Monday, March 25, 2013

Character 101 - Tony Tarino


Each month this blog will feature a character from one of the SFF productions.  This month I’m going to talk about a recurring character from The Curse and Eidolon who has a small role and a big heart – Tony Tarino played by the very talented Neil Cappetta.



 Anthony Tarino, known simply as Tony, is one of those good guys that doesn’t get the kind of praise and recognition he deserves simply because he doesn’t look like the typical, media-fueled hero.  He just tries to do the right thing and ends up paying the highest price for his good deed gone horribly wrong.  However, even when he’s killed by a psychotic serial killer just for the fun of it, he doesn’t give up and he doesn’t back down – he’s determined to get justice for himself and to save anyone else from dying at the hands of his murdered. 

History

We know almost nothing about Tony.  All that’s made clear in the episode of the Curse where we first meet him (Episode 5 – Strangers in the Night) is that he likes to walk around the campus late at night filming things with his camera – so he’s probably a TV or broadcast major.  We know he’s a student at Clifford University and that he had a paper due a few days after he dies (which he obviously won’t be able to turn in).  We also know that he had been having a pretty bad day up until the point where we meet him – and a horrifically bad day after that. 

Since I created the character I should probably fill in the gaps.  I really like Tony as a character – I always have. His story arc is a very important part of Zandra’s emotional growth.  He basically holds up a mirror to Zandra so she can see what she really is – a bitchy coward who blames everyone else for her problems and won’t do the right thing when she needs to it.  This realization is backed up by Cory’s speech to her which makes Zandra unable to ignore the ugly truth about herself that Tony shows her.  She has to take responsibility, move forward, and face the consequences.

I envision Tony as having been bullied at school because he wasn’t like all the other kids.  He’s definitely a geek and a nerd and loves to play video games, write stories and scripts, read comic books, and watch and make movies.  He has a huge imagination, is very smart and creative, and is very resilient.

 At the end of the episode of The Curse, Zandra fights Mike the serial killer and he ends up falling down the stairs and breaking his neck.  His ghost appears and Tony gets to kick his ass.  When the portal to the Dream World opens to claim Mike’s soul and Mike starts to run, Tony grabs him and hurls them both into the Dream World.  Mike’s soul is destined to become a Labartu (see episode 2 of the Curse), but what happens to Tony’s soul?  I always intended to bring him back in the big series finale, but the series was cancelled due to my own un-medicated idiocy.

 When I started writing Eidolon to wrap up questions that were left unanswered in both The Curse and Dream Chasers, I knew one of the characters I wanted to bring back (if only for a cameo) was Tony Tarino.  He appears in Episodes 8 & 9, working for Morpheus (the God of Dreams) as a dream spirit (known as a deva) and helps the lost souls of sleepers find their way out of the Dream World to wake up in their own world again, and generally fight off nightmare demons and other bad things that stalk the dangerous Dream World. 

Morpheus asks him to lead Mordecai and Maria’s souls to the Spirit World so they can talk to White Feather.  He greets Mordecai when he crosses over, and patiently waits for Maria to come through, but she doesn’t.  He’s about to go ask Morpheus what happened when Namtaru – the God of Nightmares – stops him and forces him to listen while Namtaru lies to and makes a deal with Mordecai.  As soon as he can, Tony runs off and contacts Morpheus to let him know what happens.

Tony is called upon shortly after that to lead Skyler and Zelda to the Spirit World to speak to White Feather.  He takes them as far as he can - to the Lake of Souls where Urshanabi is waiting - and tells them everything they need to know to survive the Crossing and to navigate the Spirit World. 




Appearance


Tony is medium height, medium build with brown hair, with rimmed glasses and a scruffy sort of wanna-be beard.  He wears a orange cargo pants, a bright orange shirt with a hood and a radio-active image on the front.  Under the sweatshirt is a black T-shirt that says The Jerry Springer Show on it.


