Why Abbey Road Crossing Remains a Must-Visit for Beatles Fans.
The Abbey Road crossing, located in the St. John’s Wood area of London, is one of the most famous pedestrian crossings in the world. Its fame is largely attributed to The Beatles, who immortalized it on the cover of their 1969 album, “Abbey Road.” This simple zebra crossing has since become a pilgrimage site for Beatles fans from around the globe.
A short film about Abbey Road Crossing, London – shot October 2024
St. John’s Wood, where Abbey Road is located, has a rich history. The area was developed in the early 19th century and became known for its grand villas and leafy streets. It has long been a desirable residential area, attracting notable residents and maintaining a sense of exclusivity.
The Abbey Road area itself is steeped in history. The road was named after Kilburn Priory, a medieval religious house located nearby. Over the years, the area has evolved, but it has always retained a sense of charm and historical significance.
The studios quickly became a hub for musical innovation. In the 1960s, they were at the forefront of the British Invasion, with The Beatles recording most of their albums there. The studio’s innovative recording techniques and state-of-the-art equipment allowed The Beatles to experiment and push the boundaries of popular music. Albums like “Revolver,” “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and “The White Album” were all recorded at Abbey Road Studios 8.
Today, visitors to Abbey Road can walk in the footsteps of The Beatles. The crossing is a popular tourist attraction, with fans often recreating the famous album cover pose. The studios themselves are not open to the public, but the exterior is a popular spot for photographs. People from all over the world have signed the wall outside Abbey Road as a lasting tribute to their donation to the Beatles and their music. The nearby Abbey Road Shop offers a range of Beatles memorabilia and souvenirs.
Abbey Road Studios Shop Video
The Abbey Road Crossing and Abbey Road Studios are not only significant for their association with The Beatles but also for their contributions to music history. They represent a unique blend of historical charm and modern innovation, making them enduring symbols of creativity and popular cultural heritage.
A Story and Short Film about a Beautiful Afternoon in New York’s Central Park.
A Short Film About a Perfect Spring Day in New York City
It was a beautiful spring day on the Upper West Side by Lincoln Center. I had just finished a long lunch at P.J. Clarke’s with my former college roommate, Terry Larsen. We both majored in Theatre at Valdosta State University, though our paths diverged—he went to New York, and I went to Los Angeles. We hadn’t seen each other in over 20 years, except for photos on Facebook, so it was a thrill to catch up and share our lives.
FILM – AFTERNOON IN CENTRAL PARK
FILM – AFTERNOON IN CENTRAL PARK
After we said our goodbyes at the corner of Broadway and 63rd, I decided to take a stroll through Central Park and maybe have a cocktail at Tavern on the Green. Those plans quickly changed, leading to one of the most beautiful days I’ve ever spent in New York.
The weather was perfect—70s with no humidity, a slight breeze, and everything lush and green. I wandered from the West Side to the East Side and back again, taking in sights like Sheep Meadow, the Lake, Strawberry Fields, the ice rink, the Chess and Checkers House, Belvedere Castle, and the outdoor Delacorte Theatre. The views were simply amazing.
Since returning to the Atlanta area, I’ve made it a point to visit New York City every year to catch up on theatre and Broadway. This time, I saw Uncle Vanya at Lincoln Center, Home at the Roundabout, and a new play on Theatre Row, The Actors. While the theatre wasn’t particularly impressive this time, that afternoon in Central Park will stay with me for a long time. If New York City were always like that, you’d never want to leave. I ended the day listening to excellent jazz on the crowded patio at Tavern on the Green, sipping a superb Sauvignon Blanc. It was an excellent day!
I took so many photographs that I decided to make a short film to showcase that singular day in the park. If you’re a fan of the band Chicago, you can almost hear their famous song, Saturday in the Park, as the film plays. Hope you enjoy it!
A Night to Celebrate Community, Creativity, and The Joy of Coming Together.
The Atlanta BeltLine Lantern Parade is a magical event that takes place annually in Atlanta, Georgia. The Lantern Parade is a night to celebrate community, creativity, and the joy of coming together. This year on May 11th, 2024 was the 14th year the Parade took place on the Atlanta Beltline, specifically on the Westside Trail.
Created and presented by Chantelle Rytter and the Krewe of the Grateful Gluttons, this parade brings together thousands of people, hundreds of lanterns, and some really big lantern puppets for a festive evening of creativity, community, and magic. Lantern enthusiasts of all ages gather to light up the Atlanta BeltLine, creating a magical atmosphere.
Everyone is invited to join in the fun! Whether you’re a spectator or a participant, the parade welcomes anyone with a lantern. Participants are encouraged to create their own homemade lanterns to showcase their creativity. Spectators can either watch from the sidelines or jump in and dance to the music.
Live bands accompany the procession, including groups like the Atlanta Drum Academy, Black Sheep Ensemble, Seed & Feed Marching Abominables, Atlanta Freedom Band, and Kebbi Williams & the Wolf Pack.
The Atlanta BeltLine Lantern Parade began in 2010 with just a few hundred participants. Over the years, it has grown to include tens of thousands of lantern enthusiasts, making it one of the most anticipated events in the city.
Keep an eye out for details about the 2025 Lantern Parade! If you’re in Atlanta during the parade, I highly recommend experiencing this enchanting celebration of light, creativity, and community! It’s wonderful to see how lantern festivals continue to captivate audiences in different ways!
The true real life encounter of my cat with Mel Gibson.
Part of a new series about my real life in Hollywood-
Up In The Attic.
In a bygone era, I was the proud owner of a quaint theatre nestled in the heart of Hollywood—the Attic Theatre. My partner, Denise Reagan Wiesenmeyer, and I ran this cozy establishment, complete with a 50-seat auditorium, a small company of actors, administrative offices, and a rear dance studio that we leased out for classes and rehearsals.
Our theatre found its home in an aging edifice on Santa Monica Blvd. The building itself had witnessed decades of history as it was right in the middle of film soundstages, lighting and equipment companies, small production companies and the industrial part of the film business. I knew little of its early days, except for a fascinating tidbit: during World War II, the building had housed a parachute factory. Back then, parachutes were a novelty and considered a military weapon, and the building stood under military watch as these life-saving contraptions were meticulously packed.
The building’s owner, an elderly gentleman, treated it as a mere revenue stream. Maintenance was an afterthought, and the structure bore the scars of neglect. I acquired the theatre from a man named Bill Sorrell, who, along with the Swayze brothers—Patrick and Donnie—had birthed the Attic Theatre. The Swayze siblings, fresh from Texas, had ventured to Hollywood with their wives, eager to make their mark in the film industry. Their fateful collaboration with Bill Sorrell gave rise to the Attic Theatre.
Perched on the second floor of the ancient building, the Attic Theatre became our creative haven. Denise and I assumed control in 1987, launching a vibrant repertoire of plays. By 1990, we had also taken over abandoned office space within the same structure and fashioned a humble four-room apartment complete with a kitchen. It lacked opulence but offered proximity to our artistic endeavors.
