"Fallen Hero" set to Shoot in May

[Marco]

Fallen Hero is my next SAG project set to shoot on Super 16mm on May 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in the Phoenix area. LA casting will be done by Rosalinda Morales, who recently did the casting on the newly released Fox Searchligh - Weinstein Co. released, La Misma Luna (Under the Same Moon), which sold for a record amount $5.5 million at Sundance in 2007 and has already broken the record for the biggest opening of a Spanish language film in the U.S., grossing $5 million from 266 locations alone. LA casting to begin on March 29th and 30th. Arizona Casting to beging shortly therafter.

Synopsis

The story examines the relationship between Daniel, a father in the throws of a divorce and his seven year old son, Jerry, in the aftermath of a school parking lot altercation in which Jerry witnesses his father brutally beaten by another man (emasculated, if you will) in front of his classmates. The story deals with the disillusionment of the Jerry’s hero worship for his father and how he tragically deals with it when his classmates tease him. Fallen Hero also examines the delicate psychology involved in pre-adolescent males as it relates to their growing awareness of what it means to be a man.


Directors Vision Statment

Fallen Hero is a story told through the eyes of Jerry, a seven year old boy who splits his time between his soon to be divorced parents, Daniel and Sarah. The story touches on a couple of themes as it explores the psychological aftermath of a boy who watches his father brutally beaten by another man in public.

One of the thematic questions explored in Fallen Hero is “What are the consequences of living a hurried life as part of a culture of speed in today’s society?” Our need to consume and to process greater amounts of information, or to do more with less time, or to go from point A to point B in the shortest amount of time has consequences in our everyday lives; specifically as it relates to the quality of our relationships and how we communicate and relate to others in our world.

One consequence of living such a hurried life is the concept of Time Sickness, the obsessive belief that time is getting away, that there isn't enough of it, and that you must pedal faster and faster to keep up. Time sickness can also be a symptom of a deeper, existential malaise, so that in the final stages before burnout, people often speed up to avoid confronting their unhappiness. Speed, with the sensory rush that it provides, is our strategy for distraction. This relentless obsession (or drive) to shave time into even smaller pieces can be considered a symptom of a deeper neurosis.

Another theme explored in Fallen Hero is this concept of a son’s hero worship for his father. Boys need someone they can look up to and admire, and the father is the first person the boy sees as that icon of masculinity. The boy naturally looks to the father to imagine what he, the boy, might become. He looks upon the father as a reflection, as the father does to the son. The father is the first person a boy looks to regarding every mystery of life, including sexuality and the physical world. When that reflection is blurred or shattered, the boy is lost and seeks out this psychic connection in others.

Without a human icon to emulate, a boy journeys inwards for his archetypal hero. It is dwelling within us, and sometimes they emerge through another medium: art, and in many cases, comic books, and most recently role-playing games and video/computer games. All three of these hobbies are hero-orientated, and for the most part, male-dominated. These are valid expressions of hero worship, but as with any expression they can turn into something akin to a shadow in the absence of a stable male figure in a child’s life.

Fallen Hero makes use of several recurring motifs in order to support the themes described above. Several clocks, seemingly out of sync, will appear throughout the story in order to underscore the concept of time sickness. The frantic and kinetic pace of the early part of the story support the concept of being caught up in the aforementioned culture of speed. Popular references to heroes are used to support the hero theme. Some of them are very obvious, as we see that Jerry and Daniel even gone as far as having projected Batman and Robin unto themselves. Other references are less obvious. The use of the Helix symbol is one, and an obscure reference to Ultra Man and Gigantor (Japanese comic heroes from the 1960’s) are others.

A short animated dream sequence is planned for ironic effect, as we explore the subconscious implications of the Oedipus complex (Freudian phsychoanalysis, which pits father against son) as a counter argument for the Hero father. By the end of the story, these subconcitous forces come into play.

This project will be shot on Super 16mm film The tone of the film is relatively dark. The story deals with some famelial dysfuntionalities, so from a production sound, production design, and cinamatography perspective, we’ll be dealing with some stylized camera movement as well as cluttered and obtuse and obscure spaces, where time is also subject to some distorion – sqeezed and streched. My influences here are Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogy Nights, Magnolia), and to a lesser extent David Lynch (Lost Highway, Malholland Drive, and Blue Velvet).

For more information on this project, visit www.fallenheromovie.com

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