Two Plus Two Older Archives - High Roller - The story of how the movie came about

Hey Wes and All:

So you want to know about how HIGH ROLLER got made? OK, here goes:

First, I wasn't exactly a newbie to filmmaking -- I had made hundreds of
commercials and
industrial films in my previous life in advertising and corporate
communications. In fact, it
was this experience that made me want to make a feature: I loved all aspects of
making
these little films, and I would finally be able to tell a story without being
forced to include
dialogue like "Gee, Bob, your breath smells so CLEAN!" (Unless of course it was
a searing
drama on the horrors of halitosis...).

So I set out to write a feature script. The first thing I did was read every
book on the
subject I could get my hands on: McKee, Field, Truby, etc., etc. And I bought
Final Draft
software.

All the gurus said "Write what you know!," so I wrote a psychological thriller
about a couple
of college kids who mug a classmate without really realizing what they were
getting into.
(Not that I'd mugged anybody, but I went to college, and had classmates.)

It sucked.

So I rewrote and rewrote and rewrote and rewrote.

It still sucked.

Just when I was getting incredibly frustrated, a couple of things happened:

1. I read a book called "Zen and the Art of Screenwriting" by William Froug. It
has
interviews with working screenwriters, and their counsel in essence freed me
from the
formulas that the gurus were preaching, which in turn freed me to write without
worrying
about "inciting incidents," page counts, or other stifling crap.

2. I got invited to play in a MUCH higher stakes poker game in which I usually
play, and
got KILLED. I wasn't just a fish, I was the whole freakin' AQUARIUM. So I bought
a bunch of
poker books, and read them. But I started noticing these little anecdotes about
Stuey
Ungar, and before I knew it, I was researching his life. (And still getting
killed at the poker
table, but not as bad.)

The research led me to travel to Vegas, Tunica, and New York where I spoke with
dozens
of people who knew or knew of Stu, including his ex-wife and daughter, as well
as
experience the "poker life" (play 48 hours straight, for example). Needless to
say, the
legends I heard were inspiring. While I spoke with people, or just sat at a
tournament
table, ideas would flash into my head about situations, dialogue, and
characters, and I'd
make a note, mental or otherwise.

Finally, I sat down to write. While the old script had been rewritten 20 times
over a year or
more, I was done with the first draft, which greatly resembled the shooting
draft, in a
month. And I knew I had to shoot it. The adventure began.

I had also been reading a bazillion books on production, and using whatever web
resources I could. During this time, I came across Dov Simens' 2-day film
school:
http://www.webfilmschool.com/
and decided to take a trip to NY, see my Dad (he lives on Long Island), and take
the
course. It was, by far, the best thing I did with respect to learning
production, even having
experienced the advertising/corporate production world. A whole different
animal, the
feature world.
The last day of the course was September 10th, 2001.

As I checked out of my uptown hotel early on September 11th, people were
murmuring
about how a plane had hit the Trade Center. Like most, I thought it was an
accident. As I
walked across town to catch my bus to Long Island, people were emptying onto the
street,
looking downtown at the smoke drifting across 5th Avenue. When the second plane
hit,
and it was clear that it was an attack, bedlam. People were streaming into the
street, fire
engines and police cars everywhere. I climbed onto my bus, and we were the last
vehicle
into the Lincoln tunnel before they shut it down. As we pulled out the other
side, we could
see clearly across the river as the South Tower collapsed, and the radio told of
the
Pentagon attack. Being on that bus, driving away from NY, felt like an escape.
Surreal.

Sorry for the diversion. It's the first I've really thought about being there in
some time.

OK, so now what? I flirted briefly with trying to get an established production
company
involved, but to be honest, I really hated being dissed by virtually everyone I
talked to, so I
said "screw it, I'll raise the money myself." So I prepared a business plan, and
proceeded to
twist the arm of every friend, relative, acquaintance, stranger, and farm animal
I could
think of (who knows, they could have cash...). And I coughed up my own money,
too.
Yuck.

Obviously, since we wouldn't have a lot of cash, I had to figure out how to pull
off a multi-
location period shoot as cheaply as possible. Scouting around, I realized that
only Vegas
would do for Vegas, but we could fake 70s NY fairly easily (as long as we didn't
get too
wide...) in Tennessee. So I decided that we would avoid traveling a bunch of
crew by hiring
locally in the two locations (Nashville/Vegas), and only travel department
heads.

So, while Larry Boothby (Cinematographer and friend) and I scouted Vegas
locations and
resources, we met with F.A. Miller, long-time line producer for the likes of
Robert
Zemeckis and Gil Adler, and brought him aboard. He in turn introduced us to Ray
Favero,
who would cast the Vegas day-players. But during discussions with Ray, he got
the script
to Steve Schirripa (Bobby Bacala on the Sopranos), who loved it. Steve then
asked us if we'd
be interested in having Michael Imperioli read the script for Stu. I thought it
over for at
least a nanosecond before agreeing.

I flew to NY and met with Michael for lunch, and then for drinks a day or so
later. After
lengthy negotiations with his agent and managers (more like whining and
begging), and
after agreeing to push our shoot back two months, Michael was in.

From there, things got easier. The actors offered to us by agents got a LOT
better. Crew
was more available. Funny how a name actor (even if he's a cable actor), will do
that...

So we shot for 22 days (on 35mm), and came in on time, on budget. Things went
supernaturally smoothly. We transferred to video with keycode, and I edited on
Final Cut
Pro at 24fps and conformed the negative off the cut list from the system.

I listened to at least a gazillion songs while I was editing (couldn't afford a
music
supervisor), and decided on key tunes for the film. When I forwarded the names
to our
music clearance attorney, I quickly removed most of them, and started again.
HOLY CRAP,
RECOGNIZABLE MUSIC IS EXPENSIVE! Our composers, Starr & Jeff, were referred
through
our production designer Shay Austin (a miracle worker). I sent them a final cut,
and they
played me music cues over the phone (!) while they were composing.

I hired Carmen Borgia and Matt Gundy at DuArt in NY (great guys, and great sound
men)
to do the sound design and final mix, and traveled to NY to supervise the Dolby
5.1
engineering as Larry (the DP) was supervising the color correction in LA at
Deluxe Labs.

The first time either of us saw the finished film was at the Taos Film Festival,
our premiere.
Luckily, the sound was in sync, although we had a moment of terror when the
theater's
advertising slide projector came on over a key scene (it was on a timer).

So there you have it, Wes. Any more questions, I'm happy to answer.

Peace.

-- Tony Vidmer