The old building 2016. The Attic was on the second floor left side. Building was shut down in 2001 and we moved to Culver City area.
As struggling artists, our lives revolved around the theater. We juggled outside jobs to make ends meet, but the Attic was our sanctuary—a realm where autonomy reigned supreme. No one dictated our choices; we were masters of our own destiny.
Our little theatre somehow defied the odds. Despite our shoestring budget and the building’s faded grandeur, the Attic Theatre thrived. We churned out good plays and sometimes even great productions. We were earning a reputation as a haven for artists—a place where creativity blossomed, and dreams took flight.
I had taken a brief business trip and Denise, my capable partner, held down the fort while I was away. She was the beating heart of our operation, both a good administrator and a wonderful theatre producer. Upon my return, we convened to discuss the theatre business and that is when she told me that a company by the name of Icon Productions had booked the dance studio for a reading of a screenplay. The name immediately caught my attention because I knew Icon Productions was Mel Gibson’s production company. In the early ’90s, Mel wasn’t just an actor; he was a cinematic force, weaving tales both in front of and behind the camera as a producer and director. I was shocked that such a prestigious outfit would choose our modest theatre. Our place, though well-maintained, was a little low rent for a major film company to use for their reading.
ICON Image
I kept the news from Denise. She idolized Mel Gibson, and I didn’t want to raise her hopes prematurely. But curiosity gnawed at me. Why here?
Days later, the phone rang—a production manager for Icon Productions was on the line. His concern? Parking. The executives attending the reading needed ample space. I inquired about the headcount: around 30. Our parking lot, alas, was a postage stamp—a handful of spots shared among tenants. I explained this to the manager, emphasizing that the spaces weren’t mine to allocate and that the executives would have to park on the street or arrange other alternatives. He assured me that this would not be a problem.
Mel Gibson as he is today.
It was then that I informed Denise that it was Mel Gibson’s company who was renting our space and that he might be there. She became so excited that I thought she was going to faint. Even though the production meeting for Mel Gibson’s company was still two days away, she went back there and immediately started cleaning up the studio to make it look as perfect for Mel Gibson as she could.
The day finally arrived—and my worst fears came true. The Hollywood elite, their luxury cars began arriving and filling the parking lot. Land Rovers, Mercedes, Jaguars—all vying for our meager parking spaces. The other tenants, unaccustomed to this overflow, erupted in protest. I was caught in the crossfire, played reluctant traffic cop, my pleas drowned out by irate voices.
The production manager, seemingly impervious to chaos, stood his ground. Executives, he declared, wouldn’t be relegated to street parking. Our arrangement meant nothing to him. I told him that maybe the cars would be towed by the other businesses. He shrugged his shoulders and walked away. I watched helplessly as the luxury cars multiplied, stacking atop one another while the other businesses’ patrons were relegated to the curb, and the tenants hurled colorful expletives my way.
And there, amidst the parking mayhem, Denise was star-struck. She’d met Mel, her eyes wide as saucers, and guided him upstairs. The plain and unassuming rehearsal studio was now filled with high powered movie execs including Mel Gibson as the executive producer, while production assistants scurried, setting tables, arranging chairs, and stocking coolers with drinks and lunch.
Example of a table read for a film. This was not Mr. Gibson’s read.
The script that they were reading was a new one that they were considering producing as a movie. There were no other movie stars there besides Mel. It was just executives hearing the production assistants read the movie out loud to see what they thought about it.
Occasionally Denise would go to the rehearsal hall to check if they needed anything, but I think it was secretly to see Mel. Down in the parking lot I had morphed from theater manager/owner to an impromptu parking valet, my frustration simmering beneath a veneer of professionalism. Yet, I wanted to keep their business in case they ever come back. Often, I would go upstairs to get keys from the production manager for a certain car to move so the other tenants’ customers could use the space. I was pissed off, but I just wanted to get through the day. They were booked for only four hours, and I managed to hold off the other businesses owners until finally it was over. Than all the executives began to leave and all the luxury cars that had been crammed into our parking lot like sardines, now vanished into the afternoon traffic. Eventually, everyone was gone, and I walked up to the office.
Denise, her starstruck glow undiminished, wanted to thank Mel personally. So, we wandered back through the theatre, through the backstage, and opened the connecting door to the rehearsal hall.
Now remember we lived at the theatre space, and we had a cat. Our cat was named Squirrel, a beautiful female that we’d had since just after she was born. One day, a few years before, a very tiny kitten had somehow managed to survive extremely busy Santa Monica Blvd and had wandered up the stairs to our theatre and just sat there. Denise did not live with me at the time and so I tried to shoo the cat away, but she wouldn’t leave. So eventually I fed the tiny little kitten, and from then I belonged to her. Cats have a way of just kind of staking their claim on you and that’s what Squirrel did. There’s an old saying about cats that goes “dogs have owners, cats have staff”, and it is very true. Our cat got her name when Denise moved in because of the way she bounced and ran around all over the place like a crazy squirrel out in your front yard.
Mel Gibson as he looked at the time of kicking Squirrel
So, Squirrel had followed us back as we were saying goodbye to Mel Gibson and the production manager who had booked the space. There were still 2 production assistants there folding up the tables and chairs and packing up the food. Now Mel Gibson is not a big man. He is probably about 5’6 or 5’7 and had on cowboy boots to jack him up another couple of inches. Most leading men in Hollywood are actually quite short. He seemed fairly nice, and both Denise and I were fans of his. She was more gaga than I was, but I was very impressed that Mel Gibson was standing in my business.
While we are standing around saying our goodbyes, Squirrel who was a very people friendly feline was wandering around and she rubbed up against Mel Gibson’ leg. Inexplicably Mel Gibson drew back his boot and forcefully kicked Squirrel about 6 feet across the rehearsal room.
OWWWWWW!
I was shocked at his action and quickly checked to see if my cat was ok. I looked over at Denise, and the look on her face made it clear she was as upset as I was. Turning to Mel Gibson, I asked, “Why did you just kick my cat?”
Mel Gibson looked at me and said, “I don’t like cats. I don’t want them anywhere around me.”
I responded, “Well she’s our cat and this is her house. She only trying to be friendly.”
Mel Gibson said, “I don’t give a damn! Keep the cat away from me.”
Maybe it’s because I was irritated from 4 hours of re-parking the cars of over privileged and inconsiderate movie executives who had showed no regard for my business or the people who worked in the building, yet without hesitation, I told Mel Gibson, “I think it’s time for you to leave.”
Everybody in the room froze. The two production assistants regarded me with astonishment, as if I had blasphemed the Almighty. The production manager was completely shocked. Mel regarded me for a second and said, “Well, you have a crappy theatre anyway.”
I said, “That may be true, but you’ve already paid me for it. Have a good day.”
At which point Mel Gibson turned, and he and his big cowboy boots stomped loudly down the wooden stairs to the parking lot. After he had quit stomping down the stairs, the production manager turned to me, “People don’t speak to Mr. Gibson that way.”
