Ping Pong Summer
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“Wait, That’s Your Dream Project?”: Michael Tully on Ping Pong Summer
Summer, 1985: Casey Kasem is on the radio and mastering the moonwalk is a must. Radford “Rad” Miracle (Marcello Conte) has to go on family vacation with his patient mom (Lea Thompson), sneeringly cool goth sister Michelle (Helena May Seabrook), and cheapskate cop dad (John Hannah), who insists on driving to Ocean City, Maryland in his police car to save money. All Rad wants to do is play ping pong, get cooler, and get the girl, but the local rich kid bullies are an impediment. Can Rad up his ping pong craft enough to beat them? And what’s up with […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jun 6, 2014 -
Creating Memphis and Ping Pong Summer: An Interview with Production Designer Bart Mangrum
This is not production designer Bart Mangrum’s first movie at the Sundance Film Festival. He designed Septien (2011, directed by Michael Tully) and I Used To Be Darker (2013, directed by Matt Porterfield), and was both an on-set dresser and extra in Stoker (2012, directed by Chan-wook Park). But this is the first time Mangrum has been at Sundance as the production designer of two feature films screening in the same category. Mangrum was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, and still lives there. His father ignited his enthusiasm for art by teaching him how to draw during church around […]
by Alexandra Byer on Jan 20, 2014 -
Five Questions with Ping Pong Summer Director Michael Tully
As much a tribute to the films of the 80s as it is a tribute to the 80s themselves, Michael Tully’s Ping Pong Summer is a strangely sweet, knowingly retro coming-of-age story. Set against the unique and colorful backdrop of 1980s Ocean City, Maryland, the film follows the aptly named Radical Miracle (newcomer Marcello Conte) across a summer of old-school arcade games, teen romance, breakdancing, and of course, plenty of ping pong. Weaving the idiosyncratic style of his previous feature Septien (which premiered at Sundance back in 2011) into a warmer, more universal (yet no less distinctive) tapestry, Tully has […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Jan 18, 2014 -
Ping Pong Summer | Director Michael Tully
Attention, our audience’s and our own — it’s a valued commodity these days. We struggle to command our audience’s attention, for them to discover our work and then, once they’ve discovered it, to actually focus on it. Meanwhile, we struggle to focus our own attention, to fight our society’s weapons of mass distraction so we can not just see our work to completion but fully discover the meanings within it. What role does attention play in your work? Can you discuss an instance where you thought about some aspect of attention when it came to your film? Speaking on broad […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 17, 2014 -
Profiling the SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grant Finalists (Part 3)
Following on from the Bay Area Boom article about the San Francisco Film Society’s Filmmaker360 program, we are profiling the 13 finalists for the SFFS’s Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking grant. The winners of this award will be announced on December 8. SUSAN YOUSSEF AND MAN KIT LAM, MARJOUN AND THE FLYING HEADSCARF Synopsis: With her father imprisoned on dubious terrorism related charges, a Lebanese-American teenager in Arkansas searches for identity in the headscarf and a motorcycle. This feature is an extension of the short by the same name that screened at the Sundance Film Festival. Marjoun and the Flying Headscarf is the first […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Dec 5, 2012 -
In Production: The World’s End, Cheap Thrills, The Angriest Man in Brooklyn and Ping Pong Summer
“In Production” is a regular column which focuses on notable independent films that are currently shooting. If you would like your film to be included in this space, please send an email to nick@filmmakermagazine.com Marking the third installment in his “blood and ice cream” trilogy following the insanely re-watchable Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, writer/director Edgar Wright reteams with co-writer/star Simon Pegg for The World’s End. The film, which follows a group of friends who decide to go on an epic pub-crawl during humanity’s final hours, stars Pegg alongside regular sidekick Nick Frost. The cast also includes Paddy […]
by Byron Camacho on Sep 20, 2012
