PRODUCTION UPDATE
Production Update is compiled and edited by FILMMAKER Contributing Editor, Mary Glucksman.
- The Blood Oranges - Philip & Belinda Haas
Dinner at Fred's - Shawn Thompson
Followers - Jonathan Flicker
I Think I Do - Brian Sloan
The Journey - Harish Saluja
Mr. Jealousy - Noah Baumbach
My Friend Paul - Jonathan Berman
Ocean Tribe - Will Geiger
Six Ways to Sunday - Adam Bernstein
Philip and Belinda Haas follow their Oscar-nominated costume drama Angels and Insects with another steamy adaptation: The Blood Oranges, John Hawkes' 1971 novel about the erotic entanglements among a pair of bohemian couples sharing a villa in a remote tropical paradise. Shot in Mexico, where the filmmakers found the decayed remains of an abandoned estate for their critical villa location, The Blood Oranges stars Charles Dance (Michael Collins) and Sheryl Lee (Twin Peaks) as a pair of charismatic sexual predators who ensnare a couple (stage actors Colin Lane and Laila Robins) vacationing in Mexico with their three young children. As with Angels, the Haases collaborated on the script; Philip directs and Belinda, his wife, is the editor.
Philip Haas was already a well known documentarian when he made his feature debut with an adaptation of Paul Auster's The Music of Chance in 1993. The new film is financed by the recently formed Ark Pictures, a partnership between Patricia Kluge's Kluge Invest-ments, Gotham Entertainment Group, and Kardana Films; Ark is capitalized to the tune of $10 million by Kluge. Oranges' five-week shoot rolled January 13 in Cuernavaca, a landlocked two-phone town 90 minutes from Mexico City, with the Haases' two small daughters playing the story's younger children. The filmmakers hope to premiere Oranges in May and all rights are available.
Cast: Charles Dance, Sheryl Lee, Laila Robins, Colin Lane, Rachael Bella. Crew: Producers, Tom Carouso, Belinda Haas, Philip Haas, Hector Lopez; Executive Producers, Chris Daniel, Patrick J. McDarrah, Joel Roodman, Barry Schindel; Screenwriters, Philip and Belinda Haas; Director, Philip Haas; Editor, Belinda Haas; Cinematographer, Bernard Zitzerman; Production Design/Costumes, Paul Brown. Contact: Tom Carouso, Ark Pictures, 99 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10013. Tel: (212) 376-6063, Fax: (212) 376-6067.
In Shawn Alex Thompson's first feature, the wacky Christmas fantasy Dinner at Fred's, Gil Bellows (Shawshank Redemption) stars as Richard, an affable young exec whose life spins out of control when his car breaks down en route to his boss' country estate. Heading for a Christmas fete where he'd planned to propose to the titan's daughter, the penniless Richard hikes to a nearby town and enters its talent contest with his childhood magic act in hopes of a cash prize. Kids in the Hall's Kevin McDonald plays Fred, a local who buys Richard's act and brings him home to meet his unhinged father (Christopher Lloyd) and winning sister Celia (Parker Posey) and work some Christmas magic on the family's wild turkey curse. The magic, of course, turns out to be between Bellows and Posey. "Fred's is about restimulating the wholehearted faith we have as children," says Thompson.
Thompson, 35, was a professional magician at 18 and ran away to join the circus before moving on to theater with groups like Second City. He got noticed working both sides of the camera for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation series It's Only Rock and Roll and We Don't Knock, and John Waters cast him in Hairspray as Corny Collins. His recent credits include writing "Outer Limits" episodes, making shorts for "The Newz" and starring in Bram Stoker's Shadowbuilder.
Fred's spent several years under option to Universal before getting made by HandMade films, the British indie company Beatle George Harrison founded that's best known for '80s cult hits like Withnail and I and Time Bandits. Canadian giant Paragon Entertainment bought HandMade's library and revived its production unit two years ago; the first slate of new HandMade films includes the Brit-noir comedy Intimate Relations, which Fox Searchlight bought at last year's AFM and releases here this spring. Fred's was made on a tight 24-day Toronto shoot for "several million dollars" according to executive producer Todd Harris. All rights are available.