“Well people don’t kick my cat either. When you guys get all packed up, you can go as well.” I asked Denise to make sure that they left, and I picked up our bewildered cat and went back to our apartment.
I understood that some people have an aversion for cats for whatever reason, but you do not go into someone’s home or business and kick their cat that hard. I thought it was very arrogant and a cruel way to treat someone else’s animal and pet.
Mel’s mug shot after his arrest.
It was a few years later that, Mel Gibson had his major blowout with the Jewish policeman who pulled him over for drunk driving in Malibu, California. Mel berated the man, calling him all kinds of ethnic and racial slurs. When I heard the story, I was not shocked. During our encounter in the rehearsal room, I had concluded that he didn’t seem like a very nice man.
I’m still a Mel Gibson fan to a degree. I think he’s a wonderful director and a good actor, but I probably would not want to speak to him if given the opportunity. That is the true story of when Mel Gibson kicked my cat.
When Denise left to move back to Illinois because of an illness in 2000, the new owner of the building began trying to force all the tenants out. He raised our rent 4 times in 4 months. I was forced to move the theatre to the Culver City area on Washington Blvd and continued running it until 2016 when I sold the theatre company to another group.
The front door to the old Attic Theatre in Hollywood. Building is now vacant.
For the official record, I hereby attest that the following account is my own personal recollection of the events that transpired, over a quarter-century ago, within the confines of my theatre. The building is still standing on Santa Monica Blvd., though now abandoned since the year 2001. The other tenants and businesses have all gone or moved. I am unconnected to their present whereabouts.
My dearest friend and confidante, Denise, she passed away in 2007, her laughter and camaraderie forever etched in my heart.
As for the employees of Mr. Gibson and his company, I never knew them or their names, and have no idea where they currently may be.
The building as it looks now in 2023. Completely abandoned and derelict.
COPYRIGHT 2024 – CAREY ON CREATIVE, LLC., ATLANTA, GA.
TRIPSWITHJAMES.COM IS A TRADEMARK OF CAREY ON CREATIVE, LLC.
James R. Carey’s debut on Amazon at $0.99 at www.amazon.com/author.jrc.128 , the book comprises personal, fantasy, and memory-based stories. The title short story, inspired by his own dissolving marriage amid the pandemic, is a semi-true story based on real life events.
This is my first book – one of several to come I hope. You can find it on Amazon.com for the price of $0.99 as a presale special. I hope that enough people will buy it and make it head for bestseller status. (One can dream).
Follow the link www.amazon.com/author/jrc.128 and that will take you directly to my Author page and you can buy directly from there. An excerpt to the title story follow below.
EXCERPT FROM THREE DAYS IN HAMBURG
“My cell phone rang at exactly 11 PM. I picked it up and looked at the caller ID. It was my wife. The call caught me by surprise as we had been having some tough times for the past few months. She was calling from Hamburg, Germany, where she had gone to visit her mother. There’s a 9-hour time difference between Hamburg and our home in West Adams, an area of Los Angeles where we had lived for 5 years. That made it 8 AM in the morning there. We hadn’t talked on the phone for a week, and our few emails to each other had been very terse.
“Hey, how are you?” I asked as I answered the phone.
Silence.
“Hey, can you hear me… Are you there…?”
“Yes, I’m here,” she answered in her odd combination of American & German accent. Something that I had always found very sexy.
“What’s going on? Everything okay?”
“Look I need to talk to you about something very important,” she said in a very flat voice. Hackles rose on the back of my neck and red flags began to appear. “I have been doing a lot of thinking, and I’m calling to tell you that I’m not coming back.”
“For how long? Is everything okay with your mother?” I asked, still unsure which direction this conversation was going to go.
“Mother is fine. I’m calling to tell you that I’m not coming back to you. I’m going to stay in Hamburg for a few more months, and when I come back, I’ll probably file for divorce.”
“What the fuck?”
“Look I don’t want to fight with you about this, please?” she said in a stern voice, cutting me off. “We just do this all the time. I’m tired of the tension. I’m tired of the arguments. I’m tired of being tired and stressed. I love you very much, but I just can’t go on living like this. So please respect my decision. Don’t call me and don’t write me one of your long angry emails. I just can’t take it. Please. And if you do call me, I’m just not going to respond. Okay? I love you, but I just can’t live like this anymore. I’m sorry.” With that, she hung up.
Shocked, I sat staring at the wall for what seemed like hours. Yes, we had not been doing well but I didn’t think it was this far gone. She went to Germany about three weeks before to celebrate her mother’s 70th birthday and to take a break from us and the tension in our house. It was the middle of the semester and I had not been able to leave my teaching gig. I had Face-Timed with my mother-in-law on her birthday and had briefly spoken to my wife. Things had seemed to be okay at least for the moment. This came as a major surprise.
Then I got angry. Really angry. I tried to call her back, but of course, it went straight to voicemail. Predictably, I left her an angry message. Then I poured myself a large Jack Daniels and stormed around the house for the next couple of hours holding imaginary conversations between myself and her telling her what a bitch she was, how unfair she was being and defending myself from all the supposed wrongs that I had done to her over the last few years. Finally, at about 1 AM, I took several hits of pot and fell asleep on the couch.
Somewhere I heard the distant ringing of a cell phone and some part of my brain realized that it was mine. Pulling myself from a deep sleep, I reached out for the phone where I had left it last night. Hoping that it was my wife, I looked at the caller ID and saw the number for work. It was 9:45 AM and I was an hour late for work.
In a groggy voice I answered, “Hello?” Lynda, my department head goes, “Where are you? You’re an hour late for your class.”
My thoughts just could not seem to connect last night to this morning, but I knew I had messed up in a major way. I just decided to tell the truth. “Lynda, my wife is leaving me. She’s in Germany and I have to catch the next plane to try and save my marriage.” – End of Excerpt!
My original plan for this book over four years ago was to be a few short stories surrounding a novella called The Ticket that I’ve been writing for about 5 years. It’s a great story in my head but it never has quite come together the way that I wanted it to on the page. So, it has never been finished.
That was the idea and then real life came along changing everything. A crumbling marriage, the pandemic, a move to the other side of the country, and a new city and start all seem to move the stories in another direction. The stories began to take on the form that they wanted to take, and I just kind of followed along.
Some stories are very personal, others are fantasy. Some are memories of people or places, and some are combinations of all the above. Some are new, and some are old. Some came very easily, and some took months to write. This collection of stories is quite different than the one I intended, but it is the one that came to life.
The title story was written in the early days of the pandemic in my home office in Los Angeles as I tried to come to grips with my dissolving marriage. My then wife and I were still speaking, and she was the first to read it. Her appraisal of it was “very hard for me to read but it’s very good”. Not sure if she meant that or not, but I will take it.
