Part One: When We Were Seventeen

As some of you know, 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘴, a film I wrote, directed, and co-produced, was recently released in the U.K.

I thought it would be fun to share some behind-the-scenes stories—some inside baseball. I'll show you how this particular sausage link was made, covering essential parts like Script, Casting, Financing, Shooting, and Post-Production. Let's shed some light on how indie movies get made—or at least, how we made this one.

I’ll post a story every week or so to capitalize on the film’s UK and upcoming US release (shameless, I know). I’ll be as transparent as possible but omit certain names to protect their anonymity or myself from their wrath. 😏

I’ll try my best not to be an unreliable narrator. If I leave something out or get vague, it’s not to make me look like the good guy but to avoid making the other person look like the asshole they probably were. And don’t worry, I was an asshole plenty of times while making this movie, as you’ll soon discover.

I may misremember certain facts, names, or dates. I doubt this post requires fact-checking, but I want to be honest. The goal here isn’t to write a self-aggrandized series of vindication memos or a finger-pointing exposé (what was that about self-aggrandizing?). While there were many times I was critical, angry, hurt, or fucking traumatized during the making of this movie, I acknowledge that a lot of what happened—or what I allowed to happen—was due to my lack of experience as a Director, my fear, and crushing insecurities.

Thankfully, time has given me the gift of impartiality, the quiet confidence of a poker player all-in on a pair of aces, and the skin of an alligator. The goal here is to share some of the valuable lessons I learned while making my first film and offer a peek behind the curtain—maybe even catch a glimpse of the Wizard.

The views expressed here are my own, from my point of view, and reflect my personal experience.

With the disclaimers out of the way

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭: 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐖𝐞 𝐖𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧

In February 2014, I was hanging out with a Director friend, waxing nostalgic. He had just directed a music video for a song called "When We Were Seventeen," the lyrics, “We wished for lots of things when we were seventeen, we’re waiting for them now…” were living rent-free in his head for months. He played me the song; I must admit, that earworm quickly hooked its way in. As we listened, he confessed he had an idea for a movie and wanted me to write it, produce it with him, and do something I hadn’t done in five years: play the lead.

Let me back up. I first met this Director in 2002 as a film and television actor in Vancouver, Canada. I was acting in a movie, and he directed another film in town. We met one night during the Vancouver International Film Fest, started talking about movies, music, plays, art... and became instant friends. We had so much in common; it was as if we were separated at birth! We worked together the following year on a movie he directed, and while we remained great friends, we hadn’t done anything professionally since. As the years passed, acting was getting smaller in the rearview, and screenwriting had taken the pole position.

Cut to February 2014, sitting in the now-closed restaurant The Federal in North Hollywood. He told me about his idea: a once-famous rock star, now living in obscurity, facing his high school reunion (aka his measure of failure), meets a young singer and gets another shot at redemption. All inspired by this song. He said I’d play the lead, and he had discovered this great singer online (he wanted to play the 'young singer'). We could use the song "When We Were Seventeen."

In 2014, we were both quickly approaching 40, and he was ready to put his money where his mouth was. He had directed a lot of television and wanted to make a personal movie. He would put $250,000 of his own money up to make this movie. He would edit it himself (a brilliant editor) and do most of the post. This was to be the ultimate showcase for both of us. He came to the table with half a logline and the budget, and it was up to me to come up with the rest.

Before I was an actor, I was a musician. I was a singer/guitar player in independent bands in Canada in the '90s, most notably my band 𝙎𝙃𝙞𝙑𝙀𝙍—a Pop-Rock pastiche of glammed-up Brit Pop and self-reflective shoegaze. The perfect band at the worst time! When Britney was begging to be hit one more time, we were screaming, 'Talk to me.' The proof? Universal Records took us out for dinner, and the A&R rep, Claudia, looked me dead in the eye and said, “You guys are the next big thing… and you always will be.” A line so devastating and targeted, delivered without a hint of irony or malice.

A line so good... I stole it and put it in the Traces script.

It was anecdotes like this, as well as my deep knowledge of studio recording, music production, singing, playing live, and all of my anxiety and yet-to-be-realized fears, that made this Director know I was the right person to write and act in this movie. This was it. We were going to be the next big thing… too bad we always would be. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I started writing the script, and it came fast. At first, it was just events ripped from the pages of my life—amalgamated and embellished for dramatic effect, of course—but very personal. As a writer, I infuse personal details of my life into all of my screenplays. But they’re hidden behind metaphor and outrageous circumstances. There was no place for these details to hide… this shit happened. I felt exposed. This was the most personal thing I’d ever written, and it was scaring me. So what did I do? Of course, I added stuff that wasn’t true: stuff that added dramatic tension and more obstacles for our ‘hero’ to overcome. I threw in my biggest fears... And then, somehow, I didn’t feel as exposed. I felt less afraid to write... Who knew?

Ironic postscript: While writing about my deepest fears, I discovered that they were often in direct correlation with my darkest secrets.

So now this ex-rock star—Damien Shea—who refused to help this young singer (resistance is a powerful sedative, especially in the company of art and talent) is not only facing his high school reunion as an absolute failure, but he’s also getting a divorce, AND the place he’s been hiding out in for the past ten years—the record store he works at—is shutting down. Those are obstacles. Now our boy HAS to make some decisions. Now, he has to act.

