We spent an afternoon at the South Philly institution, Tony Lukes, and after some cheesesteaks, we got to talking about his inspirations, what got him into films, what inspired Ice Grill,USA, hip hop and everything in between. It was great to get an inside look at the film making process, but more so, the passion, drive, and dedication from someone who is doing all they can to pursue their dream. It was definitely inspiring to see and listen to an artist that is still very hungry and truly believes in his talent. After you watch Ice Grill, USA, it's hard to not be a fan and connect with both the movie and what made the movie a reality, especially if you're from the South Jersey region, but really from any region where the struggle continues. I see very big things in the future for these guys and I'm honored to have Greg as my first interview for ElephantSmart, as he represents a lot of the same things that drives me everyday.
The sky is truly the limit for Greg and his collective, Enlightened Party Multimedia. You can find more information about him and the other co-creator, Mark Bernardi, on their movie site, IceGrillUSA.com along with a ton of additional information about the film.
Follow Greg and the film on twitter @GSantarsiero and @icegrillusa. Big thanks to Alex Errico for the pictures, follow him @aerricomediallc and to contact him. You can find my review for the movie HERE.
Follow Greg and the film on twitter @GSantarsiero and @icegrillusa. Big thanks to Alex Errico for the pictures, follow him @aerricomediallc and to contact him. You can find my review for the movie HERE.
KingRizza: You wanna say a little bit about yourself, what inspired you to make films?
Greg: Yeah, myself and my associate Mark Bernardi, pretty much my best friend since 6th grade, co-collaborator, have done everything together from the ground up. We met in 5th and 6th grade and found our way into film making right around the Pulp Fiction era, our later years in high school. We started to get into indie films and I realized around that time that I had a gift for writing. I know Mark is a brilliant guy, one of the smartest people I know. We started to think what we were going to do with our lives, the big picture. At that time, we were both into sports time big time, especially basketball. The idea of making a career of that was far fetched, but the idea was how do you live an extraordinary life, make an impact, do something that touches peoples lives. We grew up in a colorful area, where there is such a diverse group of people in Brigantine, South Jersey, right outside of Atlantic City. We were around such a diverse group of guys, people of all walks of life, class, ethnic groups, ages, from people 5 years younger to people 25 years older, so we really had an appreciation for the region and plight of the working class, with how much depth and color to the people of that realm. I’m from a blue collar background, middle class background, surrounded with people with such interesting personalities and diverse backgrounds. So many instances where people made indelible impressions on you and themselves were characters.
I’ve always been into hip hop. My first encounter was when my mom bought me a Run DMC, King of Rock, tape. I had a buddy who had an older brother who had Eric B and Rakim posters on his wall and we looked up to him. My mom worked at a bookstore and they sold tapes. I had a record collection at the time, my dad was into Motown. Having that hip hop cassette pretty much from that point on in 3rd grade, it was strictly hop hip, I’m 33 now, so since i was 8 years old, i’ve been basically listening to nothing but hip hop. I think hip hop has directly influenced our view of the world, basically as class and the sociology of growing up in america in the 80’s and 90’s and it directly impacted our view of the world and impacted the kind of art we wanted to create. So we came from this working class background with all walks of life and the influence of hip hop. Those things impacted directly, the kind of films we wanted to make.
I’ve always been into hip hop. My first encounter was when my mom bought me a Run DMC, King of Rock, tape. I had a buddy who had an older brother who had Eric B and Rakim posters on his wall and we looked up to him. My mom worked at a bookstore and they sold tapes. I had a record collection at the time, my dad was into Motown. Having that hip hop cassette pretty much from that point on in 3rd grade, it was strictly hop hip, I’m 33 now, so since i was 8 years old, i’ve been basically listening to nothing but hip hop. I think hip hop has directly influenced our view of the world, basically as class and the sociology of growing up in america in the 80’s and 90’s and it directly impacted our view of the world and impacted the kind of art we wanted to create. So we came from this working class background with all walks of life and the influence of hip hop. Those things impacted directly, the kind of films we wanted to make.
Click below for the full interview and believe me, it's worth the read:
JR: Taking all the diversity, love of hip hop, environment, community, real life characters in your life. When was Ice Grills born, where you put some structure to this idea, make it real?
Greg: When I graduated from St. Joe’s in 2001, I was working at a nightclub, Casbah, in Atlantic City, I was a bouncer there for 4 years, it’s where I met my fiance. I worked there with a lot of my buddies. Basically, no matter what or how successful I am, eventually my kids have to, at one point, have to work in the service industry, so they can understand how to treat people. You get a real sense of what it is to be caught up in class warfare and where you fit in the world working in that environment. During the time I was working at the Casbah, Mark and I kind of took it upon ourselves to make our first film, "Rise By Sin". So many of the stories and emotions that are part of Ice Grill and embedded in Ice Grill, the characters and settings are born out of being a kid in his early 20’s working at the Casbah, trying to use his wits and resources to get by and find his place. To have influence in a very aggressive environment, kind of keeping your shit together, watching your back, watching your friends back. Holding on to whats yours in an environment where you’re not supposed to not have a lot of power. Think a lot of those emotions is what formed Auggie’s character.