Personality
Tony’s a decent guy just trying to get along in the world and do the right thing.  He’s often focused on the story in his head when he’s either writing or filming, and sometimes gets so focused on what he’s doing or thinking that he doesn’t pay attention to people and things around him.  He may seem a little clutzy but he’s just not pay attention all the time.  He suffers from a little bit of ADD but he when he puts his mind to getting something done he’s do whatever it takes to see it through.  Although, contrary to the whole “doing the right thing” he does offer to help Zandra cheat on her test by reading her answers from the other test takers – I’m going to assume he was only kidding.

He doesn’t give up on himself or others and will fight for right to live or to protect someone else’s life.  He often feels the world is unfair to him, but inside he never gives up hope that he can make a difference, even after he dies.  He’s a classic underdog that has learned not to let the little things in life get him down – or at least not to show it – and believes in doing the right thing whether it’s returning the wallet of some flaky bitchy girl or making sure that a murderer is put in jail.

He’s also very smart.  When he gets held up by Mike, he keeps filming, trying to get him on tape to help the police catch him. Unfortunately Mike realizes what he’s doing and knocks the camera out of his hands, breaking it – the tape, however, is still in one piece and ends up helping catch the killer after all.   It takes him a while to realize that he’s dead, or to at least acknowledge it, but when he does he quickly realizes that Zandra can see and hear him and he is determined to get her to help him, refusing to leave her alone until she does.  He’s not very patient, and appears to have some anger management issues, however he has had the world’s worst day so I he’s probably not always like that.

As for his love life – he doesn’t really have one in the end.  He dated a few girls in high school and into college, but never found someone he could really love (and who would also love him).  When Zandra makes a comment about being thankful he didn’t ask for her number he replies that wouldn’t have wanted it anyway.  Bitchy girls are not his type.  However, when Cory confronts Zandra about the murder and convinces her to tell the cops what she witnessed.  When Zandra refuses Cory yells at her and says that she couldn’t be Zandra’s friend anymore if Zandra isn’t willing to do the right thing by helping Tony and stopping his murderer.  Tony says Cory is awesome and asks if she’ seeing someone, so clearly his type is the kind of girl who can take a stand and not back down when it’s something truly important (and she’s a hot blonde, so that’s okay too).

His innate goodness and willingness to help and even sacrifice himself for others leads him to work for Morpheus – a job that gives him both meaning and contentment.

Here's a great scene from The Curse where Tony confronts Zandra after finally accepting the fact that he's dead:


Abilities

He is an absolute wizard with a yo-yo.  He’s amazing – a champion yo-yoer, and luckily dies with his yo-yo in his pocket otherwise he’d be bored for eternity.  He’s a really good camera operator too, very imaginative and clever.  Tony has a charismatic personality when he chooses to use it – he can be abrasive and harsh went he’s pissed off, but he has the ability to be straightforward and honest with people.


Relationships - Allies & Enemies

THE CURSE

Zandra Anderson changes his life simply by entering at a crucial moment.  He bumps into her – literally – and helps her pick up the stuff that scattered.  She walks off and he realizes that she’s forgotten her wallet.  He could have kept it, or (since she was a bitch to him) just left it there.  He could have walked away, but he didn’t.  Instead he called out to her and then followed her in order to give her wallet back.  While he was following her he gets stopped by Mike and killed.  One could easily argue that if he hadn’t gone after her then he wouldn’t have died.  So they start their relationship on a bad note (knocking each other down), and it gets worse (she witnesses his murder), then it gets really bad (he haunts her and won’t leave her alone until she goes to the cops and tells them what she saw), and finally really f#$ing terrible when she gets chased by the guy who killed Tony and he can’t do anything to stop it because he’s a freaking ghost.

Despite all of this, the two of them form a friendship built out of having basically gone through a terrible ordeal together.  Zandra is the only one who can help Tony, and, although she doesn’t realize it, Tony is the only one who can help her realize what she is really like and be meeting him she is forced to confront her curse and realize that she can’t escape it.  She also realizes it can be used to help people.  By the end they’re friends and Zandra’s almost sad to see him go.  He changes her life in a positive (albeit scary) way.