Cast: Gil Bellows, Parker Posey, Christopher Lloyd, Kevin McDonald, John Neville, Kristen Lehman. Crew: Producer, Jon Slan; Co-Producers, Alison Emilio, Janet E. Cuddy; Executive Producers, J. Todd Harris, Gareth Jones; Screenwriter/Director, Shawn Alex Thompson; Director of Photography, Robert New; Production Designer, Marian Wihak; Editor, Michael Pacek. Contact: Hilary Davis, HandMade Films, 15 Golden Square, First Floor, London, England W1R 3AG. Tel: 0171 434-3132.
Three college freshmen pledging an elite fraternity find their friendship tested when the racist frat president targets the tightly knit trio's black member in the hazing drama Followers. First-time director Jonathan Flicker's cautionary tale stars Lone Star discovery Eddie T. Robinson as Steve, whose privileged Manhattan upbringing ignites Tyler's redneck politics, and Sam Trammel (Childhood's End) as the best friend who waits too long to take a stand. Flicker says he based Followers on news reports of a racial hazing incident at Rider College in 1993. "As Edmund Burke said, �The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,'" says Flicker. "Tyler is dangerous because he's a natural leader. John turns his back on what he knows is wrong and he pays a price."
Flicker, 25, grew up in Manhattan with an insider's knowledge of t.v. production through his uncle, Theodore Flicker, who created "Barney Miller" and directed shows like "Andy Griffith." Flicker raised the lean five-figure sum needed to get Followers in the can by soliciting investments from regulars at New York's Museum Cafe, where he was a waiter. And days before cameras rolled he solved a gap financing crisis by selling his car to cover the shoot's insurance. The Cafe wait staff provided two neophyte producers; Flicker found cinematographer William T. Miller (Student Academy-Award nominee Last Call) through a sign at NYU and a script supervisor and costume designer by publicizing Followers' shoot on the Internet news group rec.arts.movies. production.
The 16mm Followers shot 24 days last March but budget limitations forced Flicker to omit several key scenes; he used a trailer screened in the '96 IFFM's works-in-progress section to raise additional financing. At press time Flicker was negotiating for the final $100,000 he needs to complete postproduction; all rights are available.
Cast: Sam Trammell, Eddie T. Robinson, Gerald J. Laurino, Jessica Prunell, Mark Dobies, Willie T. Carpenter, Teja Frank. Crew: Producer/Screen-writer/Director, Jonathan M. Flicker; Co-Producer, Dennis Gossett, Jr.; Associate Producer, Naeim Mohammed; Cinematographer, William M. Miller; Casting, Adrienne Stern. Contact: Jonathan M. Flicker, Wildgoose Productions, 219 West 81st Street, PHC, New York, NY 10024. Tel/Fax: (212) 873-8106.
Romantic comedy convention gets a neat twist in Brian Sloan's I Think I Do. In this film, the two college roommates who reencounter each other - and their never-consummated attraction - at an old pal's Washington wedding are both guys.
Five years after graduation, Bob (Alexis Arquette) has given up on his unrequited love and made peace with college roommate Brendan's heterosexuality; he's now a year into a relationship with hunky soap star Sterling Scott, his date this weekend. But in the years since college, Brendan has come out, and now he's decided that Bob is his romantic destiny.
"It's a goofy take on a classic screwball comedy," says Sloan. "Instead of Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, it's Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. Gay or straight though, it's all about loving someone."
Sloan, 30, grew up outside Washington, D.C., and first made waves with Shall We Dance, a short made in NYU's grad film program that played several dozen festivals in 1992; his '93 NYU thesis film, Pool Days, went to 50 fests including Sundance and New Directors and was included with two other coming-out shorts in the Strand Releasing trilogy Boys' Life. To get I Think I Do made, Sloan turned to fellow NYU student Lane Janger, also 30, an established music video producer who also produced I Like It Like That, Darnell Martin's debut feature. With Janger signed on, I Do quickly gathered steam and "high six-figure" LLC financing from investors.
I Think I Do's 25-day shoot rolled October 1 with the filmmakers shooting New York City and environs for Washington, capturing the necessary D.C. exteriors over two days at the production's tail end. Janger says the 35mm color I Do should be ready to hit the festival circuit by the end of March. Strand partners Jon Gerrans and Marcus Hu are executive producers and will serve as sales agents.
