shortly there after the path he now found himself on took him away to Texas to be with his family and accept Fatherhood. And I was left behind to fend for myself. In a sort of limbo. Didn’t really know where to go from there. The domain name expired. Leonard hadn’t given me any of the details to keep it going. Vanessa Diaz our lead actress hopeful moved away to Los Angeles to try and become a star. The date of the ultimatum had now come around, but our partnership had already ended.

**soundtrack to this blog entry. The Door’s – The End**

It’s the one that says “Bad Motherfucker” on it..

So by now Leonard and I had fought over the website content, The script, Final cut of the film, the budget and of course the camera. I even remember a simple irrelevant conversation about a movies box office success versus critical reviews, that turned into a screaming match on Biscayne Boulevard. It seemed like there was nothing else to fight about. But the next three arguments to come were a doozy.

Since we were now considering to purchase our own camera, I was ecstatic about shooting Sifting. To see my first baby realized onscreen and rewrite history. Plus the fact that Sifting had now become a prologue for The Last Temptation of Joe Brown, and both Fogerty and Eric appear in Last Call. Even though it meant recasting Eric since for the past few years he had been living in Tampa. It definitely seemed like a story that now needed to be told. Plus it would allow us to make a smaller film with minimal effort, no location and zero expenses. Utilizing two principal cast members only. meaning we would have the opportunity to dick around, make mistakes and learn our craft. It seemed like a no brainer. Plus added material for the DVD was a bonus. The whole idea left Leonard cold. He felt it would take our focus away from the big picture and he wanted to remain singular minded. In essence he wanted to GO big or Go home.

The next major argument wasn’t so much as devastating to me as it was a missed opportunity. Last Call was an homage to George Lucas’ American Grafitti. That film at it’s core is about young adults coming of age cruising their hometown set to a pop soundtrack and of course cars. Last Call also feature young adults coming of age, cruising around their hometown set to a pop soundtrack. What was missing was the cars. When I wrote the script the idea behind cruising in a car was alien to me. I didn’t even have one. I could see the allure of a tricked out automobile but I really had no interest. Eventually I did get a car and it wound up choosing it simply because it reminded me of being behind the wheel of John Milner’s Coupe from American Graffiti. Check out the old blog entry here. Now at The Answer Group we had a bunch of car loving nerds. Every kid at TAG had a car with some sort of custom work done. They belonged to car clubs so we’d have access to a lot of fine looking machines. My idea was to take advantage of the situation and the current tuner craze in America after the first Fast and The Furious Film had been released. The sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious had recently been shot in Miami. it was a golden idea. The plan was to retool some of the throwaway lines and give them to people cruising around South Beach and The grove. Our film already had several MAJOR car scenes in it. So why then not include the car nuts and give them a movie to love. Again I encountered a road block from the Director. He said he wanted to keep it simple. To overcomplicate the shoot would spell certain disaster. It seemed like we were now rehashing the same argument from Sifting. I tried to reason with him. George Lucas was able to shoot most of his movie from the backseat of a car, way back in 1973. We were only talking about a few scenes. He brought up the point of police interaction. Yeah if we caused a public disturbance we could be fined. But since the whole movie was going to be guerilla style and we had no permits to shoot. it would be quicker to move lines to a place where we had more control. Within the the confines of our own vehicles, there would be no butt-inski’s or lookie-loos. So if a scene had to be reshot, all it would cost us was gas.

The final argument, was the worst of all. It began one day as Leonard came to me and asked what our production name would be, He had some suggestions, but mine was the only one I wanted. I refused to concede this time. Bad Motherfucker Films.

Why do you want to call it that he asked. I wanted something that would grab attention. When people at Cannes and Sundance asked me which one was MY MOVIE, I wanted to be able to say, “It’s that one that says Bad Motherfucker on it.” Leonard argued that the name was ridiculous. That it would hurt us at marketing time. That we may have trouble registering profanity in a company name. I understood all his valid reasoning. It made sense to me. Maybe I didn’t care at this point. Maybe It was even stupid to hold my ground on this, for a film that we didn’t even have in the can, or hell even a camera to shoot with. But I just wanted to win one.