As a young boy I wrote ideas for stories and comic books. First it was crazy little stories about flying turtles or other idiotic ideas, but I thought they were funny, and it kept me entertained as I listened to my parents argued downstairs or sitting by myself in the school cafeteria. Later in my teenage years, the stories became dark ones of loneliness, escape, teenaged angst and desire. However, they could never finish because I wasn’t old enough to know where life was supposed to take you. So, if I didn’t throw them away, they got stuck in a drawer.
In college I discovered three things that I loved. First, was girls. The second was music so I wrote a ton of bad poetry and awful songs, truly little of which has survived to this day. The third thing I discovered was theatre so I wrote some unbelievably bad plays and screenplays. Not any of those survived.
Yet, I still continued to write down little ideas, thoughts, dialogue, situations, dramatic conflicts and the best of those got stuck in that drawer.
When I moved to Los Angeles, I had a writing partner for a while, so some of those ideas that had been stuck in the drawer for years came out. They were dusted off, reexamined and rewritten. Some were used, some were thrown away and some got stuck back in the drawer. Later when I opened my own theatre in Los Angeles with my partner Denise Ragan Weihenmayer called the Attic Theatre Ensemble, we had a lot of stage time to fill and actors to keep busy. So, I started adapting short stories and updating old plays to fill that void. The reaction to those adaptations was positive. I continue jotting down ideas and dialogue.
Eventually, I got married to a minor television star in Los Angeles and when her TV show got cancelled, I wrote her a play. She never performed in that play because we got divorced before I finished it. I did finish it, however. The play was a full-length comedy with dancing and the Devil, and a lot of food called Dancing in Hell. It got produced twice. Once at a university near Los Angeles, and once at my own theatre. It got complimentary reviews, but when those two productions were over. I put the script in the drawer.
I wrote a couple of short film screenplays that got produced, Owlman and A Cost of Freedom, but this was before the Film Festival circuit had become so big. So, the films and the screenplays went in that drawer.
An opportunity to start doing theatre festivals both in the United States and other parts of the world presented itself. This became a time period where I would write and perform one man shows and tour them around these various venues. The first one called Coming To Zimbabwe which debuted in Africa and was later optioned by a German production company to be done as a radio play for German speaking audiences around the world. It was the story of the first time I ever went to Africa and what a life-changing experience it was for me during a difficult part of my life. My second one-man show was called Mi Casa Su Casa where I talked about my large old house in the West Adams area of Los Angeles where I ran an Airbnb for 11 years and the people from all over the world who stayed with me. That was performed in Los Angeles, Atlanta, New England, and various parts of the United States and won several awards. Yet when those shows had run their course, those scripts got stuck in that drawer.
I married my second wife; a Danish woman and we had a very passionate but turbulent relationship. As our marriage fell apart, the pandemic struck, and I found myself stuck in my house in Los Angeles by myself for months. To keep myself busy I decided to paint a couple of rooms including one that had been my home office for over 15 years. As I was clearing out the room and moving items, I discovered that drawer with all the ideas, conversations, dialogue and scenarios that I had left shut for such an extraordinarily long time. As I read through the material, I realized that I had written a lot of stuff. I had written award-winning screenplays and theatre plays. So, with all this time on my hands, I decided to try and write short stories and see what happened. I started and finished the first short story that I had written in probably 25 to 30 years and polished it in a couple of days. Then I rewrote a couple of stories that were in that drawer except now I was approaching them from an adult perspective. I changed them around a good bit and they’re in this book as well. With my marriage finally coming to an end, I wrote a fictionalized version of the last trip that we took together to Hamburg, Germany. Parts of the story are absolutely true, and other parts are as they used to say in an old television show, “the names have been changed to protect the innocent”. That story turned out to be Three Days in Hamburg and became the title story of this collection.
Over the past three years I’ve written more short stories, discarded them and written new ones. I have a novel I’ve been trying to finish. A memoir about my time in Africa that I have worked on sometimes. Written three more screenplays and a couple of them have being produced, but this book of short stories was always something I wanted to finish.
Now I have and I hope you enjoy it. I can’t say it was easy to write but it brings me immense joy to see it in its published form. Thank you for taking the time to pick it up.
Some great films from early 2000s that feature known stars, great acting and storylines, excellent direction, and beautiful cinematography.
Are you looking for a couple of spy/thriller type movies that do not fit into the James Bond or Jason Borne genre. Maybe something that makes you think just a little before the action starts? Maybe something you did not see when the movie first came out but still is a really good movie? Well, I have two great films from the early 2000’s that feature known stars, great acting and storylines, and excellent direction and beautiful cinematography.
First up is TRAITOR (2008) starring Don Cheadle and Guy Pierce. The movie is beautifully rendered by Director Jeffrey Nachmanoff, who also wrote the screenplay that is based on a story written by Steve Martin. Yes, Steve (Wild and Crazy Guy) Martin.
Rotten Tomatoes gave it a rating of 65% based on 169 reviews, and Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it 3 stars out of 4 and wrote in his review, “The movie proceeds quickly, seems to know its subject matter, is fascinating in its portrait of the inner politics and structure of the terrorist group, and comes uncomfortably close to reality. But what holds it together is the Cheadle character.”
This is a terrorism spy thriller that is both intelligent and exciting. Featuring the always interesting Don Cheadle, one of my favorite actors (and in person, a really nice guy), as a former Sudanese American US soldier with a background in explosives who seems to have crossed over and joined a terrorist organization. He is the prime suspect as the bomb-maker in a string of global terror explosions aimed at civilians. Hot on his trail is an FBI agent played by Guy Pierce, who as the movie progresses starts to wonder what Cheadle’s true intentions are.
“Traitor” weaves a web of conspiracy and intrigue, crosses politics with thriller elements, and never quite answers its central question: In the war between good and evil, how many good people is it justifiable for the good guys to kill? Maybe that question has no answer. It is probably not “none.” That ambiguity works in the film’s favor. As Cheadle’s character (Samir) enlists on the American side and then is seen as a remarkably effective agent for terrorist jihadists, we are kept wondering where his true loyalties lie.
This is not a typical terrorism film where all Middle Easterners are inherently anti-American and evil. This is a movie that takes the time to examine the beliefs and motivations behind the people who commit terrorism and the roots of terrorism. It tries to give us a reason why some people do these terrible things, and by doing that the “villains” all of a sudden, become people not just caricatures. It gives a depth and understanding to these characters that is chilling, extremely disturbing, but crystal clear as to what their motivations are.
Another thing that I (and Roger Ebert) found interesting about the movie was the way it goes inside the terrorist organizations – to the people who carry out the day-to-day operations of such groups. This is not a movie about the James Bond type villains who have billions of dollars and want world domination, or to bring America to its knees in one big explosion. This is a film about the little guys who do the grunt work. Who do what they do out of belief or anger or need, not the desire for world conquest.
Shot on location in Toronto (posing as Chicago), Marseille, France, and Marrakesh, Morrocco, the scenery is a beautiful background to the fast-paced action. The actors are all excellent from Cheadle and Pierce, to Said Taghmaoui, who plays Omar, one of the grunts who believes in the cause, but you can see his individual pain each step of the way. The film also co-stars Jeff Daniels, Neal McDonough and Archie Panjabi. This is a particularly good movie!
