T.P. The Story of a RollStatus: Complete
T.P. The Story of a Roll The Movie that Almost Wasn't
IntroductionBelow is a summary of the production of T.P. The Story of a Roll. In a nutshell, this movie, although shot in two days, took over a year and a half and about $500 dollars to bring to life. Thanks to Hurricane Ivan (September 2004) production was stalled for a year. Locations were flooded and I and other crew members were called into work. During the second attempt Hurricane Katrina (September 2005) stole one of my key crew members who was deployed to Mississippi and Louisiana . Also in August/September of 2005 I lost my two main actors, TyLee McKeown ( Sharon ) and J.J. Eberly (Kevin)! I was also informed that several members of the 2004 crew were not available for the 2005 reschedule. With just a few short weeks until shoot-time I am with out a cast and losing crew-members like a severed artery loses blood, fast and uncontrolled.
But, alas, T.P. did become reality. With several last minute rewrites, scene cuts, character drops, a gracious acting duo and a small skeleton crew behind the camera T.P. had the green-light.
If anything, T.P. has two stories interwoven together. The first story, the obvious one, is about a couple fighting over toilet paper. The second story, the off-camera one, is about how anything is possible if you stick with your dreams, believe in yourself, and surround yourself with the right people (enter my undying thanks to friend and colleague Sherry Teleky Waple, proprietor of Golden Horse Productions).
The PitchBack in January 2004, my brother, Kevin Scully, called me at work to pitch a story for a short movie. The story shadowed the experience of my brother as he moved in with his girlfriend, Sharon Hill, and quickly learned that they have a difference of opinion as to how the roll of toilet paper is to hang off the spool. Kevin likes it to hang from the back and Sharon (just as I) prefers to have it hang from the front. Of course, this discovery bared no easy compromise. For weeks they bantered about this topic, each one antagonizing the other by purposely switching the roll around at every opportunity.
Kevin thought it would be fitting to have tragic ending to this story. It was Kevin's idea to kill his character at the end of the story just to add to the one-two punch of watching a movie about toilet paper.
The StoryWith a few notes etched on scrap-paper and a phone call of idea sharing I set out to pencil my first draft of T.P. My foremost thought while writing the script was budget or lack of a budget. I know there wasn't going to be a lot of money available for this project so I had to keep the story simple, few locations and minimal actors. A couple weeks later, the first draft was born. Clocking in at a whopping seven pages it assured a quick production with almost no bucks!
The original story differs greatly from the completed project. The idea was still the same but the original script introduced friends of Kevin and Sharon and a couple cemetery scenes after Kevin's death.
Take One - 2004Pre-ProductionFriday, September 17, 2004 , cast and key crew members met as a group for the first time the day before principal photography was to start. Hurricane Ivan, now a Tropical Depression, was slowly moving in to the Harrisburg area. Crew members were selected to the play the friends to Kevin and Sharon. A table read was held and the entire cast and crew added ideas that would be incorporated into the story. We discussed the possibility of cutting the exterior cemetery scene. TyLee (originally cast as Sharon ) suggested having Kevin be cremated and then she could dump the ashes down the toilet in a fit of rage at the end of the movie. Everyone burst into laughter and the cremated Kevin concept was born and the cemetery scene was laid to rest (all puns intended).
At the end of the meeting Sherry Teleky Waple handed out the call sheets for the next morning. Jim Hollenbaugh (original Director of Photography) transferred his cache of lighting equipment into Sherry's truck. Sherry and I went over last-minute stuff and said our good-byes and headed for home to get some much needed rest to prepare for the next 48-hours. This was it! T.P. was going to come to life.or so we thought.