I know Leonard had his heart set on Twisted Phoenix. It had roots in our friendship, since its a name that he and Eric collaborated on during the pre-production of Sifting. Leonard also had a personal reason for it since he likened the symbolism of a Phoenix rising from the ashes with events in his own life. But fuck that. I wasn’t involved in that decision, and Eric was no longer here to provide a counter balance to our irrationality. Leonard finally gave in to this, in reason I never really knew why. perhaps it was just to sour the idea. He said he would give in to Bad Motherfucker but it had to be Bad Motherfucker Pictures and that there would be no discussion beyond that. This argument had taken days. I could stand it no longer. Bad Motherfucker Pictures it was. I could still have my joke at Cannes. But the name meant nothing to me anymore. And Thus Leonard retained his final say.

But soon none of that shit would matter anymore.

Lights! Camera!?

So now we had it all. A script. A Director with Final say. A Website, Actors, Locations and possible DVD Sales outlets.  What we didn’t have still was a camera. We were getting ready to roll and nothing to film it with. Cameras were expensive and rentals of cameras were just as costly.. Our options at that point were to buy a camera for 3 grand. Or rent one for half that. The rental was for a limited time only which would rush our shoots. If we needed to reshoot wed have to rent the camera again. At the point we would have paid what the camera costs in rental fees. So putting up the dough and purchasing the camera seemed like the only viable action.

We had chosen an HD Digital camera because it was the emerging format and small movies like Dancer in The Dark had been fully shot in HD and looked just as good as film. Lucas also had shot Episode 2 a full digital format and was declaring small HD cameras the future.  

Staring at the rising equipment costs we briefly considered shooting on film. But in the end any money we saved on a camera we’d burn right back in film and editing costs. The reality of it all began to hit us. How was all of this really going to be possible? Leonard kept assuring me he would handle it.

I had just met Serge the DP on our current project, The Lunchroom. We began to shoot the shit talk about movies, loan each other DVDs. And as luck would have it Serge also shared a similar interest in filmmaking, and a common goal to achieve success in the industry. Serge also had an available HD camera. It seemed like a perfect match and the day was saved. 

Leonard though had a major objection.  He didn’t know Serge. At the time they had not met. So it wasn’t personal. He just believed we had come so far and did not want to rely on anyone’s help. And a camera would be a huge deal.  We’d be completely at the mercy of the owner. If he wanted to be like Cartman and say “Screw You guy’s I’m going, Home”. There would be nothing we could do. We’d be up shit’s creek.  I saw Leonard’s point and conceded. A collaboration with Serge would have to wait.

Now the game was about saving and making money for this camera. I was willing to put in as much as Leonard was, but was not even considering financing everything myself. And Leonard’s car had now finally succumbed to the long daily commute to The Answer Group and he was saving up for that.  So now the quickest way to make the money was going to be tax returns.  When Tax time rolled around Leonard opted to upgrade his computer system instead. He claimed he would need a better PC for editing. But I knew the truth, He was back to chasing the dragon. Literally. The Master of All MMORPG’s was calling his name.  World Of Warcraft.

This was the beginning of the end.

Motion Picture Soundtrack

Coming Soon! From the Makers of Sifting and the Tennis Movie, exclaimed the Last Call website.  We had begun to hype ourselves and everyone around us with all this buzz and news of the going ons, about the actors who we were getting ready to rehearse, the locations  and the Soundtrack.

Doing the rewrite I had carefully crafted a soundtrack to suit the film. It featured songs that were integral to the plot, as well as songs that provided mood music. We knew we could never get all these artists to sign off on their music. But I didn’t care, we were making this film primarily for us. And we’d make two cuts. One For Festival inclusion and one for sale without the music. Or at least that’s how the argument Leonard and I had on the subject ended.

The soundtrack to the film is as follows:

All the song names are clickable and take you to a video.

1. Long Beach Dub All-Stars – Rolled Up 

2. The Busters – Come On

3. Will Smith – Miami

4. Kenny Rogers – The Gambler

5. Fat Boy Slim – Praise You

6. Earth Wind and Fire – Let’s Groove Tonight

7. Everclear – Santa Monica

8. Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul – Inside of Me

9. rage against the machine – Sleep Now In the Fire

10. Mazzy Star – Fade in To You

11. Nine Inch Nails – The Day the World Went Away

12. Nine Inch Nails – The Day the World Went Away (Quiet)

13. U2 – If God Will Send His Angels

14. The Mighty mighty Bosstones – Rudie Can’t Fail.

15. Sponge – Speed Racer

16. Korn – Got The Life

17. Iggy Pop – The Passenger

18. Pat Benatar – Love Is a Battlefield

19. Skanic – Last Call

After all that, If you’re still wanting the most awesome soundtrack ever. Click HERE for a Download. Available for a Limited Time Only.

