press kit - West Side Swordy

WRITTEN AND PRODUCED BY MCKAY STEWART
DIRECTED AND EDITED BY DAN LIU
CINEMATOGRAPHY BY JOHN T. CONNOR
STARRING MCKAY STEWART, JASON BRILLANTES AND JAMIE LEE BESS
PRODUCTION COMPANY
ORIGINS OF LIGHTS
323.863.6075
[email protected]
© 2015 Origins of Light Entertainment
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
MCKAY STEWART
310.497.7681
[email protected]
(323) 863-6075
originsoflight.com
SYNOPSIS
THE JETS
CHASE THE SHARKS THROUGH AN ALLEYWAY AND UP OVER A TALL FENCE,
WHEN SUDDENLY THEY FIND THEMSELVES IN ANOTHER WORLD, MAGICALLY
TRANSPORTED INTO AN ABANDONED WAREHOUSE. WHERE THEY ARE CONTROLLED BY
THE ELECTRONIC BEAT OF THE WORLD-RENOWNED DISC JOCKEY, DEADMAU5. THIS IS
AN LA WEST SIDE STORY.
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Q&A WITH WRITER/PRODUCER MCKAY STEWART
What initially inspired you to create West Side Swordy? Can you talk about
the evolution of the project?
I originally wanted to create a sword-fighting reel to try and help me and a few fellow
stunt performers get jobs on the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. No joke!
But then, I wanted it to be special, to have real production value, have a story. In
essence, a short film. I started batting things around and out came this outrageous
idea.
Little did I know what this meant in terms of the production!
I now had to hire a dance choreographer, professional dancers, rent out a huge
warehouse somehow, light it somehow, shoot it somehow, on it went.
I fortunately pulled in some phenomenal talent willing to donate their time to the
project (Dan Liu, John T. Connor, Nate Fu and Nick Lanzisera) who made it
possible. Dan Liu is an editor of AMC’s The Walking Dead, John T. Connor has shot
features for the best in the business, including Ridley Scott, JJ Abrams and David
Fincher; Nick Lanzisera has danced and choreographed on some of the hottest
shows around, like True Blood, Footloose and High School Musical.
We originally were set wrap principal photography in the summer but I lost Nate Fu
and most of my original cast, dancers included, to injuries and bigger projects.
Disaster. But because of this I pulled in John T. Connor and the new cast was
outstanding as well. John, in turn, brought an entire lighting, grip and electric crew
to handle the task of lighting the gargantuan warehouse (where Inception was
filmed).
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He even brought in a Technocrane for the day, amazing.
Thanks to the hard work of everyone involved, who happened to be very experienced
professionals in their respective fields, we actually pulled it off.
Why sword fighting, West Side Story and techno music?
Why not, right? I have a pretty unusual
background: a degree in theatre, professional
dance, musical theatre, stunts, graphic design, etc.
And I love electronic dance music. And sword
fighting. Who doesn’t love sword fighting?
I actually performed in West Side Story twice,
playing the role of Baby John. Once in Austin,
Texas (awesome experience) and then again in Redondo Beach. This show blows my
mind! The choreography, music, lyrics, story (re-imagining of Shakespeare’s Romeo
& Juliet) are some of the best ever created. Definitely my favorite musical, by far.
Where did you shoot the film and how did you select these locations?
It’s unbelievable, but for the exteriors we shot downtown on a Sunday and there
were almost no people around. We took up an entire alley with all our cars and
production vehicles (aka Nate Fu’s van).
And very awesomely, there was this vintage, black VW beetle parked in one of the
scenes. Perfect for the time period of the West Side Story bit. Huzzah!
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Because our DP John had his own small warehouse, we were able to split up the
warehouse shoot into multiple days, to shoot the individual sword fighting scenes in
his building, then do the biggest scenes in the gigantic (50,000 square feet) SCS
(Sun Chemical) warehouse. This was critical; since there was no way in heck we’d
have managed all the shots in the one, 18-hour day shoot in the big warehouse. We
only made it through about 80% of the shots on our wish list as it was.
How did you find your cast and crew?
I originally cast my talented stunt performer friends for the leads. A few of them
had to drop out due to injuries and studio jobs, so I recast their roles. For the
dancers I first relied on Nick
Lanzisera to find them, as well
as my then-dance agent for
suggestions. I also put casting
notices online.
I found Nick Lanzisera thanks
to Marguerite Derricks, who I
knew from my days as a pro
dancer. Marguerite’s been
working in film and tv for some
time, she’s super well-known
and respected. I’m incredibly
lucky for her referral! Nick is phenomenal.
Dan Liu was a referral from Garrett Warren (stunt coordinator of Avatar), a friend of
mine I’m developing another project with called Glitch, which Kevin Tancharoen is
now directing. Anyway, Dan edited the short I produced for Glitch, and he told me
he wanted to be considered to direct an episode of that project if anything happened
with it.
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So I knew he wanted to direct!
Dan’s work editing Glitch was singular. He possesses that rare ability to edit action
and make it look hot. And when I came up with the original idea for West Side
Swordy, I texted him “If you can find me a talented DP with his own RED gear and
crew you can direct West Side Swordy.”
