Category: Video

The Color Purple the Musical: A Celebration in 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 the mayor’s wife who 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.

https://linktr.ee/jamesrcarey – LinkTree Site

http://www.jamesrcarey.com – Personal Site

https://pro.imdb.com/name/nm2230605 – Professional Site

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9C0KPdL3tN1Q00FIz_m-zQ – My Film Page

Copyright @ CareyOn Creative, LLC., Atlanta, GA 2024.

TripswithJames.com is a trademark of CareyOn Creative, LLC.

All photos and short film are by James Carey, Rights Reserved (Expect picture of Blitz Bazawala and picture of Dollar Bills.

The text of the article is the property and opinion of the author.

THE GALA PREMIERE OF LOVE POTION AT THE TARA THEATER IN ATLANTA

“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 filmmaking 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 filmmaking, 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.

Preview of the new film, LOVE POTION Coming July 2023

LOVE POTION THE FILM

PREVIEW OF LOVE POTION, A New James Carey Film, An Attic Studios Production, Produced by Lainie Smith, COMING JULY 2023

www.lovepotionthefilm.com

Watching the monitor as actors Alix Efaw and Jon Rust film a scene from Love Potion

LOVE POTION is a psychological horror story with supernatural overtones written and directed by award winning filmmaker James Carey and starring and produced by Lainie Smith. The Cinematographer  is Ahren Steis and Melissa Steis serves as the Production Coordinator. 

DIrector James Carey works with actors David Caprita and David Lee Garver

The cast includes David Lee Garver as Chris, a young man obsessed with getting his ex-girlfriend, played by Alix Efar, back at any cost. David Captria and Lainie Smith play the two people who can help realize that dream by selling him a magical love potion. Yet what is the price to your soul for making a person love you again after they have moved on.

Director of Photography Ahren Steis films a scene

The other cast members featured are VJ Roberts, Aubri Ebony, Shannon Thomas, AnaLisa Patterson, Elizabeth Gibbs, Rebecca Lambrusco and Samantha Goodell.  Our 1st AD was Justin Nicholson, sound was Rio Richardson, HMU was Samantha Goodell, and costume coordinator was Todd Graham.

#lovepotionthefilm #shortfilmmaking #filmmaker #atlfilm #horror #suspense #supernatural #films #movies #director #writer #producer #filmmakers #filmfestival2023 #awardwinning #madeingeorgia #atlanta #ATL #indiefilm #doityourself #justdoit #doingwhatwelove #producers #actors

Two Vintage Films to Help Make Your Summer More Fun.

MOONRISE KINGDOM & BLACKTHORN

Moonrise Kingdom

It was a slow night at home so what better time to watch a Wes Anderson film. I chose his film, Moonrise Kingdom from 2012. I had heard interesting things about Moonrise Kingdom. It was Wes Anderson after all, so at least it would be inventive. I had no idea or expectations or agenda, except to hopefully enjoy. What I got instead a shock!

It was wonderful. Quirky, funny, embarrassing, touching, and a million other words to describe this imaginative and inspired movie.

1ST TIME ACTRESS KARA HAYWARD IS EXCELLENT

I don’t go to Sundance. I love movies, but I am not a festival person who lives and breathes film. But I see over a 100 movies a year both old and new. I am a big popcorn movie fan during the summer, but you need a REAL story every now and then. For everyone, the serious movie goer or the looking for something different weekend movie goer, this is the movie to see.

Wes Anderson creates a world unlike any I have ever seen. The camera style, the almost flat, theatre-like opening tells you that you are in for something different. The whimsical nature of the tiny island that this adventure takes place on. The extremely funny use of Bob Balaban as a Greek chorus narrator to drive the action forward and tells us of impending events. The amazing cast that Anderson put together from Bruce Willis to Bill Murray, from Frances McDormand to Tilda Swinton. And the two preteen leads of the movie are wonderful. Both first time performers on screen, Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward are delightful as the two misunderstood teens who fall in love and run away, but only to the other side of the island. And of course, the singular vision of Wes Anderson always promises something off-beat and fanciful..

