Production Stills, Part II: Screencaps

These are screencaps from the film, NOT behind-the-scenes shots. These are actual shots from the movie. Enjoy, all! ;D

Production Stills, Part I: Behind the Scenes

These stills were all taken behind-the-scenes. They are NOT images from the film; rather, they are images of the cast, crew, and advisors on the set of He's A Rockstar.

Photo credit: Nic Weinfeld, James Tucker Robbins, Johnny Stanton, and Aaron Tyson.

Well hello there...

Hello, all. My name is Avery Udell, and I am the writer/director/editor of He's A Rockstar.

For those of you wondering, precisely, what that is: It is a movie. And I've been told that it's good. But right now it's not doing as well as I'd like. So, I thought that instead of just promoting my movie on my personal blog, I'd have to kick it up a notch. The film has a Facebook page, but no IMDb page or official website as of yet. (But I'll get there, sooner or later. Pinky-promise.)

Anyway. So, He's A Rockstar is, as I previously stated, a movie. A short film, to be precise. What is this movie about, you ask? Well, there's this boy. His name is Skye. And he's the lead singer of an underground rock band, Psychology Trap. And he's shy, and his bandmates (especially his older brother) are...not. One night, Elias, Skye's older brother, dares him to hook up with a female fan--any female fan. Skye accepts the challenge, only to wind up in a hotel room with wannabe-documentarian and amateur feminist Emerson, who is intent on exposing Psychology Trap as womanizers!

Now, I'd love to give a link to the film. I really would. But I've tried to upload the film over and over again, with no success. (I swear, every video-uploading service on the internet has formed a conspiracy. That's the only explanation.) Instead, I'll just ramble on a bit longer about how and when the movie was written, shot, and edited.

So. He's A Rockstar was my senior thesis for Interlochen Arts Academy's Motion Picture Arts (MPA) program. So because I was a returning senior--as in, I'd been at Interlochen as a junior and came back for my senior year, as opposed to coming to Interlochen for the first time as a senior--I had eight to ten minutes (roughly an eight-page screenplay) to tell a story. The assignment over the summer was to come back with two or three ideas, preferably in full treatment form, for my senior film. It got to the end of August and I still had no ideas. WHAT COULD I DO?!

Well, my way of coping, as it were, was to lie on my bedroom floor or in the car and listen to Tokio Hotel and Augustana for endless hours. (This worked well, seeing as I was packing for school and so spending a lot of time in my room anyway, and then later I was on a road trip and was in the car for almost eleven hours on a straight-through drive to Maryland...I was bored, okay?) I would put "Reden" by Tokio Hotel on repeat, because that was my favorite song at that point in time. (As a sidenote, Tokio Hotel sounds much, much better in German. So, if you ever check them out, LISTEN TO THEIR GERMAN STUFF FIRST. Trust me.)

Anyway, I was listening to "Reden" over and over one day and writing in my journal, trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do about my senior film, and then I got sidetracked, as I always do when I'm listening to a band I really love. I'd heard "Reden" about a hundred times, but I'd never thought about what it really meant. Seeing as the lyrics were in German, and at the time I knew just about enough German to say "hello," "good-bye," "I love you," and "don't kill yourself" (and if you guessed I knew all this from listening to Tokio Hotel, you would be correct), I had no idea what "Reden" was about; all I knew was that the title translated roughly to "speak." Hmm. Not much to go on, am I right?

Well, I was curious. So with the help of YouTube, an online translator, and a friend who'd taken German in high school, I managed to work out the meaning of the lyrics. Basically, "Reden" is a song about a one-night stand. A band member meets a girl and suggests they talk and get to know each other, and instead, they wind up sleeping together. And that just kicked off all sorts of wild ideas, most of which were far too involved to fit into an eight-to-ten-minute film, but there was one solid, one-sentence plotline that just stuck in my head and refused to get out.

What if...a rockstar and a fan went into a hotel room to sleep together, but wound up talking all night instead?

Now, just to provide a bit of background, lest you all think I am some sort of weird human plot generator...