Cory Devro is his new hero.  The fact that she knows what’s going on without being told – that Tony’s ghost is haunting Zandra because Zandra witnessed his murder – and that she has enough strength of character and can exert enough control over Zandra through their long history together that she is able to finally do what Tony has unsuccessfully doing – getting Zandra to go to the cops.  He clearly thinks the world of Cory both in his reactions to her and in what he says to Zandra (“tell your friend she’s awesome” and “you have good taste in friends”).  He also asks later if Cory his seeing someone, then realizes that since he’s dead it would never work out.

Mike is the man that murders Tony.  He’s a serial killer who chose Tony at random and killed him just for the thrill of it.  They don’t even know each other’s names.  When Zandra is confronting Mike at the end of the episode she mentions Tony’s name and Mike is confused.  He doesn’t care who he kills so why bother with names? Obviously Tony hates his guts.  He will do anything to see that Mike is brought to justice.  There’s a scene where Tony is yelling and screaming at Mike in the student center where Zandra is studying and since Mike can’t see or hear him he obviously doesn’t respond.  It sort of sums up their relationship – Tony hates Mike and Mike doesn’t even know he exists.  In the end, of course, Tony gets to beat the crap out of Mike when Mike is killed in a fall down a flight of steps and becomes a ghost.  Once Mike has to face the ghost of someone he killed – and be on the receiving end of a beat down, he starts to get what he’s done.  He’s not sorry, he’s just scared of Hell and pissed he got caught.

EIDOLON

Morpheus is the God of Dreams and becomes his boss when he crosses into the Dream World by hurling both himself and his killer through the portal.  They obviously have a pretty good relationship of the manager and worker sort.  Tony and Morpheus both have a great respect for each other.  The fact that twice Tony is given a direct command by the “big boss” suggests that Tony is one of his best workers.

Namtaru is a bastard – I mean the God of Nightmares.  He is Morpheus’ opposite both in his job and his personality.   Namtaru may not look dangerous, but he has the powers of a god and is a total asshole.  He has the power to destroy Tony so when he appears to Tony and Mordecai in the Dream World, Tony is naturally a little afraid of him.  Tony could have tried to fight him, but if he died then no one would be able to warn Morpheus what Namtaru was up so.  When Namtaru orders him to stay put he does, but Tony takes the first opportunity to run and get the cavalry as fast as he can. 

Mordecai is not really very important to Tony, one way or the other, but when Tony’s assigned to protect and lead Mordecai and Maria to the Spirit World he becomes responsible for what happens to Mordecai – at least that’s how he feels.  He doesn’t like to have let Morpheus down and does what he can to make up for it.


 Zelda Graves and Skyler Jackson are annoying.  They’re constantly bickering as Tony leads them through the Dream World and to the Lake of Souls.  He sees having to put up with them as punishment for not protecting Mordecai, so he tries his best to be patient.  He tells them all the rules for surviving in the Other Worlds but he’s really not sure if they paid attention.  If he never sees them again that would be just fine with him.

Terri Madison is surprisingly helpful and resourceful when he appears to her in the Mortal World and asks her to help with the situation when Morpheus can’t be reached and Mordecai needs help.  In a strange sort of way I could see them being good friends leading to more if circumstances where different.

**I think I repeated myself and rambled a lot.  Oh well.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Production Diary - The Perfect Combination


Once a month I’m going to talk about a specific production, what it was like to film it, and what was involved in making it happen.  This month I’m going to talk about The Perfect Combination.

The Perfect Combination actually started out as a novel that I was writing and decided to turn it into a movie, which is funny because it’s usually the other way around.  There were some major adjustments (I didn’t have a cruise ship to film on), and using a comical frame plot to skip over large chunks of the story via narration.  There are whole scenes that were transposed from the novel into the script, but overall most of the scenes were similar but cut down for time and realistic locations. 

I distinctly remember when I made the decision to do a movie version of a book I hadn’t finished writing yet.  We were filming the Renaissance flashback scenes for The Dragon & The Unicorn in January of 1998.  Annamarie MacLeod and I were talking during a break from shooting. She mentioned that Jacob, her brother, was wanting to be in another movie and I was already looking for a project that could star Jill Hutchison (because Jill is wonderful).  So I decided to do The Perfect Combination as a slapstick comedy with a dash of romance.  I say a “dash” because it’s the only production I’ve written where two people fall in love and get married, yet don’t actually have an on screen love scene or even something vaguely romantic that doesn’t involve pizza or guns. 

