Before I talk about Daniel, some cool news: my friend and former resident Taylor Parker has agreed to do some concept art for the film. One of his early sketches is seen above. You can view it in high resolution here. Chances are I'll ask him to do a teaser poster at some point, or maybe some art for the trailer.
Daniel has been a creative compatriot of mine almost since the beginning of college. We first met doing a short film in our freshman year written by mutual friend and also-producer Zaque Smith: a bizarre and horrifying comedy called "On The Karma Payment Plan." I played a child murderer; he played a cannibal.
That was the first impression I had of this guy.
Daniel didn't do much to dispel it, despite not actually being a cannibal and instead being a constant riot to both hang with and work with. He came aboard for "Stalin and Hitler" as our new Roosevelt character, and fit right in. We all fed off of each other's vulgarity when writing the script...sometimes we over-indulged, but we could always just loosen our belts or throw it back up. Usually it was the vomiting.
I could talk about Daniel's characters for several blog entries. I could tell you how wonderfully bitter Roosevelt is to cover up that insane loneliness (there are also the jokes about poop.) I could talk about the bizzarre Randy and why he thinks opening doors is badass, or I could discuss his incredibly self-centered, wannabe artist version of Christian Bale.
However, I will not. You see, Daniel is not an actor in this film, and that is not an area of his talent that is going to shine through.
Convenient for us, however, Daniel is not just an actor at heart: he is also a writer in precisely the same place.
Make no mistake: Daniel and I typically write very different things. I think I tend to write much lighter, more hopeful material, even if it has a dark edge. I dwell on beauty, not on darkness. Daniel once described his writing to me as "the essence of what you hate yourself for thinking when you see a cyclist crossing a busy street." His writing does not immerse itself in darkness; rather, it dips its feet into the edge with a wild caution that lights a wicked grin on its face and causes the hearts of everyone watching to skip a beat.
I feel like a very good example of this is in his newest script, "Eyes on Me," which is being shot this fall after "Our Story." In this tale of a man returning home, Daniel explores his usual cynicism with a surprising twinge of sensitivity and sorrow; throughout the film, we do not hate the characters or even feel sorry for them as much as mourn for them, and for life and the circumstances it puts people into.
This is the true sign of Daniel's mastery: he can take his nerdy love of horror stories, exploitation films, and dark fantasy and turn it into something real and, doggone it, beautiful.
Daniel, though I'm not sure he knows it, has influenced me a lot as a writer. He has been a model for me in perfecting the balance of darkness and light needed to portray realistic conflict, and for not being afraid to dive off the deep end into struggles that may, in the end, be unsolvable. He was one of the first people on board to help with "Our Story," commenting on areas of the script, offering input into certain scenes, and generally supporting the production in any way possible.
This is why he is going to be present during shooting and will be one of the first people to see the film, before anyone, this fall. He is the chancellor to my emperor: he's going to be there to help me stick to the vision I originally had in mind. He's going to make sure I don't always leave the lights on, that I might look at the stars and not see beauty but instead see emptiness, and that "Our Story" is as raw as it truly needs to be in order to remain real.
No severed heads though.
Script: 100% since 2/09
Cast: 100%
Crew: 100%
Camera Supplies: 25%
Storyboards: 56%
Definitive Shooting Schedule: ~7%
Movement Rehearsals: 0%
Locations/Permissions: ~75%
Green Screen Construction: 0%
Nevermore,
-JD
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