Saturday morning Sheila Wynn (crew member and cast as a friend to Kevin and Sharon) arrived at my house. We were going to car-pool to the first location in Harrisburg . Sheila stated that Harrisburg City was in a State of Emergency because of flooding. My full-time job is with Dauphin County 's Emergency Management Agency. I called work and learned that our Emergency Operations Center was open, there was flooding all through-out the County and that Chris Fisher (crew member and property owner of the second location to be used) was already at work in the EOC. I also learned that the third set, Flavers Restaurant, was flooded by a near-by creek and was no longer available for the shoot. I, too, am on my way into work. I made the heart-breaking phone call to Sherry. Just hours away from cameras rolling, T.P. production was cancelled. Take Two - 2005Pre-ProductionSherry and I kept in constant touch regarding T.P. This set-back was not going to the demise of this destined masterpiece (well, short movie anyway). It is now July and we found some time, again, in September and started the pre-productions efforts all over again. During this time new ideas continued to surface and the T.P. story went through many, many revisions. We contacted the original cast and quickly learned that new challenges were upon us. J.J. Eberly crew into a "mountain man" look for a new job and TyLee, now married, was pregnant. I also learned that Jim Hollenbaugh was no longer available as with several crew members. Even Sheila was home with my two-month old niece.
Not only are Sherry and I picking up the pieces from last year but we are now basically starting from scratch with just over a month until T.P. is to start production.
Again, Sherry came to the rescue. She sent a copy of the script to John B. Nelson, an actor from Connecticut who appeared in the short film Obsession that Sherry made earlier in 2005. John loved the story and was enthusiastic about the part. John also paid for his hotel room knowing that I did not have the budget for out-of-towners (another dose of undying gratitude). Ok, half of the main characters are filled but what about Sharon ? Sherry and I went through headshots from auditions for Poultry and Prejudice, Sherry's first short movie, and we narrowed the selection down to three actresses. Sherry sent the requests out the next day. One actress turned down the role after reading the script and another never responded. All the better because I couldn't have picked a better selection for Sharon . Kristine Robinson accepted the part and like John, was pretty excited about it. With about a month to go the pieces were starting to snap together.
By this time I have made many changes to the story. Due to lack of "extras" for friends I had cut them out. I also cut the scene at the restaurant. This was difficult, I was excited about shooting there and I had the owner's daughter, Cassandra, lined up to play the server. It broke my heart to have to tell Cassandra that the scene was cut. I know she was disappointed, as was I, but it was the right decision based on budget, time and lack of extras.
The crew was made up of various colleagues from previous shoots. We came up with a crew of 9, Sherry and I included. This is a good number, however; only 6 to 7 were on set at any one given time and some doubled as actors for small, one scene rolls.
Equipment was the last order to be taken care of. The movie was shot on Cannon XL1 cameras. Sherry owns one and she was able to barrow a second one from a friend. Armed with two cameras I no longer had to rent them, a big saver on this little budget! Jim Hollenbaugh was going to hook me up with a sweet lighting deal in 2004 but this was not the case in 2005 since Jim was not available for the shoot. Sherry provided me information for a production house in the area called Olegna Productions, Inc. The owner, Angelo Del Monte, was great to work with and very generous by renting me a lighting and sound kit that did not break my budget (if you are reading this, Angelo, I still can't thank you enough).
The puzzle was 99% complete! We had actors, crew, equipment and a finalized script that reduced shooting to only two locations. The last puzzle piece would fit into place the day before shooting, September 16, when the principal crew and cast members met for the first time.
The night before shooting we held a table read and camera test. This was the first time the two main actors met and the first time Sherry and I would formally meet Kristine Robinson. As I mentioned earlier, I could not have been blessed with a better cast. Kristine and John hit it off right away. They looked good and believable as a couple despite their gapping age difference. John is 30 and Kristine is only 17! Kristine can definitely hold her own acting as an older character.
The script was used as a guideline of how the story will unfold. While role-playing with the script I advised each actor to make stuff up. Some of the funniest material comes from the "spur of the moment". Many spontaneous lines made up by John and Kristine were captured and incorporated into the scenes to be shot over the next 48 hours.
ProductionSaturday, September 17 , the crew arrived at the first location the Goldberg Katzman law office in Harrisburg . Here we would shoot the last scene of the movie that is seen after the credits roll. This is the "Heaven's bathroom" scene. Originally I was going to shoot a Heaven scene and a Hell scene but later decided to save time and costume rental costs but cutting the Hell scene. I was also very excited about adding a shot to the Heaven scene that I had come up with about a week prior. This shot would show Jesus in a stall adjacent to John reacting to John's derogatory comment when he sees the toilet paper hanging in the "incorrect" manner. Chris Fisher was kind enough to lend himself to the role of Jesus. Sherry did the wig and make-up as the rest of the crew prepped the bathroom for the shot. A side note to budget saving tips, the costume that Chris wore was the same costume rented for John, minus the angel wings. Also, Sherry purchased a long-haired wig and cut it to make the beard.two components for the price of one!