KingRizza: How long from inception of Ice Grill,USA to making the movie a reality?
Greg: It’s an endless process man, I don’t think people get a sense of the gestation period for a film, when everything starts and finishes with you. We started working on the script in 2007, nights and weekends basically. I’d pick up Mark from the Jersey Ave train station after work and we’d go back to my house in Bucks County. He would come in from Queens, get back there around 7 and write until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. Six AM back in the car, dropping him back off for work. We put the script together like that for a little more than a year. Shot the film in 2008. Post-production in 2009, festival circuit in 2010. In the past year, our first foray into the films public life, we decided to self-distribute it strictly from our website. So that process as far as the film finding it’s audience and the film being as broadly distributed as much as we like it to hasn’t reached it’s apex yet. So that process isn’t over, it’s really never ending. A process of 4 plus years and it’s still going.
KingRizza: What do you think or consider the most difficult aspect of the movie? Making of the film, the process, early part, day to day grind?
Greg: We were really blessed in the sense that we had a lot of time to put the pieces in place for the right cast and crew. The one resource we had was time. We could really put together the team we wanted to have. The production went really well, since we made a lot of the contacts through "Rise of Sin" and actually the process of shooting Ice Grill,USA. Then, having this finished piece, finished product, that you know certainly has an audience, that was completed and done the way we wanted it in our minds eye. Now the hurdle was how do we let the world know that the film exists. The industry we wanted to bully our way into is really one of insiders and outsiders and breaking onto that other side is the greatest challenge there is.
It’s the tree falls in the woods situation. Here you are with this thing that you feel has an audience, that people would want to see it and be interested in, that would respond so positively to it. Yet, letting the world knows it exists is the biggest challenge, hurdle.
JR: Picking up on the benefit of having the time, the crew, cast. I think it’s evident with the cast, actors, the story is based on emotion and the main character. These unknown actors embrace the roles tremendously, you have Connor Fox, Denise Ramirez. Auggie is the main character, but Claudia seems a central focus. What were you looking for in casting...how do you know they’re going to portray your vision the way you want?
Greg: That’s the thing, that emotion you’re talking about. I’ve got a term, “Aspiration born of Desperation” Thank God we had the time. The parts were very particular in our head. We had casting calls in Atlantic City and New York and slowly pieced it together. We had amazing help, Weist-Barron-Ryan is a casting agency in AC and they were so helpful. In New York, Katherine Hinchey, was our primary casting director. They were constantly bringing people to us and so many instances we were holding out for the ideal person for these parts. We were slowly filling in the spots and we were literally still 2 or 3 weeks away but we still didn’t have Auggie and Claudia (two main characters). Everything else was perfect and we were thrilled with everybody else but we didn’t have those two main pieces. It worked out where we were looking at head shots and audition video’s that we were pouring over and we finally had this last casting session about 3 weeks out from shooting. Connor and Denise were there and we saw there head shots, what there resume was at that point. They were the two that seemed the best to suit those characters. They had that certain quality, undefinable, an intangible thing and they had it. You’re not wrong that Claudia is the motivation, primary trophy that all the men in the film are all vying for. There is a fine line that Denise had to walk in playing that part where she had to have this subtle dignity but also have this primal magnetism to her. Where you’re wondering why this girl from the neighborhood is making these powerful men put themselves in vulnerable positions. She really did that well. As far as Connor goes, he’s a really gifted kid. I don’t necessarily think his background was such that he could completely relate to Auggie, but he understood how much of us was in that character. So he really tried to get into our heads and tried to understand the culture of Atlantic City and draw on any life experiences that we had that he could relate to have that desire to be more than what your circumstances dictate what you're supposed to be. That’s what really the film is about. That quest to be more than what life circumstances dictate and should be.
JR: I think the actors definitely get that across, with Claudia playing that fine line with the other characters and there emotions.
Greg: I give Connor all the credit in the world for doing two things at once. He had to be this guy with this gritty blue collared background, but also slick and a facilitator and a nuance. It’s a difficult thing to do both at once. He had to be this leading man in all the classical ways but at the same time he had to bring to bear that kind of working class, AC, grit. Proper balance of both. He couldn’t be an Abercrombie vampire, he could be, just not in Ice Grill,USA, at the same time, he couldn’t be a completely gritty street character.
KingRizza: He definitely does that, he sells the dichotomy of which way he wants to go. He portrays that emotion tremendously and that’s key to the whole film. He makes that emotional connection and the movie makes the audience think, love or hate the characters.
