ww EPK page 1 test
Transcription
ww EPK page 1 test
a JUPITER BOX PRODUCTION | BRAD ANDERSON | DESMOND DUTCHER MARK FORD | DAVID RUDD | ALEXIS SUAREZ | BRYAN WEST First assistant director CHRIS GORMLEY | Sound CHRISTOPHER TRUDEAU | Music supervisor FL JONES | Original score MICHAEL LEVEY Director of photography IAN BLOOM | Produced by JASON BROWN & RICHARD LEMAY | Screenplay by JASON BROWN | Directed by RICHARD LEMAY PRESS FOR WHIRLWIND WINNER BEST FEATURE AUDIENCE AWARD ATLANTA OUT ON FILM FESTIVAL OFFICIAL SELECTION NEWFEST NEW YORK OFFICIAL SELECTION OUTFEST LOS ANGELES OFFICIAL SELECTION MELBOURNE QUEER FILM FESTIVAL Jason Brown (L) and Richard LeMay (R) speak at a panel at Turner Broadcasting. “The banter is witty and the sex is hot, securing WHIRLWIND a sure spot in gay boys’ hearts.” - Southern Voice From the director of 200 AMERICAN comes the new feature film WHIRLWIND. Set in New York City, the story centers on a tight knit group of gay men. At first they appear to have it all. They are funny, good looking and successful, but soon a handsome stranger enters into their group and everything changes. Drake is young, hot and charming, but he has ulterior motives. What starts out with Drake adding some excitement to the routine of this circle of friends quickly begins to spiral out of control. Both touching and funny, this story follows the wake of one person’s deliberate attempt to destroy the relationships of five men, all the while letting his own friendships unravel around him. Written by Emmy Award winning writer Jason Brown and starring some of the most talented actors in New York, WHIRLWIND is a surprisingly subtle and honest depiction of thirty something gay men and the crossroads they must face. Contact: Jason Brown Richard LeMay [email protected] www.JupiterBoxProductions.com CAST desmond jd mick drake bobby sean louis adam wayne fiona renee lauren robert owen cute server grabby guy guy on street hot club guy BRAD ANDERSON DESMOND DUTCHER MARK FORD DAVID RUDD ALEXIS SUAREZ BRYAN WEST MICHAEL PATERNOSTRO ROBBIE CAIN STEPHEN SMITH KARMINE ALERS-GRECO GAIL HERENDEEN LAURA TAYLOR VALENTINE RYDER JIM HORVATH CLIFTON OLIVER STEVEN SCARPETTI PATRICK JONES NICK ATKINS PRINCIPAL CREW producer & writer director director of photography 1st assistant director 2nd assistant director assistant camera script supervisor gaffer key grip grip sound recordist boom sound mixer editor assistant editors music supervisor original music hair & makeup JASON BROWN RICHARD LEMAY IAN BLOOM CHRIS GORMLEY MICHAEL HELLMANN RORY HANRAHAN KIMBERLEY MARCELINO ZAIRI MALCOLM MEG SCHROCK JOSE ORTIZ TOBEY MILLER MATT KERR CHRISTOPHER TRUDEAU DAVID HURLBURT ANDREW QUINN CURT LACHOWIN JASON BROWN ROBERT KRUPKA IAN WOLFSON FL JONES MICHAEL LEVEY ANDREA ROSE RILEY ANTHONY BALLARD TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS Running Time: Recorded On: Aspect Ratio: Format: Available Formats: Sound: Category: 99 minutes Mini DV 16:9, also 4:3 widescreen version NTSC color DIGIBETA, DVCAM, DVD, VHS Stereo Drama / Drama for Gay Audiences Jupiter Box Productions ABOUT US Founded by Emmy award winner Jason Brown and Richard LeMay, Jupiter Box Productions is dedicated to creating quality entertainment with a focus on storytelling. We create feature films, CONTACT develop material of professional and emerging artists. Richard LeMay Jason Brown Jason and Richard have many years of creative [email protected] www.JupiterBoxProductions.com documentaries and music videos, and also help experience under their belts. This includes producing, directing, writing, story creation, script consulting & doctoring, and market value enhancement. Whether working on our own or others’ projects, we strive to maintain the artists’ vision while bringing out the best in the material. Spotlight on JASON BROWN Jason began his career in show business at the ripe old age of three while starring in a dog food commercial. A little later in life he was a finalist in the Young Playwrights Festival in New York, where his play TENDER PLACES was produced by Joe Papp at the Public Theater. The play was published by Dell Books and went on to become a primetime special produced by Group W starring Jean Stapleton, and won a New England Emmy and a Peabody Award. Jason received a degree in Film & Broadcasting from Boston University, and after moving to New York worked at organizations including the Dramatists Guild, MTV, VH1, and as a freelance writer, director and editor with numerous film and commercial companies. Currently Jason is an instructor with Writers Boot Camp, teaching writing for film and television and is also president of Jupiter Box Productions, a company he founded with producer/director Richard LeMay. Spotlight on RICHARD LEMAY After the success with the award winning BACK TO ONE, LeMay went on to produce three feature length films, one in which he wrote, directed and edited. 