You can find TRAITOR currently available to stream with a subscription on STARZ for $9.99 / month. You can buy or rent Traitor for as low as $1.99 to rent or $5.99 to buy on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, iTunes, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube, and AMC on Demand.
THE AMERICAN (2010)
It was early September 2010, and all that summer I had seen clips for The American, a new movie starring George Clooney. It looked like a typical spy/action-adventure movie with chases, girls, guns, and an undefined evil. Yet what did we get instead of a James Bond/Jason Borne retread? We get a sparse, tightly controlled movie filled with silence, long takes, and a growing sense of dread.
The American was loosely based on a 1990 book called A Very Private Gentleman by Martin Booth. It was adapted for the screen by Rowan Joffe.’ It was marketed as a high action-adventure spy thriller and the reaction to the film from the audience was disappointment. What they got for their money was a slowly paced story of a hardened yet haunted assassin. This is a quiet movie, a thoughtful movie, a movie built on character, not plot. Ironically, The American is very European in feel and style. It is filmed for the most part in Italy, and cinematographer Martin Ruhe filled the movie with beautiful lingering shots of a lonely Italian countryside that seems as old as time itself. This timeless quality makes you almost imagine that you are about to see some Roman legion marching over the next hill off to conquer some far-off place.
We never know what George Clooney’s character did or why anyone is after him, but from the first minute of the film, a chase is on. George’s character, Jack, is fleeing for his life from a group of Swedish hitmen. Yet the pace of the movie or this chase is slow and unhurried. Instead of watching the wild chases and unending action as spies trying to kill other spies for world domination or getting revenge for passed deeds, we descend into the life and mind of a skilled killer, an American version of a samurai warrior. Stoic, impervious and expert, with a focus so narrow it is defined only by his skills and his master.
The tale is straightforward, but many questions remain unanswered even at the end of the movie, but they are not really germane to the core story. The movie opens on a snow-covered field in Sweden. Jack and his current lover/friend are walking through the snow when shots ring out. In short order, Jack kills two unknown men out to kill him plus his completely innocent lady friend for no other reason than she happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. With fewer than 10 lines of dialog we learn that Jack is a skilled and ruthless killer, who will do anything necessary to stay alive. Who and why is Jack being hunted we never learn, but we get swept up in the chase as he flees for his life from the unknown “Swedes.”
We next find him getting off a train in Rome and arranging a meeting with the mysterious Pavel (Johan Leysen). Pavel is his handler/boss/agent/manager? It is never quite clear what the relationship is, or who Pavel, and by extension who Jack work for. Are they CIA, MI-5, free-lancers? This we never know. Yet it is clear that Jack works for Pavel or serves him, because he never questions Pavel’s orders (Just like a samurai following orders from his master). Even when every fiber of his being tells him that Pavel is setting him up.
I won’t give you the whole plot here – I hate that by reviewers that never really review. They just retell you the story. So why see the movie?
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Let just say that this is a wonderful movie. The director is Anton Corbijn, who shot the bio pic Control (2007), the story of Ian Curtis, lead singer of Joy Division, who was a suicide at age 23. There is not a wrong shot. Every performance is tightly controlled. Clooney is in complete command of his effect. This is a wonderfully shot study of the loneliness of a bad man searching for redemption and a way out of the incredibly sad and terrible life he has created for himself.
For me one of the best movies of that year 2010.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating 66% based on 224 reviews. The website’s review states: “As beautifully shot as it is emotionally restrained, The American is an unusually divisive spy thriller—and one that rests on an unusually subdued performance from George Clooney.” Roger Ebert gave it 4 out of 4 stars saying, “Here is a gripping film with the focus of a Japanese drama. It is so rare to see a film this carefully crafted.” Leonard Maltin called it a “slowly paced, European-style mood piece, short on dialogue and action and long on atmosphere.”
Couple of interesting facts about the film are that the director purposely paid homage to the American spaghetti western in many of his scenes. In one scene the Sergio Leone film Once Upon the Time in The West plays on a TV set in the background while George Clooney eats alone in a restaurant. Also, whole chunks of dialogue that are spoken between Clooney and his prostitute lover, Clara, are lifted verbatim from Graham Greene’s The Honorary Consul.
You can find The American on Amazon Prime, Microsoft Store, iTunes, Vudu and Apple TV renting for 3.99 or to buy at 14.99. It is also available on Google Play and YouTube, but no pricing was available.
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How I Got to Audition, Be Cast and Work on the amazing film.
How I Got to Audition, Be Cast and Work on the Film
It was late in 2021, when my agent called to tell me that I had an audition for The Color Purple the Musical which would be filming in Atlanta, GA later that year. It was a non-singing part, and the audition would be by self-tape. The practice of the self-tape started in the late 2000’s but when the Pandemic arrived it became the only way to audition for a while and is now the preferred way of casting directors to audition for Film and TV.
Short video of the Premiere night of The Color Purple the Musical
A self-tape is when an actor in the privacy of your own home or in a professional studio prepares an audition with the material that the filmmakers have sent you whether that’s a monologue or a scene or a song. You film either with a digital camera or phone, edit it, making it look as professional as you can and then send it into the casting director. The part I was asked to audition for was the mayor. It is when the mayor’s wife asks the character Sofia, the strong-willed independent thinking black woman to be her maid, and Sofia turns her down. The mayor’s wife gets very upset, calling Sofia a derogatory name, and Sofia insults her back. In the time and place of The Color Purple, a black woman in the South was not allowed to speak to a white woman in that manner or with that tone of voice. The mayor overhears this conversation, and he comes over and slaps Sofia. Sofia turns around and decks him with a punch that knocks him out. She is then surrounded by white men, beaten, and hauled off to jail.
My self-tape was basically a monologue, so I pretended that I yelled at Sofie and slapped her. It was only me there when I did the audition. I did not slap anyone – it was all pretend. I filmed it with my phone, edited it and sent it off to the casting director. I then forgot about it because that is how you have to approach self-tapes. You get no feedback on how you did as opposed to before in the pre-Pandemic days where you often went in for an in-person audition. I did not hear anything for a long time and really had forgotten I had even done the audition when weeks later I got a call from my agent saying that I had been cast in The Color Purple in the part of the Deputy. A part that I had not even auditioned for, and I was extremely excited. To be cast in a big screen movie being produced by Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg was very exciting.
From the time that I was cast to the time that I was going to actually appear on set and film my part was going to be several months, and the money they were offering for me to be in the movie was extremely low. I had just moved from Los Angeles, and I put the difference in union film pay down to the fact I was in Georgia, a right-to-work state. On a few occasions I actually told my agent that I would probably pass on the part. There had been a big miscommunication between my agent and myself on what they were going to pay me. I thought the film was going to pay me a very small fee since it was just a few lines, when in actuality they were paying me a couple of thousand dollars. When I told my agent that I was probably going to take a vacation and go overseas, she became very upset with me. That’s how we discovered the misunderstanding, and of course, I stayed.
