FILMMAKER MAGAZINE | Spring 1996: PRODUCTION UPDATE

PRODUCTION UPDATE

First-time director John Werner pulls no punches with Rudy Blue, a drama about oppressive family dynamics and escape's high price.

Rudy Blue's a 30-year-old high school history teacher still living at home in New Jersey with his domineering mother, a self-styled opera diva, and his brother Karl, a concert prodigy until a car accident scrambled his synapses. The crash also killed Rudy's father, a prominent composer, and Rudy has let his sense of culpability - he was behind the wheel - define his life since then. An odd man out in his family for his absence of musical talent, Rudy's acutely aware of his mom's resentment and when the possibility of a way out of his tortured life at home arrives in the form of a romance with the school's sexy new librarian, he makes some choices.

"People can get trapped in situations beyond their control like this," says Werner. "The film's about what happens if you wait too long to take a chance on your life."

At 35, Werner's a seasoned production vet who's mostly made a living writing, directing and producing commercials and promos. After a higher-budget project stalled, he wrote Rudy specifically for locations he knew he could get and an actor, Brian Sullivan, he'd known since film school at the New York Institute of Technology.

Werner and Sullivan put up the bulk of the "under $100,000" to get Rudy Blue in the can on 16mm themselves, and say they'll seek completion financing in post once Werner's wife Barbara, a freelance AVID editor, cuts a trailer. Rudy Blue's 21-day New Jersey shoot began February 12 in Maplewood, New Jersey. The actresses playing Rudy's mom (Lauren Klein) and Eve (Tari Signor) come to the film from off-Broadway's Death Defying Acts; Peter Stebbings, who plays Karl, co-starred in "The X Files" (and stars in the Canadian tv series "Madison"), and Spike Lee regular George Odom, the dad in Straight Out of Brooklyn, has a small role.

Werner's planning to hire musicians to record classical and opera music in the public domain for Rudy's mix and Kenny Musto is scoring blues music. Werner expects to have a rough cut and polished trailer by early April; all rights are available.

Cast: Brian Sullivan, Lauren Klein, Peter Stebbings, Tari Signor, George Odom, Kevin Nagle. Crew: Producers, John Werner, Brian Sullivan, Mary McCarthy, Kevin Hewitt; Associtate Producer, Thomas Werner; Line Producer, John Sullivan; Production Manager, Michael Albanese; Screenwriter/Director, John Werner; Director of Photography, Kevin Hewitt; Production Designer, Isen Robbins; Editor, Barbara Werner; Musical Supervisor, Pete Demeo. Contact: John Werner, Full Moon Films, Inc., 28 Nassau Road, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043. Tel/Fax: (201) 783-5266.

Lewis & Clark & George