About Production

"WELCOME TO EARTH"

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
A BRIEF HISTORY OF "WELCOME TO EARTH"
By Writer/Associate Producer, James Charbonneau

Following the completion and distribution of our previous feature, "The Wind," and before "Welcome to Earth" was a faint gleam in either of our eyes, Michael Mongillo and I had spent from 2001 to the end of 2003 trying to develop two other projects that, for various reasons, didn't get off the ground.

The first, because we had written something that needed a relatively well-known actor to make it work, and, while we came close, in the end, we couldn't get the right person for the job. Then, based on a new idea, we wrote a second script but this time with a larger budget. We thought with the success of "The Wind" that we would have an easier time getting financing. But times were tight, and a film is always a tough sell to the average investor. So we were two for two and feeling more than a little frustrated and discouraged.

After all that sweat and toil, and after admitting that these two projects were not going to get made anytime soon, we found ourselves back to where we started before we wrote and made "The Wind." And that was in the land of the low budget wonders.

This is when we had to decide whether it was time to pack up the tents and go home or to try one more time. This is a decision that I think a lot of artists trying to make their living through their art have to wrestle with. Well, Michael and I, both being the most stubborn people we know, couldn't stop yet. And this was the true beginning of "Welcome to Earth."

To paraphrase that squinty-eyed guy with the big gun: we knew our limitations. We had to work within the parameters of a low budget. These include a small cast, minimal locations, and forget about big special effects or stunts.

"Welcome to Earth" was an old idea I had prior to "The Wind" but it never went beyond the, "Here's another idea" phase, because neither of us wanted to go down the dreaded path that led to "The Big Chill" and "Peter's Friends." While, in my opinion, both of these films have merits, we did not want to do a rehash of either one.

I always felt the original idea of a small group of friends getting together for a party on the eve of one of humanity's most significant events, a televised summit meeting with the first visitors from outer space, needed something more. I couldn't name it, but there was just something missing and it just didn't feel right.

More often than not, as writers and artists, you've got to trust your feelings and not force something through. Sometimes you just have to let things sit for a while. Hopefully it will blossom and not fester, but sit it must. So, at that time, the story idea for "Welcome to Earth" went back in the drawer.

With the demise of our two post-"Wind" projects, and while we were trying to think of a new, low budget idea, "Welcome to Earth" came back to me. And I guess the drawer time paid off because all of a sudden the thing that had been missing hit me.

Although "The Visitors" (our official name for the aliens) had not physically shown themselves to the people of Earth for the first year they were here, they had at least spent that year being friendly and helpful and trying to build up trust, but a lot of people weren't buying into it. After all, this one event, above all others in the history of humankind, could potentially be the literal end of the world. At the very least, after The Visitors declared their intentions, for better or worse, the world was going to be changed forever.

So there was the missing piece. This couldn't be some small, intimate get-together. This had to be a big bash, a wingding, a pull-out-the-stops party to end all parties. It had to have the mentality that if we were going to go out, we were going out with a bang and, if we were going to be changed forever, well, Visitors, check out our partying skills because this is a piece of us that we're going to bring to the table no matter what goes down.

So a story that never felt quite right in the past now seemed to be lined up properly with the rest of the universe. The small and the intimate became the big and the bold and, in turn, became a more accurate microcosm of what was going on in the rest of this changed world, and that made it feel just right.

I talked it over with Michael and he agreed with the concept. But, as it is many times when you solve one problem, another comes along with that solution.

So we went against our own rules and, while we were able to keep the budget down and the locations to only a select few, the cast swelled. But in keeping with our philosophy of trying to adhere to reality (or "truth") in our writing, this large cast was unavoidable. We had to ask ourselves the questions: If one thought the world as we know it was going to end, what would one do? Would one kill his or herself, pray and wait, or party? And if one's answer to any of these conceivably valid options is, "Party!" then would such a person invite those that they love or even hate to spend what could possibly be their last moments on Earth either enjoying each other's company, doing battle, or seeking redemption?