EDWARD NORTON LOOKING CONFUSED

 So, if you are already tired of all the big tent pole, super-hero movies or fast, furious car dramas, and all the other huge budget popcorn movies coming your way and it is only June. Then run, don’t walk to see Moonrise Kingdom. You will not regret it. You will laugh and grin and roll your eyes, and enjoyed  yourself immensely.

Moonrise can be streamed on Prime, Apple+, VUDU and Direct TV.

Blackthorn, Butch Cassidy Revisited!

Western!
Sam Shepard!
Bolivia?

Is Sam Shepard riding a Llama and wearing one of  those cute but funny Bolivian hats?

Answer – no!

Blackthorn takes up the story of Butch Cassidy 26 years after he supposedly died with Sundance in that Bolivian town. However, they both escaped – Butch unharmed and Sundance mortally wounded. Sundance dies, and Butch becames Blackthorn, an American expat who has a little ranch and raises horses. For 26 years, he hides out in plain site, sells his horses, writes letters to Etta Place who is in San Francisco, and life slowly works past him. He is lonely, but the peace of not running and just living in one place had replaced the need of adventure and danger.

A GRITTY REVISIONIST WESTERN SET IN BOLIVA

One day, he gets a letter from Etta. She is dying and she has a son – by Sundance or him. She is not sure, and she wants Butch to come back and get to know him. And so, Blackthorn starts the task of trying to end one life and return to another.

He sells his last horse, says goodbye to his local lover, and sets out on the long journey home. However, an unexpected encounter with a young Spanish thief thrust him into one last adventure, the likes of which he has not experienced since his days with Sundance.

SAM SHEPARD AS BLACKTHORN

This is a gritty, revisionist western and Sam Shepard gives a riveting performance as the unsentimental Blackthorn. The director, Mateo Gil and screenwriter, Migual Barros create a beautiful story of what might have happened to one of the American West’s great legends.

The movie is slow in some parts, and the plot doubles back on itself sometimes, but overall this is a tight, and worthwhile little Western. Well worth your 2 hours. Just for the simple pleasure of watching Sam Shepard in his best part since The Right Stuff. This is an excellent weekend treat for the senses. Plus you learn a lot about Bolivia and how much the West and their countryside were alike.  

SAM SHEPARD AS BLACKTHORN

Blackthorn streams on NetFlix. VUDU, FandangoNOW, YouTube, FlixFling, Magnolia Selects, Amazon, Redbox, The Roku Channel, iTunes, Tubi, and Pluto TV.

In Praise of Francis Ford Coppola

For four days, I sat on the movie set of Megalopolis, an upcoming American science fiction epic by director/producer/screenwriter Francis Ford Coppola and watched as the master filmmaker slowly and meticulously made his movie.

My Four Days on the Set of Megalopolis

By Jane Doe, Guest Author

(Ms. Jane Doe is an actress who worked on the movie Megalopolis as a background artist. She is using a fake name because she’s legally obligated not to speak about the film. She had signed an NDA to that effect, but her article was so compelling that we decided to publish it. We have signed an NDA with her not to reveal her name and claim our First Amendment rights of free speech to publish this article.)

For four days, I sat on the movie set of Megalopolis, an upcoming American science fiction epic by director/producer/screenwriter Francis Ford Coppola and watched as the master filmmaker slowly and meticulously made his movie. Coppola is the director of such amazing award-winning movies as the Godfather trilogy, Apocalypse Now, The Conversation and other movies like Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Outsiders and The Rainmaker. He has also served as the producer of over 50+ movies through his American Zoetrope production company. The simple premise of Megalopolis is that in a New York City set sometime in the future and with a culture very much based on early Rome, a young woman is divided between loyalties to her father, who has a classical view of society, and her lover, who is more progressive and ready for the new future. Of course, the film has many much deeper plot points like an autocratic society, democracy versus a dictatorship much like early Rome itself, and morality and what is moral in a strict futuristic society.

