Sans the Hollywood glam, their first movie wraps up
Young filmmakers, short on money but not on know-how or nonstop hard work, use Tampa Bay as the backdrop for their first movie.
By TIFFANI SHERMAN
Published April 5, 2004
EAST LAKE - They worked 16 hours a day for 12 days straight.
They donated their time, gave up vacations and recruited family and friends to help. They used imagination as much in raising the money as they did in writing the script.
But after a dozen nonstop days of shooting on location around Tampa Bay, 15 young filmmakers have just wrapped up their first film together.
And they feel great.
"Everyone comes to work with smiles on their faces," said Isaiah Sanders, 22, of Orlando. He's the movie's assistant director. "It's a real hardworking group."
Sanders and several other actors and crew members on the set of The Pain Beneath are used to hard work. They recently completed the film program at Full Sail Real World Education, a career-training and technology school in Orlando whose programs include digital media, computer animation, recording arts and game design. "We don't have a ton of money to burn, but we know what we're doing," Sanders said.
So they wrote a script combining drama and horror. It's about two wealthy brothers left alone after the murder-suicide of their parents. One brother handles it better than the other.
While it takes talent to shoot scenes involving hallucinations, supernatural visions and affairs, the crew also had to be resourceful. "We have moms making food," said Kelly Aitken, 23, the film's unit production manager. Aitken graduated from East Lake High School in 1999 and her parents' house served as both a movie set and a crew gathering place.
They also shot at other homes, apartments and a store called the Music Exchange in Palm Harbor. The director knew the store owner.
Even though the filmmakers have shot scenes inside their own homes and worked for free, the operation is anything but amateurish. As the unit production manager, Aitken is responsible for contracts, insurance, waivers, equipment and permits - basically anything that needs a signature.
Someone else is responsible for raising the money to pay for the production and items such as the $1,500 insurance policy and $1,200 needed to rent gear.
Total costs so far are about $10,000. That includes cameras, microphones, camera mounts, tapes and all-important craft services.
"My role as a producer is to come up with the finances we need," said Ray Underwood, 26. Underwood surfed the Internet looking for bargain prices for things like cameras. He also stars in the film, playing troubled older brother Jake.
Underwood raised some money from investors but also dipped deep into his pockets. When he's not producing, acting or working for his own production company, Xtra Medium Productions, he is a sales manager for Verizon Wireless. "I burned all my three weeks' vacation for the year to get this done," he said.
There's even more muscle behind the crew. Nick Bollea, 13, plays little brother Sammy in the movie. Nick's dad is none other than Terry Bollea, a.k.a. Hulk Hogan, a family friend of Underwood's. Nick, a seventh-grader whose screen name will be Nick Hogan, missed a couple of days of classes at St. Cecelia Interparochial School in Clearwater so he could act in the film. "People have always said we look like brothers," Underwood said of Nick and himself.
But before the money and the permits comes the vision, something Jan Paul "JP" Banas is partly responsible for. The 26-year-old Palm Harbor resident is the movie's director, co-writer and co-star.
"We're not trying to make Citizen Kane in our first movie," Banas said. "Our motivation is not to make it big, but to make a good movie."
Now they have about 15 hours of tape to go through. Banas said a rough cut of the movie should be ready in about two months, a final version in about five. Once all the editing is finished, Banas and his crew plan to take their movie to independent film festivals.
"If we inspire some kind of emotion, that's the greatest reward," Banas said.
Sleep would be another one.
"We look back at the past few days and it's a blur," Banas said. "If you can work 16 hours for 12 days and still love it, you have something."