Cast: Alexis Arquette, Guillermo Diaz, Lauren Velez, Jamie Harrold, Maddie Corman, Tuc Watkins, Marianne Hagan, Christian Maelen. Crew: Producer, Lane Janger; Screenwriter/Director, Brian Sloan; Executive Producers, Jon Gerrans, Marcus Hu, Robert Miller, Daryl Roth; Cinematographer, Milton Kam; Production Designer, Debbie Devilla; Costime Designer, Kevin Donaldson & Victoria Farrell; Casting, Stephanie Corsalini; Editor, Francois Keraudren. Contact: Lane Janger, I Think I Do LLC, 100 Varick St., 3rd floor, NY, NY 10013. Tel/Fax: (212) 982-1399.
Roshan Seth and Saeed Jaffrey reteam for the first time since My Beautiful Laundrette in The Journey, Harish Saluja's bittersweet comedy of errors about an Indian school teacher's first trip to America to visit his doctor son in Pittsburgh. Used to servants and women who defer to men, Kishan Singh (Seth) is unprepared for his modern American daughter-in-law Laura (My Best Friend's Wedding's Carrie Preston). Cross-cultural dissonance is an ever-present counterpoint in this semi-autobiographical story but Saluja has a message beyond that. "This couple has problems," he says. "Laura says, 'Life gets in the way of art' and what I'm trying to say is 'Live life passionately.' It's a different way of looking at life and how to handle crises. Go on and find meaning again."
Saluja, 50, grew up in Punjab and was already training as an engineer when he was inspired to switch to filmmaking after seeing a Satyajit Ray film. After completing his education he became a film reviewer and emigrated to New York at 25. Since then, he's made a living as publisher of technical journals; Saluja also paints, writes poetry, and hosts a weekly National Public Radio Indian music program.
Saluja first tried to get The Journey made with independent Hollywood producers; he says that decision cost him money. He changed course in 1994, attending the Sundance Producers' Conference. "That was a turning point," he says. "Fifty people wouldn't talk to me but James Schamus, Lindsay Law and Bingham Ray did. Later, Schamus said, �You're done talking. Go ahead and make the damn thing.'"
Saluja ultimately financed The Journey with 15 limited partnership investors, adding his own savings for a total he calculates as "seven figures." The 35mm color Journey shot 25 days this fall in and around Pittsburgh, where Saluja lives. All rights are available and the film should be completed in April.
Cast: Roshan Seth, Saeed Jaffrey, Carrie Preston, Antony Zaki, Betsy Zajko, Michael Emerson, Nora Bates. Crew: Producer/Director, Harish Saluja; Screenwriters, Saluja, Lisa Kirk Puchner; Associate Producer, Jane Aseniero Cinematographer, John Rice; Production Manager, Jeffrey Stimmel; Casting, Caroline Sinclair; Editor, Tom Dubensky; Music, Chris Hughes. Contact: Harish Saluja, New Ray Films, P.O. Box 79086, Pittsburgh, PA 15216. Tel: (412) 343-6515, Fax: (412) 344-6950.
Kicking and Screaming director Noah Baumbach explores the darker side of romantic comedy in the New York-set Mr. Jealousy. Eric Stoltz stars as Lester, a likeable dreamer whose insecurities invariably sabotage his relationships with women. Lester's best friend Vince is getting married and he knows he has to change, but when he starts going out with the spirited Ramona (Anabella Sciorra), he finds old habits die hard. Other cast members include Peter Bogdonovich as an oblivious psychiatrist, Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Vince's fiancée Lucretia, and Jay McInerney as a Vassar grad.
Mr. Jealousy reunites Baumbach, 27, with Kicking producer Joel Castleberg and actors Stoltz, Eigeman and Carlos Jacott. This time out, Castleberg and Baumbach banked foreign presale contracts with Kathy Morgan (an L.A.-based international rights broker) to cashflow production. Mr. Jealousy shot for six weeks in New York beginning February 3. Baumbach brought back Kicking cinematographer Steven Bernstein, who also shot Like Water for Chocolate, but says Jealousy will have a different look. "Kicking was about 20-year-olds trying to hit the pause button on their lives, so the camera hovered over them," he says. "Jealousy's about people in their thirties trying to create problems to keep their lives in motion so the camera's less static and there's a kind of irony in the cutaways." Luna is composing Jealousy's score and new material for the soundtrack; lead singer Dean Wareham has a small role as a video director waxing rhapsodic about his art. The filmmakers will edit in New York at Spin Cycle for a summer delivery; domestic rights remain available.
