The Last Of The Regulars......

This man's name is Nathan Paul Barker. Having met him in fall 2008, I know what he is capable of, and he often tends to surprise me and I am glad that he is able to join the team of Eyes On Me. He will be portraying Jerry, Chris' psychiatrist and pretty much his only male confidante in the town he lives in. Despite the fact that it is a small role, Nathan took it anyway, which makes me respect him as an actor even more.

This man here is Jonathan Dantzler. I've known Jonathan since Freshman year and I also know what he's capable of, although he often tends to surprise me as well.

Jonathan portrays Stephen Bond, who is the owner of a website called "High Country Hysteria," which is basically an online gossip rag. With the story taking place in a little town, he often has to dig deep for interesting material, sometimes far deeper than he should.

A side note about Jon.

This man has been keeping me in check with Eyes On Me. He helped me cowrite the story and turn what was a smattering of ideas into a coherent script. He will also be helping with directing, which I am thankful for and most likely editing, on which the technical aspect I know nothing about.

So thats my blurbs on Jon and Nathan. They are the final two members of the regular gang of No Budget to join the production. From here on out, it's pretty much all new comers. It is on they that the next blog post will be about.

Thanks for the support.

-Daniel Dockery

And the first casting pick is here.

Now before I say who it is, I just want to thank everyone whose shown interest in the film, whether they auditioned or just wondered what it was about. I need all the support I can get on this one.

Now this choice isn't from left field and it's not going to shock anyone. I auditioned 4 people for this role. And the first was indeed the best, and the first was the one I knew from the start I could count on.

Chris Doyle, the main character of the film, will be played by Zaque Smith.

But wait, isn't Zaque in everything? I mean honestly Daniel, could you have picked a more obvious choice. Yes I could have. I could've put myself in the lead. But I'm not Kenneth Branagh.

Why did Zaque get it?

Because he is in everything. Always shows up. Always helps out. Never is begrudging or bitter about a job.

But those are minor reasons.

The major reason is that he understands Chris Doyle.

Chris Doyle is the lead. But what alot of people don't necessarily understand is that in this film, there is no more complex character than that of Chris Doyle. I'm putting alot of weight on Zaque with this. He's going to have to work hard to create a role thats just as interesting as some of the more, ahem, extreme characters in the film.

But he can do it.

If he couldn't than I wouldn't have cast him.

Chris Doyle is a man on the verge of pure adulthood. He watches as people grow up and live their lives, moving to different towns and starting families. But Chris can't do that. Nope, he is stuck in his podunk little town, eagerly awaiting the arrival of his brother, whom he's promised his deceased mother that he'd take care of.

He's on the verge of insanity. Not Anthony Hopkins "liver with some beans and drink" insane but a slow boil of insane. One I think he truly gets. One that I feel, deep down, he knows.

An actor has to know the emotion. Otherwise he's just an impressionist.

And so, I congratulate Zaque Smith for getting the role of Chris Doyle. I hope he feels relieved and excited about this.

More casting news later.

"Were all young men. Young guys. We can do whatever we want now."

-Daniel

The Writing Process

I'm not going to teach anyone how to write so the title may be a bit misleading. This blog however will focus on how Eyes On Me came to be.

When I knew I wanted to write a film in long-story fashion, I knew I had to work by constraints. That was my first concern. We are, of course, No Budget Productions. Were not down right poor as our title may mislead, but were not funded by anyone in particular and if something needs to be bought or created, it usually comes out of our own middle-class pockets.

Eyes On Me started out with two simple catch phrases: "The night he came home" and "No man is an island." Using one would be outright plagiarism. The other is an adage and I will use it, probably as the film's tagline.

The first is the tagline of classic slasher film "Halloween." In this film Jamie Lee Curtis plays Laurie Strode, a high school girl who is being unknowingly (until the last 20 minutes of the film when she discovers her friends corpses and puts two and two together) followed by Michael Myers, the bogeyman incarnate. Now later films have tried to add sense to this plot by making Michael her brother and making it a big curse and such and such. Thats crap. Michael Myers is the bogeyman. He is not an insane person. He is not looking for revenge or family connections. He is "purely and simply evil," as quoted by Donald Pleasance.

Now that I've got that out of the way.......

"The night he came home" is the tagline of the film. And that idea, along with the idea that "No man is an island," are things I wanted to fuse together. Someone is returning home and someone can't escape.

Thats basically it folks.

So I created a story out of it, a story that I shared in the last blog. When I told this story idea to friends and co-creators Zaque Smith and Jonathan Dantzler, they thought it was wonderful, which I was glad to hear, because they definitely would have let me know if they thought the idea was awful.

