On the eve of beginning

Tomorrow, the first of September, we begin work on "The Killers". It's the beginning of the next step in a process that started last December when I first started working on the screenplay that will hopefully end this December when we screen the finished product at Christmas time somewhere downtown.

Why "The Killers"? A few years ago, after my first back surgery, I picked up a complete collection of Hemingway's short stories and began to read through it. The Nick Adams stories were some of the most memorable ones in the set and stayed with me, somewhere in the back of my mind. Since then, I've started on, and abandoned, countless screenplays covering all sorts of material. From a Western, a comedy, a faux-documentary about neurotic superheroes and their shrink, to a teen-thriller influenced by the films of Mario Bava, none of them were able to keep my interest beyond the second act, and none of them were ever finished. I reached a point where I wanted desperately to finally make a film, something other than documentary work involving musicians, but couldn't come up with the perfect story. And then I started to think about adapting something, to take the burden of creating the entire story from scratch and focus on the cinematic elements of filmmaking. Richard Lund and I discussed doing something from HP Lovecraft's works, "The Shadow over Innsmouth" and "The Whisperer in the Darkness" were two leading candidates, but he got engaged and a full-time teaching job and that plan fell to the wayside. Due to financial constraints, the story had to be something I wouldn't have to purchase the rights too, so some of the Jim Thompson works that I wanted to (and still want to) adapt were out of the question. Jim Frank (who will be playing Max) suggested Lermontov's "A Hero of Our Time" and while it's something that I plan on going back and maybe doing in the future, the story didn't feel right at the time. Then I remembered two stories I had read a while back and thought they'd make great films: The Killers by Hemingway, and White Nights by Dosteovski. With the length and internal monologue of "White Nights" presenting a more challenging prospect to adapt, I decided to write a screenplay for "The Killers" and see how I felt about it before deciding if I'd move forward with that or go back and work on "White Nights". As I wrote "The Killers" I was reminded how fun Hem's dialogue is and I started to get all sorts of great ideas for it.

That was 9 months ago. For the last 4 months, a day hasn't gone by where I didn't spend at least a few moments thinking about this story, this film, and how it would all come together. After scouting and scouting and scouting for locations, I finally found a pretty damn good one: the former Bean & Brew coffee house, located on Quay St. downtown Port Huron. Last week, John Eppley (who I call Cousin John, and who's been serving as an assistant director role, helping organizing things, etc.) and I met the owner, Tom, there and we had a good discussion with him. He told us he'd let us use it if we paid for the insurance for the month and covered the electricity bill for the juice we used, both entirely reasonable requests. The building's not entirely what I had in mind as I wrote the screenplay, but the bar/diner top area is pretty close to what I had in mind, so that won't require a whole lot reinvisioning.

As for actors, well Jim Frank and John Lusk were my first choices for the roles of Max and George and both are doing it. For Nick Adams, I didn't really know of anyone that I felt would be able to handle this key role and was worried that I'd have to give it to someone who might be less qualified and just hope. That is, until I found out that Steve Barker was home for the summer from Portland. I've known Steve for almost 10 years and he's a hell of an actor and an all around awesome guy. I asked him if he'd do it and he got excited about the part. For Al, the other hitman, my first choice, Pat Rourke, had agreed to do it,but we couldn't secure a location earlier in the summer and he's now in the process of moving to Chicago. I approached a few other actors about the role, but schedule conflicts kept it open until a brain storming session at the Vintage Tavern last night with Cousin John, his brother, Sadaat (who's going to be my sound engineer) and Corey Kuhr (who wants to help out but lives in Kalamazoo so is limited in what he can do) brought forth the idea of changing the character from a man to a woman. I loved the idea from the moment it came to light. There's an interesting back and forth dynamic between Max and Al. Max is this sort of, psycho killer. He freely talks to George and Nick in an intimidating way, and he's the more insulting of the two. Al's more down to business about things. And why shouldn't a woman be the more grounded of the two? If Max is the loose cannon hitman, the one who usually pulls the trigger, Al is the one who their boss has go with him to keep him in line, to make sure things don't turn into a complete mess. The brains behind the operation. And a woman in that position makes perfect sense. The next question was, did we know any women who could pull off the role of a veteran assasin? The answer: yes! Micki Lepla, our theater director in high school. Micki was like a second (or third) mother to us when we were in drama, but we all learned early on to stay on her good side because she could be down right scary when someone pissed her off. I emailed her the screenplay after talking to her on the phone today, and she seemed quite excited about it, so hopefully she'll give it a read through and agree to do it. Schedule permitting, of course.

