Place: Dream Big Dreams,
Hosts: Jim and Jan Polk, (
Margery Sinclair (
Attendees: Linda and Larry Raasch (
IL), Lynn and Duane Chanay (
Elaine and Dave Schuckers (
College
(
Virginia Spencer (
Q&A after
the screening via Speaker Phone from
Writer,
Producer, Director: Justin Eugene Evans
Category:
Drama/Feature/War
Writers: Justin
Eugene Evans and Catherine Doughty
Cast: James Cromwell as Howard Simons
Michael
Scovotti as CIA Agent Robert Harper
Michael
Wincott as Mr. Greenglass
Ross Marquand
as KGB Agent Nikolai Dzerzhinsky
Jan Polk and
Margery Sinclair are great friends and business partners.
As average
movie-goers outside of the filming industry, our group was privileged
to learn
about the behind he scenes activities from Margery and some of Justin’s
ground breaking
tips on how to come in on budget when
making a movie.
Some
interesting information about the movie:
They had over 10,000 applicants
for this
movie including some well know actors.
Justin acquired his set, an
abandoned
prison in
before he even began writing the story line.
He and his
partner wrote each scene as they sat in each location of the prison.
This allowed
them to know exactly how to write the scene and know at the time
if it would
work or not thereby eliminating a lot of expensive retakes. They could actually
see how the
actors would enter, interact, and exit.
Justin
reserved the abandoned prison for 8 weeks knowing it would take 6 weeks to
shoot
the film
allowing for one week set up and one week take down. He stated major motion
picture
houses would reserve such a space for 3 months in order to produce one day of
shooting.
Justin and
his team explored the prison for many months before filming began.
They
discovered all the intricate, secret workings of a prison because one of
his staff
discovered a locked door and picked the lock.
Margery
Sinclair was involved with the project from beginning to
end. She was on set during the filming. One scene shows puddles on the
floor…….Margery
made those puddles! Even though the
prison was
old, and
abandoned, some scenes required being aged even more. Splashed
coffee on the
walls did the trick. When coffee dries,
it looks like rust.
Margery said all the
fake blood tasted like mint. Apparently,
fake blood comes
in many
flavors from bubble gum to peppermint. A
lot of the splattered blood
was added by
computer graphics. The background of
added
computer graphic. The movie is so well
made, these items are not
readily apparent
to average movie goers.
All the foul
language was not in the script but added by the actors.
Keeping in mind this is a movie about CIA, KGB, Guns,
War, Secrets,
Treason,
etc. Justin Eugene Evans says “This is
not a sweet, tender, movie.”
One of the
things I, Jan Polk, especially liked about “
is “Nikolai’s”
humorous handling of the foul language and stating
that “only
American’s use such bad language all the time and it
is
disrespectful.” Right on. We need to be reminded of this more
often than we
are and it didn’t hurt the movie in the least, in fact, I think
it helped.
Margery said
all the buzz at the festivals was everyone wanted to know
where Justin
found a Russian who could speak such good English.
In actuality,
Margery’s Russian friend read the entire script
in English
using her Russian accent. This was given to Ross. Ross
also took
Russian
lessons on his own without being asked to do so. Initiative always pays off.
I think Director Justin Eugene Evans has discovered a
great new actor in
Ross Marquand
and look forward to watching his career as well as
Justin’s.
One more
interesting fact about the premier…and it has nothing to do with
the
movie. The Q&A was via speaker phone
and was hard to understand.
One of the
guests, Dave Schuckers, suggested we put the phone in a deep
ceramic bowl
(that had been used for popcorn).
Amazingly, the transmission
became very
audible and easy to understand. Who
knew? Thanks, Dave!
I invite you to visit the website of the San Diego Film
Festival 2009 to see
a clip of “A Lonely Place For Dying” by Writer/Director Justin Eugene Evans
and Executive
Producer Margery Sinclair.
We wish much
success to Justin Eugene Evans and to my favorite
“Russian”
Ross Marquand.
Margery Sinclair, in addition to being Executive Producer of
A Lonely Place for
Dying, is also author and co-publisher of “A Year of Good Manners”
by Margery
Sinclair and Jan Polk. $27.95 available for purchase at
www.ayearofgoodmanners.com and www.margerysinclair.com and www.janpolk.com
I thought
Margery should have had a copy of “A Year of Good Manners”
laying around
in one of the scenes or in the credits.
She and Justin
said it was
set in 1972 and they wanted to stay true to the set.
I say this is
where “artist’s license” comes in. I
also think this is where
we, as the
public, can have an impact. Write the
various producers/directors of
movies and
tell them you would like to see a copy of
“A Year of Good
Manners”
inconspicuously placed in their movies, credits or outtakes.
Jan Polk’s
Great American Flower Collection (GAFC) floral images in
“A Year of
Good Manners” carries a symbolic message
to treat
yourself with respect. Margery
Sinclair’s words tell you how to
treat others
with respect and the reasons why.
Please let us
know what you think.
One last
interesting tidbit: During production, as an April fool’s day joke,
Margery
Sinclair changed one letter in the title and rewrote the script to be
entirely
opposite of the film “
Place
Can you change
just one
letter and have an entirely new title?