© 2015 Origins of Light Entertainment (323) 863-6075 originsoflight ...

© 2015 Origins of Light Entertainment (323) 863-6075 originsoflight.com

W R I T T E N A N D P R O D U C E D B Y M C K A Y S T E W A R T

D I R E C T E D A N D E D I T E D B Y D A N L I U

C I N E M A T O G R A P H Y B Y J O H N T . C O N N O R

S T A R R I N G M C K A Y S T E W A R T , J A S O N B R I L L A N T E S A N D J A M I E L E E B E S S

P R O D U C T I O N C O M P A N Y E X E C U T I V E P R O D U C E R O R I G I N S O F L I G H T S M C K A Y S T E W A R T 323 .863 .6075 3 10 .497 .7681 I N F O @ O R I G I N S O F L I G H T . C O M D U N C A N @ M C K A Y S T E W A R T . C O M


S Y N O P S I S T H E J E T S C H A S E T H E S H A R K S T H R O U G H A N A L L E Y W A Y A N D U P O V E R A T A L L F E N C E , W H E N S U D D E N L Y T H E Y F I N D T H E M S E L V E S I N A N O T H E R W O R L D , M A G I C A L L Y T R A N S P O R T E D I N T O A N A B A N D O N E D W A R E H O U S E . W H E R E T H E Y A R E C O N T R O L L E D B Y T H E E L E C T R O N I C B E A T O F T H E W O R L D - R E N O W N E D D I S C J O C K E Y , D E A D M A U 5 . T H I S I S A N LA W E S T S I D E S T O R Y .


Q&A WITH WRITER/PRODUCER MCKAY STEWART What initially inspired you to create West Side Swordy? Can you talk about the evolution of the project? I originally wanted to create a sword-fighting reel to try and help me and a few fellow stunt performers get jobs on the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. No joke! But then, I wanted it to be special, to have real production value, have a story. In essence, a short film. I started batting things around and out came this outrageous idea. Little did I know what this meant in terms of the production! I now had to hire a dance choreographer, professional dancers, rent out a huge warehouse somehow, light it somehow, shoot it somehow, on it went. I fortunately pulled in some phenomenal talent willing to donate their time to the project (Dan Liu, John T. Connor, Nate Fu and Nick Lanzisera) who made it possible. Dan Liu is an editor of AMC’s The Walking Dead, John T. Connor has shot features for the best in the business, including Ridley Scott, JJ Abrams and David Fincher; Nick Lanzisera has danced and choreographed on some of the hottest shows around, like True Blood, Footloose and High School Musical. We originally were set wrap principal photography in the summer but I lost Nate Fu and most of my original cast, dancers included, to injuries and bigger projects. Disaster. But because of this I pulled in John T. Connor and the new cast was outstanding as well. John, in turn, brought an entire lighting, grip and electric crew to handle the task of lighting the gargantuan warehouse (where Inception was filmed).


He even brought in a Technocrane for the day, amazing. Thanks to the hard work of everyone involved, who happened to be very experienced professionals in their respective fields, we actually pulled it off. Why sword fighting, West Side Story and techno music?

Why not, right? I have a pretty unusual background: a degree in theatre, professional dance, musical theatre, stunts, graphic design, etc. And I love electronic dance music. And sword fighting. Who doesn’t love sword fighting? I actually performed in West Side Story twice, playing the role of Baby John. Once in Austin,

Texas (awesome experience) and then again in Redondo Beach. This show blows my mind! The choreography, music, lyrics, story (re-imagining of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet) are some of the best ever created. Definitely my favorite musical, by far.

Where did you shoot the film and how did you select these locations? It’s unbelievable, but for the exteriors we shot downtown on a Sunday and there were almost no people around. We took up an entire alley with all our cars and production vehicles (aka Nate Fu’s van). And very awesomely, there was this vintage, black VW beetle parked in one of the scenes. Perfect for the time period of the West Side Story bit. Huzzah!


Because our DP John had his own small warehouse, we were able to split up the warehouse shoot into multiple days, to shoot the individual sword fighting scenes in his building, then do the biggest scenes in the gigantic (50,000 square feet) SCS (Sun Chemical) warehouse. This was critical; since there was no way in heck we’d have managed all the shots in the one, 18-hour day shoot in the big warehouse. We only made it through about 80% of the shots on our wish list as it was. How did you find your cast and crew? I originally cast my talented stunt performer friends for the leads. A few of them had to drop out due to injuries and studio jobs, so I recast their roles. For the

dancers I first relied on Nick Lanzisera to find them, as well as my then-dance agent for suggestions. I also put casting notices online. I found Nick Lanzisera thanks to Marguerite Derricks, who I knew from my days as a pro dancer. Marguerite’s been working in film and tv for some time, she’s super well-known and respected. I’m incredibly

lucky for her referral! Nick is phenomenal. Dan Liu was a referral from Garrett Warren (stunt coordinator of Avatar), a friend of mine I’m developing another project with called Glitch, which Kevin Tancharoen is now directing. Anyway, Dan edited the short I produced for Glitch, and he told me he wanted to be considered to direct an episode of that project if anything happened with it.