I quickly wrote a script (which wasn’t hard since half the dialogue and most of the plot were already done), and cast it using the usual pool of people.  Jacob and Jill were set the play the leads, Michael Winters and Catherine Summers, and I cast Chris Hutchens as Raymond – Catherine’s brother who is a top member of “The Agency” (a sort of CIA type thing) and the frame plot story teller.  Danny Skirvin and Nina Samii were cast as the villain and his sidekick – David McGaskill (aka the Reaper) and Houstan.  I had Jen Weber play the double agent Lyric, and had Annamarie and Paul Nelson play Mimi and Carl – Michael and Catherine’s “little” children in the frame plot scenes which was really funny. Rounding out the cast was Rachel Anderson as the confused cab driver/pizza girl who has really bad luck and a terrible accent, and Chris Lamb, Mike Baym, Ryan Segovich, Edward Stasheff and anyone else I could find to play random guards, police officers, and various extras. 

Oh yes, and me.  This is the only production where I willingly cast myself in an acting role, playing a semi-retired secret agent named Music who turns out to be Michael’s long lost mother.  Every other part I’ve played - be it extra or whatever - I only played because I couldn’t find anyone for the part or someone dropped out at the last minute and there was no one else I could shove in front of the camera except me.  I actually wanted to be Music.  I loved the character in the book and decided to cast myself, even though it might have been better for someone else to do it since it required some logistics in filming without me behind the camera.  



We had our first filming day was sometime in February.  We filmed all the frame plot scenes with Chris, Annamarie, and Paul as well as a couple of scenes with Jill and Jacob.  Both Annamarie and Paul had a blast pretending to be little kids, and there was a lot of joking and goofing around on the set.  Annamarie even tied Chris’s shoelaces together at one point, and everyone learned just how hard it is to say  iron-plated, fuel-injected, heat-seeking ironing board.

We also filmed the “cab” scene where Michael kidnaps Catherine, races through town, and then gets into a car crash – all filmed in a stationary van parked in front of a high school (tee hee). Ah, slapstick, no-budget comedy at it’s best.

Over the next few months filming days were sporadic and the shoots sort of blur together a bit.  They only way I can tell what was shot when in relation to the other scenes is by the order are on the tapes.  I filmed some scenes with just Jacob - opening credit stuff and his lines for a phone call that included about ten takes of throwing a phone on a couch to get it to land just right.  Then we had a Saturday afternoon shoot with Chris, Jacob, and Jill that included the jail scenes, voiceovers, and a lot of fun bloopers.

We spent quite a while filming the scene with “The Board” – Lyric (Raymond), Music, and Libretto – where they meet Michael and he joins “The Agency”.   The difficult part was that I was in the whole scene and Annamarie wasn’t free that day to work the camera.  So I had the “brilliant” idea to hook the camera up to a TV and have a monitor in the room so I could see the shot.  It’s what the professionals do after all, so why not? But it was a big TV, since that was the only one upstairs and was on a wheeled cart which made it easier to bring into the room, and that distracted the actors.  Whoever wasn’t on screen at the time operated the camera under my direction, but since they could see what was recording they had a fun time goofing off.  We were also in a room that had some old kids toys stored there and the actors found those and…things went downhill fast. 


Sometime in the late spring we had another all day shoot on some Saturday at the Homestead.  We filmed most of the scenes at the Reaper’s mansion, including a couple of fight scenes, and ended the day with filming a scene between Catherine and Music. Since I was in at least one scene that day, Annamarie agreed to be the camera operator.  There was a lot of silliness, including strange vibrating toy guns, Smints, and having two guards killed in one scene then suddenly alive again two scenes later.   It was a really long day but, as always, it was a lot of fun. 

