FILMMAKING - Perfect Sport - ... and That's a Wrap!

Funny how working 12 to 16 hours a day, six days a week, can get in the way of the habit of blogging. We wrapped Perfect Sport more than two weeks ago and I’m just now writing my wrap-up of the film. But I need to get this out of my system before I can move on to more current things, so here goes.

ANTHONY O’BRIEN

I remember the first day on set. I hadn’t met the director yet, and we were setting up the first shot. The lead actor was giving a lot of input. I mean, a lot. I was wondering when the director would step in and put that actor in his place! And then I found out that, yes, the lead actor was Anthony “Tony” O’Brien, the writer, star and the director of the film. So that was why he was giving so much input and people were listening.

Tony is an impressive figure. At age 22, he has already starred in and directed his own feature film. It’s enough to make you hate the guy. And that’s jealousy speaking more than anything else. He claims he’s going to edit the film himself, also, but I hope he finds someone to do that and guides the choices, because it’ll be good to have someone piece the stuff together with an objective eye and without memories of what the shots were intended to be.

FRINGES OF FAME

It wasn’t until well into the shoot that I found out that our lead actress Jessica Rose, was famous. You may be asking why it took me so long. Well, that’s because I had heard about the whole lonelygirl15 phenomenon without ever investigating. It was one of the first “video blogs” to make it big, and then got even more famous when it was discovered that it was scripted. To learn more, just click on the link.

But that’s not all.

Another of the female characters is Fallon, the slutty younger sister of the lead character’s best friend. During the party scene, I remember Tony encouraging her to dance even more seductively for the crowd of rowdy extras, and then turning around at the monitor and saying things like “Harvey’s going to kill me.” Or maybe that happened during the scene where Fallon seduces Tony’s character and gives him a blow job in the bathroom.

Turns out Fallon was being played by Stella Keitel, the daughter of Lorraine Bracco and Harvey Keitel. Rumor had it both Harvey and Lorraine were talking (seperately) about visiting the set, but neither one did. And I don't think Harvey would have killed Tony for the stuff we shot. Then again, there's still time.

The other “name” was working behind the scenes. One of the producers on the project was a young man named Zach Mann who, as it turns out, was a cast member on The Real World: Key West.

Here’s the kicker about this whole “fringes of fame” bit that I’m writing, which was emphasized by the Perfect Sport sound mixer Steve Jones when he stopped by the coffee shop where I am writing this to drop off my birthday present: We are getting old. If we were younger and more tuned into the whole MySpace and Internet worlds, we probably would recognize all of the above names.

And really, the true audience for this high school wrestling movie are people who will recognize Jessica Rose by sight, and know who Zach Mann is from watching MTV. So there.