(Re-post from myspace)
I’ve always been a daydreamer, but when I was about twelve years old, I was at most imaginative, creative peak. I sat in thought, brainstorming movie-ideas all day. While the other kids my age were off playing sports and doing other “normal” kid activities, I was off pretending I was riding on a flying vacuum cleaner.
“Fantastic Sam”, originally titled, was never a long, intense over-thought out idea. It was one of those, “wouldn’t-this-be-an-amusing-idea”, sort of concepts that just kind of falls into your lap every so often. A boy who was a traveling salesman, and rode on a flying vacuum, happened to stumble upon a portal that lead him to another dimension--to Hell. That was how it all began.
Attempts were made back in 2000 to shoot a short film. We shot a few scenes with me, all suited up, a vacuum in tow, but it never panned out. And then there was the green screen tests: Me, with a fan blowing my hair, cradling a vacuum between my legs.
And then I have fond memories of my brother Jared and I, back in 2001, huddling together over my old apple computer almost every night for a couple weeks..expanding the story, fleshing out the characters, writing the original draft for the script “Fantastic Sam Goes to Hell”. Who knew if we’d ever truly be able to make it, but damn it, we knew we had to write it. We wrote about 15 pages of material.
It was left unfinished, but over the years my mind continued to return to the idea..mulling over the possibilities. Jake and I attempted a few times to make a short out of it, but my perfectionist mind prevented us from ever accomplishing it. I jotted down notes and was adamant that we have certain technologies available before we could go ahead with it. Notably a decent camera (preferably one that shot 24fps) green screen material, and the right fx programs..not to mention, the most important element: Fantastic Sam himself. A child actor between the ages of 12-14. At this point I felt I was too old to play the part, nor did I feel I was quite right. I imagined a slightly dorkier version of Harry Potter, although contrary to what people maybe assumed from the concept, had not even previously read that series.
And every time it came back to deciding what new project we were going to work on, Fantastic Sam always seemed to pop up. Find the actor, and we can make the movie, I’d say. Technology had already caught up fast, and Jake had done enough experimenting with special effects with our other shorts that I felt we were capable of creating the FX--the other important element.
And then we met Brandon Willkie and there was no doubt about it. He was going to be our Fantastic Sam. (All he needed was a slight hair trim!) Jake and I sat down and interviewed him on camera. His personality was perfect. He reminded me of myself when I was his age, (12, going on 13) about the same age I was when I came up with the idea. He was young, energetic, imaginative, and creative-minded. Not to mention, looked the part. After pitching the idea to him, he seemed pretty excited about it. He was already coming up with ideas of his own.
This movie relied on Fantastic Sam, and we’d found the perfect match. He’d had dreams about becoming an actor, and we had our dreams of movie-making. We were helping each other out.
Now I had incentive to go back to my drafts and write an entirely new version of the script. I ended up going through quite a few new drafts, taking it to a few people for advice. Eventually I had what I felt was the ideal version for our shooting capabilities. Not the big Hollywood version I had dreamed up, but close enough. A version that would be a good blueprint of what we wanted to accomplish. A lengthy short film-ranging from 30-40 minutes.
If we could pull this off, on hardly any budget, with Jake and I doing practically everything, and then pitch it to the right people...Maybe, just maybe, someone would be willing to throw a bit of money our way to make a bigger, badder, version. This was our shot to prove ourselves, and our capabilities.
The only thing standing in our way: Copyright.
I was informed that there in fact already existed a Fantastic Sam(s). It turned out to be a chain of hair salons mind you, but in today’s sue happy world, I didn’t want to run into any complications. I wanted to solve this issue before putting out the movie, only to have to remove the name due to copyright infringement. So I contacted Fantastic Sam’s hair salon. And they were very friendly and encouraged the project, but did state that there might be some problems if I went ahead with the name. The management tried to work with me and help me out, but in the end, it was just going to be easier for the both of us if I just changed the name.
I was a bit bummed I had to alter the title I’d had for years. But I wasn’t going to let that get me down. A slight name change wasn’t going to stop us from making our film. Thus, “Fantstic Sam” became “Fantastic Stan” and all was well in the world.
It was time for casting those supporting roles and then...
Next step: Production.
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