I would like to start a series of articles about the filming of the film Last Vegas. Go!
I started getting ready for all this mess in winter, 2016. Even before the final script was done, the first thing I did was that I found a couple of VK fan communities of post-apocalypse universe. I had a word with moderators and ended up with the club named ‘After Us’. I got in touch with its head, Evgeny Medvedev, and arranged an appointment with him.
| Lifehack. If you wanna make a film just ‘for a thank you’, go find some crowd in the circle of enthusiasts within your genre. You want a horror film? Go search for fans of ‘the Saw’ and ‘Jaws’. For action movies, go check on karate clubs and Guy Richie’s admirers. Join or just visit some strikeball players’ groups\communities and action-quest fans. A historical movie in mind? you’d better go to re-enactors.
On the photo of those guys I was supposed to meet, they looked on it as though they were complete thugs and some kind of bloody killers’ gang from the Fallout game – in reality, they turned out nice fellows. They were highly disciplined, with their own code and long-term future plans. They got a bit wary of my filmmaking idea but promised to help when it comes to business. I understand them, absolutely. Out of a bunch of projects, as we all perfectly know, the very few manage to reach the last lap. I was not the first one who approached them with a request like that, to take part in the filmmaking.
| All the time I’d been getting ready for the shooting to begin, I couldn’t get this story out of my head. Here it is. At one of his seminars, a well-known business coach divided the students into two groups and suggested them taking an autograph of a celebrity, like Travolta or Sting. Group 1 had no motivation given. However, he promised to give 1000 dollars for an autograph to the members of Group 2. It’s amazing but no one from Group 1 got to celebrities considering this impossible. In group 2, however, 5 out of 8 did it, got an autograph! Money is not the point here. it’s all about motivation and … one more thing. there’s no missions impossible. There are just difficult ones. And you gotta first try working the task out.
I couldn’t step back now. So I began to prepare for it. I read everything I could about the original film ‘Six-String Samurai’ including the super old blog by Lance Mungia, the director. I studied through art-of-screenplay books (if interested, go check upon the previous post – anyway, I’ll note here “Cinematography between heaven and hell” by Alexander Mitta), and… in winter, 2016-2017, I wrote a calculated, well-built, technically well-thought-out script. I reread it again and gave Tanya (my wife) to read. I realized that the film timing was going to be 2 hours long, so I got to sit down and rewrite it. Then, again and again, reading, rewriting, over and over till I got this, something satisfactory in timing and attraction. I assumed that the most interesting story-line would be the sequel but… without the characters from the original – despite Mungia’s plan to make a trilogy he has never brought to life.
To be continued...
My project in the web:
Site: http://fidelfilm.ru/
Intagram: https://www.instagram.com/lastvegasfilm/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sixlastvegas/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkC8NsDJaEX4L0YblWqjtQQ
Vk: https://vk.com/vegas_film