Rumors and speculation about Megalopolis which is being shot in Atlanta and based at Trilith Studios have been swirling since the film began its five-month shoot in November of 2022. Stories of budget overruns, mass staff and actor defections, and just general disfunction as theories began to spread that Francis maybe was too old (84) to make another movie or that he just did not understand how to make a film with all the modern technology available now. 

Francis Ford Coppola started writing Megalopolis in the 1980s and has been trying to get the movie made since that time. He came close to production in early 2001 when he recorded roughly 30 hours of second-unit footage of New York City, but when the tragedy of 9/11 happened the film was placed on indefinite hold. By 2007 Coppola publicly announced that the film would never be made. Yet in 2019 just before the pandemic it was announced that Coppola was going to try and make the movie. However, since he had not had a money-making movie in several years he could not find a studio that would finance what would be a multimillion dollar science fiction epic.

Coppola is not only a world-famous filmmaker but he’s also a very shrewd and successful businessman. His empire includes several wineries including Coppola vineyards, magazines, restaurants and hotels, cannabis, and online activities. In 2021 Coppola sold several of his wineries and when he could find no one to finance his film, he announced that he would self-finance the movie himself. At the start of production, the budget was set at $120 million and by January 2023 the reported overruns had cost the film an added $30 million. The film was originally to be shot using OSVP technology also known as The Volume. This is a system where a set is surrounded by 40-foot-high LED panels on which backgrounds and scenes and locations can be projected making that your scenery. This technology has been used in movies produced by Marvel and Star Wars. However, the technology of this system is extremely costly, and the budget quickly ballooned. Then Coppola and his team decided to pivot to a less costly and more traditional green screen approach.

I was very excited when I was cast as a wedding guest in an opulent scene that required about 300 background artists. I was going to get a chance to see Francis Ford Coppola directing up close and to see if the rumors about the film’s dysfunction and his decline were either true or false.

Most background fittings usually take 30 to 45 minutes tops, mine took over 4 hours. I was astonished at the number of costumes that I saw that took up an entire soundstage and the attention to detail on each costume. It quickly became clear why the costumes were so elaborate. Four-time Oscar winner, Milena Canonero was the costume designer and her staff was painstakingly fussy over each and every item. The style of the film costumes, hair, and sets might be called “modern Roman”. All our hair and gowns were done up in styles that would resemble what wealthy women wore during Roman times. Each morning after we got dressed in our lavish costumes, our hair and makeup took about an hour each day for each person. My hair alone took over an hour as my stylist pinned my long blond hair up, adding hair pieces and finally a fake diamond tiara that gave me a headache it weighed so much. The elaborate makeup took another 30 minutes. Multiple that by about 100 or more women and you can see how long it took for just background to get ready.   

The first day that I reported for shooting our location was Gas South Arena in Duluth, GA which was being used as a facsimile for Madison Square Garden. They had covered the entire floor of the auditorium in a thick layer of red dirt and on that placed three rings that gave it a circus atmosphere. That day we watched a chariot race, and male and female wrestlers perform in each one of the three rings. My first impressions of Mr. Coppola when he finally appeared on set surrounded by his massive crew and Roman, his son who is a cinematographer/director was that he was old and a little disorganized. Yet as I listened to background artists who have been working on the film since its beginning, it appeared that the overtime that it took to get the OSPV LED screens to work correctly was where much of the budget overruns came from. The other rumor was that many of his star actors came to set without knowing their lines. With great interest I listened to one background person who had been part of this scene with at least ten of the major stars for over a week and what had happened. The plan appeared to be for Mr. Coppola to spend two or three days filming this complex scene. Yet none of the actors seemed to know their lines and when they tried to rehearse, it just became obvious that this would not work. Instead, Francis decided to spend an entire day focused on each individual actor to get the different takes and styles he felt he needed. This expanded the time from two or three days to 10 days all with star actors on the clock getting paid. It seemed it was recurring situations like this that had started to cause budget overruns.