A Band Apart

So there we were, a deadline fast approaching and our friendship on the line. It was all riding on me to turn in this script within 30 days. That was all the time I had been allotted. Leonard patiently awaited for me to pass the baton. He said as soon as he received the script and read it he would commence the ball rolling.  I got to say I felt that not only did I walk up to the plate, I knocked it out of the park. I delivered it ahead of schedule. The script had not only a beginning but it was much smoother read, it had developed some heart and the ending would foreshadow real events to come. But more on that later.

For now I was handing Leonard my script. The first full length feature I had ever written. My first baby. I felt I had learned from the mistakes of the past regarding “Sifting” and was fully prepared for him to nurture it into being. I refused to argue it into a shallow grave. 

So there I was, offering my script for the world to see. Since this was semi-auto-biographical, I was baring part of my soul. Hoping to garner my film making partner’s approval.

 

And what does that mofo do? Notes. He made notes!  On 3x5 index cards he made attempts to correct how I felt things should go. Particular phrasings and situations. Challenge my artistic vision. And what’s worse he was threatening to cut the opening. Mutilate my creation. Maybe I wasn’t as ready as I thought I was to let go. 

I sincerely had my doubt on the project at this point. Then Leonard reintroduced me to an old friend.

 

He had hijacked my copy of the book for several years. I was astonished to see it again. I was overjoyed as someone who was final reconnecting with an abducted love one.  I took this as a good omen. You usually never see anything again, that you’ve loaned to Leonard.

From then on things seemed to move along smoothly. After convincing Leonard just shoot everything as it is on Paper and make the magic happen in the editing room. After all we weren’t a major Hollywood studio bleeding millions of dollars a day on production. We planned on shooting on HD video so no film was being wasted. Leonard had situated himself as director/producer and put himself in charge of every minute detail. Working on our current short feature “The Lunchroom” i now appreciate what a monumental task this was. He haggled with the printers to get a better rate at bounded copies of the script.  He set up a domain name and website. And he said that I was in charge of the content on the website. We settled on the domain LastCallMiami Dot Com.

I worked on a Logo for the site

and movie

There was even a DVD mockup. Leonard then setup casting auditions through craigslist. We were amazed at the number of people that responded to work in front of the camera and behind the scenes. We hired a production assistant in the form of our friend and co-worker Quisqueya to help us sort through all the madness.

We began to scout possible shooting locations. We knew we wanted to shoot in Coconut Grove.

The script revolved heavily on music. Many different styles. From Hip-Hop to Ska to DJ’s. We knew we needed a band in the movie. We pursued Vanessa Diaz of the band shortStack to play the lead female character. We went to one of her shows to scout out her band.

Leonard networked with a local singer/songwriter in the hopes of collaborating on the score.

It was amazing to see this usually introverted anti-social guy, making moves left and right. Saying I was Proud if my friend doesn’t quite cover it. It was more of an admiration at his new found determination. Fueled by support from friends, family and our coworkers at The Answer Group. It truly seemed like for the first time it could become a possibility.

And then, like a clichéd Vh1 Behind the Music episode, it all went horribly wrong…

Last Call?

I had kept busy since the failure behind Sifting. I had begun to note down semi-autobiographical scripts loosely based on various misadventures in my life. It began with a novel i started in High School, simply titled, “The Book”. The new stories would all interconnect somehow, somewhere down the road. It was supposed to be huge sprawling saga that I hope would emulate Jack Kerouac’s body of work but simply began echoing Kevin Smith’s View Askew-niverse.

If I worked at Fast Food restaurant, there was a script about it. If I vacationed in Germany there was a script about it. If I had a crush on a girl she’d be a major character. And so I went, writing down ideas, but I never completed any of it. There always something else distracting me. That is how Last Call came to be. At the time Leonard and I worked at a Major South Florida Grocery outlet. There was many colorful characters that worked there and many awkward and interesting things would happen to them. Odd sexual pairings, violent outbreaks and even a murder conviction were all fodder for our script entitled “The Last Temptation of Joe Brown”. The story of a simple ordinary guy who would be tested by the Lord in the form of a Jesus-loving girlfriend and tempted by evil in the form of conniving assistant store manager.  This project was a favorite of ours and someday I will return to it. But back then I was sidetracked by the idea behind Last Call. Leonard’s rocky relationship with his then girlfriend and now wife.

