TOP L-R: [1] Leads in Cuba. Helen Cespedes,
Tyler Robinson (center), and Hayes Davenport 
in Cuba looking for Al the Wino
[2] Leads in Egypt – Helen Cespedes, Tyler,
Hayes, and the Albino Prophet (Sam Dean) 
in Egypt.
BOTTOM L-R: [1] Director and evil cardinal 
Rex Dean with costumer and “Sister Stigmata” 
Melissa Spinks.
[2] Randall Falcon, the Private Eye, played
by Hayes Davenport. 

There's a surplus of talent, beauty, and creativity in New England. For instance, one of my friends manages a $4 billion health-related mutual fund, but he's also an accomplished painter. Whenever we get together we talk for hours about the films I'm working on, and I value his contribution. A couple years ago another friend, a biophysicist/cellist working on new glucose monitoring techniques, told me an idea he had for a novel. I encouraged him to write it, and within six months he'd not only finished his novel but found a publisher! Many highly successful people I know in various finance, technology and medical fields are creative not only within the companies and products they're inventing, but in an artistic sense as well. I'm part of a group of filmmakers and technology executives starting a new entity - New England Film Partners - designed to provide a way for New England's untapped creative and financial energy to be expressed in film.

Our first project is more a proof of concept than anything, and a way to have fun. The concept we want to prove is that we New Englanders can create films just as silly as those produced in Hollywood, or Bollywood, for that matter. Zany plots, dancing girls, the whole shebang.

The Interpretator: A Short Film set in Cuba, Italy, Japan, India and Egypt
Heartbeat Films is the newly created production arm of New England Film Partners. In mid-August, we got the green light for a short film to be shot on HD. The only catch was that, because of our actors' schedules, the film had to be written and shot in only 21 days! It seems like a long time, but it really isn't. We had presented our investor with only a general idea - boy meets girl through meddling interpreter - but that's all. Within a week of starting we came up with a sufficiently goofy idea: a film-noir detective adventure comedy traversing various exotic locations around the world. Set in the 1950's, the story is that of a hapless detective (Randall Falcon), his first client (the mysterious and beautiful Italian-speaking Beatrice), and the comedy that ensues when the detective's best friend (Zako Pazoug) offers to act as “interpretator,” even though he speaks no Italian and little English. Beatrice needs Falcon's help to bring the Rock of Rollabra, which can rule the hearts and minds of humanity, to the Albino Prophet in Egypt via clues in Japan and India. Control of The Rock is being sought by three parties: Beatrice, for “the Revolution”; the Albino Prophet, for spreading peace, love, and fabulous sexy parties; and the evil Cardinal, who wishes to bring back the Inquisition. In the end, Zako saves the day by doing what he does best - making bad translations. The film ends in a go-go style dance scene with two dozen beautiful actors, models and dancers at the Oasis of the Albino Prophet in Egypt, right near the Pyramids.

With a first draft of the story in hand, we turned to casting. We had been impressed by the acting talents of several students at my kids' high school, Noble & Greenough in Dedham. The comedic actor we wanted in the title role - Tyler Robinson - was leaving the country the week after Labor Day to act as the student host of a yearlong round-the-world nature documentary being produced by Earthwatch. No problem - but no reshoots or dialog replacement would be possible. We were now committed to shooting over Labor Day weekend, not only because of Tyler's schedule but to take advantage of good rates on cameras, lights and sound equipment.

The actor we wanted for Beatrice was Helen Cespedes. She was mesmerizing as the lead in The Philadelphia Story, and we very much wanted her to play the lead female role in our film. It took a bit of detective work to find her in Italy, where she was (fortuitously) studying comedic acting at La Comedia del'Arte. By Labor Day she would already be at Barnard College in New York City, but we eventually convinced her to come back to Boston for our four-day shoot. The actor we wanted to play detective Randall Falcon was writing for a newspaper on the Cape and would be starting at Harvard in September, but not until the week after Labor Day - at least one actor without scheduling issues! The Albino Prophet would be played by the inimitable and nearly albino actor (and my son), Sam Dean. We found wonderful actors for all the character roles, but were unable to locate a sufficiently campy or evil Cardinal, and so we ended up casting yours truly in that role.

Beatrice, played by Helen Cespedes, in front of the green screen, the imaginary pyramids. 

The actors arrived on the day of the shoot and were presented with a 28-page script. I had no doubt they could pull it off, mostly because they're all brilliant, and funny. And I knew our ever-cheerful and eagle-eyed cinematographer Will Barratt could create the look we were after. But because the film had to be shot in four days, would need so many visual effects and involved several fight scenes, I decided to bring in as much filmmaking muscle as I could. Arturo Sinclair, (a director of over 40 films and the visual effects designer for Denzel Washington's VIRTUOSITY), came up from Florida to act as co-director and production designer. J.P.Oullette, (director of over a dozen films including the Unnameable franchise, and the second unit director on TERMINATOR), joined as producer and co-director of fight sequences. Cathy Young, (a nationally touring dance choreographer and my best friend from college), flew up from Philadelphia to lend a hand. My filmmaking partner, Jamie Leutz, upgraded our Final Cut editing system to handle the HD footage he would be working with, and acquired the visual effects tools - zMatte and 55mm software from Digital Film Tools - recommended by Arturo.

Part of the fun of this film is that it's set in five different countries: Cuba, Italy, Japan, India, and Egypt. Arturo Sinclair designed and built street scenes for Cuba, Japan, India, and Egypt, complete with dirt and sand, all on an indoor tennis court in Weston. The Italian scenes were all in the dungeons of the Inquisition, i.e., the basement of my house in Waltham. Each scene involved some use of green screen so that we could have majestic backdrops like Mt. Fuji, the Taj Mahal, and the Great Pyramids. Tune in to the next issue of Imagine to see the before and after shots, and read about the amazing zMatte and 55m from Digital Film Tools, which make “fixing it in post” a lot easier than it used to be.