SHOOT!!!

Script, Schedules, Budgets, Financing Plans, Marketing Plans, Cash Flows, Creative Packages, Synopsis, Sell Sheets, Script Rewrites, Location Scouting, Casting, Crewing, Contracting, Distribution Numbers, Phone Calls, Meetings, Networking, Brainstorming, Sell, Sell, SELL!! 

Eventually... one must shout the most daunting of words…SHOOT!!!!

For me, it’s music to my ears…The song goes like this… “Stand by…Quiet Please, Roll Sound!” … “Speed”.  “Roll Camera”… “Frame”. …. “Aaand… ACTION”!

FINALLY I will be back in my world. The set is where I’ve grown up and where I’m most comfortable. I belong in the world of lights and grip-stands, actors and lenses. I love the long hours and extreme tension, the drama, the dance of equipment and creative personalities.  It’s where we all work to create something fantastic. A film.

We are pleased to announce that ROCK BOTTOM will SHOOT in February!  

THE RAVEN AND THE EAGLE

I’ve just returned from shooting in the Haida Gwaii (Canada’s stunning Queen Charlotte Islands). This is the wild country where ravens and eagles, whales and sea lions compete for our attentions and food. A dreamy, wind torn part of the country where an isolated society, not unlike the futuristic world of Rock Bottom exists. Go backwards to find the future.  The raven and eagle clans of the Haida aboriginal people impart age old wisdoms to us as we film a documentary and I understand that my sojourn away from Rock Bottom is a gift.

 

The desolation of the Haida Gwaii islands makes for a creative and one might say “wiley” people.  They save everything. Recycle, reuse. Invent. It’s difficult to get supplies on or off the islands and I think about Rock Bottom’s cut off society. How the design of the picture will incorporate reused & recycled materials, no plastic (my own injection) so bits of glass or metal become buttons, jewelry or weapons.  How our characters have squirreled away anything that might be useful or at least tradable. Money holds no importance (again) – like the old days it’s “things” that denote power. And so Blake’s black market business thrives and creates the raven and the eagle mentality fighting for food, power and our attentions. 

THE SOUND OF MUSIC - ROCK BOTTOM

The dawn to dusk sound of the helicopters never let us forget the fire drama outside. Reminds me of the great Robert Altman movie “Shorts”, (one of my all time favs).  In that movie, like my life these days, the helicopters hold the intertwining stories together. A must see!  

I’m working on the storyboards for the film and those choppers are my sound track.  Our latest coup for Rock Bottom came yesterday when the GREAT Ennio Morricone gave us a vote of confidence. He’s composed music for over 500 films from the iconic The Good Bad and the Ugly to Cinema Paradiso , (one of the best movies of all time) to the upcoming Brian DePalma film, Capone Rising. Mr. Morricone is a huge proponent of Indi-film (yeah A HERO!) He loves our script and will discuss composing our theme when our fine cut is complete. Rock ON Rock Bottom!!! 

A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words

In the movie business there's a rule that you NEVER show AND tell, it's show OR tell! So...there you have it. 

Glen and I, like Jake and Alex in Rock Bottom will never forget the night our world burned. The Bright Light, Rock Bottom's apocalypse, should be embedded in the souls of our characters. We filmed and photographed the fires across the lake for reference material for our actors and for the PREQUEL which we have planned (after a few Sequel's of course). Rock Bottom's post apocalyptic world SURELY will entice viewers to wanting more!!!

THE DRAMA CONTINUES Rock Bottom

Don’t give it all away; spin the story out slowly…give tidbits for people to chew on before you give them the whole meal. Keep the mystery. Let the audience wonder “what the hell’s going on”. Keep them guessing, then surprise them or reward them with an “ahah!” moment. Intrigue makes for good drama.

We’re experiencing this first hand as the “authorities” tout that our fire is 90% contained. It ‘s been downgraded to a “ground fire”. “All is good”…Then why the HELL did the glow across the lake turn into fireballs in the wee hours of this morning? We watched as hundreds of trees “candled” (the comfortable, spin-doctored word for “exploding into flame”). Candling is the most dangerous and out of control type of forest fire there is. We watched until 3:00AM as towering plumes of fire ate their way down the hill. Our view will never be the same.

Today, not a word from the media about what has changed, or what is coming…Usually the pressed shirts are pretty good at fear mongering. But so far today …silence…Except mind you, the CONSTANT growl of water-bombers and the movie-familiar chop-chop of helicopters that exude a sense of panic in the smoky afternoon.

With all the mystery, I’ve got to tell you we’ve been glued to the binoculars and the internet forum where people like us are twittering and conjecturing about what they’ve witnessed. The drama is unfolding and we wonder why no one is telling us “what the hell is going on”. We are rapt…tense. So taking a lesson from the information police we put on our writer’s caps and do another tweak of the Rock Bottom script. Play with the tension, draw out the intrigue. Make it ebb and flow like the flames and smoke dancing above us.

