Extreme Bromance: Finding the Star

When I finished the script back in the day, I never knew if I would even make it. There is a huge difference from just writing a flick to actually making it and casting was something I didn't really think about. Except for the lead. From day one I knew who I would have star in it. In fact, I wrote it with him in mind. That man is named Ben Banks.

Ain't that a sweet slab-o-man?

We always wanted to work together on a project that was bigger than us just dicking around on a camera. Such as this classic that truly showcases our talents and the whole department:

When I finished writing the script all that time ago, I felt a little embaressed about showing him a movie that I wrote with him in mind as the lead. I mean, he starred in a movie named after him for God's sake! With a nervous pit in my stomach, I gave him in the script to read. He came back to me within a few days and not only liked the story, but was pumped to work on it. This helped me feel at ease. In some ways, it made me feel better about the project. If I could get a guy like Ben on my side, then it was a great step in the right direction. Ben Banks and I talked about the project on and off for the last two years. It was something we always wanted to do, but always felt like a pipe dream.

Enter Senior Capstone.

Over the course of my college career, I went back and forth on capstone ideas. I think One of the Good Guys (OotGG) was always the project I wanted to do, but I never thought it would happen. When the second to my last semester rolled around and I still didn't have an idea of what to do, it was my teacher Ben Braten who suggested that I work on OotGG. I thought it about it for a while and after having a talk with Mr. Banks, who agreed to commit to the project, it was on. Figured what do I have to lose? I am in college and this the best time to try to make a movie like this.

Once it was decided, Ben Banks and I started working on it. We met multiple times to talk about his character, Caleum Crow, and the motivations behind his actions. Ben gave me many great suggestions on what he wanted to bring to the character and I re-wrote aspects of the script to accommodate. Caleum was becoming Ben and Ben was becoming Caleum. To help Ben, I even wrote a detailed back story of his character's life and family. I felt that was the least I could do to help Ben get into character and for the fact that he was donating his time to a project that will probably never make any of us any cash.

Having Ben Banks on board has boosted my confidence in not only OotGG, but in my abilities as a director and writer. This has truly become a collaborative process. I look forward to working on this project more and more even though it fills me with dread. Good thing Benny is my leading man. I honestly don't think this project would work without him. 

Such a class act this guy.

Making Movies, Telling Stories

So it has been a while, but I am here to update. For the next little while I will be updating this blog for my senior capstone. The reason being is that the upper ups of our college feel that the capstones that our department (which is film) produces (we make movies) are not as good as a research paper, cutting a cadaver open or whatever the nerds in math do. I was asked, along with a number of my peers, to keep a log of what we are doing to make these projects come to fruition. This will be my personal experience of working on my senior capstone project. 

I have actually been working on my capstone, on and off, for about a year and a half. My project is a movie I wrote entitles 'One of the Good Guys.' It is a story about one man's loss of family and his journey to fill the that void. He finds this solace in a criminal organization who fulfill that family need.  The hero then begins to compromise his values to fit into this surrogate family. The premise was taken from bits of my own life and the life of my father's and the original draft was written two summers ago in about three days. As of December 15th, 2013 I have rewritten and edited the script. It is an ever changing piece of work that will, I am guessing, be worked on till the day the movie is finished.

This is just the first entry to what I believe will be a long road. It has already been pretty tough and will only get tougher. This project has stretched my limits as a student, an artist and a filmmaker, but I know it will be worth it.