“A Night in the Sunlight”

Our temporary poster

It finally happened!

I wrangled the crew, the actors, actresses and most difficult of all, a splendid location!

All together, these bits and pieces turned my short script “27 Questions” into a lovely film that now goes by the name, “A Night in the Sunlight” (after a certain cafe that proved to be too magical and too inspirational to ignore.)

This haiku of a movie is about memory, imagination and family. It features Jonathan Houser’s amazing cinematographic eye; Lenne Klingaman’s Academy-ready acting skills; and Tony Tibbett’s divine gift for rhythm and pace (he’s the editor.) New to the family is Amanda Bontecou, a good friend who was willing to do anything to help but showed a certain proclivity for sound capture and recording.

The film is now in the can and a rough cut should be available in a few weeks. (Some choice snippets will be posted here, so please check back.)

I have to say, this is the most production value I’ve ever worked with. Sure, I have only “Gimme Music, Gimme Shelter” to show for myself but I’ve done a number of experimental slash “exercise” projects that will probably never see the light of day… well, except for “I met him in the night,” which I’m sure will surface somewhere at some point.

The point being, I pulled out all the stops to make this short as pretty as could be. That and Jon Houser is one of those rare collaborators who never says no; he’s always “Yes, and….” Which really means that we had all kinds of lights and all kinds of special effects (made, of course, with lots of lights!) When the shoot was done, I had a feeling in my gut that we had captured something quite special. What’s even better is, I wasn’t alone. There was a warmth that circulated the set at 9AM when we wrapped our 12 hour shoot. It was obvious, we had done something special. We had told a lovely little story!

This is a very good feeling since the story itself is deeply meaningful to me. Plus, I have absolute faith in the talented actors and crew that came together to make this picture happen. For the core group (Jon, Tony and myself,) this is our second piece together and I can see our film group improving and growing with each step. By “growing” I mean really mean leaping and bounding.

I really like working with these guys. We’re developing a common language, a work ethic and camaraderie I’ve never experienced before in this industry. My grand scheme is to continue working together as we move into feature-length projects. One I have in mind is called “High Fructose Corn Syrup” that will be a co-production with a company of first rate Seattle actors.

More details on that LATER.

In the meantime, please check out some of the production photos available on my gmail site.

"A Night in the Sunlight" production photos