Throughout May and June shoots were short and very sporadic, mostly filming some cut away scenes and a few big ones here and there like the scene towards the beginning where Michael and Catherine literally run into each other, almost get caught, then escape, and the scene where Michael poses as Catherine’s lawyer.  Jacob and Jill endured short notice shoots, some late hours, and uncooperative props, but they were terrific to work with and ended up having great on screen chemistry – they were hilarious and were really able to play off each other.  They had filmed a lot of scenes together in Destiny and Destiny III, so I knew they were a good combination (possible even a perfect combination).  

A lot of actors were brought in for only an hour or so simply because I needed someone else in the scene.  Edward is my brother and when I needed a police officer for one of the jail scenes I just grabbed – I mean asked – him to do the part.  I also had Ryan Segovich volunteer to play some extras like an undercover cop and one of the Reaper’s goons.

“I remember filming outside of your house,” Ryan said when asked what he remembered most about filming Perfect Combination.  “I had to handcuff Jill and dropped the keys or the cuffs just out of reach.  We kept filming as I struggled vainly to reach them.  Hilarity ensued.”


But the best filming day was saved for last.  There were several scenes that were supposed to take place at a different mansion that The Reaper owned.  The heroes had discovered a spy in their midst who had stolen a necklace of fake diamonds that secretly concealed micro-film (I know, silly right?).  The scenes were totally campy.  They were filmed in parts on three different days – one for Danny’s lines and bits, and one for Nina and Rachel’s lines and bits because none of those actors could be there for the main shoot. 


“I remember I died and had to do the scene about 10,000 times, cuz I wanted to keep my eyes open and I kept blinking,” Danny recalled, “I think I blinked in the final version.”



The main shoot was at Kate Weber’s house (thanks Kate!) and was a blast and a half.  The day included fake disguise glasses, the top half of a fake tree, facial mud, a refrigerator, a lampshade, guns, wigs, and some badly made props. Several people got to have over-dramatic death scenes, and the day produced one of my favorite lines of all time: “The couch won’t let me go and the Christmas tree stole my necklace!”

 “Diamond necklace in the ice-maker in the fridge door,” Kate said when I asked her what she remembered about filming.  “Being chased around my own house while wearing a Metallica t-shirt.  That’s about it.  Was I even in it otherwise?” (nope Kate, that was pretty much it)

The day ended with a one or two hour shoot of chasing each other around the house with everyone trying to steal the necklace, and brainstorming new bits, each one wackier than the last.  We needed a few extras to be part of the chase scene so Kate and Rebecca agreed to join in. It’s one of the most memorable shooting days for me, and one of the best.  It was so much fun, and it was very freeing to film us goof around on the set for a few hours without worrying about lines or drama, just being as silly as we could.

I can think of one person who may not have had that much fun filming.  Poor Chris Hutchens is allergic to cats and almost all of the shooting occurred in houses where there were three or more cats.  The first day of filming I had him wearing a sweater in the first scene that I didn’t realize was covered in cat hair.  By the time I realized how bad it was we were halfway through the scene, and I found a place in the script to have him take it off and we got it far away from him.  However, the damage was done and he spent the day sneezing.  He also ended up getting stuck in the part of hiding in a sofa covered in cushions that I should have realized were also covered in cat hair.  He was such a trooper and put up with the sniffling and sneezing. I hope you still had some fun Chris!  (see Eidolon people – see what I made actors put up with in the olden days? You got off easy with hotel rooms, beaches, apartments with fish and only two cats in the main house we shot in!)

The filming for Perfect Combo was sporadic because I was also filming two other movies at the time.  I was wrapping up shooting for The Dragon & The Unicorn when we started shooting, and was also filming The King of Elflin’s Daughter at the same time.  The King of Elflin’s Daughter was finished first, but only because I focused on it more during June.   The Perfect Combination finished filming in July and premiered to the “public” (ie the actors and their families and friends) at the end of July in 1998.

For over ten years the only people who had seen the movie were those who watched it at the premiere.  It was partially edited on ¾ inch tape, but was dubbed to VHS and used the VCR-to-VCR style of editing to finish it up.  There was only one master tape at that time and shortly after the viewing it broke while I was making a copy of it.  It wasn’t until a few years ago that I re-edited in and put it on DVD.  So anyone out there who was in the movie but has never actually seen it, let me know.

