Lethbridge based film makers Deadline Media have come a long way in the past three years.
The latest feather in their cap, which has included producing several locally shot full length features and shorts not to mention helping out on the set of science fiction thriller Interstellar during the summer, has been their latest short film “Balance” which stars, among others, Stephen Baldwin who is best known for his role in the ‘Usual Suspects.’
“ It has been a lot of work in the past three years. We’ve traveled to Toronto and New York and Los Angeles,” said Gianna Isabella, writer/ producer and director for the Lethbridge based film production company.
“But none of it is work for us. We’re living the dream we’re just taking little steps towards achieving that dream. And we’re not taking no for an answer,” added Scott Sikma.
“ This is about creating real stories rather than just getting a paycheque,” Isabella added.
They went to New York City last November, right after Hurricane Sandy hit, to shoot ‘Balance,’ a script submitted by Nashville writer Jason Elia about a woman who takes various forms to distribute either karmic justice or karmic reward to people in New York City.
“ We read the script and it was absolutely amazing, it has some amazing twists, so we went to New York to shoot it,” summarized Isabella who produced and co-directed the short.
They released the trailer for the eight minute long short in December.
“It got like 34,000 views in three days,” enthused Isabella, who hopes to parlay the short into a feature film and possibly a television series.
The 12 person cast features Baldwin as the villain Titus in the film, which also features Jason Marsden of Mad TV and General Hospital and Sage Galesi, who plays the main character Justina.
Galesi’s friendship with Baldwin got him involved with the project.
“ This was our first celebrity,” Isabella enthused.
“He was busy on Celebrity Apprentice at the same time so he had to get released from that at night to shoot this film,” she said.
“ He was so professional. He‘s pretty chill. It was really fun to have him on set. He knew what he was doing every day he came to the set, she said.
Sound mixing has just been completed for this short.
The trailer got so many views (over 33,000 on Youtube) it already attracted interest in making a television series based on it.
“But we’re still in negotiations. It would make a great TV show. It’s a great concept,” Isabella said adding they aren’t sure if they will go that route.
Shooting in the aftermath of a hurricane created a few extra challenges. They got stuck in Philadelphia on the way there and trapped in the middle of Brooklyn as the subways had shut down.
“ We were supposed to shoot a scene in a hospital, but we couldn’t because it was shut down. They apologized to us, but we understood. We moved the scene out to the street and it turned out better,” Isabella observed. And because of the hurricane, they ended up shooting a lot of it in the offices of music sharing company / online radio company Grooveshark
“ They were really nice to us,” she continued.
“It was an amazing experience,” she enthused.
Sikma praised her for being able to write so quickly in these sorts of situations.
“ She can write an entire new scene in 15 minutes and it will be fantastic,” he said.
“They also enjoyed working with young actress Ashlin Malik, who they also worked with on ‘Prairie Dog,’ another film they were shooting during the summer. Malik also stars in another locally produced film ‘A Common Chord.’
The group enjoyed working on the set of Interstellar in Southern Alberta as well, working alongside actors like John Lithgow.
“We learned so much just working with (director) Christopher Nolan and watching what he was doing and hearing his ideas,” said Scott Sikma.
Deadline Media is working on a lot of projects. They are finishing their action adventure movie ‘Rosalind Revenge,’ and shot two more shorts (‘Dropshell’ and ‘Watchdog’) in late December.
They are also working on their next feature ‘Root of the Problem’ and are even working on a documentary about base jumper Johnny Korthuis, who jumped off a 500 foot bridge and survived even though his parachute malfunctioned. The documentary is all about his recovery.