One
of the hottest films to premiere this month takes
place at The Paradise night club on Commonwealth
Avenue in Boston. So, grab your tickets fast.
Liquid Lunch Productions is putting on another one of
their shindigs guaranteed to entertain and enliven any
leftover post-winter blues on May 24th when the
premiere of their new short #2 PENCIL screens along
with live music by Danvers rockers Cherry S/T, who did
the soundtrack to the film, and live comedy by Lamont
Price, all emceed by Todd Gorell.
 |
 |
| In
#2 PENCIL, Marty’s imagination takes him to
the dark side. Photo by Kim DiVincenzo. |
Marty,
an awkward teenager, encounters a mysterious
stranger. Drawing by Rich Crimlisk. |
Joe
Gatto of Liquid Lunch Productions and his team is
still hot after the success of his 2004 film
OVERSERVED, which is scheduled for theatrical release
this summer. As a follow up, Joe said he searched high
and low for a story to do that was completely
different than his last, but after much reading
producer Carey Zolper and Joe decided he’d have to
do it himself, sitting down and penning an homage to
TWILIGHT ZONE episodes in two weeks. “It’s down
the line of CREEP SHOW, the type of film I wanted to
make this time. A suspenseful story with lots of
twists, and I love it. It’s the best thing I’ve
done by far. I like it better than OVERSERVED,” Joe
added.
At
35 minutes in length it was shot for $1500 on 24p
DVCam mostly over weekends for 10 days in total last
fall with most of the scenes being shot in producer
Carey Zolper’s home in Dorchester. They turned her
living room into a bedroom for scenes of the main
character, a high school guy Marty, played by local
actor Rob Savage, who is obsessed with comics.
Carey
said her role as producer was challenging as she not
only had to round up most of the cast and crew from
the area who were committed to the no-budget project,
but also live with a movie shot in her home for
months. “The nice part was I did not have to travel
to get to work. Every part of my house was involved,
but when they began shooting in my own bedroom, I
think I began to freak out a bit at that point,” she
added.
Liquid
Lunch Productions are masters of the game of in-kind
donations and networking, Hilary Barraford came on
board later in the project as Associate Producer and
secured a location for a critical scene at her former
high school in Lynnfield, MA.
Hilary
said one thing that makes #2 PENCIL so intriguing is
its interesting blend of live action with animation
and story board drawings for the main character lives
in a fantasy world of super heroes. Animator Matt
Dichter and illustrator Rich Crimlisk came aboard to
bring the art to life on screen. The DP and editor on
the film is Boston’s Ryan Cavanaugh. Joe said
unfortunately his good friend Tony Flanagan could not
work on the film due to a scheduling conflict, but he
came by the set early on to show them the best way to
light it. “We had a really good idea what to do
after that,” Joe said.
The
premiere party will also be a chance for potential
investors to come on board for Liquid Lunch’s latest
production, “Conundrum,” a feature length suspense
horror film script that Joe wrote. Hilary said,
“It’s along a bake sale approach, we are looking
to secure seed money, around $2000, for our next
feature project. We want to attract known talent to
the project and we’re looking to ramp it up to
$500,000 and up.” Gatto and his associates are
planning to put #2 PENCIL into film festival
contention beginning this summer, including Academy
Award nominating fests like RIFF.
For
more information, to order tickets to the event, or
download the trailer to #2 PENCIL go to www.liquidlunchproductions.com.
Erika
Hahn is a television producer, freelance
writer/photographer who lives
on Cape
Cod. She loves all things independent film. Contact
Erika at erika.hahn@woodsholefilmfestival.org