Cast: Eric Stoltz, Annabella Sciorra, Carlos Jacott, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Chris Eigeman, John Lehr, Helen Hanft. Crew: Producer, Joel Castleberg; Screenwriter/Director, Noah Baumbach; Executive Producer, Eric Stoltz; Line Producer, Victoria McGarry; Cinematographer, Steven Bernstein; Production Designer, Ann Stuhler; Editor, J. Kathleen Gibson. Contact: Joel Castleberg, Joel Castleberg Productions, (through July at) 160 Pearl St, 4th floor , New York, NY 10005. Tel: (310) 455-1785, Fax: (310) 455-0346.
Jonathan Berman's doc My Friend Paul blends wit, style and sorrow for a searing celluloid portrait of a talented childhood friend's long battle with manic depression. Berman, Paul and a third friend featured in the film grew up on Long Island in the '50s before manic depression was as readily diagnosed as it is today. Paul robbed 11 banks for fun and drugs in 1986 and spent ten years in prison before appealing to the filmmaker for shelter upon his release last year.
"As kids we pretended we were bank robbers," says Berman. "Be careful who you pretend you are because that's who you'll become." Although Berman's out to balance pathos with humor, he makes room for a surprisingly serious examination of the forces that govern the cycles of Paul's disease. Paul's childhood girlfriend, now a research scientist, describes the chemical components of normal brain function and the imbalances researchers believe lie behind behavior like Paul's.
"During his more lucid periods, Paul is really able to talk about his illness, says Berman." Berman's rich trove of material includes high school footage of the clearly talented Paul playing the flute in imitation of Jethro Tull hero Ian Anderson, Paul while in prison, and Paul holding down a motorcycle messenger job after his release. We see real bank videotapes of one of Paul's robberies as well as a recreation staged by Berman, who's also indulged Paul by filming his Lincoln assassination fantasy. "Paul's life is like a master performance that owes a lot to shock theater," says Berman.
Berman's first feature doc, The Schvitz, was a lighthearted history of New York's last remaining Russian bathhouse that opened the 1993 Margaret Mead and San Francisco Jewish festivals. A documentary he produced on the downtown New York jazz scene for German television last year, Sabbath in Paradise, airs in '97. He started My Friend Paul with a rented Sony digital camera, the DV 1000, in the fall of '94 on $28,000 worth of grants from the New York State Council on the Arts, and presold a 20-minute version to Swiss t.v. for another $18,000. Berman's big break - and move on to 16mm (which will be blown up to 35mm) - came a year and a half ago when he was searching the web for resource materials and happened on a link to a new private foundation looking for documentaries to fund. Paul was in, pushing Berman well past the halfway mark on his estimated $260,000 budget. Former Lounge Lizard Marc Ribot, who's worked on albums for Elvis Costello and Tom Waits, is doing the score and Berman plans a soundtrack.
Crew: Producer/Writer/Director, Jonathan Berman; Cinematographers, David Leitner, Arlene Sandler; Editor, David Tedeschi; Composer, Marc Ribot. Contact: Jonathan Berman, Jonathan Berman Productions, 396 Third Avenue, #2S, New York, NY 10016. Tel/Fax: (212) 685-7166.
Will Geiger's Ocean Tribe adds a surfeit of surfing to the story of four old friends who reunite to take a terminally ill pal on a final wave-chasing road trip before he dies. Bob's got two weeks before his next chemo treatment when his friends arrive in his hospital room only to find their newly bald friend resistant to their plan. Fueled by beer, they shave their heads in solidarity and kidnap him, escaping in the wildly painted Oldsmobile ambulance they used as a surfwagon in high school. Naturally Bob comes around and what follows as this motley crew chases a monster swell is alternately raucous and elegiac. "People pine for unconditional friendships and that's rare these days," says Geiger. "Bob's friends are all scared of the next step in their lives but he's dying. By taking him on this last trip they reaffirm their faith in themselves and the future."
Ocean Tribe's principals are experienced L.A. stage actors, many of them associates of Tim Robbins' Actors Gang; Geiger doubled them with real surfers for the tough stuff.