By the time I got to set, they had corrected that situation by ending each day after 12 hours. They had also gone to the green screens exclusively. What people forget about Francis Ford Coppola is that he is an improvisational director. Yes, he is done gigantic epics like Apocalypse Now and supposedly that ran into all kinds of budget overruns and time problems. However, early in his career Coppola was a filmmaker who made small personal films and was very improvisational in how he shot them. Sometimes he would change things at a moment’s notice. He brought that style to Megalopolis, and it was obvious that it was frustrating for the crew and perhaps even the cast. It’s hard to be improvisational when your crew is over 100 people, and you have four cameras going including a crane camera but somehow that’s what he managed to do.

On our second day we reported to the same location and the three rings of the circus were gone and replaced with a giant platform on which a Greek style temple had been built. That day we sat in the bleachers that posed for Madison Square Garden again and watched a parade of scantily dressed women walk around the stadium. Then four female aerial artists and Grace Vanderwaal, American singer, and actress, who plays one of the leads performed for about three or four hours to recorded dance music and vocals by Vanderwaal. After the scene was done the way that it was written, Coppola would begin to ask for changes: move the camera here, can you do the scene this way and then on the next take he would change it again. He might move a camera to another position or ask the crane to come in a different way or ask the dance number to change. With the crew this large it took time to make all these changes and it might seem confusing to somebody who had not been on the set for 24 hours over two days but it became apparent he was in complete control and knew exactly what was going on. They had a riot scene planned at the end of the dance section, and watching the stunt coordinator and Coppola add layer upon layer to the fight scenes was so interesting.

On top of that Francis is an old school gentleman. We never heard him curse or raise his voice. Each day he was dressed in a suit and was wonderfully nice and complementary to everyone and treated us with great dignity. Because the set was so big and he is 84 years old, he used a microphone to talk to everybody. The first day I was on set people talked over Francis and that did create confusion for people.  That did not happen on the second day.

When I returned a week later to complete this wedding scene we were now at Trilith Studios and our numbers have been reduced down to about 100. To get us in the mood for what we were going to be working on that day, Coppola showed a 5 minute clip of what we had shot the week before with Grace Vanderwaal and the aerialists It was amazing. The color correction, the editing, how the scene flowed together with this beautiful song sung by Grace was stunning. It’s not often on a film set that actors, background, and entire crew members stop to applaud a little vignette but that’s what happened. That day we watched parades of people walk by with us applauding for them. The group passing by included Dustin Hoffman, Talia Shire and Giancarlo Esposito. I almost got bumped up to have a line with Talia Shire unfortunately it went to someone else, but for a few moments I thought I was going to have a line in a Francis Ford Coppola movie.

I don’t know if this movie will be a success. I don’t know if the movie will be good or if it will make any money. All I know on those four days that I sat there and watched Mr. Coppola interact with his crew and his cast and all the background was a man who still knows what he’s doing and is in command of his craft. Perhaps chaos is part of his creative process, but it’s helped him make three of the greatest movies ever made and served him well through the rest of his career. If that little 5 minute sequence that I saw is any indication, Megalopolis is going to be beautiful and amazing. Thank you, Mr. Coppola. It was an awesome four days watching you work.

LOVE POTION THE FILM

LOVE POTION is a psychological horror film with supernatural overtones that we are shooting in Atlanta, GA in January of 2023. It is what is called a “proof of concept” short film to present to producers/movie studios as the showcase for a possible longer film or TV series based on the story elements of our film. We also plan to release this film on the film festival circuit as well.

I do not usually promote my filmmaking projects on this site. I try to keep it just about travel related blogs and information, but two big film related events are coming up for me that I am really excited to share.

First, a film of mine (A Cost of Freedom) that I have talked about here a few months ago is going to screen on Nov. 10th in Los Angeles. I am flying out for the event from my new home in Atlanta, GA. I will do an entire post on the event, the red carpet, the response to the film and Los Angeles in general since I have not ever just been there as a tourist. I always lived there when I wrote about it. More to come on that exciting event.