After wrapping the shots at the Harrisburg location the crew cleaned up and we headed to the final location, Chris Fisher's house in Middletown . This location served as the sets for the bathroom, living room and stairway scenes. This house was perfect because the layout of the living room provided ample space for lighting and camera placement and the bathroom, though narrow, was long enough to squeeze in two cameras, a crew of up to four and three actors. The lighting in the bathroom was perfect. In fact it was so perfect that we did not set up our lighting equipment and had to unscrew a couple light bulbs from the existing fixtures to reduce hotspots! This save a tremendous amount of time because while we were shooting in the bathroom the remaining crew could set up the lighting equipment in the living room.
During this stage of production two more crew members stepped in front of the camera to play small roles. Mike Henry, my DP, played a police officer for a scene involving a domestic disturbance and I played a firefighter who responded to a bathroom prank. Blaise Arlotto, the Sound Mixer/Grip, put down his equipment briefly to read opposite John during a phone conversation. After that it was all John and Kristine.
Production was pretty much on schedule and budget even after being hit with another blow. Last year Hurricane Ivan put a halt to production. This year Hurricane Katrina would make her presence felt on the set. Louisiana and Mississippi were hit pretty hard. Sure, this is nowhere near Pennsylvania , but while shooting on Saturday Chris Fisher received notification that he would be deployed to the New Orleans area as part of a search and rescue team. The owner of my set was southbound and my crew shrunk a little more. Chris' wife, Jenn, was very accommodating. Her parents were visiting for the weekend and the three of them stayed in an RV in front of the house during shooting. Jenn never once complained but I admit, I really felt awkward invading her house when Chris was away.
I think we wrapped around 6 or 7 that evening. The cast and crew discussed the happenings of the day and made suggestions for future shots. While planning Sunday's activity we had to take into account that we would loose a couple more crew positions but gain one that was not available for Saturday. We also wanted to wrap John's scenes early since he had to drive back to Connecticut that evening. After the brief meeting I turned the house over to Jenn and called it a night.
Sunday, September 18, the crew arrived at the Middletown location. Even though we were pretty much on time, I was rushing so I could turn the house back over to Jenn and her visitors for the final time. Things went pretty smoothly. We shot all of the remaining scenes for John first, ending shortly after lunch. We did brief cast and crew interviews outside the house and bid John farewell and a safe journey home. The rest of the afternoon was spent shooting Kristine's solo scenes.
I called the final "cut" shortly after 5pm . This was it! T.P. was now a prisoner, a random slew of scenes trapped on mini-dv tape waiting to be unleashed in editing. The cast and crew said their final good-byes. It's funny how you spend a couple of days with a group yet it feels like a lifetime when it's over.
Post ProductionI won't bore you too much with post-production notes. I was fortunate to have spare time after shooting to start working on editing right away. It only took about a month to get the first cut. Sherry and I met to review the rough cut, made some changes and it was off to the computer again. Like the script, the finished product has some differences form the first cut. I rearranged scenes to help the story flow better, changed some original music selections and made several subtle changes. On Christmas day I rendered what would be the final cut of T.P. on DVD. I took care of the cover design and Angelo (Olegna Productions) designed the DVD label and made my copies. T.P was now officially a short film ready for distribution.
In SummaryI can't stress enough how thankful I am for the friendships and dedication of everyone who was a part of this film. Sure, I credit myself as the Director but this project would never have left the ground if it weren't for the good people I surrounded myself with. This was my first shot at directing. I am proud to say that things went smooth, by the numbers and within budget (at least until I screwed up and had Olegna make copies of a DVD with an error that I would later correct and re-burn.Opps) all because of my fantastic crew, actors and most importantly Sherry. I truly, truly, truly could not have completed this project to this level without Sherry Teleky Waple by my side! The CastJohn
B. Nelson, Jr. - Kevin Mike Henry - Police Officer Blaise Arlotto - Voice Over on Telephone Matt Simon - Shower Singer Dan Scully - Voice Over on Television The CrewDan Scully
- Director/Writer/Editor |
||||