Greg: That was the goal from the get go, make people think about the film after they watch it…
KingRizza: How does regionalism play in the film...you show shots of Atlantic City, construction, abandoned lots, casino’s...how important is it? You start with that theme and it continues through the whole film.
Greg: It plays a part very much so. If the film wasn’t authentic or true to where it’s from then we failed. That was pretty much from the get go. It was understood. The film had to be true to Atlantic City, had to be true to South Jersey that people from there had to watch it and see it. This unique place that they’re from and identify with. If we couldn’t do that, it would have been an abject failure in our opinion, no matter what anybody's response was, no matter how well we pulled it off. If it didn’t speak to the people we were portraying, then we failed. I think the world is getting a sense with Boardwalk Empire and its still not set in contemporary Atlantic City. It’s a unique place, it has a lot of poverty and despair and at the same time, a lot of glitz, promises of wealth and riches, the potential to win big. It’s a resort town, so it’s a very unique place to be...you work there, live there, every day, you make the machine move and everyone else is just passing through. It’s your home 365 days a year, everyone else has an impression for the 1 or 2 nights a year they spend there. That’s a very unique thing and we tried to embed that in the Ice Grill,USA story. its about what its like when you’re there everyday when most people are just passing by. Vegas might relate and some other places, but not many.
If nothing else, this movie is an ode to the people that power that machine.
KingRizza: One scene stood out to me, Auggie comes out on the boardwalk after a long night. He see’s his homeboy with a bottle of Patron half passed out on the bench. They discuss how their world is opposite of anybody else. They sleep when everybody else wakes up. “They took the motherfuckin sun from us” After that, Auggie is going through Atlantic City, lots of music, abstract views, it seemed like a music video. Any interest in music videos? You love hip hop, you’re creative. Do you get a visual when you listen to music? Do you have any plans or would you do music videos?
Greg: Not in any overt way or the goal of ours is to make music videos but we’re very much inspired by hip hop videos. That’s a big part of our creative vision. Everything from the grittiest stuff that looks like a handheld shot through a screen door all the way to Hype Williams where it looks hyper-real. At his best, his stuff is amazing and it definitely inspires us, especially his portrayals of real life rather than the in studio. Some of those things definitely impacted us with the look we were going for with Ice Grill,USA. The main goal is that people watch Ice Grill,USA and subsequent films and we have a signature style where they can tell just by looking at it who made the film.
I’ll hear music instrumentals, lyrics and they directly influence what I’m writing or working on or have some visual impact where I take this one thread or element and work it into my work. So the scene you bring up, that comes from me literally resenting the 9-5 lifestyle of normal people where they’re getting up for work, getting breakfast and I’m just getting home, going to bed, hungover. Feels like you give up a part of your life.
I’ll hear music instrumentals, lyrics and they directly influence what I’m writing or working on or have some visual impact where I take this one thread or element and work it into my work. So the scene you bring up, that comes from me literally resenting the 9-5 lifestyle of normal people where they’re getting up for work, getting breakfast and I’m just getting home, going to bed, hungover. Feels like you give up a part of your life.
The following scene in the alley, one of the moments of the film, where the music, the score is done by Rich Nichols, executive producer of the Roots, he did the score for Ice Grill,USA. That’s one of the moments where his presence really shines in that way. Where the original score and the visuals really are just married in an almost perfect way. A surreal moment, thats like a dream sequence moment, it really sings at that point in the movie.
I’d be re-missed if I didn’t talk about Rich and the music's impact and not talk about the visuals. Our cinematographer, Gus Sacks, shot IceGrills at 19 years old. I refer to him as the phenom. His potential is almost limitless. We took a leap of faith working with a 19 year old on at that point, the biggest project in our lives. We conveyed to him what we were looking for, how thoroughly he delivered that, we’re still astounded by it, astounded.
KingRizza: What’s the next thing for Enlightened Party Multimedia, plans of the group, current scripts, etc?
Greg: Mark and I are working on 3 scripts, post Ice Grills. ..both working on a couple solo scripts and we consult with each other based on circumstances, work, distance, logistics.
Wevdon’t want to give too much, but ideally we'd like to shoot one in 2012, get the team mobilized and production in place to shoot 2012.
Beyond that, obviously, a lot of people that see Ice Grill,USA thinks it should be a series. We talk about a sequel, we talk about that being a possibility, something we can move forward with. Not the next thing we’re working on but certainly down the road. There’s enough things left untied, to make that happen. Enough questions that remain unanswered and that could go a million different ways. Yeah as far as it could be a Starz, Showtime kind of series, that’s ambitious and a whole next level. We certainly see Ice Grill,USA as a cross section as a moment and place in time. So many ways you can take that story, so many avenues you can travel down, so many viable characters where we can bring to life in an in depth way. Thats something that we would consider and love and we think its definitely a potential for the project at some point.
No comments:
Post a Comment