The other event and the one I am talking about today is the launch of the website for my next film project LOVE POTION. The site is live right now and starting to draw attention which we are super excited about. The site is also a base for our crowd funding which will officially start on Tuesday, Oct 25th when we kick off our Indiegogo.com page. We are trying to raise $8000 to produce the movie and I hoping that you support the project by sharing information and these posts, following and possibly even contributing to the film at www.lovepotionthefilm.com

LOVE POTION is a psychological horror film with supernatural overtones that we are shooting in Atlanta, GA in January of 2023. It is what is called a “proof of concept” short film to present to producers/movie studios as the showcase for a possible longer film or TV series based on the story elements of our film. We also plan to release this film on the film festival circuit as well.

Ahren Steis, Lainie Smith, James Carey

I wrote the script and will be directing the movie. The leading actress and Co-Producer of the film is the award winning Lainie Smith, a very well known Atlanta actress and motivator of this project. The Cinematographer  will be Ahren Steis, and his wife Melissa Steis will serves as the Production Coordinator. We have assembled a stellar cast which will be announced at a later date.  

There will be many more travel articles coming your way, but we ask you if you would SUBSCRIBE, FOLLOW and SHARE our information about LOVE POTION. This way YOU CAN BE PART of the film as well. Reach out to us at any of our social media sites listed at the bottom of this page or email us at :

info@lovepotionthefilm.com

#lovepotionthefilm

Facebook – @lovepotionthefilm

Instagram –@lovepotionthefilm

 Thank you!

Positano, Italy: City on a Cliff


Before I start my account about Positano, I owe my subscribers a bit of an apology. I promised this story to you almost three months ago and yet here it is the first time you’ve heard from me since August. My professional life has gotten very busy recently but that’s not an excuse. I just got lazy. Between directing a show, pre-production for a film, some acting jobs and being asked to write a film for a producer here in Atlanta, I just kept saying I’ll do the Positano story tomorrow. And of course I’m just getting to it now. So please pardon me and expect a lot more articles on Trips With James in the coming weeks.

Positano is the first village that you come to as you leave Sorrento, Italy on the Naples side of the Amalfi coast. It can be reached by bus along the cliffs, or you can take ferries from Naples and Sorrento to reach it by sea. Positano is a layer cake of houses and shops and churches built on a cliff side that reaches all the way down to the Bay of Naples.

The photographs and the short film that are part of this article describe much better than I can in words how beautiful and colorful Positano is. There’s one highway that comes into Positano and connects you with the rest of the Amalfi coast, and there is one road that goes through the village all the way down to the shoreline. Yet Positano is a city of steps and stairways that lead in all directions as you walk through the village. These steps and stairways and paths lead to plazas, elegant shops, beautiful homes, small churches, large cathedrals and everywhere restaurants. Each one of these places has a magnificent view of the Bay of Naples.

I have two brief tales of things that happened to me as I entered Positano. As some of you who have read this blog before know I am scared of heights. Not ones made by nature, but ones made by man himself. I am perfectly fine standing on a cliff or mountain but flying in an airplane or riding over a high bridge scare me stupid. Taking the bus from Sorrento towards Positano, I had climbed on board and sat on right side of the coach. The Italian roads around the Amalfi coast are very narrow but the bus drivers speed around those corners and curves like it’s the Indianapolis 500. To get from Sorrento to Positano you have to cross over a mountain and come down the other side and the views are incredible, but you are literally traveling on a road that is suspended over the ocean anywhere from 500 to 1000 feet above the Bay of Naples with all the views on my side of the bus. There was literally nothing next to us. We were completely supported on this tiny narrow road by man-made construction. There had never been a road there before and there really should not be a road there now. It was breathtakingly beautiful and incredibly scary as we whipped around those corners in this 30-foot bus.