Big thanks to everyone who worked on this production (especially Chris Hutchens whom I tortured mercilessly with cat hair).  It’s one of my favorite movies and I had a lot of fun making it.  I hope you all did too.

(hmm…this ended up being a lot longer than I expect.  Well, I do love to talk…)



Monday, March 11, 2013

Interview with Kate Weber

Each month we'll interview a member of the Sine Fine Film company, asking the same or similar questions, and learn more about the actors and crew.

This month I'm interviewing Kate Weber who's been with the company since the beginning in the summer of 1996.





Q: How did you get involved in SFF? (And what possessed you to keep coming back for more torture?)

A: Long answer: I’ve been friends with Yibble since we were in third grade, and through the years we’ve done a lot of things that, in retrospect, might have been a little out of the ordinary.  Things like starting a literary magazine, putting on a puppet show, dressing our toys as Greek gods, that sort of thing.  We were all drama geeks in high school, so acting in a movie wasn’t much of a stretch. And while the hours could get long and the weather was never friendly, it was always a lot of fun, and something I’m proud to have been a part of. Something I wish I’d gotten a chance to do more of when we were living in the same city.

Short answer: Yibble’s mah FWEND.

Q: What was your favorite part to play?

 
A: It was pretty great to play Ryaka in Pandora’s Box. Prior to that all my roles had been more or less distilled insanity.  It was nice to do some actual acting. (Yes, I count “psychotic bitch” as acting. Shut up.)

Q: What was your favorite filming day?

 A: A lot of it’s kind of blurred together but I really liked some of the scenes in Destiny III out at the MacLeod farm, where Rachel Anderson and I just sort of sat around in the background and did whatever the hell we felt like. I was usually taking Rachel’s lead – she the one who came up with the Beans’n’Weenies song, for example.

Actually, it’s a toss-up, because Cursed Destiny of Pandora’s Gift Box was SO much fun as well.


Q: What was your least favorite filming day?
 
A: Gift Bearer: Time After Time, in Edwardian dress in triple-digit weather.  That kind of sucked.  I mean, it was still fun, but good lord I thought I was going to faint. 

Q: What’s your dream role?

A: I’d love to be the conflicted villain who eventually makes good, or the reluctant hero with angst problems.  Having a love interest would be pretty fun too.  Never had one of those. (In a movie, that is.  I like to think my husband counts as my love interest in real life.)

Q: What’s your favorite production to watch?

A: Cursed Destiny, hands down, if only for Mike Steen.

Q: What’s your favorite costume, accessory, or prop?

A: I still have the penguin from Cursed Destiny.  I’m not sure I had much else in the way of props. 

Q: Who’s your favorite actor co-star/actor you’ve worked with?  Who would you like to work with in the future?

A: Rachel Anderson and Jen Weber are always a joy.  I’d love to work more with them, and with Yibble (in an acting role, not just as director). I also thing it’s be fun to act opposite my sister.

Q: Sum up each production you’ve been in using only one word or short sentence. 

A:
DESTINY – spontaneous

DESTINY II – flashback

DESTINY III – pirates!



FRUMPY GETS IT –
chaos

PERFECT COMBINATION – fridge

DESTINY: THE MINI-SERIES (1999) – editing

PANDORA’S BOX – killing

CURSED DESTINY OF PANDORA’S GIFT BOX – madness

QUATRAIN – unfinished?

TWISTED TALES: CINDERELLA (as writer) – whim

GIFT BEARER: TIME AFTER TIME – hot

FORTUNATE ONES: FOREVER – rope

FORTUNATE ONES: MAGIC-8 – cars

Q: Top 5 favorites: (not SFF related)

A: 
Favorite Color
 Uhhhhhh…honestly, I like blue and purple and green and many of the darker reds.  That’s over half the spectrum.  I’m not very good at this.

Favorite Movie or TV Show
 If we’re talking movie I could watch the most times, then probably the original Clash of the Titans

Favorite Song or Band/Artist
 Binary Souls/Other Dimensions…but I might be biased.

Favorite Food or Drink
 PIZZA


Favorite Holiday
 Probably Christmas.  Honestly, any day I’m not at work is pretty excellent.