FILMMAKER MAGAZINE | Fall 1997: PRODUCTION UPDATE

PRODUCTION UPDATE

Alexander Hennech arrives on the feature scene with Smart Money, a stylish drama about a 21-year-old bookie trying to rechannel his gambling expertise into a new career on Wall Street. Jimmy tells himself he'll keep taking bets just long enough to make the $50,000 it takes to buy a starter seat on the New York Futures Exchange. But when a minor Mafia thug muscles in on his boss, the walls start closing in, and when the cops show up somebody's got to take the rap.

Hennech, 34, grew up in Manhattan's Chelsea and spent his early 20s playing professional backgammon; he says Smart Money's based on his experiences. A City College degree in finance got him to Wall Street as a floor trader, but he decided his future lay in film and headed west in '91. With one short -- '93's The Messenger -- under his belt, he took all the p.a. and a.c. work he could get and parlayed that into a 44-episode stint editing and sometimes directing a syndicated documentary series, Behind Bars. "I learned how to shoot 15 pages in a day and picked up a lot of low-budget tricks," he says. With the t.v. footage bolstering his reel, he took Smart Money's script to Wall Street and used his contacts there to put together the cash half of a budget he says probably tops out just under seven figures. Though the film's set in New York, Hennech says when he found out Martin Scorsese shot three quarters of Mean Streets in L.A., he decided it made sense to go that route because of all the favors he could call in. He saved more money when Kodak slapped a 50 percent discount on the due-to-be-discontinued 7287 stock he'd chosen for its low saturation. Smart Money shot 18 days last July, including a down-and-dirty final three days in New York to capture Wall Street, Soho, Little Italy, Battery Park and the meat-packing district exteriors plus a Lincoln Tunnel chase scene. Hennech chose a design team from the resume books at IFP/West and rented a local still photography studio for a week to shoot scenes in a police station, blackjack club and bookie office. At press time he was in Las Vegas paying off his lab fees by producing lifestyle pieces for a local cable channel, Player's Network. He'll premiere a finished film at the IFFM and recently engaged Reel Power author Mark Litwak as producer's rep. All rights are available.

Cast: Santio East, Bobby Kaman, Samuel Dobbins, Lira Angel, Thomas A. Humes, Alex Demir, James Kissane. Crew: Producers, Alex Hennech, Sherry Preston; Screenwriter/ Director, Hennech; Director of Photo-graphy, John Tarver; Production Designer, Macie Vener; Editor, David Bret Egen. Contact: Mark Litwak, 9595 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 711, Beverly Hills, CA 90212. Tel: (310) 859-9595, Fax: (310) 859-0806.

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