I knew we needed something we could shoot. We couldn’t shoot Joe Brown without having access to a Grocery Store and a cast of characters. It would be a script we could never finance ourselves so I set it outside, and thought about what i had to work with. I had access to friends and The Great Outdoors. The Great Outdoors just happened to be Miami, Florida one of the most popular cities in the world, and one that has not be seen to much on film yet. Who better to tell stories about the Magic City then someone who travelled on public transportation and on feet. I certainly knew it better than Will Smith.

So I put pen to paper and Last Call was born. The title taken from track 9  on the Skanic album of the same name. The film centered around four friends. Three dealing with recent breakups and the fourth on a quest for love, with Miami as the background. I culled my memories and personal life along with the experiences of my friends. And whenever possible I embellished. Because I never got the nerve to ask Kristy out and that girl who tried to trick us into becoming Scientologists, well she didn’t go home with Eric.

I finished the script in record time. I wrote it on bus benches, in the break room at work. Wherever I could steal a spare moment. But when it was over, I took it and stuck it on a drawer. Never to be seen again. 

Cut to 4 years later: Leonard and I sat at a Denny’s restaurant eating lunch. He was lamenting the fact that he had given up his job at Channel 7. It may not have paid as well as he liked, but at least he was in the business.  We both were now working for The Answer Group, a mind numbing, soul crushing concentration camp thinly disguised as honest labor. It was killing out spirits. It really began to hurt to go to work. I was becoming ill and Leonard began to develop job stress. But we gladly cashed the checks from the bastards that were destroying us. Hell it was more money than either of us had ever earned up until that point. What was really sticking in Leonard’s craw that day at lunch was that former Channel 7 co-workers of his had completed their first short movie, and were now making the festival rounds. I confided in him of a cousin who i met a few times growing up and had never showing any interest or care in films or filmmaking was now a high level executive at Paramount Studios. So if these people had achieved this success, what was stopping us from even completing a film?

I began discussing each one of our failing points. How lazy we were, how afraid we were to take risks. Scared To put money where our mouths were. Now that we had a better sort of pay, I at least had some disposable income and yet still did not own a real camera.  I never finished any scripts. And even the ones I did finish, Sifting, Last Call and Donk Pirates, they just sat there unable to take the next step into becoming a movie.  Leonard had his own demons, which included online gaming. Mmorpg’s like Anarchy Online consumed hours of his life each day.

We decided that Enough was Enough. “We had to get busy living or get busy dying” and by dying we meant living the rest of our lives in mediocrity, Institutionalized. We decided that at that moment we would take every bit of energy we had and focus it on making this film. I then made a declaration. I said we would return to that spot, That Denny’s the following year and if we had nothing to show for the past years work we would end dissolve our friendship. Over a decade of friendship we had and it had not taken us one inch. What reason did we have to remain friends, we barely saw each other outside of work anymore. Maybe putting our friendship on the line would become the motivator. The thing that would light a fire under our ass.

Leonard had now asked for my 4 year old script. And I asked for some time. I needed to polish it, type it up.  And above all make it filmable for two dudes on a budget.  He reminded me of my earlier declaration, and said he would give me 30 days. Thirty days and our friendship would be over.  He doubted me. I doubted myself, could I complete the rework/rewrite of the script? Or would this be the “Last Call” for our friendship?

Sifting

When I learned that Leonard also wanted to be a filmmaker it should have been one if those aha moments in life. Instead it was more like "Oh so you wanted to make movies? I was here first."
At the time Leonard was enrolled in a production class over at FIU. He had access to some video equipment and I came along to help him out on his class project. It was a multi angle shot of a tennis serve. We would from then on pad our film credits and refer to it as The tennis movie. But it was hardly a movie. But a B+ grade in a class I wasn't even enrolled in.

We then decided to tackle our very own film short. We had very limited funds and zero access to locations. So I wrote a script with that in mind. I wrote Sifting. The title lifted from a Nirvana song, it was less a short movie and more a long monologue. Assisting us on this project was Eric our long time friend. We used his house as our base of operations and decided to shoot on location near his home.

I never felt like I had full support of my crew on the script. Perhaps it wasn't perfect, but no one else had written anything, so we went full speed ahead on 'Sifting'

We storyboarded the entire project. Not in a way where we were visualizing our shots. But just to layout how everything was going to be shot. Not one if us could draw, but that wasn't the problem with storyboards. They played out like a comic book adaptation of a stage play.

The fighting began shortly thereafter. I had an idea of how the film played in my head. Leonard just wanted to shoot it like a television commercial. His teacher had taught him to avoid all the gimmicky camera angles.
I was trying to explain there was a differrence between gimmicks and style.