As we arrived in the village an incident that took place was right out of any classic Italian genre comedy. What took place was so cliché that you almost would not believe that it happened, but it actually did. As I stated before the highway is very narrow and in the villages people actually park on both sides of the highway in many places so there’s only enough room for one car to get through one at a time, but Italians don’t wait for anybody they just keep going. As we pulled into the village there was a small pickup truck in front of our bus traveling in the same direction and coming from the opposite way was a very large Mercedes-Benz. They both arrived at the same place at the same time and neither one of them would move out of the way for the other. What ensued was 10 minutes of Italian drivers standing in the middle of the road screaming at each other and waving their hands around in that secret language of Italian hand gestures that only they understand. Our bus driver also got involved as he got out of the bus twice and went over to the group of screaming Italian men. He proceeded to yell and scream while jumping up and down a bit and then came back to the bus. With the cars stacking up behind us on the busy coastal road, drivers from 5, 6, 7 cars away would get out come to join the loud discussion and then walk back to their cars shaking their heads. Not knowing the language, I could only guess what the argument was about. It seemed that the driver of the Mercedes-Benz, a very elegantly dressed older man, seemed concerned that his Mercedes would get scratched by the pickup truck. The driver of the truck didn’t care and that seemed to be the main concern. Finally after 10 minutes of this comedy of errors in Italian, the elegantly dressed man got back in his Mercedes and actually could drive past the pickup truck. There had been really no reason for this entire kerfuffle to take place, but it was exciting to see that the cliches that you think happen in other countries like Italian drivers screaming at each other in the middle of a road actually do take place. No one pulled a gun, no one threw a punch, no one tried to stab anybody else, there was just a lot of yelling and screaming and gesticulating about who was supposed to go first or get out of the way.

It was a bright, clear and warm November day as I took my time wandering through Positano down staircases, across plazas, entering shops and the large cathedral there as I made my way down towards the shoreline. Arriving at the shore of the Bay of Naples, I turned around and realized what an amazing feat of architecture this was. It was a layer cake of colorful houses and shops, churches and plazas that are all built on top of each other. Places where people live and work and shop and eat and live their lives. It is incredible to behold, yet you wonder who was the first person to decide that we could build an entire village on a side of a cliff?

At the bottom of the cliff, the shoreline was filled with expensive eateries and restaurants that serve fresh seafood and amazing Italian pastas and wines. After lunch, of course, it took me a bit longer to go up the staircases to the road then to come down them. I almost missed the bus back to Sorrento because while there is a bus schedule it’s a little bit flexible in an Italian way. Most of these villages don’t have a bus station there’s just a place where people gather and if you miss the bus you may be there for another hour or so before one returns.

Positano is beautiful, colorful, and certainly worth the visit.





A Day in Positano, Italy: A Short Film

A short travel log about Positano, Italy

Positano (Campanian: Pasitano) is a village and comune on the Amalfi Coast (Province of Salerno), in Campania, Italy, mainly in an enclave in the hills leading down to the coast.

A Day in Positano, Italy

TRANSPORTATION TO POSITANO:

Positano can be reached by the SS163 Amalfitana national road, or by the SP425 provincial road. The nearest airports are the Napoli-Capodichino (NAP) and the Salerno-Pontecagnano Airport (QSR) and they have shuttle buses to destinations across the Amalfi Coast, including Positano. Ferries link Positano to other towns including Capri, Naples, Salerno, and Sorrento for transportation. The Sita bus links Positano to Amalfi and Sorrento.

Next Blog will be about Positano!

Film directed and edited by James Carey. All photos are by James Carey. Sources for the information are from Wikipedia and journals of James Carey. The film and this blog are copyrighted by CareyOn,LLC 2022.

Best Laid Plans of Men, Not Mice!

The famous phrase “the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray” is taken from a poem by the Scottish poet, Robert Burns and it is also the basis for the title of John Steinbach’s book and play, Of Mice and Men. Basically the meaning of the phrase is that no matter how careful you plan for the future, something is probably going to go sideways at some point. That just recently happened to me this week.