On Thursday, July 30th, 2022, I show up at the set of The Color Purple which was filming at Blackhall Studios in the Atlanta area. Now my contract called for that I would have a trailer with a dressing room which is pretty normal for a major motion picture when you have a speaking part. Yet, according to the script, I only had a few lines so I was thinking it would not be very elaborate. I had not seen the script since that was being kept a secret. I knew what scene I was working in, but I didn’t know how they were going to shoot it.
When I got to set, I checked in with the production manager. I was then taken to my trailer by a production assistant. When I walked inside the trailer, I found I had a couch, a television, refrigerator, and a radiant heat fireplace plus my own private bathroom. So for a small part, it was the height of luxury. A few minutes after I had gotten into my trailer there was a knock on my door. I opened it to find a young woman of about 24 who said that she was my personal production assistant for the day. I’ve been working in films for 40 years, most of them pretty low budget. I’ve never had my own personal production assistant and I really wasn’t sure exactly what she was supposed to do. Turned out she was to get my food, walk me to and from the set and make sure that I had anything that I needed. In general, just take care of me.
Director Blitz Bawazula
After we’ve been introduced to each other and she explained that she would come get me when it was time for me to go to makeup and hair, she left and I’m sitting in my trailer trying to get used to the fact that I have my own trailer and a personal production assistant. All of a sudden, I heard someone playing some really good Blues guitar. I walked out of my trailer and went down a couple of trailers where I saw a very nice looking African American man wearing a really cool hat. He was sitting outside a trailer with an acoustic guitar with a pickup playing some wonderful blues through a really small little amp next to him. The woman who was my personal assistant was listening to him. I had no idea who he was. I thought perhaps he was the music coordinator for the film. I asked him that and he went “Yeah, I’m something like that” as he continued to play. My production assistant laughed and says, “Yeah he’s really important and he’s really good.” Then she left and I listened to him for another few minutes and then I returned to my trailer.
Author as The Deputy
Time passes slowly on a movie set. You either stay in your trailer and read or watch TV, or you walk around like I did and talk to the crew. Eventually my assistant brought me my costume and took me to Makeup and Hair. After that I got dressed in my costume and was taken onto the set where I was introduced to the director, who turned out to be the man playing the blues guitar. His name was Blitz Bawazula, a Ghanaian filmmaker, author, visual artist, rapper, singer-songwriter, and record producer who had worked with Beyonce’ among others. The scene we were shooting that day featured Fantasia Barrino who was playing Celia and Danielle Brooks who was playing Sofia and myself. The scene had a large jail cell set like a cellblock in a prison. It was enclosed on all sides and had a full roof. The cinematographer was Dan Laustsen, a Danish cinematographer best known for Crimson Peak (2015), John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017) and The Shape of Water (2017) for which he received an Academy Award nomination. By now I was feeling fairly intimidated by all this big-name talent and the general tone of the set. The set was very professional and friendly but there seemed to be a little tension in the air. So, I just stood back out of the way, and didn’t think I was going to have much interaction with the director.
Fantasia Barrino and the Author
Blitz walked us through the blocking mostly talking to Fantasia and Danielle, and he went back to the video village which is where the director and the producers watch through monitors what is being filmed on set. We did a quick run-through of the blocking and Blitz came over to give some direction to Fantasia and Danielle. Then he turned to me and said, “I need to give you more lines.” Which of course as an actor, I was very happy about. He said on the next run-through he would tell me where to add these extra lines.
So began this wonderful day where I soon realized that I was not going to ever have my face on the screen, but they were going to shoot me from every possible angle. The idea being that when Celia comes to visit Sofia and it’s time for her to go, I come in and order her to leave. She’s very slow to get up so I threatened to beat her with a night stick. I never say that, but you can see the night stick in my hand. I am always in shadow. I’m always backlit or shot from the side but my face is always in shadow. We would shoot it one way and then they would shoot it from another side. Because the set was an enclosed cell when they wanted to shoot from a different direction, they literally took a wall out so that they could get the cameras set and the lighting correct. Then they would put the wall back in and shoot us from another angle. They shot me from behind, they shot me from the side, they shot me from the far end of the cell near where Sofia is sitting and then they also shot me in close up as Celia leaves the cell and I closed the door behind her.
Fantasia Barrino and the Author
When I arrived on set, I didn’t know who the director was. That information had not been given to me so I found Blitz to be very friendly and very interested in anything that I had to say concerning the character or how I should deliver lines. He was very respectful even though I had a very small part. One of the things that particularly impressed me in that I had never seen on a movie set before was while he was directing our scene in between setups or getting ready for the scene to restart, he was also editing the movie at the same time. Not our particular scene but I watched him edit the musical number that Fantasia/Celia sings after she leaves the jail. It had already been shot and he was giving preliminary editing notes to an assistant editor who was on the set with him. Maybe all major motion pictures do this at this point, but this was the first time I had ever seen it on a movie set. Editing while simultaneously you are shooting another scene. To be able to keep those two jobs going simultaneously was incredibly impressive.
I didn’t really get to spend or get to know the woman who was playing Sofia that much because Danielle Brooks was at the other end of the cell behind bars and when we took a break she went back to her trailer or dealt with her personal entourage. Because Fantasia and I were on the other side of the prison bars and we had dialogue with each other, over the next six hours I got over my intimidation not of her personally but of the scope of the project. We actually had some laughs and at the end she took a bunch of photographs with me which I thought was very nice. As is the custom on a movie set when an actor who has a speaking part leaves the set, the assistant director called out, “And that’s a wrap for James Carey.”
Lobby of Preview in Atlanta at Tara Theatre
More than a year later in December of 2023, I found an e-mail on my computer inviting me to a cast and crew screening of The Color Purple at the Tara Theatre in Atlanta. The movie was finally ready and was to open nationwide on Christmas Day. I was very excited to see the film. I had no idea what it looked like. The film had been kept on wraps for almost an entire year and Oprah had the studio doing a series of targeted screenings to groups around the country in order to build word of mouth.
Lainie Smith and Author at Preview
My partner, Lainie Smith and I showed up at the theater that night, and there were two screenings going on simultaneously. In one theater was the screening for all the bigwigs and important guests, while in the other were all the crew and cast who did not have major parts like me with their friends and families to watch the film. Of course, I’ve seen Steven Spielberg’s version from 1985, which was a magnificent film that helped make the careers of Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey as actresses, but this version was a revelation. The acting of all the main actors especially Fantasia and Danielle who played Celia and Sofia and Celia’s abusive husband Mister, played by Colman Domingo were amazing.
Lou Gossett played Mister’s father and even though he was almost confined to a wheelchair, it was wonderful to see the Academy Award-winning actor who is now in his 80’s on screen and hold his own with everybody else. He also gave a touching speech at the screening, welcoming us and saying he believed this was a wonderful and unforgettable movie. He was absolutely right.
