GAINESVILLE RIPPER BLOG
Here's where I can tell you guys exactly what I'm up to when it comes to getting this flick made. I'll be A LOT more candid here because not as many people will read it. I loved Peter Jackson'd King Kong production diaries so this'll be my written version of the same thing.
Unfortunately I can't start from the very beginning just yet, but once investors money is is in my hands I will tell all. Even stuff I'm not supposed to tell.
This blog is between me and you guys. Not a soul involved with the Gainesville Ripper will even find out about till after the movies 'in the can'. So don't go ratting me out on myspace or anything like that.
HERE'S SKINNY:
I was abou to begin preproduction on my next short MELVIN MUST DIE when I ran my hand through table saw on Jan 9th. Sometime in the Demerol haze that was the month of January, I talked Adonis into producing a feature about seriel killer Danny Rolling. He killed 5 people in 5 days in Gainesville Florida and I was starting my first year of high school around that time.
I had the beginnings of the script written and when my fingers healed up enough I finished it. All of a sudden it became real. We held an audition last week and got about 30 of the best actors in Florida to come read for the part.
At this point the plan was to shoot on weekends with DVX100's and XL-2's. We figured it's take 3-4 months depending on where the actor who was gonna play Danny Rolling lived and what his schedule was like.
....Then came offers of money. I'm not talking about the bullshit offers I hear all the time. I'm talking serious -you-can-look-them-up-on-IMDb offers off money. I've been stand off ish about taking money because we can come up about $500 a weekend to shoot with for 3-4 months and own the movie ourselves. THAT WAY WE MAKE ALL THE MONEY.
But then I got offered money to get the HVX200 and shoot in HD with real slo-mo and 4:2:2 compression (means we can shoot perfect greenscreen comps like they Peter Jackson did in KING KONG).
So how can I turn that down right?
That's all for right now. I got my eye on an actor named Zack who blew me away at the first audition. He came over yesterday and he and I filmed a Gollum/Smegal type scene I had wrote with Danny Rolling talking to his evil side Gemini. I gotta edit this right now so I can get it online and send it to the producers and DP so I can get the OK to offer him the part. I'll put it online for your guys in the next few days.
Zack is so damn good as Danny Rolling that I'm gonna pull writer/director/producer rank on everyone if I have to. What we shot yesterday is so amazing that I'm thinking I won't have to. It's pretty damn obvious HE IS Danny Rolling when you watch what we shot.
Here's your homework:
Read this Court TV summery of Danny Rollings life and crimes and you'll have a very good idea what this movies gonna be about. The actual execution of the that story when it comes to the film I make is another story all together
HERE"S SOME FOOTAGE OF THE ACTOR WHO GOT THE PART
This is only gonna stay on here for a a day or so cause this isn't the kind of stuff your supposed to put out. FUck for now though. Check this clip out!
Zack is playing both the meek Danny Rolling and the Evil side of Danny Gemini. the setting is supposed to be a prison cell but it's my bedroom (look for the I spit on your Grave poster in the left bottom corner of the master shots)
There's no sound or letterbox yet, but it's close. This is almost to the end. I'm gonna color correct it and give it the works even though it was shot we literally just me and zack one light and a $200 digi hig-8 camcorder.
Everyone should email zack and congrduclate him for getting the part ( I AIN"T ASKIN) here's his email addy:greekboy32608@yahoo.com
Re: HERE"S SOME FOOTAGE OF THE ACTOR WHO GOT THE PART
That guy is very reminiscent of Englund, and also performed brilliantly in that clip. Very impressed.
Re: HERE"S SOME FOOTAGE OF THE ACTOR WHO GOT THE PART
Just got a call and interview from the Gainesville newspapaper. UH-OH heh. They're calling victims families right now for responses to my interview. This is gonna get crazy.
Re: HERE"S SOME FOOTAGE OF THE ACTOR WHO GOT THE PART
I'm making this a sticky thread as Josh is taking us through the entire process of making his movie and this info will be a valuable resource to other film makers.
Re: HERE"S SOME FOOTAGE OF THE ACTOR WHO GOT THE PART
I was almost gonna ask ya not to sticky it, because I might not post for a week if I'm shooting and if it floats to the bottom that all fine with me. I'm giving you guys info that I really shouldn't be at this point, but what are the chances of a shady producer reading this here?
Fuck it Make it a sticky. I don't call myself empty bottle loaded gun productions for nothing. Living dangerously my friend. Gainesville TV station contacted me. They might drive out here to interview me.....