I owe the faithful readers of this particular blog an apology because I haven’t written anything in about six or seven weeks. However, there was a reason for that. For the past few months while I’ve lived in Atlanta, I have been taking meetings and meeting people trying to get a few theater and film projects off the ground, and six weeks ago all of that work seemed to come to fruition at the same time. I was hired to direct 2 plays for a new theater group here and about the same time a short film script that I had written called Love Potion attracted the attention of local film producers. We did a reading of it, and they agreed to move forward with us and one of the producers actually wanted to be the lead in the movie. So quickly my summer went from being pretty empty, I had been planning a lot of travel, and all of a sudden it was full of projects. So, the blog and the three articles that I owe all of you on Italy – Sorrento, Positano and Milano got put on hold.

Yet, as the phrase says ‘the best laid plans of (mice and) men often go astray and that’s exactly what happened. This week in a matter of 16 hours, I lost every project. First, the plays and then the film. Suddenly my summer is completely wide open again.

First the executive director of the theatre organization that had hired me 5 weeks ago called to tell me that because of budgetary concerns and some internal struggles on their board of directors, they were changing course in how the plays were being done. I was sad, but I still had the film, and I was most excited about that anyway. Yet, 16 hours later as I was working on the fund-raising campaign for the film, my two producers called with wonderful news for them, but it was bad news for me. They had just signed a four-picture deal with a movie studio in Hollywood. I was extremely happy for them. They are wonderful guys who I have worked with before and they deserve all the credit and all the opportunities that come their way. However, now their schedule did not allow for a short film, so it was back to the drawing board.

I will not say that it did not discourage me to lose all my projects at the same time but to quote another old phrase ‘that’s the way the cookie crumbles’. But it’s left me ‘at sixes and sevens’ which is another old phrase from the 1500’s which means you’re uncertain on what to do next.

In the meantime, I’m going to return to the blog and write those three articles that I promised you many weeks ago and they’ll be coming very quickly because at this point – I really don’t have anything else to do.

I want to thank you my loyal readers for hanging around and a lot of stuff will soon be coming your way.

As a bonus for you the last blog that I did was a short film about Sorento and I’ve attached that to the bottom of this blog.

Enjoy and more will be coming.


Copyright 2022, CareyOn Creative, LLC., Atlanta, GA.

A DAY IN SORRENTO, ITALY – A SHORT FILM

A SHORT FILM – A DAY IN SORRENTO,ITALY

A SHORT FILM – A DAY IN SORRENTO,ITALY

Sorrento, Italy is a town overlooking the Bay of Naples in Southern Italy. Sorrento is a coastal town in southwestern Italy, facing the Bay of Naples on the Sorrentine Peninsula. Perched atop cliffs that separate the town from its busy marinas, it’s known for sweeping water views and Piazza Tasso, a cafe-lined square. The historic center is a warren of narrow alleys that’s home to the Chiesa di San Francesco, a 14th-century church.

Looking across the Bay of Naples toward Mt. Vesuvius.

A popular tourist destination, Sorrento is located within easy access from Naples and Pompei. The town is widely known for its small ceramics, lacework and marquetry (woodwork) shops. It also serves as one of two gateway cities to the famous Amalfi Coast. From Sorrento you can have views of Naples, Mt. Vesuvius and the Isle of Capri. The Amalfi Coast Drive connecting Sorrento and Amalfi, is a narrow road along the high cliffs above the Tyrrhenian Sea. Ferries and hydrofoils also connect the town to Naples, Amalfi, Positano, Capri, Ischia.

The city is also famous for its Limoncello, a liqueur made from lemon rinds, alcohol, water and sugar, which is grown in lemon groves right inside the town.

My next blog will be about traveling to Sorrento and things to do there.

Film directed and edited by James Carey.

All photos are by James Carey.

Sources for the information are from Wikipedia and journals of James Carey

The film and this blog are copyrighted by CareyOn,LLC 2022.