Post Apocalyptic ROCK BOTTOM

GENRE: Post Apocalyptic Industrial Noir (P.A.I.N.) ...and a PAIN it is to get movies made these days! A producer friend of mine likens film making with learning how to strum her new guitar, "down, down, up, down"... indeed.

Ups and downs, fact and fiction, heroes and villains all bubble together to wind out a helluva story.

On the fact front... our fires are being contained. Calm is restored. 4500 hectares still smolder in the blistering sun. 200 heroes are still working, digging, dumping, flying. We are safe...for now.

Jake and Alex's post apocalyptic world may never be safe. "Power loathes a vacuum" and villains and scoundrels rise up after the "Bright Light" to fill the void.

ROCK BOTTOM takes place in 2040 after the Bright Light. Glen and I have imagined what this would be...NOTE: when you're writing, as in real life, all the characters have complex back-stories which we invent; so we know who they are, where they came from, what shaped them...This helps in the writing/directing process to know how that person will react in a situation and why...Because our story takes place in a future world we began with the back story of the times...

BACK STORY: 2010 – 2035. The world was being ruled by super-powers. Those who controlled oil ran the world. Later, it was wars waged for water. Humanity was buckling under over population and need versus supply. Prices for necessities sky rocketed, wages lowered due to competition for jobs. People worked 24/7 just trying to provide for their families. Crime was rampant; the poor trying to survive, the wealthy trying to stay on top...They didn’t have time to fight the world’s injustices being dealt out by the few. As Jake says, "you can't have one self righteous body telling the world what to do without some sort of cataclysmic retaliation".

THE BRIGHT LIGHT 2035 -was an explosion of unimaginable proportions. Wars for water around the globe ended in a new, bigger than nuclear weapon being used and the chain reaction it caused was catastrophic. Whole cities and countries were knocked out. Satellites were downed. Centers where governments ruled from were flattened. Those who survived were not in big cities and had no communication, no transportation. Connecting roads were destroyed. No airplanes or trains. TV, radio and the internet are things of the past. The little surviving cosmos all over the planet were cut off from the rest of the world. The sick, the very young and the elderly in these towns died quickly. Being cut off meant no medical supplies get in or out. Everyone lost someone. This left a society made up of strong bodied but desperate and lonely people. And these are our characters. Welcome to Rock Bottom's world of P.A.I.N.

ROCK BOTTOM LIFE IMITATES ART

Photo by Mike Prokopetz

Surreal is an understatement. After a quiet day, Glen (co-writer of Rock Bottom) and I are again besieged. Like Jake and Alex in the movie, the shoot out begins again. We are armed with stills, video cameras and binoculars. The weather and the story’s again taken a turn for the worst.

Lightning flashes, winds pick up, waves crash, helicopters drone. Three choppers with buckets rush across the lake to put out a new fire. Two behind us hover over cherry orchards drying the cherries after a wicked storm. Both, in this area of fruit and fire, are equally important.

CTV has set up camp in our driveway, directly over our house. They have realized what we have known all along... that we have the BEST view on the action.

A water-bomber crashed into the lake in front of our beach-house today…the pilot made it out with cuts and bruises…the plane did not.  One of our heroes is downed. What will happen next? Stay tuned as Rock Bottom rockets towards pre-production!

ROCK BOTTOM HEROES

We’re debating/discussing possible cast for Rock Bottom, a difficult task under the best of circumstances but the fire across the way and the Waldo Pepper atmosphere outside make it hard to concentrate. For those of you that don’t remember, Waldo Pepper is still one of the greatest airplane/flying movies ever made. Starring Robert Redford, check it out.

The sounds outside creep in.  High-powered airplane engines roar their demands for attention. Police boat sirens wail as they try to keep the jet skis from crossing in front of the planes. While a 15,000 foot plume of smoke rises from the forest fire burning just a long lens shot away. A hundred million bits of ash that I can’t help but think were part of a forest just yesterday.

Jake’s our hero in Rock Bottom. A man you’d “ride the river with”. Yeah he’s got some problems, big ones but he’s the kinda guy you’d leave your six year old with if you were diagnosed with inoperable pink eye.

So we mix a little fiction with reality tonight. Faceless heroes outside our door are risking their lives to save the homes and lives of others, people they don’t even know. To truly connect on an emotional level with a hero, that hero has to be either someone we’d love to be or someone we’d never ever want to be. Most importantly they have to be flawed. Why? Because we’re flawed and deep down every one of us wants to be a hero.

Tonight we watch…and we wait. Eventually we’ll sleep but not really. Subconsciously we thank every one of those firefighters, whether on the ground or in the air for their efforts. Every one of them is flawed in some way I’d bet, but every one of them I’d ride the river with.