I grew up in a family of die-hard music fans. I was raised on Bruce Springsteen, Meat Loaf, Smash Mouth, Utopia, Lit, the Who, the Clash...the classics, basically. So when I finally began to develop my own tastes in pop culture, I naturally gravitated towards pop rock, and eventually straight rock and alternative. So, in a nutshell: Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Cloud Cult, Gavin DeGraw, 3 Doors Down, the Almost, Augustana, Meg & Dia, Cobra Starship...honestly, if it's rock infused with another genre of choice (anything from reggae to country to metal...really, I'm not picky), I will listen to it.

Now, when I started to get old enough to go to concerts, I began to dream of being invited backstage or meeting my idols, imagining what they would say to me and what I would say to them. I was twelve at the time, so most of these fantasies ended with me performing onstage with these bands (don't judge me, I didn't know yet that I couldn't sing, okay?!). But eventually, when I was older, those fantasies drifted off into that clichéd realm of teenage crushes and impossible wishes. Innocent of any knowledge of what actually happened when a girl was invited back to a rockstar's hotel room or tour bus (or, let's be honest here, behind the concert venue), I began to imagine what would happen if, by chance, I managed to snare an evening with Tyson Ritter or Drake Bell (because, even at fourteen, I had good taste in music (; ). These dreams did eventually disappear when I got serious about film--but every time I go to a concert, I still can't suppress that innocent fourteen-year-old hope that I just might run into my favorite singer or guitarist.

And guess what? Eventually, I did. When I was sixteen I met Ronnie Winter, the lead singer of Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and my personal hero. I met him again a year later, got his autograph and a cell phone picture, and was the happiest girl in the world. And this past spring, just before He's A Rockstar was released, I went to ANOTHER RJA concert (my third, just to recap) with a letter thanking him and telling him how much I appreciated his music. AND, when I went to that concert, I met the guitarist and bassist of RJA, and I got pictures with them, and I got to tell them, in person, that they were my favorite band. (Can you guess how excited I was?)

So, back to summer 2010, when I listened to "Reden" on repeat and came up with that unquenchable idea of a rockstar intending to hook up with an innocent female fan, but talking to her all night and falling in love with her instead. I was sitting in the car, on my way back to Interlochen, when I finally gave in. I grabbed my journal (which would later become my production notebook) and wrote the "Reden" lyrics, translated into English, on the first page. I scribbled an outline, which slowly turned into a proper treatment, which I turned into a screenplay later that night when I really should've been unpacking.

I wish I could say that He's A Rockstar evolved significantly from its initial conception. But I can't. Because right there, from the start, I knew what I wanted. I knew that it had to be that situation: the rockstar had to bring the female fan into the room intending to seduce her, but make an honest emotional connection with her instead. The little details changed--first they were touring Europe and the girl was German, a small homage to Tokio Hotel, which changed when I realized that there was no way to make the snowy woods of Interlochen resemble Berlin; things like that--but the core of the story remained the same.

Part of that core was Skye, the lead character. He came into my mind fully-formed, as so many of my characters do: A scruffy-but-sweet street-musician-turned-underground-sensation, always one step behind his suave older brother, shy and gentle but passionate enough to write lyrics that would turn even the most jaded of his hipster fangirls to jelly. A couple of friends who saw the early drafts of the script suggested that I give him an "arc" by making him a jerk, like his bandmates, who realizes there's more to life than sex when he finds the right girl. But I was sold on the image of my sweet, innocent-ish little Skye. The whole "playboy settles down" angle has been done so, so many times before. I wanted to do something a little different.

If there was a character who evolved, it was Emerson. She was initially a cardboard cutout-character, just someone there for Skye to play off of. A fangirl; nothing less, nothing more. But when the suggestion of giving her an ulterior motive popped up in workshop, I grabbed the idea and ran with it, and she became as complex a character as Skye himself. She was a wannabe feminist, wannabe documentarian; a girl who had big ideas and few resources--just about as relatable a character as you could want. She went from a caricature to a person in one draft.