Shit's gonna hit the fan in Gainesville.
MOST IMPORTANT: What do you guys think of the clip so far and the actor?
Re: HERE"S SOME FOOTAGE OF THE ACTOR WHO GOT THE PART
I just got the call that the Gainesville news wants to interview me and Zack (actor playing Rolling for the news tonight). Wish me luck, I'll digitize it and put it on line tommorow.
Re: HERE"S SOME FOOTAGE OF THE ACTOR WHO GOT THE PART
Gainesville Media went wild on us today!!!!
I wake up doing an interview with the Gainesville Sun. Get a call From TV20 (Local Gainesville News Show) at 2pm. They want me in Gainesville (1.25 hour drive) in time for a live interview for the 5:30 show. Zack Memos (the guy we gave the Danny Rolling Role to yesterday) and I are supposed to be there to get interviewed in front of the 34th str. victims memorial. This is so they can edit together a story for the 11 o'clock news shows.
So I answered a two questions totally live A)why did you want to make this movie and B) Do you think there is an audiance for this movie outside of Gainesville and people famililiar with the case.
Question B was easy...I just told 'em we were gonna make the scariest horror movie since the Exorcist and any one anywhere in the world who likes a good horror movie will enjoy Gainesville Ripper cause it's gonna be a horror movie with a capital fuckin' H.
Question A was harder, especially in three sentences I had to answer live(remember). I said I was in 11th grade livinhg in Gainesville and the events are so burned into my mind that I figured it would be a great debut film as well as a chance to donate some money to permanent memorial for the victims. (I then turned and pointed the the spray painted wall that I was told was vadalized again a few days ago).
The live stuff was actually better cause they can't chop it into pieces it's just something I'm not used to.
Another thing I just realized Zack (again the guy playing Danny Rolling) is a regular Gainesville celebrity. He been a on a few local shows and on a morning show there for years. All the news people knew him.....Hell the Newspaper people knew him. The guys got balls for living in Gainesville and taking this role even if we are making extra concessions for grieving family member (i.e. changing names, looks and personalities of the victims). I'm twice as confident that he was the right choice to play Rolling.
Anyhow I'm tired. We're most likely front page news in thr Gainesville sun tommorow. I'll put up a link when it comes out in 5 hours or so.
Re: HERE"S SOME FOOTAGE OF THE ACTOR WHO GOT THE PART
The last was a cut and paste of my amyspace blog to make it easier for you guys to follow me while I go into detail not for regular blog viewing.
The lasy who interviewed me was hot and when it was said and done we traded cards (you future filmmakers have cards printed don't ya) and she asked to be an extra or something when we started shooting. BOOM. There's our lady to do the TV newscast stuff. She can do it, wants to do it and knows that, like an actor, the only way for her to further her career is to be in a movie.
I don't get to read the article till tommorow (a few more hours) but they definately interview a victims family member and they weren't to happy about us making the movie 5% towards victim fund or not.
Of course that's to be expected. Shooting our interview infront of the memorial was my idea BTW, the TV people went with it. Some Frat fucks painted over it a few days earlier and the city won't let them put plexiglass over it.
I'll have footage of the news up online early next week. Zack is grabbing tapes from the TV station before he comes up Sunday to read against the wanna be actors.
BTW I'm taking that clip of Zack down Monday so get to watching it.
We then ran over and had the newspaper take headshots of Zack and I so they'll have out pics on file when ever they write future articles about us. Zack was a little let down by the 11pm news piece cause they also interviewed an ex student who said that....get this..."watching a movie about Danny Rolling won't stop her nightmares or make her feel any safer when she sleeps'!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm totally serious.
I thought it was cool and totally expected them to interview people who are against the idea of us making a movie because that's what news basically is. Two sides or people not agreeing on a subject.
I grew up and lived all my life in Gainesville untill I left 3 years ago to be a filmamker in Jacksonville. It's a sweet fucking feeling coming back as a top story and front page news with everyone calling me a filmmaker.
Josh Townsend remembers what it was like growing up in Gainesville during the 1990 student murders. It was the stuff of a horror story, he recalls, and one he wants to bring to the big screen.
Others who also lived through the killing spree of convicted murderer Danny Rolling and years of the inmate's subsequent death penalty appeals - including a relative of one of five college students who were slain - don't agree.
