Hollywood Magic

Jamie Schworer's classic 1964 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud III (photo by James Rollo)

          Anyone who has read this blog knows that I'm a car guy. I like cars; all kinds of them. While cars and this blog are a passion, they don't, unfortunately, pay the bills. What does pay the bills, may people seem to think is pretty cool as well. I make movies.
          You've probably never seen one of my pictures. Most of them are documentaries and shorts made for corporations and businesses that need to somehow get a message across. Some of what I have done can be seen on television in the form of commercials. Some of it is seen only on line. A lot, though, you either have to be an employee of a certain company or a client in order to have seen my work.
          Sure I've been involved in a number of feature films, just about all of which have had some type of run in theaters. Some have had their run in home video sales and rentals and more recently some have had VOD, or video on demand, sales. But none ever featured a big name star or won an award at Sundance.
          When I'm out at a party or other social gathering and people ask me what I do for a living the easy answer is always, "I own a small media production company that specializes in corporate communications." Yeah, that sounds pretty boring. What I usually tell them is, "I play with expensive toys and spend other people's money." That sounds like a fun job.

Me outside the car watching camera operator Anthony Pesce at work. In the back seat is actress Carrie-Ellen Zappa (photo by James Rollo)

          There's a bit of insanity that inhabits the minds of people in this industry. Most of us work for ourselves; we're freelancers the way the old unindentured knights were. We go from job to job, client to client without a safety net. But we like it.
          Something else that sets us apart from most other types of industry is that quite often, on our weekends, you just might find us doing something most "normal" people would never consider. We will be doing our jobs for fun and for free.

Producer Farooq Ahmad with his back to the camera, me and the versatile Mike Hon waiting for the next take. Anthony Pesce and actress Carrie-Ellen Zappa are in the car.

          A while back my daughter, who is a dance education major in college, made the comment that she would like to someday be a zombie ballerina. This was back when the cries against the one percent were still being heard. This got me thinking of a story that could be told in the form of a short film. Together, she and I wrote the script.
         I called in some friends, both professional actors and professional production people, and we set forth shooting the short that will be called Corpse de Ballet. We shot half of it on a recent Sunday while the other half will be shot in a few weeks when my daughter is home from college. To say the least, it was a blast.
          OK, so what does a short film about a rich, self absorbed couple going to the ballet in the midst of a zombie Apocalypse have to do with classic cars? Simple, one of the stars of that first day's shoot was a classic 1964 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud III.

A shot, courtesy of Jamie Schworer, showing her car in the classic film Cannonball Run. That's her father, James, wiping down the car and the fantastic Sammy Davis, Jr.

          If that car sounds familiar it should as I've written about my friend Jamie Schworer's fabulous car before (http://turnerbudds-carblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/star-of-car.html). And considering it's pedigry, such as it being in the classic Burt Reynolds movie Cannonball Run among others, this car fit right in.
          What most people don't realize is that when they see some characters talking in a car that is driving down the road, most of the time that car is being pulled by a truck with lights and cameras and sound gear. That involves getting all sorts of permits and frankly having the kind of budget that our little short just couldn't afford.

Actor Chris Singleton, on the left, me, boom operator Ian Klute and producer Farooq Ahmad ready the next shot as actors Carrie-Ellen Zappa and Mike Dennis get ready to act in the back seat (photo by James Rollo)

          To solve that little problem we turned to the magic of Hollywood and the beauty of the green screen. As you can see from some of the pictures that James Rollo of Rollophotography, one of the many fantastic pros who helped out with the shoot, took during the shoot, we pulled the Rolls into my garage and set up the green screen behind the actors.
          A few days before, one of my friends, Mike Hon, and I drove around to a few locations. Mike first sat in the back seat and shot out the right side of the car since the Rolls is a right hand drive. This footage would look as though it was passing outside the window as actor Chris Singleton drove. Then Mike climbed in the back of my SUV and, with the back hatch open, shot at to 45 degree angles to give the perspective of scenery moving behind our other two actors, Carrie-Ellen Zappa and Mike Dennis. This footage will be layered in during post production so it will look as though the car with the actors was driving down the roads Mike and I were several days earlier.
          Hollywood Magic.
          To a lot of people this whole process, putting together the pieces to make the motion picture, are really cool. To the people on the set, the coolest thing for them was when Jamie rolled up in that classic piece of automotive history. Everyone there wanted to get their picture taken with the car. Just more Hollywood magic.

The crew around the car getting ready for the next shot. Jamie Schworer is in the pink coat. (Photo by James Rollo)