He's A Rockstar was shot in three days, January 13-15, 2011. I have never been so proud of any single group of people as I was of my crew at the end of those three days. I had the option of putting people considered "young experts"--people I'd known since my first day of Interlochen, my junior year--in key roles. Instead I went with fresh faces for the key roles--DP, AD, art director, gaffer, the like--and I knew the second we went in for our first production meeting that I'd made the right choices. I jokingly referred to my crew as my "ducklings," a House reference, on a few occasions--but really, they were more like my advisory board. I went into pre-production for He's A Rockstar hoping to make an amateur version of Shopgirl--but I came out with something unique, something that belonged to me, not a cheap imitation of a film I loved, and I know that would not have happened if I hadn't gone with the crew that I did.

So! Enough of this sentimental silliness. Here's what I really want to tell you all:

Right now, He's A Rockstar is not exactly slaying the festivals. And yes, I know that I'm only eighteen, and that it takes time for things to really take off, and that it's silly to expect that I'll make waves with my first proper release. But I can't help it. Re-read what I said about dreaming of meeting Tyson Ritter. I am a dreamer. It's in me. It's always been in me. And I can't help but let my dreams reach the clouds. I want people to see this film. I want people to know, from watching this movie, that they are not alone, that they are not the only virgin left on the planet, that they are not the only girl who is more concerned with her career than her social life, that they are not the only boy who cares more about meaningful relationships than notches on his belt. I want people to see this movie, not because I want to be rich and famous, but because I want to tell stories that touch people the way my favorite films touched me, and I think that this film has the potential to reach out to people and I WANT TO MAKE IT HAPPEN.

So look at the stills I post. Tell people to come and check out this blog. "Like" the Facebook page. When I put up the official website (IT WILL HAPPEN) and get an IMDB page (again--IT WILL HAPPEN), go and watch the trailer. If WHEN He's A Rockstar actually gets a real nomination in a legit festival (I told you I was an optimist, didn't I?), go to the festival and CHECK IT OUT.

Right now, you can see He's A Rockstar online at the Great Lakes International Film Festival (now, re-read the above--I said a LEGIT festival--but right now, I'll take all the help I can get), but only until October 1st. So go! Watch it! Tell your friends! Right now I don't care about making money, I don't care about winning Oscars or meeting Tim Burton (although to be honest, that last one would be quite amazing), I just want this movie seen.

So help me make it happen, guys.

Please?

Great Lakes International Film Festival

He's A Rockstar Official Facebook Page

Next post there will be some more info about the making of the movie, including press kit bios, production stills, and--le gasp!--a possible trailer? KEEP CHECKING THIS PAGE!!!!

CAST AND CREW LIST:

CAST:

SHERIDAN STEVENS as Skye Larson

ERIN JOHNSON as Emerson Price

SIDDHARTHA RAJAN as Elias Larson

HARRY HUNTER as Jack Fischer

ROWEN KAHN as William Carter

CREW:

AVERY UDELL—writer, director, editor

KEATON MANNING—director of photography

GUS PÉWÉ—producer

TRAVIS COE—assistant director

AARON TYSON—production design

MILES CAREY—art director

SAM KEEBLE—gaffer

NICOLE ABBOTT—costumes and vanities

KYLIE CLARK—assistant camera/camera operator

COLIN CAMPBELL—audio

CONNOR EINARSEN—key grip

JAY FUNG—grip

JAMIE TUCKER ROBBINS—grip

RICHIE SIEGEL—grip

JOHN STANTON—grip

PIPPA ADAM—graphic design

BONNIE BRADE—graphic design

original music by PRESTON CRAIG

recorded at Interlochen Public Radio

“Dust” written by Preston Craig, performed by Dani Katz, Preston Craig, & Jarryd Elias

“Every Time” written by Preston Craig, performed by Rigoberto Ernst, Preston Craig, & Jarryd Elias

“First Name John” written by Trevor Cochran and Tommy Colangelo, performed by Gus Péwé & Sam Keeble

“The Bassist” written by Rachel Gerson, performed by Rachel Gerson, Dani Katz, Preston Craig, & Jarryd Elias