Swag from The Color Purple
The dance numbers, the music which comes from the Broadway musical, The Color Purple, and the cinematography are all excellent. The message of the show and how it’s delivered is life affirming. It’s a positive message and while the subject matter at times is incredibly dark, Fantasia’s performance as we watch Celia go from an ignored abused little girl to a successful businesswoman who is finally in control of her own future is really marvelous. The editing is superb.
I cannot recommend The Color Purple the Musical enough. It is a moving, touching, warm hearted time in a movie theater. Just make sure you bring a box of tissues because you’ll definitely cry. It was really a privilege to be part of this excellent and moving film. I hope you enjoy it and wish all of you a happy 2024.
2023 was a watershed year for me. It was the best year that I’d had in a decade. The last really good year that I could remember was 2014 when I got married to my ex-wife. The day that we got married, I was full of love, happiness and incredibly enthusiastic about the future. I had a woman that I loved, my professional career seemed to be going extremely well and financially I had bailed myself out from the ruins of the worldwide fiscal crisis of 2008. What I didn’t realize was that would be the high point for a long time.
They say the first year of marriage is terrible and I can agree with that. After the euphoria of getting married had worn off, the day-to-day just dragged on my ex-wife, and while I didn’t know it, she was already planning her escape. Not every year was bad. In fact, each January as I looked at the coming year, it seemed like exciting things were going to happen both professionally and personally but by December our lives were filled with chaos, pain, question marks about our relationship and professional inertia. Then came a hard divorce, followed by the Pandemic, followed by a need to sell my house and leave my chosen home city of Los Angeles and a move to Atlanta, GA. The first couple of years in Atlanta were difficult. I found friends, and work but I never quite felt like I fit in here, and I missed parts of the life that I’d had in California.
And then in 2023, it all seemed to come together. I wrote, directed, produced and released an award-winning short film, Love Potion. The film did not win as many awards as some of my previous films had but we took a shot for the big time and film festivals like Sundance and Tribeca. We did not get into them, yet I am immensely proud of the film and feel it is my most complete movie. I acted in five movies, I appeared in five commercials, I was in two music videos including a game changing country western music video by Tyler Childers where I portrayed a gay coal miner who fell in love with another miner. The controversy that music video created was an amazing thing to watch and I’m proud I was part of that project. I bought a condo and put down new roots. While I did not travel internationally as I usually do during a year, I found myself working as an actor in Baltimore, Austin, Nashville, Charleston and Rock Hill, SC. I put the finishing touches on a book that I hope to release in 2024. Both personally and professionally, I felt more satisfied and complete than I had in a long time.
While 2023 was an amazing year, it was also a year of hard struggles, doubt, wondering where all this was leading, and a lot of personal reflection. One of my siblings faced a life-threatening blood disease and thanks to the stars above, they managed to survive. With all the professional success that I had during 2023, that was without a doubt the most important thing that happened in my life. My sibling survived, and because of that situation I took a look at my own personal life and my legacy. I realized I was closer to the end than I was to the beginning and needed to change my perspective on life and work. My life has often been about the end result. Producing the product, getting the job done, what is the end goal and how to find the next job. The older I get, the more I realize it is more about the journey than it is about what you accomplish. Completing the work and making sure that the project is excellent are extremely important, but paying attention to the day-to-day journey through life is equally as important. As John Lennon said, “Life is what happens while you’re making other plans.” In 2023, I found that to be absolutely true.
I hope 2024 will be as successful both personally and professionally. It’s already shaping up to be what looks like an interesting year, but rarely does it happen that you have two incredible years back-to-back. I’m talking to a producer about directing a feature for them, my film partner and I are in discussion with another producer about a project we’ve already done that they might want to take to the next level. I’ve been hired by a local theater group to direct 2 plays for them including the American classic, The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams about which I’m excited. Yet, I’m trying to keep everything in perspective and remember it’s about the journey and living in the moment.
To all of you, I wish a happy and successful 2024, and I hope your journey is exciting and fulfilling.
@ 2024, Carey On Creative, LLC., Atlanta, GA. Tripswithjames.com is a copyrighted entity of Carey On Creative, LLC.
“I really liked Love Potion. Not only does it deal with obsession, but the film also provides a supernatural element that has possible evil hiding just under the surface.”
A Short Film Premiere – A Film by James Carey
This event took place on Sunday, July 23rd of 2023.
There will be another screening of LOVE POTION on Sunday, November 12th, 2023, at the Tara Theater in Atlanta around 2 PM. Please look out for more information here on Tripswithjames.com or www.lovepotionthefilm.com or @lovepoitionthefilm or www.jamesrcarey.com .
There is a link to the film at the end of the blog. The viewing is free, so check it out and let us know what you think of LOVE POTION!
THE BEGINNING
For those of you who are not familiar with my blog, or the story of LOVE POTION, let me give you a little background. LOVE POTION is a 27 1/2-minute short film produced by my film partner Lainie Smith and myself from a script that I wrote several years ago. I had just finished co-directing the low budget feature Madly with its creator Allison Dane, and I was looking for my next project. I was going through a stack of ideas and treatments that I had written over the years, and I came across LOVE POTION. I showed it to Lainie, and she said that is our next project.
From there began a year and a half adventure of writing and rewriting, looking for producers and money to make the film, casting, finding locations, assembling a crew and finally filming the project. However, that is never the end of making a movie, it is just the beginning of the hardest work. After filming you go into postproduction and editing. In our case we went through three separate editors before we found somebody who could finish the project for us. Then there is the color correction and final adjustments to the film like music, credits, and including the various film sizes so that the movie can stream online and then a larger version for showings in a movie theater. Over the years I have made 16 short films and co-directed a couple of features but the process for LOVE POTION was the most arduous that I had ever worked on, and in the end, I think the results were worth it.
LOVE POTION features a cast that includes David Lee Garver who plays the lead character, David Caprita and Lainie Smith as the two mysterious villain characters, Alex Efaw, VJ Roberts, Aubrey Ebony, Shannon Thomas, Ana-Lisa Patterson, Elizabeth Gibbs, John Rust and Rebecca Lambrusco.
THE GALA
The gala opening of LOVE POTION took place at the historic and newly reopened TARA Theater in Atlanta. By the time you are ready to screen a short film at its opening, sometimes you have run out of money, and you just show it to friends or screen it online or if you are a student maybe you get to screen it at the school auditorium. Lainie decided to go all out, and we rented the Tara. Tara had been a historic theater in Atlanta for generations but had been closed for a long time and it had recently just reopened under new management. We booked their 150-seat theater, we had posters, we had gift bags, swag and we promoted the hell out of the gala. We screened at 2:00 PM on Sunday afternoon, July 23rd. It was the second weekend that Barbieheimer opened and as you can see from the opening photo, we were on the same billboard with them. Which was a thrill.