The script revolved around a fictionalized version of Eric and a fictional friend named Fogerty who was an amalgamized version of Leonard and I. He was the best and the worst of us and he is much much cooler than the both of us.

Eric had been tapped to play Eric. But we needed our Fogerty. I felt unable to play the character and Leonard then volunteered to play him. This also didn't mesh well with my vision of the character.

There was a third character in the script called Angry Motorist. I always figured we'd get Eric's father to play this character. Eric didn't feel like asking his dad, so Leonard too volunteered to play this character. Which meant he would essentially be talking to himself the while movie.

Every objection I raised, was quickly shut down with the simple reasoning that I was only the writer. And the vision of the film belonged solely to the Director. Which of course was Leonard.

But still I was ecstatic to be shooting my very first film soon. I was told the date was fast approaching.

And one day I recieved a phone call from Leonard.

"Hey I got the camera! Are you ready to shoot?"

I sat quiet on the other end of my the phone. Then I responded. "I'm at the Warped Tour"

Leonard had assumed I would be available at any time and failed to divulge his plan. His inability to keep others in the loop Is one of his biggest faults to this day. He graduated his production class and took a job working for Channel 7.

Now not only did we not have a camera but we also were short on something else: Time.

And just like that the dream had died.

Rebel Without a Crew

Since I was a kid, I’ve been in love with the idea of making movies. I read everything I could on the subject. From the history of Universal monster movies to the making of Star Wars. I also watched as many movies as I could, foreign flicks, samurai movies, westerns anything that would hold my interest and that I could learn from. I would also spend hours making music video clips, by putting my favorite scenes from movies to song.  I loved playing with video cameras, but even though I had one in the house, my access to it was limited, I was just not allowed any where near it, for the simple reason I was a kid. Kids today are lucky. They have cameras on their mp3 players, game systems and cell phones. 

I had to shoulder the weight of a monster sized camera similar to this one:

And it used full size VHS tapes. (the one pictured is a betamax version)

So your movie can come straight from the camera into the VCR no problem.

If I heard there was a film being shot nearby, i would make it my mission to see what I could. I visited shooting locations for Miami Vice episodes, the movie set of the Specialist hoping to catch a glimpse of Stallone, I even got to meet Bill Murray on a shooting location for Wild Things at the federal courthouse in Miami.

But what do you do with this love of cinema, achieve this dream realistically without any money or support from family. Film school isn’t free, and even if you graduate there weren’t many career opportunities in South Florida at the time. It was an unachievable goal in my mind. Something my mother scoffed at and my stepfather ridiculed.

I didn’t live in Los Angeles so I couldn’t network connections and start at some low level entry gofer position. I didn’t have anything to sell to finance my film project. The days of the independent theatre owners were coming to an end, so finding financing for your film was becoming an impossibility. Basically all I had was a dream.  A dream taunted by the successes of Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith. None of these guys had gone to film school, each found their success in  different ways. And made hugely popular and successful films on a very limited budget. They made it seem so easy and attainable. I was a frequent poster at Kevin Smith’s old WWWBoard and I realized he wasn’t so much as a great filmmaker, as he was a good writer who took a shot. Threw something out there that had caught one single solitary persons eye, who then passed it on the Weinstein’s at Miramax.  Moviemaking seemed almost like a shot in the dark, But you first had to be willing to pull the trigger.

But where do you start? I had no fucking clue still. Until I found this book.

 

 

It’s a fantastic read and I recommend it to anyone, whether they are interested in filmmaking or not. It changed my life. Or at least my way of thinking. Robert Rodriguez made El Mariachi for the Mexican film market with no intention of it ever being released in the US. He spent 7,000 to make the film and made it look like he had spent several hundred thousand. It became an indie sensation. I personally always thought It was a cheesy Mexican melodrama, but I speak Spanish and therefore realized how awful the acting was. But now Robert Rodriguez had gone on to make Desperado and From Dusk Til Dawn. He had become a major Hollywood player like his book said. The most important lessons he imparts is to not waste any money on Film School. If you want to be a filmmaker, stop saying you want to be one and say “You Are a filmmaker”. And get out there and shoot. It doesn’t matter if its a documentary or some little movie you made in your basement with friends. Just keep making films.

So that was the new plan. Get out there and shoot. But I still lacked confidence and a camera. I felt I needed help. I would soon learn that my best friend Leonard had a similar dream.