Jobbers was the single most beautiful train wreck I have ever been a part of in my entire eight years of this movie thing. It cost me over twenty stitches, thirteen doctor visits, a girlfriend, a couple of friends, a good landlord reference and that's just the first things that come to mind. On a postitive note, I will also say it was my best experience I've had as well. What I had set out to do, what became of it and how we did it turned out exactly how I had envisioned it to be. I'd give you the short story, but with this project... There ISN'T one.
In 1999, I was a wrestling freak. I loved wrestling. I love the road show. I loved the story lines. I loved the larger than life aspect of it all. This craze had also help me change my life. I stopped smoking and started in hard on the gym thing. I had never aspired to be a wrestler, (more a behind the scenes kind of guy.) I had been toggling with ideas to make a Christopher Guest inspired "Mockumentary" of some kind for our next project. I had attempted to shoot a short "film" using my VX1000 and upon it's dismal return, I had stopped aiming so high. I was young. Fresh out of film school and I'll be honest... I Did not have a clue what I was doing.
If it hadn't been for my partner in crime, Ryan's ability to run a camera in his sleep, I'd probably still not know what a white balance was so anyway, I needed something a bit simpler this time around, maybe a documentary or something. Well, I had a girlfriend at the time. One of those ones you only get to experience once or twice in a lifetime. She had walked by where I worked and I couldn't lay my eyes off her. I had to have her and with a little persistence I got it here. Had her for about three months and she dumped me. Heartbroken, I brushed it off... Well kind of. I used a bottle of Cuervo and my martial arts buddy, Justin that night. After way too many we decided we were going to go down in the basement and beat on each other for a little while. We did just that. So much I ended up in the hospital with sixteen stitches across the head. Here's where the story of my movie was inspired. We had filmed this whole ridiculous half wrestling, half fight and I had bloodied myself so badly I almost wasn't able to walk to the car due to the loss of blood I had succumbed to. On the way to the hospital, Justin swerving, me talking, I hit him with the idea of a bunch of educated older men getting together to back yard wrestle and were dead serious about it. How ridiculously funny, I thought it could be. Justin agreed. Heck, we already had a scene in the can.
48 HOURS LATER
I was told not to come back to work at my restaurant job, until my bruising and pussing from my staples toned down by fifty percent. I relaxed in bed at home with a note pad and wrote a first draft of my script for Jobbers in two and half days. I didn't even check the spelling before I passed it out. Everybody loved it but was again worried that I was aiming too high on the production. I rearranged the script a little and we went right into shooting. Almost a year later, we had wrapped the film. After the first day of shooting I had junked the script and began working with notes written on my hand, arm, dollar bills, post it notes. Whatever I could get my hands on. We host when we would could. Added scenes when we needed them. We were missing an ending and I was at the end of my rope with the wrestling thing. About six months into production, that infamous girlfriend who had spawned all this chaos, had walked back into my life and my sudden urge to throw myself a parking garage and a backyard had become somewhat childish again. I knew I had to do a big finale match to tie up the supposed demise of the wrestling organization. Fire, dented cars and seven more stitches to my eye and I had my finish and retirement from wrestling.
POST PRODUCTION
I had only edited one other complex project in my life. I had 26 hours of footage and a 40GB hard drive to do deal with. This was 1999, so fast externals drives were not be heard of in those days so I literally had captured three tapes at a time, put together the little clips from them and render them as Quicktime movies. (Thank goodness we shot the movie in sync or those tapes would still be collecting dust in a shoe box somewhere. Every scene and shot had to be signed off on, a little at a time so I had to know what I was going to do ahead of time. No, mix and match. I had to do it all in my head or sketch out detailed storyboards, limiting the creativity to my first instinct. I decided to go the long way about it. I copied all the DV tapes onto VHS tapes and edited the movie from VCR to VCR like a crude telecine... Mixing and matching shots and scenes until I found the right mix and then I did the final cut on the Mac.
The first run on the West Coast received less than average reviews. The first run on the the East Coast. (same movie,) got incredible reviews. I went home took some time off, then went back and made some major and minor adjustments. The second run was the exact opposite. The West loved it. The East hated it. What gives? So I cut back the major and did away with the minors and had a premiere. It was the night of my life. Then in a matter of three months after, the infamous girl dumped me again. The movie was rejected from twelve film festivals, including the The Bad Film Festival. No shit and add salt to the wounds, (literally,) my insurance refused to pay for my many visits so I was stuck with $4000 in ER visits. I had burned myself completely out of the whole "Hollywood" thing, so I left my LA residence and have not had an address there since.
11 MONTHS LATER
I had gone to Atlanta and passed my FCP Certification and had not touched my computer since. I was working again as a waiter. I had no prospects. On night an old friend had come into town and heard from the rest of the gang about this wrestling movie. With a lot of nagging he talked me into showing it to him. While I was sitting there watching it, I started thinking. I thought, maybe I wasn't rejected for content but rather because of bad form. My audio had not been the best. I had not color corrected all that much. Maybe that was I thought. Woke up the next morning, shook the cobwebs off and decided to recut Jobbers. I mysteriously came down with the flu, forged a doctor's note, shut myself into my room and went to work....
Six days later, an entirely different, edgy film emerged. I sent off to four film festivals around the Southern area and was invited to everyone. I was able to enter it into the UCLA Student Academy Awards on an alumni ballot by shooting implementing two new shots into the film, (pushing back it's final production day for submissions.) I attended the Conjunction Film Festival and won two awards. I honestly did not care to much at this time, but an excuse to go to Myrtle Beach was OK with me. The Vanguard Film Festival, now defunct, down in Atlanta garnered me the "Guerilla Film Making Award," the one I'm most proud of. I was unable to attend which I now I wish, I had but what can you do. I went back to my normal life when I got a call from an old teacher, who cussed me for not showing to UCLA Student Film Festival, because for the first year in history, a filmmaker's film had received multiple awards and the "arrogant prick director" had not been there to do the Q & A. I felt like Terrence Malick. So here I am, away from Hollywood, with no desire to go back and all of a sudden, I am out of exile and a "filmmaker" again. I put two of the trophies in a small box and kept the others out on my desk, which were later stolen at a party my roommate threw. I went on with my life, but since that incident, have been making movies and honing my craft with whatever work I can get my hands on. With that whole story behind me, there is only one thing I regret and that is to this day, my parents who have always been supportive of what I do, have not seen the film or even know that much about it. I had kept it under wraps due to the punishment my body takes and the horrible profanity that their son uses throughout the film. Maybe now, since I have a kid and making another film. I can sit them down, tell them this story and then show them the definitive movie that molded who I am today, 'Jobbers.'
CHECK OUT THE FIRST DAY OF PRINCIPLE PHOTOGRAPHY'S MISHAP - (It would set the pace for the whole shoot. Trust Me.)