Even more exciting was the fact both films were playing in other theaters at the same time our film was playing. For one show only, LOVE POTION outdrew Oppenheimer at the 2:00 PM slot. They had about 50 people and we had over 80. We all thought that was very cool. The audience reaction was wonderful, and we had incredibly positive feedback at a Talkback that we had at the end of the screening. A lot of the audience wanted to know what happened because the movie as a proof of concept can go in many different directions. It is just up to which way we want to send it. We had a wonderful review from an online movie reviewer bvsreviews.com and I quote:
Love can be a very wonderful thing. But when it turns to obsession, things can become troublesome. Obsessive love is at the core of a new film titled Love Potion. It is a psychological horror short film whose main character can’t get over a lost love.
Emily is an artist who is having a showing of her paintings at an art gallery. Things are going great; the gallery owner is optimistic about sales of Emily’s work and her girlfriends are ecstatic about the buzz surrounding the paintings. But things take a slight turn when Chris shows up at the gallery. He and Emily used to be together. Now they’re not, but you just know he’s still in love with her.
Chris learns that Emily has moved on. But he just can’t let go. An interaction with a stranger leads Chris to a woman who can help him with his situation. The solution is a LOVE POTION that will make the person given the potion to be completely, obsessively in love with whoever gives it to them.
Well, that sounds too good to be true. It’s a scam, right? Chris is skeptical, but is so obsessed with getting Emily back, he’ll try anything. But in the end, what does it cost him?
I really liked Love Potion. Not only does it deal with obsession, but the film also provides a supernatural element that has possible evil hiding just under the surface. Love devolving into obsession and good versus evil are always good plot devices and they are done well here. – Bruce E Von Stiers –http://bvsreviews.com/lovepotion23.htm
The TARA was nice enough to allow us to have a small reception in the lobby after the screening and we got to do all those cliche movie opening tropes like a red carpet, photographs with our poster and the other actors and crew. Then as quickly as it started the afternoon was over and everybody was gone. Lainie and I cleared up all the tables and swag and leftover posters, gift bags and drove away.
We are looking forward to the screening on Sunday, November 12th, when we will be sharing the bill with two other filmmakers and their films. More information to come.
THE MAKING OF LOVE POTION
We went into production in early January of 2023 and shot for two days at an art gallery located in Chamblee, Georgia a suburb of Atlanta. The studio’s name was EBD4 Gallery, owned by artist Elyse Defore. The first day of shooting we had the entire cast there which was 11 different people plus a crew which consisted of our DP/Cinematographer Ahren Steis, our production coordinator, Melissa Steis and our assistant director Justin Nicholson. Sound was handled by Rio Robertson. The costumes were by M. Todd Graham and makeup by Samantha Goodall. Lainie had also managed to find six or seven extras who were willing to stand in the background for most of the day to portray customers and art lovers at a supposed gallery opening for one of the main characters.
The second day we shot at the studio, it was Lainie as the character Ms. Devlin and the lead actor, David Lee Garver in the gallery office with our crew. Yet even though it was only two actors that day it took 12 hours to film and the day before had taken 14 hours. Shooting a film is an exceedingly long slow process where you’re constantly fighting against the clock and trying to get enough footage for your film, so you have something to edit.
The final scene that we needed to shoot was a dream sequence featuring the love interest of the film’s main character, and we shot the scene two weekends later in my apartment in Atlanta. That was a short day, but it still involved moving a bunch of furniture and getting the lights right in the bedroom where we were shooting to get multiple set ups of Alix Efaw who plays the character Emily, the love interest of David Lee Garver’s character.
Now that the filming was complete, it was time to start putting the various pieces together in what is known as a rough cut. Our cinematographer Ahren was going to be the editor of the project, but he had several other projects come up which did not allow him to finish ours. So, we moved on to a second editor who was a nice guy but what he thought the film should look like and I as the director thought it should look like were completely different. So now I had tons of footage we had tried to put together over two months and I had nothing to show for it. Lainie found an editor that she had worked with before on an earlier project that she was producing, and we hired him. Ty Yachaina became our savior because he literally saved the movie. Ty lived in another state, so all our communication was by e-mail or phone but the first rough cut that he gave me was wonderful and we worked from there. As we approached the end of the postproduction process, I began to look at film festivals to hopefully place the film. We selected a list of 12 quality film festivals and submitted our film with our entrance fee to these festivals including Sundance. I had no lofty expectations that our film would be received at Sundance as a hit movie, but you don’t know unless you try.
WHAT IS NEXT? AND VIEW THE FILM!! LINK AT THE END!
With short films it is extremely hard to make money, so finding investors is difficult unless you are lucky enough to have a star involved. The main reasons that you make a short film are: 1) because you’re a creative person and film making is one of the formats that you use as a creative artist, 2) you were using the short film as a calling card for yourself as a filmmaker or writer or producer and you’re going to show it on the Film Festival circuit, or 3) the final reason to make a short film is for what you call a proof of concept. A proof-of-concept film is one where you have an idea for a longer film or TV series and this short film will introduce the idea and the concept of what the show will look like and its tone, plot and characters will be.
During the 1990’s and early 2000’s and even before, there were film festivals like Sundance or Tribeca or Dances with Films and others, but the process of getting your film to these film festivals, promoting it, trying to get people to see it could be a tiring process. There were far fewer festivals than there are today. According to FilmFreeway.com which is the pre-eminent entry point into the world of film festivals, there are almost 10,000 film festivals around the world. Some of them are highly regarded festivals that have been around for years and are serious about presenting films to an audience that appreciates and understands film making, and then there are others that are just literally there to make money for the promoters of the festival, so finding the right festival to present your film is very important.
It is the proof-of concept category that LOVE POTION fits into. LOVE POTION is a psychological horror film much like an Alfred Hitchcock film. There is a lot of suspense, a lot of tension that leads up to a surprise ending that has a supernatural twist.
Now begins the second phase of LOVE POTION after placing it in film festivals and seeing what the reaction is, we hope to find a producer who will give us money to either complete the film or a five- or six-part series that could play on a streaming service. Yet the excitement and challenge of making a film, seeing something through from start to finish, and watching your work projected on a real movie screen in a legitimate theater makes the year and a half of struggle, heartache, exasperation, fear that it won’t get finished, and wondering where the money is coming from all worth the effort.
Here is link to the film so you can view – FOR FREE. Please take a look and let us know what you think. https://youtu.be/e8aRMrJob-k .
IN MEMORY
Our dear friend and wonderful actor, Shannon Thomas fell ill and passed away just a few days after the screening in July. Shannon was a great person, and we are so sad at his passing. We dedicated the film to him and wish his soul God Speed.
GOD SPEED SHANNON. WE MISS YOU!
GALLERY OF PHOTOS
The Film and All Photos (Except photo of Shannon Thomas) are the Copyrighted property of Carey On Creative, LLC. Atlanta, GA. 2023
This BLOG is a copyrighted property of Carey on Creative, LLC. TripswithJames is a trademark of Carey On Creative, LLC. Atlanta, GA 2023.
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