So, having outlined this plot, I set out to write a script.

First of all, I wanted to get rid of "child molester looking for redemption" cliches I see all the time in movies. This required me to make the main character someone other than the former pedophile. By putting him in a relatively secondary role, I was able to put the focus more on the town and on the man I truly wanted to focus on, his brother.

I wrote my script (in parts) first on paper, due to me having no real good script-making software to use. Than I lost the papers. So when it came time to collaborate and type this sucker up, it usually just consisted of me standing and pacing behind Jonathan, telling him ideas and trying my best to quote pieces of the script I could remember. And it worked.

From my best recollection, the things I had written down were over-dramatic schlock, where any phrase made by any character was this powerful, deep message. Thanks to my collaborators, we managed to write something much more real than that. People in the new script talked like normal people talked, which was necessary, since all the characters are on the same playing field. No character really stands out in terms of extra power. Well that would be a lie, since some characters obviously hold more power than some of the others, but they are all just normal people.

After this was done, I revised the script, "punching up" parts that I felt were lacking. This is not a full length film (though it is much longer than anything we have ever attempted to shoot,) so all the scenes need to count.

Painfully, as I read back over this blog, I see it is a disjointed mess and I apologize if you read parts and wonder "Where in the hell is this guy going with all this?"

I tried. I'm over it.

In the next blog I start the casting run down, telling about all the actors and their respective characters. Thank you for taking the time to read this blog and support this project.

And if you want to talk about John Carpenter's Halloween, I'd be more than happy to oblige.

And if you want to argue about said film, I will win.

-Daniel

The Story

First of all, I, for one, enjoy listening to educated people talk about technology, video games and other assorted subjects. Check out my friend Paul's blog and podcast (you can both stream and download it.) Alot of podcasts seem to lack focus or are people just laughing at each other's jokes and not really accomplishing anything, but this one is a pretty good listen.

Heres the link:

http://www.contrapaul.blogspot.com/

Now, the story of Eyes On Me.

Eyes On Me is not a personal story. People can relate to it, and there are some aspects of it that I can certainly relate to, but its not personal. Its very much a story based on emotions/themes. To put it as simply as I can:

Chris Doyle has lived in a small town all his life, with his mother and his brother Eddie. When Eddie is arrested for assault on a minor, the Doyle family manages to get him sent to a Home, rather than a prison, the reasoning being that he has a psycho-sexual disorder. During the time he is away, Chris' and Eddie's mother dies and Chris takes a job as a middle school english teacher. When Eddie is "healed," and is deemed fit to return to normal society, Chris opts to take him in. However this does not sit well with citizens who live in the town, the most prominent one being Richard, another townie who wants Eddie out as soon as possible. And so the story revolves around Chris' and his attempts to balance his own life, with that of his brother's.

The tagline is an old quote I've heard a thousand times over:

"No man is an island."

Which means that basically, no matter where you are, you're never alone. You can't shut yourself off from your world. Its impossible. People care too much to let that happen.

Thats basically it. I'll probably go into the characters more in a later blog, since the casting of the film will be finalized in August. Cating sessions have been going very well, and my fears of being overwhelmed by this project are slowly leaving.

-Daniel

Next weeks blog will concern the themes of Eyes On Me, and I'll go more into what it was like to write this story.

The First

You're probably visiting this because I re-directed you from somewhere to it. Thank you for taking the chance to click that link.

Now I'm sure alot of people, maybe even you, are wondering what Eyes On Me exactly is.

1. Its a movie.

2. It was written by me, Daniel Dockery, and my co-writer, Jonathan Dantzler, a talented man creating a film of his own, which I will link to later.

3. Its a serious drama.

Whoa.

A serious drama you say?

Hold on. Daniel? Serious drama? The same Daniel who enjoys playing a embittered Roosevelt and a buffoonishly self-centered Christian Bale?

Yes, its the same Daniel. And I'm taking a huge risk by doing this mainly because I don't usually do this. Which is exactly why I want to do this.

Eyes On Me is not a shocking film. Though it deals with heavy issues it is not meant to depress or disgust. Eyes On Me, however, is a tragedy at its most basic sense. The story of two men, both with potential, both flawed, and both doomed to meet their destinies in ways they never could have fought against.

In the coming months before I hope to release this film in February, I would like to bring you this blog post and many others, all of which will chronicle the creation of a film that I hope, when finished, will resonate with people.

I hope you come along for the ride.

And here is the promised Jon link: http://ourstoryfilm.blogspot.com/

From the man whose favorite films are Jaws and 1974's original Texas Chainsaw Massacre,

-Daniel.

Up next:

Creating The Story, (where I attempt to tell you the story of the film and explain it without giving everything away)