Which brings me to one of my key stresses/worries about this whole damn thing. Schedules. Everyone's got a schedule all over. There's only 1 scene that will require Nick Adams, George, Max, Al and Sam the cook. However there are 4 scenes that will require Nick, George, Max and Al and 3 scenes with Nick, Max and Al. There are also 4 scenes that have George and Max in them, each with a walk-on role. I've already got 2 of the 4 walk-on parts cast (Rich Cox will be Joe Smith and Emily Dowd will be playing Married Woman) and I might have Sean Kivel play Angry Man. Which will leave Cab Driver left to cast.
On top of all of this, Steve Barker, who is playing Nick Adams, leaves for Portland in like 3 weeks, so we have to shoot all 15 scenes with him before he leaves. If I don't get those done, the whole thing will be straight up fucked, and I don't want that. I also don't want to have to keep shooting at the Bean & Brew longer than the 2 weeks I told Tom we'd need. So there's lots of pressure to get this all done in that time. Now the whole thing is only 20 pages long (and if 1 page = 1 minute like they say, 20 minutes long) we should easily be able to get it shot in 14 days, but there's still that worry that something will go wrong, someone won't be able to make it, something will happen. Those are all out of my control so I probably shouldn't worry about it, but it's hard not to be a little bit nervous.

And so that's where I find myself the night before we're scheduled to start: nervous but excited as hell. Tomorrow we're going to clean the B&B up and start planning, designing the set. We shouldn't have much work to do, but I'd like to get all of that out of the way by Tuesday. This week I want to shoot all of the scenes of Nick Adams running from the diner to the Swede's apartment. That will leave only 1 set of exterior shots left with Steve Barker to do and those I want to wait until the leaves change a little bit more. Then I hope we're able to get some rehearsing in and Thursday through Sunday I plan on designing, planning and marking the locations of my lighting so that Monday the 8th we're able to start rolling as soon as the actors get on set.

It's been a long journey, from the time I decided I wanted to make films, to today, the eve of finally making a film. It's been 7 long years since Richard and I finished Almost Evil: 665, which is the last time I really finished a project of any large scale, and even that didn't have actors and schedules and scripts to follow, it was all improv. Hopefully this is the beginning of the next phase of my life, no longer having to worry about back problems, beyond the inevitable aches that will be brought on by doing anything for more than a few days in a row. It'll also be a great test to decide if I want to start on my film degree or journalism degree when I get down to the Univeristy of Texas in January. Maybe I'll absolutely hate the process and decide journalism is my schtick. Maybe I'll absolutely love it and find myself feeding off of the energy that comes from getting a handful of people together and making something in a collaborative way, where everyone's throwing ideas around and working off of each other. And that's ultimately what I'm hoping for. I've thought every single shot, edit, line of dialogue and setting through by now, but there's always room for improvement. Just brain-storming last night with the guys created two ideas that I absolutely love for set decorations: the diner to have a painting of the Edmund Fitzgerald ship that will be visible behind Max and Al (love that symbolism!) and The Last Supper painting and a dead plant should be pretty much the extent of set dressing for Ole Andersson's bedroom.

Well, here's hoping all goes smooth and Tom shows up or leaves the key for us. Wouldn't it be just a swift kick in the balls with steel-toed boots if he changed his mind and won't let us use the Bean & Brew? It'd suck, but fuck it, we'd just have to band together and find somewhere else and quick. This project has left the station and there will be no stopping it until it arrives, finished.