My filmmaking experience has knocked me out of my comfort zone. Currently, I am a co-producer on a feature film project titled Prettyface that is in pre-production. Because filmmaking is collaborative by nature, I am one of many “artists” working on this project hoping to get it realized. I have found that being a producer requires a strange cocktail of qualities like patience, creativity, intuition, diplomacy, and the need to be a perpetual optimist. I believe that the best producers are artists and that their taste and choices impact every aspect of the filmmaking art. The art making process for a movie is different than anything I have experienced before.
As with all films, the project begins with a concept, an idea that develops into a script. The film’s very talented director and writer Jessica Janos has written a compelling and unique script that has proven to be very attractive to actors. Prettyface is set in 1969 Chatsworth, California when that area of Los Angeles was sparsely populated and was mostly chaparral, horse trails, and dry creek beds. Two fifteen-year-old girls, best friends but very different from each other, are the main protagonists. “Jenna” has no father in her life and a mostly absent and “skanky” mother. She has street smarts and the soul of a poet. Her neighbor and friend “Marlena,” is from a loving nuclear family but she is very naïve, square, and religious. While the girls are riding horses in the nearby brush country, one of their horses runs off. They are intent on getting the horse back. A good-looking young man on horseback comes upon them and offers to help find their horse. He also invites them to a party that he and his friends are having that evening at an old deserted movie ranch. Naïve “Marlena” is up for it but “Jenna” is wary and only agrees to go when the boy says it is the best place to find the lost horse. It turns out that this is actually the Spahn ranch, the temporary hangout of the Manson family. This is not a story of the famous Tate- LaBianca murders, but the events that happen to the girls during the next several hours are the crux of the story and their lives will be changed forever.
A great thing about filmmaking is that each new project allows you to immerse yourself in some new era, place, and culture. Working on Prettyface, I had to learn about the sixties, a sex, drugs, and rock and roll period. The most daunting job so far has been the casting process. Daveigh Chase and Lorraine Nicholson have been chosen to play the fifteen-year-old girl characters. The casting of the role of “Charlie” was the most difficult. He needed to be someone unconventional, and Jessica had a brilliant idea, Flea, The bass player of the Red Hot Chili Peppers (who incidentally is now studying composition at the USC’s School of Music.) Flea looks exactly like the real Charles Manson. Though primarily a musician, he has acted in several good films with top directors such as the Coen Brothers, Tim Burton, and Gus Van Zandt.
My experience on this film has illuminated a whole part of the filmmaking process that was new to me and will be invaluable in my career. The very nature of filmmaking is a collaborative effort, very different from an individual artist creating by himself.
Prettyface is hoping to begin shooting Summer 2009 and be released 2010.
http://www.prettyfacemovie.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/PRETTYFACE-The-Movie/51095864340
Alexander Roos Extra Credit #1-Ass. 2, 4-15-09
1 comment:
“A great thing about filmmaking is that each new project allows you to immerse yourself in some new era, place, and culture.”
I feel so too! I am constantly obsessed with different cultures or periods of time. When in times I’m obsessed with British culture, my friends would hear me practice British accent a lot. Sometimes I’m into Japanese culture so I watch a lot of Japanese movies, eat a lot of Sushi, change my computer wallpaper to one or two Japanese style graphic, and even sometimes try to dress in Tokyo streetstyle. It may sound crazy but that’s how I always want to immerse myself to things I like because these obsessions keep me inspired and energetic about my artwork. And that’s the fun thing about filmmaking. It allows us to completely involve in cultures, place, and times that may even effect or change our own lives after we finish a day’s filming. The feeling is just wonderful!
It is really awesome that you have a chance to realize and actually experience the working process of a film producer, how to immerge yourself to the collaborative work and how to achieve excellence in the process before step out of school.
I really look forward for this movie! ☺
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