2nd Unit Docudrama Starts Pre-production

[Jonathan Ames]

On August 1st, 2nd Unit will be starting pre-production on a docudrama, the subject of which is nothing if it is not controversia; Underground students. College entrance is an exceedingly competitive environment as I found out recently when my 18-year old tried to get into the college that saw me through 4-years of education, UCLA. Although she has a relatively high GPA, she was denied entry, all this while undocumented aliens sat in class getting an education despite being, well, illegal. The college entrance environment is exceptionally competitive but I didn't know that competition would include competing against peolpe who were not entitled to even be here. So I started looking into it and some of the things I found out were, well, in a word, revealing. In fact, I still don't know if one of the partners in 2nd Unit is on board with the idea yet or not. The idea is fine for him but working with an alleged "communist" seems to turn his stomach. Actually, I don't think he's a communist...just a little, OK alot, to the left.

"The working title of the 60-minute docudrama is "El Papel" and it's being produced in conjunction with UCLA. Their semester starts in September and the working script is being finished up now. We have a number of volunteers already and sponsors due to the fact that we're producing for award consideration and distribution and will be casting for realism through UCLA's underground itself. Joe Bowey will be joining us working from Arizona until we start shooting at which time we'll have him out here. The usual "Team 2U" will be there with Scott and Jeff. I haven't spoken with Tip and Jaime but I'd venture to say they'll be joining the team and Mike, our grip extraordinaire who'll be joining the DVInfo family today is on board but there's alot of room for people, even if you can't commit to the full 23 day shooting schedule that we're estimating it will take. We need someone to do the website and script editors and, well, the list goes on relative to spaces available for help.

We're looking forward to 1st having fun and 2nd making a statement about the situation and about changing perspectives in the hopes that this docudrama opens soome eyes and has a future in television. We'd like to have as many filmmakers as possible share this unique and educational experience, both professionally and socially, so please PM or e-mail me with your availability.

[John Kang]

It might be interesting to get additional material from other college/university locations.

Other volunteers who are not able to get down to CA to help produce this interesting doc.

I'm assuming that you'd want people with JVC 100s only?

Then again, August is right around the corner and getting permission from other locations and working with several people in different locations could well be a logistics nightware...

I say include your loyal family members' names on this wonderful forum in your credits roll. Kinda like that Simpsons episode where they superspeed the credit roll so you can hardly read who's getting credit. "Doh!"

[Jonathan Ames]

An excellent idea but one step at a time. Paolo and I were indeed surprised to find that we had the confidence of the students at UCLA to do the production as they're truly underground students who are subject to deportation at the whim of the government. We're working closely with a specific professor of Labor Relations there who has their trust and thus, by prescriptive endorsement, so do we so that's how that works. I don't know if we'd be that lucky at other schools.

This really is a delicate subject and one that we're using actors in the major roles for because some of the students don't want their true identities spread all over network and cable television. The production crew is going into the underbelly of the undocumented alien population and lifestyle to meet with the movers and shakers of this world. So if you wanted to find out what true political documentary is all about, here's your chance.

As to cameras, we're providing all of the equipment and we haven't decided if we're doing it with the JVCs or not. I'm in New York next week with Sony so we may step up a notch or two for this project as we're going out to D5 in the end.

[Joe Bowey]

I am looking foward to ths project. Thanks Jonathan for giving me a opprotunity to put my camera to use.
My college instructor Mario Esquire at Glendale Community College might be a great resource on this subject. He has made and researched the subject when I was in school.
If there are any resources that I can tap into to here in Arizona to help, don't be afraid to call.
Sorry for typing errors but I have switched to using a laptop in place of a desktop computer.

[Jonathan Ames]

If you can't tell by now, typing errors aren't big on my list of concerns. Spell check would be great but without it it's simply too much time for me to go back and correct everything...especially when my typing is as bad as it is. As long as the message gets across, that'sd finme. I just switched to a new Mac Book Pro out of necessity for the shows we're doing. Alot of money but a necessary expense if I'm going to keep the money coming in to pay the bills. Glad to ahve you aboard and please contact Mr. Esquire to see if he's interested in lending a hand. The working script for the pilot and docudrama is half finished. We're going with a 60-minute stand alone episode that introduces the characters for a full 13-week run. If it sells, great. If it doesn't, we still have a complete diocjumentary/docudrama that is going in for consideration at a number of fests.
J