What would you do?

These questions were the lynchpins for what we were about to write.

I'm going to jump ahead a bit and not really get into the inner secrets of how Michael and I write together. Suffice it to say that we do have one rule we strictly adhere to: No matter how whacky, how stupid, or how bad an idea might be, don't let fear keep you from putting it on the table. A lot of these ideas obviously go down in flames, but sometimes even a really bad idea will lead to something that is really good. This transformed idea is something that would have never found the light of day if the atmosphere to be able to put it out there didn't exist in the first place.

As with "The Wind," "Welcome to Earth" became a family affair. Once again Michael's parents generously allowed us to use their home as the primary location of the entire movie. And, once again, Michael's mom, Lucille, was the caterer for the film. This made me happy to no end, as I remembered how well fed I was on the set of "The Wind." Michael's sister, Sue, was on board as production designer, and with an added contingency of trusted professional colleagues, friends and fellow film lovers, the production process began.

As far as casting goes, we lucked out and hit the mother load. We spend weeks weeding though a mountain of tapes and finally held live auditions over the course of several weekends for those who could get to Connecticut. Even though we chose some people that we had worked with before, the decision making process was long and difficult. A lot of talented people came to try out, but we could only choose a handful for lead roles. Even so, we were lucky to get very talented actors willing to give up a week of their lives just to be able to say a line or two. We are deeply grateful to these people.

We had two days to rehearse, a Saturday and a Sunday, before we jumped right in on Monday as the beginning of our - believe it or not - six day shoot. This very tight, six-day schedule was made possible when Michael decided to shoot on digital instead of film, to shoot using several cameras at once, and to do the entire movie in more of a documentary style. The words "herky-jerky" became Michael's catch phrase to indicate an energetic style of shooting that fit right into the whole party mode.

There was a moment during the rehearsals, I think it was the first day, Saturday, in the scene where the Albert character reveals to the rest of the gang that he is giving up drinking alcohol and smoking dope, where the gang is supposed to laugh when he delivers this line. Well, here we had a group of people, most of whom had just met each other that morning, and when the line was delivered by Zeke Rippy as Albert, they laughed and fell about like they were old friends and knew all too well not to listen to any of Al's shit, unless they really got pleasure out of being disappointed. It was the most natural, spontaneous moment among actors I have ever seen. It was in that moment, in that laugh, that I knew we had something. Michael and I looked at each other and nodded. That was good, we both thought. That was really good.

This actor's ease with one another carried over beautifully to the shoot. Along with the added bonus of having worked with some of the cast and crew before, this true sense of camaraderie spread from the actors and developed very quickly among the entire crew. I think, under a lesser director, this could easily have been lost or never developed in the first place, but under Michael it was allowed to flourish and made what could have literally been the week from hell into a moment in my life that I will always look on with great pride and affection.

One example of this that I will always remember is a crowded party scene Michael was directing. Because of the nature of the scene, sound was of no consequence, and suddenly Michael grabs one of the PAs and, laughing, tells him to get on in there. "Get in the scene. It's a party. Have fun!" At first this young production assistant didn't know what to do but then, laughing and enjoying himself all the way, he walked into the scene like an old pro. Michael laughed again and launched a second PA into the fray. I found myself smiling at this and, looking around, everyone else was smiling as well. People were having a good time and it felt like a bit of the party from the script had spread into the reality of the shoot. Not a bad thing at all.

The two words that constantly came to me throughout that week were collaboration and commitment.

The collaborative effort - from all of the actors and actresses adding their personal
touches to their characters and being very alive and alert regardless of what time it was or how long the wait was that they had to endure; to the Pas, the lighting crew, the sound crew and cinematographers enhancing each and every shot to its fullest; to make-up and set design always being one step ahead and always at-the-ready; to the mighty catering crew of one giving us the sustenance we needed to get us through the night; to the assistant directors; second unit crew; production staff; and to everyone who simply lent a helping hand when they saw it was needed - was a beautiful thing to behold.