So I knew he wanted to direct! Dan’s work editing Glitch was singular. He possesses that rare ability to edit action and make it look hot. And when I came up with the original idea for West Side Swordy, I texted him “If you can find me a talented DP with his own RED gear and crew you can direct West Side Swordy.” He texted me back within minutes! Nate Fu (who had worked with Dan on the

series LXD, League of Extraordinary Dancers) was the original DP and he shot our exterior scenes. When Nate told me he had to take a job on a feature I was devastated. What the heck was I going to do now? I fortunately kept in touch with the DP of Eagle Eye, which I had worked on, and he referred me to John T. Connor. I was floored! John turned out to be not only a

consummate professional, complete with all the top, top gear and crew you could hope for, but he’s got a heart of gold. I couldn’t believe my luck. I will work with John for as long as I am able. He’s really a gem. Who did your costume design and how did you pull all of that together? For the big sequences I wanted something fun and original, yet sleek and cool. I basically combined Desperately Seeking Susan with Michael Jackson’s Captain Eo. At least, in my head. I then turned to the talented Erin Rogers to execute. On a shoe string budget of course. She uber-delivered. The rest of the costumes were modeled from the time period of West Side Story. How about the Deadmau5 “head”? For that I turned to a performer I had met who liked to build stuff. Incredibly difficult but after several months he pulled it off. How do you think people will respond to it? Gosh. Well, I hope people love it of course. I mean, I hope people of all ages will just be delighted. I think that to get the most out of it you need to know about West Side Story and be aware that Deadmau5 exists, but even if you don’t I still think you’d enjoy the heck out of it.


THE CAST

MCKAY STEWART JASON BRILLANTES JAMIE LEE BESS SAIGE WALKER

MIKAHLA ROSS SAMUEL J. PAUL HANNA SAKAKIBARA BRITTNEY BERTIER

THE FILMMAKERS Origins of Light pulled together a wonderful group of talented individuals for this project. We all worked our guts out on it. Anything and everything possible to make it special, and we hope our passion and wild enthusiasm shows. MCKAY STEWART (ACTOR/WRITER/PRODUCER/EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) DAN LIU (DIRECTOR/EDITOR) JOHN T. CONNOR (CINEMATOGRAPHER) EBONY KNIGHT (UPM/LINE PRODUCER) What else can you tell us about yourself and your future plans, any projects on the horizon? I thought you’d never ask! Har. Ever since I began pursuing an acting career I’ve been gathering contacts, because I knew I would one day want to create my own projects. That became second nature to me. And as I gained experience as an actor and stuntman working on studio projects, and then producing smaller projects of my own (just for my demo reels), it allowed me create West Side Swordy and not splatter all over the ground. Frankly that almost happened several times anyway. Right now I have four other projects at various stages of development. The furthest one along is Glitch, which I am co-creating with Garrett Warren, and Kevin Tancharoen is attached to direct. I stepped down from the lead role to make this happen, creating a supporting role for myself I’d be happy with. Garret has shown this around town and everyone he shows it to is excited about it. You can catch the teaser episode I produced here:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q905LzM_ukc&list=PLL8N3BhnQZv1CaGn0S83Nbv8ExrdeF7Wd&index=3 My second, most-developed project is called Hammer of God. This is definitely what I’m most excited about. It’s a high-concept, epic action/sci-fi/drama. It’s Bourne Identity meets Star Wars. Ridiculously ambitious, but I want to create a Star Wars for this generation. The script itself is kind of stunning. My friends are routinely floored when they read it. “You wrote this???” Which is kind of flattering and insulting at the same time. I am developing this one to be a series of features. And hopefully video games. I even went so far as to create a website with visuals and theme music! Check this out www.hammerofgodmovie.com. I’m hoping folks I want to work with on this come to my screenings of Swordy. That goes for each of my projects, of course. My third project is called EDISON. It’s House of Cards meets Dead Poet’s Society with a dash of Californication. A tasteful dash. I will play the title character in the series. I’m developing this to be shot as a mini-series for an on-demand distributor like Netflix, Amazon or Hulu and take it from there. The fourth project is called Hashashin. The true story of “the Hashashin” or “the Assassins”, based on the accounts of Marco Polo. According to Marco Polo, the assassins were just average guys, drugged and lured into believing heaven awaited. All they had to do was murder, never mind surviving after they succeeded. Typically they were killed immediately following their successful “assassination.” WEST SIDE SWORDY WEBSITES www.westsideswordy.com www.facebook.com/westsideswordy www.twitter.com/westsideswordy http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3185554/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 www.originsoflight.com KEY ART Stills by Stephen William, Jay Andrino and Shant Hamassian Poster Designs by Alex Lombardo and Julian Martin Creative Director: McKay Stewart ORIGINS OF LIGHT WEBSITES www.originsoflight.com www.facebook.com/originsoflight FOR MORE INFORMATION MW PR [email protected] (310) 701-3350 ORIGINS OF LIGHT [email protected]

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