Geiger, 34, grew up all over California and dropped out of college to attend London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. He landed in Rome on his first acting job and stayed long enough to acquire a wife and substantial experience on both sides of the camera, working as an assistant director and writing a documentary for state-owned t.v. station RAI. He came back to the U.S. for film school and worked as a ranger for the California State Parks Service, a connection that paid off in free access to Ocean Tribe's beach locations. Geiger says indie producers he approached swore he couldn't shoot Ocean Tribe with as much water work as the script called for on the budget they could raise. Tired of hearing "No," he got an attorney friend to help him form an LLC and put together six-figure financing from two principal investors, enough to shoot in 35mm. Ocean Tribe's grueling 24-day shoot last September moved from Huntington Beach Hospital and California beach locations to Baja Mexico and Florida's Grassy Keys Dolphin Research Center. Geiger enlisted famous surfing cinematographer Jeff Neu to shoot the doubles riding 20-foot waves off Baja's Todos Santos with a borrowed waterproof Bell & Howell Eyemo; because the specialized camera had a maximum film load of 100 feet (just 30 seconds at the slow-mo 48 frames a second Geiger wanted), they got a mad scientist friend to design a waterproof housing for a second camera to reduce down time during reloads. Ocean Tribe is now completed and all rights are available.
Cast: Gregg Rainwater, Mark Matheisen, Robert Caso, Troy Fazio, Vaughn Roberts, Brian Brophic, Natasha Ivanova. Crew: Producer/Screenwriter/ Director, Will Geiger; Executive Producers, Franco Zacchia, Michela Conti; Associate Producer, Andrew Matosich; Line Producer, Peter Yuvall; Cinematographer, Harris Done; Art Director, Steve Espinoza; Editor, Jeremy Kasten; Composer, Sean Murray. Contact: Will Geiger, SeaReel Prods., 206 First Street, Seal Beach, Ca 90740. Tel: 310) 430-4036, Fax: (310) 594-5679.
Adam Bernstein's Six Ways to Sunday is a transgressive tale about a sheltered 17-year-old learning the ropes of sex, death and extortion inside a small time Jewish crime ring. Norman Reedus is Harry, an only child who's had a warped upbringing at the hands of his overly adoring single mom (Debbie Harry). When Harry starts getting blood on his hands and unwanted lipstick on his collar, the pressure triggers what could be a pathological response. Six is an updated adaptation of Portrait of a Young Man Drowning, Charles Perry's 1962 pulp classic.
"Harry's a nice boy caught in a hard place," says Bernstein, who wrote the script with Old School editor Marc Gerald. Isaac Hayes plays Harry's cop nemesis, Elina Lowensohn's his would-be sweetheart, and Adrian Brody's a fellow initiate. Best known for classic videos like the B-52s' "Love Shack" and Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby's Got Back," Bernstein's directing credits also include five episodes of Nickelodeon's "Pete and Pete," a dozen episodes of "America's Most Wanted," and the It's Pat studio film.
Bernstein was making the rounds of potential distributors with Six Ways when he sent a copy to a friend at a literary agency, Zachary Schuster, who shared office space with young producer David Collins and his Scout Productions. Collins had formed Boston-based Scout in '95, co-producing indies Never Met Picasso and Home Before Dark (both in post) last year. He flipped for Six and partnered with Wall Street refugee Michael Naughton, a recent convert to the lure of indie film, to raise "about $1,000,000" in equity financing. The 35mm Six shot 28 days beginning January 13 in Bayonne, New Jersey, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island with Daytrippers d.p. John Inwood. Bernstein describes Six as "a color version of a classic B-movie, saturated and moody with all the compositional possibilities afforded by a wider lens." All rights are available.
Cast: Deborah Harry, Norman Reedus, Elina Lowensohn, Adrien Brody, Peter Appel, Holter Graham, Jerry Adler, Isaac Hayes, Anna Thomson. Crew: Producers, Adam Bernstein, David Collins, Michael Naughton; Screenwriters, Bernstein, Marc Gerald; Director, Bernstein; Cinematographer, John Inwood; Production Designer, Teresa Mastropierro. Contact: David Collins, Scout Productions, 45 Newbury Street, Suite 201, Boston, MA 02116. Tel: (617) 421-1630, Fax: (617) 421-1636.
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