Townsend, 32, graduated from high school and attended Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville before moving about three years ago to Jacksonville, where he said he works with local filmmakers. A short film he made about gangsters, "Loyalty," was shown last year at the 2005 film festival Fantasia in Montreal.
Now, recalling how he was a Gainesville high school student when the murders occurred, he's turning his attention to making a full-length, independent film called "The Gainesville Ripper" that would be based on the killings. He plans to begin filming next month and hopes to have the movie ready for this winter's film festival circuit.
"It's going to be a horror movie, and it's going to be scary. I don't want to pretend in any way that that's not the case," Townsend said.
The movie would include details about Rolling's life and how he came to Gainesville. Actor Zachary Memos, who has hosted Cox Cable's Unique Discoveries and is a stand-in in the upcoming film "Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector," has been cast to play Rolling. The movie will be made for under $100,000, with Townsend putting up some of his own money, and most will be shot in Jacksonville, although some exterior scenes likely will have to be filmed in Gainesville, he said.
Townsend also said he doesn't know how graphic the movie will be. "I'm not just going to show them stuck in their apartments and 'cut,' that's it," he said of scenes involving the murders.
But, he said, "I'm going to be doing my best to be respectful to the families and the victims."
To do that, he said he will change the names in his movie of those Rolling killed in Gainesville. In addition, he intends to donate 5 percent of the film's profits to either a relief fund for the victims or a permanent memorial for the victims, noting that a memorial on Gainesville's SW 34th Street Wall to the slain students is repeatedly painted over and has to be touched up.
Memos said his portrayal of Rolling will not be sympathetic. "People like Danny are monsters and they need to be portrayed like that," he said. "What Danny did was absolutely evil."
Townsend noted he's no fan of Rolling and doesn't plan to try to interview the inmate, who is awaiting execution in the Florida prison system.
"I do not like the guy. I'll be one of the ones out there clapping my hands when he dies," he said.
Ann Garren, the mother of one of the students killed by Rolling, said she doesn't care if Townsend changes names in a movie. She doesn't support the idea of making a film about events involving the death of her daughter, Christa Hoyt.
Why would anyone want to make a film about a brutal attack on five people, instead of focusing on making movies like family films, Garren wondered.
"If he's making a horror flick, there's no way I would sign off on that," said Spencer Mann, an investigator and spokesman for the State Attorney's Office in Gainesville.
Mann was working as a public information officer for the Alachua County Sheriff's Office when the murders occurred almost 16 years ago.
"I think anything that glorifies an incident like this is exploitative in nature. Just the very fact that he would be saying he would be putting together a horror flick based on this account, I don't see how that couldn't be exploitative."
Mann said there have books and television shows about the student murders, but he didn't know of any films.
Soon after the murders, a made-for-TV production was in the works. The students' families couldn't stop the movie but made a deal to keep control over the production's content.
In the end, Garren said, the production closed down because the families wanted a lot of input that the makers didn't want to give.
If Townsend's film pushes forward, Garren said it's likely the students' families would come together again to deal with its production.
"I know they're not going to be happy we're making a movie, no matter what," Townsend said about relatives of the college students Rolling killed.
But, he said, "At least I can tell it half-respectfully, I believe, living here through all of that."
"I'm just hoping they'll give me a chance and leave me alone and maybe let me contribute the profits," he said.
Lise Fisher can be reached at (352) 374-5092 or fisherl@gvillesun.com.
Crazed Serial Killer
Posts: 3026
(3/24/06 8:50 am) Reply
Re: GAINESVILLE RIPPER GOREZONE BLOG
Great way to generate buzz Josh! Don't get to "Nick Palumbo" with it though That clip with Zach was good too, he really looks like he'll be able to get into the part.
--DO NOT SUPPORT LIONSGATE AND GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO PERSUADE OTHERS NOT TO EITHER--
Re: GAINESVILLE RIPPER GOREZONE BLOG
Controversy is the best publicity, look at Dogma, the Catholic church made a big stink and all that did was boost the numbers. Dennis Leary recently came to my school and he said when he was a kid him and his friends would get a hold of the lists the nuns gave out at his catholic school of all the shows, movies and records that were offensive and they would make sure to see and hear all of them.
Re: GAINESVILLE RIPPER GOREZONE BLOG
I liked the clip!
One thing: On the push-ins on "evil half", is that the shadow of the camera that repeatedly shows up on his face? It distracted me a bit from what's otherwise a well-filmed scene.
That clip with Zach was good too, he really looks like he'll be able to get into the part.
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