Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Finding a Crystal in the rough.
Crystal Green was a character I had created over a 10 year period. During those years, her personality has changed and she has grown into a woman whom the audience will have a strong opinion about. When it came time to cast, I had an idea of who I wanted for Crystal, but knew it wasn't as easy as wearing a bra on my head and creating some Weird Science.
When Peace & Riot was released to various casting services, our production team was swamped with over two thousand submissions. Our Casting Associate extraordinaire, Alysia Hudson worked with me and the other producers to come up with a list of possible matches. Alysia contacted managers and agents of hopefuls. Unknown productions set up an open audition at my friend Mike Skelton's office to begin working on the heart of our production: finding Crystal.
That weekend, a group of producers watched prospective Crystals enter, give their best impression of the character, and leave. After each girl left, a round table discussion followed.
We needed someone with talent. Crystal goes through a collection of emotions and interactions with various characters throughout the film. Second, she had to have the look, not only did she have to have the “pretty face,” but she had to be a girl that wouldn’t mind crashing on a couch or drinking from the carton. Lastly, I wanted to see how she took stage directions, since I knew we were going to be on a tight shooting schedule, and I needed someone who could react quickly to direction.
Of the thirty-plus actresses who read, we narrowed the field to about a dozen possible Crystals for call backs the following weekend. We set up a video camera, and I included two females in our round table to rule out male bias of one girl over another. We wanted Crystal to be rooted for by her own gender. All the girls who got called back had the look and the ability, what we were looking for now was at personality. On first audition, an actor might get four minutes in front of the table, the second time around we might keep a lady in for twenty minutes.
Although we disagreed on our secondary picks, everyone agreed on feisty and young Anna Pheil. It was obvious that Anna was the girl who would gladly hop on a bus to play her guitar in Omaha for one adoring fan, or the girl the ladies invited to a baby shower to turn it into a party. Her presence screamed Crystal Green.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Taking the Quiet out of Peace & Riot.
Music has been a part of Peace & Riot since the first draft. And just as the story has changed so has the sound track. To understand how the music got where it is today, you have to travel back in time.
So hop in the DeLorean and fire up the flux capacitor cause we’re heading to a cul-de-sac in Simi Valley, CA circa 1986.
Best known for the Rodney King trial and not the birthplace of totally rad music, Simi Valley was just another suburb of Los Angeles, even less cool then the San Fernando Valley. It was here that a young white kid going to Catholic school tried to relate to RUN-DMC’s Raising Hell. These beat educated me. I knew all about the streets of New York City, and to my parents delight, could also recite the lyrics to Proud to Be Black better then the Periodic Table of the Elements.
The summer before the 7th grade I saw Another State of Mind, a documentary about a music revolution that was taking place just fifty miles from my hometown. Youth Brigade, Social Distortion and Minor Threat showed the world that there was a punk rock music movement taking place in America. These guys weren’t singing about their tennis shoes or about how someone was “illin…” They were singing about the social apocalypse. Their songs were about those dick heads in the park that were throwing rocks at us kids. The lyrics spoke about how authority, be it your parents or your school, tried to control you – from your clothes, to where you could ride a skateboard. But Punk Rock wasn’t just about negativity, it also had a fun-loving, comedic and intelligent side to it, the recipe for something amazing.
Staying up late on Sunday nights, I could listen to Rodney on The Roq broadcast from KROQ (Los Angeles). Rodney Bingenheimer was a maverick in the radio industry and is often given credit for bringing the world new bands. His contribution to punk rock is immeasurable. I wasn’t able to be at the epicenter of this revolt, but I could listen to it.
Half way through the 7th grade I moved to Phoenix, Arizona. I was forced into one of those after school specials: the skater kid from California left to fend in a cruel and callous world. It was a cross between Footloose and Gleaming the Cube. In this burning hot, concrete covered town, jocks ruled and they hated the punks and skaters.
Eventually I moved from Phoenix to live with my dad on Silver Strand Beach in Oxnard, California. There, I would develop my love for Nardcore.
Nardcore (Oxnard and Hardcore) was a music scene in Ventura County. It was not just the music that made Nardcore, but the fans--a tight community of young adults and teens that supported live music, not only with their dollars but with their energy. These kids would pass out flyers, buy merchandise, and dance hard. Outside bands took notice and soon we had groups from Los Angeles and all around the country playing our town. It was a great time to be a teenager with a heart for this type of music.