Then came the questions. What lessons does our hero learn? What does the ‘young singer’ learn? What does she TEACH? What is his character arc? Does it go from A to Z? Nah, more like A to G. Does he win? Does she win? Do THEY win? If so... what do they win? And so on and so on and—

After months of mining my past for what I hoped would be nuggets of gold, being haunted by skeletons in my closet, and working closely with this Director, we finally had the shooting script! We pitched this as a gritty(ish), feel-good(ish) drama—think: Once meets Whiplash. Because everyone knows if you can ____ meets ____, you’ve got a movie!

And ours was called… 𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘞𝘦 𝘞𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘚𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘦𝘯.

We had the script, the song, the cast (well... me). Next was the producer.

I was working with a producer on another project of mine called P5YCH, which had recently fallen through—or was ‘burned,’ as the producer so eloquently put it—when the financier’s bluff was called, leaving everyone who’d been working on P5YCH in the lurch. But that’s another story. I called this producer and it went like this:

Me: “I have a script, I have a Director, we have the financing, I’m going to be in it, and we’re looking to shoot in December. Do you want to do it?”

Silence.

Me: “We’re financing it ourselves. It’s $250,000. We need you to back the script I wrote into that budget and see if you want to do it.”

Silence. Then…

Producer: “Send me the script.”

I didn’t blame his trepidation. I sent the script. He called back the next day. He loved it! And in true producer fashion…

Producer: “But there’s no way you can shoot it for 250K.”

I told him the Director would do all the post-production, and we’d defer... we needed him to put together the SAG paperwork, permits, clearance, etc. Also, write a budget to determine where we need to pull favors. The producer wrote up a rough budget and got it to around $450K, with SAG Ultra Low Budget, etc. We could work with that, knowing we could knock it down by cutting the number of shooting days from 25 to 18, pulling a bunch of favors from vendors and locations, and still paying the crew well—which is the most important thing. Once we hacked away at it... the crew was paid, we were down to where we needed to be... and we were off.

The Director was going to shoot two episodes of television back-to-back and then take a few weeks off. Then we’d be ready to go. This was June 2014, one month after my 40th birthday. We would be in prep in four short months, and I was ready! September came, and I called the Director. He was in post on one episode and had wrapped the other. He was ready to go. After he finished his cut of the episode, he was going to take a little trip to decompress, and then, by the end of October, we were going to start soft prep.

And with that, his phone just shut off!

October came and went. Nothing. November. All calls went to voicemail. All emails unanswered. I was worried. The Director always unplugged but always came back. Not this time. And then… December. The month we were supposed to make 𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘞𝘦 𝘞𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘚𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘦𝘯.. I got a text:

“Hey man, I’m okay. I’m sorry if you were worried. I can’t do the movie. I’m just not in the financial space I thought I was in. I’m sorry. Not in a great place. Let’s connect after the holiday.”

I texted the only thing I could:

“Glad you’re okay. Let’s talk soon.”

I’m not going to talk out of school, but I will say I’ve known the Director long enough that when this happened, I wasn’t angry with him. I didn’t feel betrayed, but I was concerned.

𝐎𝐤𝐚𝐲, 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐨— 𝐒𝐨. 𝐅𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝. 𝐀𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧!

Here’s the thing about the film industry, friends: it’s brutal. It’s a callous business. It will test you and grind you down. The strongest of us have all had our hearts broken, and we’ve all looked in the mirror and said, “What the fuck am I doing?” Because the one constant in this industry is disappointment. And as artists who put it out there, raw and unfiltered, we’re tenderhearted creatures. So, the frustration cuts to the quick! Sometimes we can quickly shake it off, and sometimes we can’t.

The film industry isn’t specifically cruel; it doesn’t have an opinion. This may sound like an unpopular opinion, but no gatekeepers can prevent you from entering Valhalla. There’s no conspiracy and no zeitgeist to tap into to achieve success. The reason it’s hard, and it will beat you down if you let it, is because of one reason and one reason only:

THERE IS NO PATH!

There is only preparation! We could do everything right. We write the best script, get the budget right where it needs to be, find the perfect producer and Director, attach a fantastic cast... and like a brave knight on a gallant quest, we mount our trusty steed, proudly open the castle gate, and... fall into the moat. We get up. Try again. Maybe the back entrance! TALLY HOO—HOLY SHIT IS THAT A DRAGON? RETREAT!

And so forth. Eventually, we all need to take a break, or we will break. That’s precisely what I did... I took a break! I was done. This was the second project in a year that had collapsed, and I was empty. I called my lawyer and emailed him all of my projects (including When We Were Seventeen), packed up the family in a rental van, and with Simon and Garfunkel’s seminal wanderlust ballad resonating through my soul, I walked (drove) off to look for America.

It was a seven-week road trip to reset, rethink, readjust expectations, and ring, ring... I was three days in when my lawyer (Roger) called me. I think we were in San Francisco. The conversation went something like this:

Roger: “I just read 𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘞𝘦 𝘞𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘚𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘦𝘯. I think it’s amazing. What’s going on with it?”

Me: “Uh… thank you. It’s dead. The Director bailed. I was going to be in it. Remember?”

Roger: “I don’t think you should be in it—”

Me: “Thanks a lot, kick a guy when he’s down—”

Roger: “I think you should direct it.”

Me: (blink blink)

Roger: “And I think when you get back, we should have a meeting. I may be able to get financing.”

Me: (blink blink)

Roger: “Alright, I gotta run. Great script! Best thing I’ve read from you. Safe travels. Bye.”

With Llamrei freshly groomed and her caparison donned, ready for battle once more... it looked like I was set to embark on this adventure again.

To Be Continued…