One of the lead actors, Jason Alan Smith (Jack), spent the week cracking us up with his dead-on imitation of Christopher Walken. At one point, when I was talking to him about how to do the imitation, he said something I'll never forget. He said it was the commitment to the imitation that made it work. You had to commit to the voice, to the body moves, to being Christopher Walken. I am not an actor so this was a very practical revelation for me. It was a concept I felt could be applied to any worthwhile endeavor.

With that in mind, I began to view the commitment of each and every one of the cast and crew - staying later than scheduled and pulling energy from some unknown reserve to give a good performance, or to lug that extra light at the last minute, or to always be ready, no matter how late (or early) it was, to jump up and do whatever needed to be done to make things easier for the next person and to truly make a better film - as something I not only respected but admired.

It was the combination of these two things that made the "Welcome to Earth" shoot something special and that made me particularly glad to be a part of it. It gave me a whole new parameter from which to now measure collaboration, and it taught me a great lesson about the true nature of commitment that I don't believe I would have learned in any other way from any other group of people.

Now don't get me wrong, we didn't have a completely stress free shoot. Our director of photography, Derek Dudek, got deathly ill in the middle of the shoot. I mean like there's an alien parasite in my intestinal tract and it wants to kill me from the inside out kind of ill. But like a trooper, he toughed it out and came back to work the next day. He was a little shaky and a little worse for wear, but we were grateful beyond words when he returned.

Another glitch came when we were well into setting up a scene to shoot and, unbeknownst to almost everyone on the set, we found out that we might not be able to use the location we were standing on even though it was promised to us weeks before. Michael used all of his diplomatic skills to save us that time.

So there were these and other bumps both human and technical along the way, but when it was working, it was really working. And without exaggeration, everyone felt that we were doing something good with good people and almost everyone commented on it during the course of the week. So the movie gods were smiling down on us and, as an added bonus, they gave us good weather for the entire week as well.

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

Lastly, just before we were about to shoot the scene where the whole gang and all of the party members come out onto the front porch to view the flying saucer and The Visitors, Michael came up to me and told me to grab my script and come with him.

I didn't know what he was going to have me do until we were in front of the entire cast. He told them that I was going to read the description that I had written about how they were all to act and react to this once-in-a-lifetime moment.

I have to admit I was a little taken aback. I am not the most comfortable of public speakers but, for the sake of the film, I plunged ahead. At first I was very nervous and I felt my voice was shaky, and I wondered how noticeable it was, but then something strange happened. I started to really read what I had written and started to really mean what I was saying and my voice grew stronger and stronger and my emotion took over and, standing in front of all of those faces, I started to tingle with the feeling that maybe all things are indeed possible.

Here are those words:

EXT. JACK AND RACHEL'S HOUSE/PORCH - NIGHT

Everyone rushes forward, stopping at the threshold, pressing against one another, their faces filling the doorway. All of the partygoers, awash in the glow of the spacecraft's bright lights, stand perfectly still as they take in the sheer wonder of the moment and the pure glory of The Visitors. They stare as if a new sun has risen before them and is painting their faces with its warmth and love. It is as if they are looking upon the face of God, the face of their own ultimate goodness, the face of their own limitless potential, and each, according to his or her own gifts, responds. Some break into beautiful smiles. Some have tears of joy rolling down their cheeks. And some simply bask in this moment where, for the first time in their lives, perhaps for the first time in human history, peace on Earth seems truly attainable.

Thanks for having me read that, Michael.

We wrapped at 7 o'clock in the morning on Sunday, August 29th, 2004. We broke out the Champagne and cheered and thanked and congratulated each other on an amazing week. Everyone, and I mean everyone, signed autographs for everyone else. Finally, we raised our glasses high and, appropriate to a film about hope, toasted the rising sun.

Welcome to Earth.

- Jim Charbonneau