In college I got a job as a security officer with Golden Voice, a concert promoter in Los Angeles. While studying screenwriting by day, I was spending nights in the barricade for such bands as NOFX, The Offspring, Pennywise, The Toy Dolls, Youth Brigade, Guttermouth, H20, Henry Rollins, Social Distortion, and ex Sex Pistol himself -Johnny Rotten (Lydon). My college education wasn’t just in film writing, but music performing.
That’s where the music in Peace & Riot originated.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Fade In
Thank you for your interest in Peace & Riot. I'm not sure how you
found out about our production, but I'm glad you can join me on this
fantastic journey.
It started over a decade ago after countless nights of frustration.
In 1999, I was living in a single apartment on Sunset and Gardner at
the border of Hollywood and West Hollywood. I had just graduated
college and was working days in the mailroom at New Line Cinema and
nights as security at The Palace (now The Avalon and under new
ownership). I took these jobs to survive while I pursued my dream of
becoming a screenwriter.
This small bachelor unit had a nice sized kitchen and a full bathroom,
but it was also adjacent to an outdoor picnic table that the my
neighbors liked to use at all hours of the night. These assholes would
sit outside my window until the early morning, smoking, drinking,
laughing, doing various drugs, and crying. I would have complained to
the apartment manager, but she was one of the main culprits.
The noise got pretty bad. At one point I tried to insulate my windows,
but it was useless because the outside noise would pass through the
glass, through the insulation, and even earplugs.
Since I couldn't sleep, I stayed up all night writing.
One of the scripts I wrote during this time was called Peace & Quiet.
It was about an author, Darren (played by yours truly), who decided to
take a working vacation where the mountains meet the sea: Big Sur,
California. Little did Darren know that the rental was a duplex and
the other unit would be occupied by a beautiful young cello player and
college student named Laura.
Darren was there to transcribe a piece of horribly written pulp
fiction by Armstrong Havelstein, while Laura was in Big Sur to sharpen
her cello playing skills, hoping to be accepted to a fine symphony
orchestra.
Laura was dating her college professor who wasn't able to join her in
Big Sur (and who was banging other chicks), and Darren was a single,
lonely writer.
Darren doesn't get much transcribing done as he is constantly
interrupted by the lady with whom he shares a common wall. It is
further complicated when we discover Darren has the only working phone
in the duplex (not many of us had cell phones back in 1999) so Laura
would be bothering Darren to call her boyfriend. The two would bicker
and fight but eventually work things out.
Peace & Quiet was one of my earlier screenplays and it showed. I
completed it and submitted it to New Line Cinema.
They ripped it to pieces.
In fact, everything I wrote was shredded by studio readers. So like
all my other masterpieces, after I finished Peace & Quiet, I put it
away for a few years to collect dust on a three-and-a-half inch floppy
disk.
I would continue work during the day at New Line Cinema and write
screenplays at night. I wasn’t getting promoted out of the mailroom,
so I continued to write and rewrite hoping that my passion would lead
found out about our production, but I'm glad you can join me on this
fantastic journey.
It started over a decade ago after countless nights of frustration.
In 1999, I was living in a single apartment on Sunset and Gardner at
the border of Hollywood and West Hollywood. I had just graduated
college and was working days in the mailroom at New Line Cinema and
nights as security at The Palace (now The Avalon and under new
ownership). I took these jobs to survive while I pursued my dream of
becoming a screenwriter.
This small bachelor unit had a nice sized kitchen and a full bathroom,
but it was also adjacent to an outdoor picnic table that the my
neighbors liked to use at all hours of the night. These assholes would
sit outside my window until the early morning, smoking, drinking,
laughing, doing various drugs, and crying. I would have complained to
the apartment manager, but she was one of the main culprits.
The noise got pretty bad. At one point I tried to insulate my windows,
but it was useless because the outside noise would pass through the
glass, through the insulation, and even earplugs.
Since I couldn't sleep, I stayed up all night writing.
One of the scripts I wrote during this time was called Peace & Quiet.
It was about an author, Darren (played by yours truly), who decided to
take a working vacation where the mountains meet the sea: Big Sur,
California. Little did Darren know that the rental was a duplex and
the other unit would be occupied by a beautiful young cello player and
college student named Laura.
Darren was there to transcribe a piece of horribly written pulp
fiction by Armstrong Havelstein, while Laura was in Big Sur to sharpen
her cello playing skills, hoping to be accepted to a fine symphony
orchestra.