200 AMERICAN is a poster child for micro budget filmmaking, shot in and around New York City in three weeks. The film connected to sold out audiences in film festivals around the world and at the end of 2004, 200 AMERICAN got worldwide distribution. WOLFE VIDEO released the DVD in the US and Canada in December 2004. It remained at number 2 in the top 10 sales on the distributor’s website (www.wolfevideo.com) for eight months and can still be found on their best seller list today. 200 AMERICAN can found at BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO and NETFLIX. For more information on Richard, visit www.rlemay.com. Press for 200 AMERICAN: Interview with Ang Lee and Richard Lemay QX International, January 2007 qx FEATURE GAY LOVE ON THE BIG SCREEN JACK LEGER takes a look at two very different gay romances... TWO current cinematic gay love stories couldn’t be more different on the surface. One is a gritty, wrenching, expansive epic spanning 20 years in the American West. The other’s a microbudget comedy about the Pretty Woman fantasy: hire a gorgeous escort and fall in love. But both films have been criticised for a lack of explicit sexuality. While Brokeback Mountain (now in cinemas) puts quite a bit of huffing and puffing on screen, it still hedges away from depicting a continuous physical relationship. And 200 American (just out on DVD and reviewed on page 18) takes the old-style approach, in which the story builds to that all-important first kiss. First-time filmmaker Richard LeMay says his goal with 200 American was to make a light romance based on his own relationship with an Australian man who had immigration trouble, “although he never resorted to prostitution,” he says. “I just wanted to tell a story about average guys who happen to be gay. You could put straight characters in the same movie and it would play the same, except a man can’t marry another man for a green card.” (Well, not in America!) Richard’s decision to leave out gay stereotypes, explicit sex and big issues was intentional. And that was one thing that drew the young New York actor Sean Matic to the film. Sean plays the Aussie escort Ian, the hunk on the film’s poster. “This film’s main theme to me is: be true to your heart,” Sean says. “All four leads in the film get seriously screwed (no pun intended!) until they can admit to themselves what they truly want.” As an up-and-coming straight actor, he was glad there weren’t explicit sex scenes. “I think any time sex and nudity come up for unknown actors, the response is: what do I want audiences and the industry’s first impression of me to be? If it had been about how much fucking the director could squeeze on screen, and not about the characters and their struggles, I wouldn’t have done it,” he says. “I had never kissed a man, but once I got in Ian’s skin it was the same as playing any romantic character.” While filming Brokeback Mountain, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal had similar feelings. “There are not actually love scenes for the sake of doing a love scene,” Heath says. “There are stories within each of those moments. The fi rst was very poignant because it had to be rough, it had to be fighting. He was almost ready to punch him. Once that all settled it had to be this innate passionate adrenaline. It just takes over him.” Jake has a slightly different perspective: “When it came to doing love scenes, we were both like, ‘Are you ready? Yeah. Let’s go!’ And we dove off the boat into the deep end. We knew we had to consummate this somehow. It couldn’t just be a story about friendship because there’s a part of two people connecting intimately, sexually, that drives that intimacy through the years. In my opinion when you see the movie, as soon as that happens, you’re like, ‘Okay, I’m here now. I’m ready to see what’s going to happen.’ Or, ‘I’m out of here. I’ll see you later.’ But either way it does knock you into something.” When a film focuses on the story and characters, rather than the sex scenes, the most important thing is to develop chemistry. “For Heath and I, it’s a friendship and a trust that, as actors, we were going to go someplace that we both were afraid of,” Jake says. “We just trusted each other and I think, in that trust, there was a real connection. And being straight, we didn’t have that complication that you usually have when you’re working with a female. We knew, at a certain point, we only had each other. Because we never knew how people were going to respond to the movie, we kind of just joined up and said, ‘Fuck ’em, let’s go for it.’ And we did. And I think you probably see that.” For Heath, the main challenge wasn’t the gay aspect of the movie. “In fact, in this year I can’t understand why anyone — agent, manager, publicist — would even question any actor taking a gay role. I hate to call it “daring” or “brave”. Firemen are daring and brave. I’m acting!” For him the main challenge was to age 20 years and nail the accent. “As he gets older, his voice gets deeper,” he says. “I had to go “I think we’re slowly coming around to recognising that there’s more to being gay” from 20-year-old to 40-year-old sounding voice in a Midwestern American accent.” For 200 American, Sean’s had to do the reverse accent. “It was a challenge trying to pull off an Australian accent in a short time without the luxury of a vocal coach. Luckily my Londoner girlfriend had a good ear for it and helped me out,” he says, adding that “she graciously points out all the places I missed the mark!” This is, of course, Ang Lee’s second gay movie after 1993’s superb The Wedding Banquet. “I do what’s truthful to my feelings,” he says about both films. “I brought some universal feelings, whether you’re gay or straight, about love, about romance. I don’t squeeze the characters into gay cinema. I put myself in the middle to try to make the story work.” And while Richard didn’t set out to become a ‘gay filmmaker’, he says he’s excited about having a voice in gay cinema. We’ve seen movies about issues like Aids and homophobia, and stories with a lot of camp value, and it’s all good. But I think we’re slowly coming around to recognis ing that there’s more to being gay. I think we’re going to see a lot of stories celebrating being gay in cinema, and I can’t wait.” Brokeback Mountain is on general release now. 200 American is out on DVD now through Millivres. Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger), left, with Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), right, in Brokeback Mountain. Smouldering rent-boy Tyler (Sean Matic), left, with high-powered advertising agency director Conrad (Matt Walton), right, in 200 American 10 Scrap Book 200 AMERICAN is a top seller for WOLFE VIDEO. In October of 2006 VANITY FAIR and HUGO BOSS launched MOVE, a new documentary produced by Richard LeMay and co-directed by Jason Brown and LeMay. MOVE takes a look behind the scenes as World renowned photographer James Houston shoots the dancers of New York for a global event dedicated to AIDS related charities worldwide. MOVE was picked up by Pan-Asian MTV and Fox-Tel Network in Australia as a cornerstone for World AIDS Day. For more information on MOVE, check out www.moveforaids.com. Richard’s producing credits also include the feature film WATER, starring Idina Menzel (RENT, 2004 TONY award winner-Best Actress for her role in WICKED), Michael Shannon (THE WOODSMAN, 8 MILE, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN) and Shea Whigham (TIGERLAND, HEAD OF STATE). The first stop on the festival tour brought Idina a Best Actress award at the New York Film and Video Festival. Whirlwind Photos Sean (Bryan West) and Bobby (Alexis Suarez) Sean (Bryan West), Bobby (Alexis Suarez), Desmond (Brad Anderson), JD (Desmond Dutcher) and Mick (Mark Ford) Whirlwind Photos Drake (David Rudd) and Adam (Robbie Cain) Desmond (Brad Anderson) and Louis (Michael Paternostro)