ROCK BOTTOM FRONT ROW SEATS

As we discus casting for Rock Bottom... the calvary has arrived in the form of 6 water bombers who swoop over our house, scoop into the water and drop their "load" onto the "out of control" fire site across the lake. We have front row seats to this drama as the police boats race up and down ticketing curious and callous boaters who get in the water-bombers way. The noise of planes, helicopters and sirens make one feel the fear of war and the exhilarating emotion of hope.  Dahnt, dant, dah dah, da! Dahnt, dant, dah dah, da! You can hear the theme music. You can feel the goosebumps. The planes soar, dunk and drop. Hope. Revenge. Redemption. We will win! The climax to a great movie. 

ROCK BOTTOM ON FIRE!

photo by Kelly Hayes www.castanet.net

Difficult to concentrate on movie making today. The sunlight is orange, the smoke so thick. Ash is falling and covering everything. The fire across the lake grew overnight from 2000 to 4000 hectares. The fire has topped the mountain and is tumbling towards us. From our deck we can now see the flames. The community directly across the lake is being evacuated as we speak. Our lake is a mile wide and I’m wondering if a fire can jump that far. I’m sprinkling the lawn to diminish the chances of falling embers that might come our way.  The roof is next. How strange.

The radio reports we’re going to get a thunderstorm. “Thank God” I say, “Rain”! But I’m wrong… with thunderstorms comes lightning, of course, and with this one, 70km/hr winds.  Lunch for our fire to dine upon.

In the meantime I’m trying to work. Outside of this community no one knows or cares about the fantastic light, the choking smoke, my sore throat. I try not to be looking through the binoculars at the fire while I’m on the phone with Toronto, Vancouver and LA. With phone to my ear I drag the sprinkler to another spot and try to concentrate on our discussions of financing. Movie making hell.  

RED HOT ROCK BOTTOM!

Heavy smoke hangs over the city tonight. It’s calm. The stars come and go as smoke swirls overhead. The horizon glows in the distance. We have had a red sun for 2 days now. Hazy beams of light reflect off the water dancing orange at high noon. Ash falls like snow. The radio blares reports. Helicopters and water bombers drone. It’s 35 degrees celsius. It smells fantastically like a campfire...comfortable.  

3 massive forest fires burn around the city. 11,000 people have been evacuated from their homes. Buildings have burned but the “authorities” won’t say how many so as not to create a panic. Two of the fires are designated “out of control” with zero containment. The last reports say over 1800 hectares of land are burning. Highways are closed. Nobody gets in or out. 

We are safe in our little beach house and I can’t help but think of ROCK BOTTOM’S post apocalyptic world. Is this what it was like just after their “bright light”? Remember this. The red light. The smoke. The fear. The beauty. 

NEO NOIR ROCK BOTTOM

Rock Bottom is set in 2040 in a post-apocolyptic world where the "bright light" has destroyed satellites, cut off cities and now only scattered elements of technology remain. The design swings from 1940's tommy guns and fedoras to futuristic under-garments, highpowed lazer guns and spy drones zipping overhead. 

SYNOPSIS:  Blood, Bullets, Booze and Broads. This neo-noir action comedy’s set in the not-to-distant-future after an apocalyptic event’s knocked out satellites, governance and ideas of right and wrong. Our hero Jake sets out to bring down bad-guy Blake who's running this town with illegal booze and guns. Enroute Jake stops in a bar for a shot of courage and gets caught in a crossfire protecting a gang of cagey misfits. As he tries to figure out who’s after whom and why, the stakes and the body count rise. Meanwhile he’s falling for Alex who says she’s a reporter, but she shoots like Jesse James, sings like Billy Holiday and has a body to die for...and he just might.

ROCK BOTTOM is a modern Film Noir action caper. Casablanca meets Kill Bill. 

Produced by Bernie Melanson, co-written and directed by Wendy Ord

Stay tuned for updates as we head in pre-production: We'll be announcing our shoot dates and our fabulous cast soon! 

Rock On Rock Bottom!

Hey All, 

As the co-writer, director and co-producer of ROCK BOTTOM the movie, I'm beginning this blog to keep a record of the day to day workings of making a mega movie hit, (we HOPE)! 

Rock Bottom has been in development for about two years...but now we are close to being "greenlit" (green for money) and it's getting EXCITING! There's too much to tell about what has gone on to this point but suffice it to say that "Development Hell" is called that for a reason. ASIDE: someone once said that making a movie is NOT all about opening night. You've got to enjoy the ride cause there may never be an opening night! We take that to heart as we "enjoy the ride" (ie; laugh or cry) EVERY day in development. 

Rock Bottom is a NEO NOIR action comedy. The script is getting great reviews and shortly I'll post a synopsis and so forth. It's HOT! It's FUN! It WILL be a hit. ASIDE: one must believe this of their projects OR ELSE ... it will never get made! We have gotten so many people telling us that they're in LOVE with the script that we finally must admit...it's pretty good - damn it!  

First rule of filmmaking (or maybe second) : NEEDED: A GREAT script and, tho' it's hard to remember at times, YOU must LOVE it and BELIEVE in it! Okay....that's today...I'll write more tomorrow and till then...Rock ON ....ROCK BOTTOM!