Stills

Hey party people, just wanted to get some stills up from the flick of the different characters. Be prepared for the most Bearded movie since "Chuck Norris' Passion of the Fiddlier on the Roof".

Fighting in the Rain

So over the weekend we shot one of our more anticpated scenes for the film. A fight scene between the characters Mitch(Marc) and Jason(Ben) that erupts after their endless bickering. It's somewhat of a comedic scene so it was a lot of fun. The problem was that it stopped raining everytime we called action, so we had to get the faithful Jerm(set grip) up on some steps and shoot some water straight out of the hose into the air. It actualy worked out pretty good in the final footage.

So what's it about?

A brief synopsis:

The Kings of Mexico is a the story of four friends who have recently started a new band together. They have been playing for months in anticipation of their first upcoming show. The show is only two days away and the boys need to rehearse, but what is New Years without a giant New Years party. They have lots of friends along with friends of friends over and party all night. The next morning they drag themselves out of bed, for one last day rehearsal but can’t seem to bring themselves to actually get in the band room and play. Events from the night before slowly reveal themselves as fights break out and laughs are had.

(there were some dinosaurs in there somewhere, but we had to cut them out for minor story and budgetary issues...sorry Ronnie)

Where to begin?

A little background on the project might be appropriate for a blog on a film that is already under way. I guess I can start with me. My name is Marc Hampson, and I am the Writer/Director of "the Kings of Mexico". If you had asked me what film I would be working on two months ago, I would have given a completely different answer. Why? Because this project didn't exist yet. I have been(and still am) trying to get a more personal film that I wrote up and running for over six months now, but have hit a few snags here and there. At first, I had wanted to try and film it with no budget and just go out and film it. The problem was that the more work we put into it, the better it got, and the more people wanted to get involved. This sounds great for an artist, but the better something gets, the more expensive it usually becomes. In the middle of it all, SLOPEentertainment began work on a music video for the L.A. band Present Tense. We shot for one day in the middle of December. We filled the M Bar with the band, fans, some talented dancers, and a crew and went to work harder than we ever had to get a whole video done from set up to tear down in just 8 hours. It was tough, but we drilled through it and saw the light at the other side. Then the most awesome thing happened; people started coming out of the wood work who were so impressed by our attitude and hard work that they asked what else we might be working on. Suddenly we have the prospect of a budget. Then I learned a hard lesson that no one likes to learn about; paper work. We can actually make the film on a dime budget, but a budget. All we have to do is wait a few months while contracts are drafted and written up. More money means more people; more people means more planning, more planning takes more time. Now I'm not complaining about all this, I'm gonna get to make my movie. That rocks! However, I'm a creative, and we don't sit on our hands so easily. I wanted to keep fresh after the video; to keep active on a project. I had started to look into one acts and smaller conversation based films. Every indie likes to make them cause' they cost nothing. What would the premise be though? I went over idea after idea all the way through Christmas into the New Year and couldn't figure out anything that wouldn't cost a dime. A few days into January, I stayed up one night and was flipping through channels and Richard Linklater's "Tape" was on HBO. I had heard about the film that was shot digitally in a hotel room with three characters in real time, but had never seen it before. I was amazed that I was so engaged the entire time. It re-ignited the fire in me as I knew it could be done. I had seen it! The next day at work, I couldn't get it out of my head. Every time my buddy Aaron(the producer) went out for a cigarette, I followed him out and berated him with angsty frustration over not being able to find the story. The two of us play in a band together on Monday nights with Ronnie(our Sound guy), and on one nicotine outing our conversation turned to the band rehearsal for that night. Then it suddenly hit me; a band rehearsal. A small group of guys getting together every week for two hours to work on building something together. The setting was great, because anyone who has played in different band knows that alot of being that band usually has nothing to do with actually playing music. Of course this is also why most bands never get out of the garage. And so "the Kings of Mexico" was born, though the project didn't have a name yet. Aaron and I continued to build on the idea at every smoking break, every day, for the rest of the week. I stayed up at night and started writing the script and blew through most of it in a few days. We swore that we would keep it simple and use it more as a tool to get more done while we waited for our REAL film to collect it's budget. The film would take place entirely at Ronnie and Aaron's house and would star only people we had complete access to(which didn't work out that well). We would start immediately. We quickly got together and started filming the first weekend and we got maybe a third of what we thought we might. We were suddenly reminded that the video shoot had a whole room full of crew members while we were relying on maybe 3 or 4 of us for this film. When we the footage into Final Cut and started cutting stuff together, we hit a snag we had hoped to avoid this time around. It was pretty good. That's when we started to buckle down and break our own rules. Now the film has a party scene, a fight scene, shots away from the house and even some extra characters. This weekend we even added a big ending that's an accomplishment itself, but you know what? It'll be great. And if it's taking a little longer to make, I'm willing to go through that if that's what we need to do. I love making films.

-Marc

Set Photos

So I'm gonna jump on tonight and start throwing up some info on the movie, but I figured while I'm sitting here sifting through files, I might as well go ahead and throw up some on set photos taken with a camera we were passing around set of us setting up between shots. The fight scene in the fake rain is from a big comedic fight scene that takes place right slap in the middle of the film. Can't wait to edit that one together.

-Marc

We're Blogging!

Hey out there all ye people on the interweb. This is the production journal for SLOPEentertainment's first feature film; "The Kings of Mexico". We are about two thirds through production and the footage is looking great. Many of us will be chiming in here three to four times a week and keeping you updated on current and past happenings on how we're making the film. Soon we'll be posting cast and crew bios, clips and stills, and after not too long; a trailer. For now, let us know what you think of our temp poster.