He texted me back within minutes! Nate Fu (who had worked with Dan on the
series LXD, League of Extraordinary
Dancers) was the original DP and he shot
our exterior scenes. When Nate told me he
had to take a job on a feature I was
devastated. What the heck was I going to do
now? I fortunately kept in touch with the
DP of Eagle Eye, which I had worked on,
and he referred me to John T. Connor. I
was floored!
John turned out to be not only a
consummate professional, complete with all the top, top gear and crew you could
hope for, but he’s got a heart of gold. I couldn’t believe my luck. I will work with
John for as long as I am able. He’s really a gem.
Who did your costume design and how did you pull all of that together?
For the big sequences I wanted something fun and original, yet sleek and cool. I
basically combined Desperately Seeking Susan with Michael Jackson’s Captain Eo.
At least, in my head. I then turned to the talented Erin Rogers to execute. On a
shoe string budget of course. She uber-delivered. The rest of the costumes were
modeled from the time period of West Side Story.
How about the Deadmau5 “head”?
For that I turned to a performer I had
met who liked to build stuff.
Incredibly difficult but after several
months he pulled it off.
How do you think people will
respond to it?
Gosh. Well, I hope people love it of
course. I mean, I hope people of all
ages will just be delighted. I think
that to get the most out of it you need to know about West Side Story and be aware
that Deadmau5 exists, but even if you don’t I still think you’d enjoy the heck out of
it.
© 2015 Origins of Light Entertainment
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THE CAST
MCKAY STEWART
JASON BRILLANTES
JAMIE LEE BESS
SAIGE WALKER
MIKAHLA ROSS
SAMUEL J. PAUL
HANNA SAKAKIBARA
BRITTNEY BERTIER
THE FILMMAKERS
Origins of Light pulled together a wonderful group of talented individuals for this
project. We all worked our guts out on it. Anything and everything possible to make
it special, and we hope our passion and wild enthusiasm shows.
MCKAY STEWART (ACTOR/WRITER/PRODUCER/EXECUTIVE PRODUCER)
DAN LIU (DIRECTOR/EDITOR)
JOHN T. CONNOR (CINEMATOGRAPHER)
EBONY KNIGHT (UPM/LINE PRODUCER)
What else can you tell us about yourself and your future plans, any projects on
the horizon?
I thought you’d never ask! Har. Ever since I began pursuing an acting career I’ve
been gathering contacts, because I knew I would one day want to create my own
projects. That became second nature to me. And as I gained experience as an
actor and stuntman working on studio projects, and then producing smaller
projects of my own (just for my demo reels), it allowed me create West Side Swordy
and not splatter all over the ground. Frankly that almost happened several times
anyway.
Right now I have four other projects at various stages of development. The furthest
one along is Glitch, which I am co-creating with Garrett Warren, and Kevin
Tancharoen is attached to direct. I stepped down from the lead role to make this
happen, creating a supporting role for myself I’d be happy with. Garret has shown
this around town and everyone he shows it to is excited about it. You can catch the
teaser episode I produced here:
© 2015 Origins of Light Entertainment
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q905LzM_ukc&list=PLL8N3BhnQZv1CaGn0S8
3Nbv8ExrdeF7Wd&index=3
My second, most-developed project is called Hammer of God. This is definitely what
I’m most excited about. It’s a high-concept, epic action/sci-fi/drama. It’s Bourne
Identity meets Star Wars. Ridiculously ambitious, but I want to create a Star Wars
for this generation. The script itself is kind of stunning. My friends are routinely
floored when they read it. “You wrote this???” Which is kind of flattering and
insulting at the same time. I am developing this one to be a series of features. And
hopefully video games.
I even went so far as to create a website with visuals and theme music! Check this
out www.hammerofgodmovie.com. I’m hoping folks I want to work with on this come
to my screenings of Swordy. That goes for each of my projects, of course.
My third project is called EDISON. It’s House of Cards meets Dead Poet’s Society
with a dash of Californication. A tasteful dash. I will play the title character in the
series. I’m developing this to be shot as a mini-series for an on-demand distributor
like Netflix, Amazon or Hulu and take it from there.
The fourth project is called Hashashin. The true story of “the Hashashin” or “the
Assassins”, based on the accounts of Marco Polo. According to Marco Polo, the
assassins were just average guys, drugged and lured into believing heaven awaited.
All they had to do was murder, never mind surviving after they succeeded. Typically
they were killed immediately following their successful “assassination.”
WEST SIDE SWORDY WEBSITES
www.westsideswordy.com
www.facebook.com/westsideswordy
www.twitter.com/westsideswordy
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3185554/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
www.originsoflight.com
KEY ART
Stills by Stephen William, Jay Andrino and Shant Hamassian
Poster Designs by Alex Lombardo and Julian Martin
Creative Director: McKay Stewart
ORIGINS OF LIGHT WEBSITES
www.originsoflight.com
www.facebook.com/originsoflight
FOR MORE INFORMATION
MW PR
[email protected]
(310) 701-3350
ORIGINS OF LIGHT
[email protected]
© 2015 Origins of Light Entertainment
(323) 863-6075
originsoflight.com