Laura was dating her college professor who wasn't able to join her in
Big Sur (and who was banging other chicks), and Darren was a single,
lonely writer.
Darren doesn't get much transcribing done as he is constantly
interrupted by the lady with whom he shares a common wall. It is
further complicated when we discover Darren has the only working phone
in the duplex (not many of us had cell phones back in 1999) so Laura
would be bothering Darren to call her boyfriend. The two would bicker
and fight but eventually work things out.
Peace & Quiet was one of my earlier screenplays and it showed. I
completed it and submitted it to New Line Cinema.
They ripped it to pieces.
In fact, everything I wrote was shredded by studio readers. So like
all my other masterpieces, after I finished Peace & Quiet, I put it
away for a few years to collect dust on a three-and-a-half inch floppy
disk.
I would continue work during the day at New Line Cinema and write
screenplays at night. I wasn’t getting promoted out of the mailroom,
so I continued to write and rewrite hoping that my passion would lead
to my big break. Five or six years pushing a cart and dragging
around boxes is discouraging, but being from Southern California, I
couldn’t just quit and go home… I was already home.
A few years later, I decided to rework Peace & Quiet. I added comedy
into the romance, granted I wasn’t trying to turn it into a
gross-out-comedy, but just make it more pleasant to read.
The first thing I did was toss Laura's cello. What’s fun about a
cello? They are clunky, seem like a pain in the ass to lug around and
their sound just doesn’t appeal to me. But if I could put a guitar in
her hands, now that’s tits. I apologize to all cello players –
consider it an uniformed opinion. As I don’t dig accordions either
but I have much respect for the king of the accordion; Weird Al.
Laura was no longer Laura, but Crystal Green, a punk rock singer with
her middle finger aimed at life's nay-sayers. And Crystal wasn't
dating the music professor; she was now dating the suave record
producer.
Darren needed to change, too. He became Scott. Forget about Armstrong
Havelstein, Scott needed a crap job and a dream. Scott was now a
veteran writing a novel about his service in the Iraq War.
The script went through dozens of changes. Rather than having them in
a duplex, they were double booked in the same cabin. Living together
would speed things up and cause more interactions. The cabin moved
from the beach to a lake, taking Crystal and Scott further into
isolation and creating a dependence on each other for companionship.
A few years and many drafts later I was trying to pitch the idea to an
assistant at New Line Cinema, Albert Acosta. He seemed to dig the
idea of these two opposites sharing close quarters. I told him about
my dream cast, some heavy hitters in the indie film world. He took
one look at the title page and said, “It sounds more like Peace and
Riot.” I agreed.
It's the first week of October and I still have a lot more to talk
about before we get shooting.
Join me.
around boxes is discouraging, but being from Southern California, I
couldn’t just quit and go home… I was already home.
A few years later, I decided to rework Peace & Quiet. I added comedy
into the romance, granted I wasn’t trying to turn it into a
gross-out-comedy, but just make it more pleasant to read.
The first thing I did was toss Laura's cello. What’s fun about a
cello? They are clunky, seem like a pain in the ass to lug around and
their sound just doesn’t appeal to me. But if I could put a guitar in
her hands, now that’s tits. I apologize to all cello players –
consider it an uniformed opinion. As I don’t dig accordions either
but I have much respect for the king of the accordion; Weird Al.
Laura was no longer Laura, but Crystal Green, a punk rock singer with
her middle finger aimed at life's nay-sayers. And Crystal wasn't
dating the music professor; she was now dating the suave record
producer.
Darren needed to change, too. He became Scott. Forget about Armstrong
Havelstein, Scott needed a crap job and a dream. Scott was now a
veteran writing a novel about his service in the Iraq War.
The script went through dozens of changes. Rather than having them in
a duplex, they were double booked in the same cabin. Living together
would speed things up and cause more interactions. The cabin moved
from the beach to a lake, taking Crystal and Scott further into
isolation and creating a dependence on each other for companionship.
A few years and many drafts later I was trying to pitch the idea to an
assistant at New Line Cinema, Albert Acosta. He seemed to dig the
idea of these two opposites sharing close quarters. I told him about
my dream cast, some heavy hitters in the indie film world. He took
one look at the title page and said, “It sounds more like Peace and
Riot.” I agreed.
It's the first week of October and I still have a lot more to talk
about before we get shooting.
Join me.
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