DEUCE OF SPADES TRAILER and latest updates

Faith the stills in your screen grabs alone are fantastic. You may have a treasure in fotos alone, and I,m not sure you would like to do another rod flick, but you will sure be valuable to any film makers for your experience an knowledge of that subject.

Dave M.

 

This is very similar to the Colton drags back in the 50,s which were held on the Colton airstrip, . Every once in a while everything stopped, and a airplane would land.

cool history and story on the sagus drag strip
http://www.scvhistory.com/scvhistory/watkins-butch.htm

here is a paragraph...

... The old 6-S airfield (at present-day Whites Canyon Road in Canyon Country) was better known as the Saugus drag strip. Long before the Lyons and other well known drag strips were in business, we raced cars at the old air strip. I raced my first car there in 1953 before I had a drivers license. We raced all day on Saturdays and Sundays. We paid the owners 50 cents per car, per day. If a plane wanted to land it called the owners' house by radio; the owner then drove out onto the landing strip and honked his horn. This was the signal for everyone to move their cars quickly to the side of the strip. The plane would land, we would be told if it was going to stay or depart soon, and our racing would react accordingly.[/quote]

 

LOL, no I am not trying to be mysterious, it's just that it is easier for me to send the info in one shot to all participants via one email, rather than send one set of instruction to each new person that signs up. I am spread so THIN I make Ghandi look obese . So if I wait for most people to have signed up THEN send the info, I save time.

But you are right, if people need to make hotel reservation, then i should get the info together and start dispatching it. Will work on it, promised

 

I see you are from Fresno . We have several mention of Fresno in the film:

1- "This ain't raisin city!" (talking about your good ol' dragstrip)

2- One little kid sees under the hood of the DOS and he is from (you've guessed) FRESNO. No, he is not Toni Crosciato. But the smart audience might connect the dots and figure out that the little kid mouthed off about Johnny's power plant and that Toni was all ears and went and copied it. hence becoming dangerously fast himself.

3- Of course "FRESNO" aka Toni Crosciato, our young "wop" from Fresno who gives Johnny a good run for his money. A run to the death.

 

You know what's really cool? the film isn't out yet and i already got a number of emails from guys saying that the film has inspired them to:

1- finish their car
2- start building a hotrod
3- get their hotrod out of the garage and DRIVE the shit out of it

If the film is able to do this, and get the jalopies back on the road, then it was well worth all the hard work and 3 years of my life.

 

I will start posting some cool behind the scene photos here. I'll post a couple each day. Some of them are really beautiful shots, others just show us working behind the screen . Fun stuff! I hope you enjoy them.

Here are two for today:

caption: Frank O'Leary (FRESNO) waiting at call time on day two of night filming.



caption: Attention to detail is key. Here positioning Frank's hand for an extreme close up shot.

 

Hello again!

Running around like crazy trying to coordinate:

1- a crash scene, complete with ambulance, cop car, fire marshall car and detective car - and crashed roadster. (that alone is enouh to make a grown man want to cry )

2- a huge 1953 swing dancing scene on wednesday

3- our 1955 SAUGUS drasgtrip scene on 09/27 (I NEED MORE CARS!)

Oh boy! My head is about to explode.

Meanwhile, here is the photo of the day.

caption: two of the main cars of DEUCE OF SPADES

 

I have a 32 window if you want one look at my pic on here
Dave
pm me if you need or want it

 

Wouldn't it be awesome to find a trashed rod - something beyond repair, maybe paper thin from rusting for decades - and do a quick clone paint job on it, so it looked okay from 20 feet or so to use as the "wreck". Hell, you could actually set it on fire, etc and no one would care!

You could cobble it together from donated parts folks have replaced - quarter panels, etc - all tacked together with tack welds, Bondo and paint - just enough to look real. Maybe get folks to donate trashed steering columns, headers, etc to strew across the street... then you could proudly display in the end credits that "No real roadsters were harmed during the making of this film". And that would make those crying grown men happy when they left the theater.

Don't forget the pancake syrup to use as fake motor oil... it's totally eco-friendly... and the bees love it! LOL!

~Jason

 

Well considering I only have two more days to do all above I guess I will have to do it my way instead. Setting anything on fire not an option, besides the deuce can't burn, it would hurt the plot. Fresno, however and the tractor are torched. But we have to be realistic, this is a NO budget so we have to be artistic and creative and suggest things more so than bluntly show them.

Pancake syrop, eh? I like the idea. But since all this happens at midnight and it is DARKm, not sure how much detail anyone is going to be able to see, if any at all...

 

faith are you from quebec? cajun or just plain french? or am i totaly wrong??
cajun french myself.. best of luck with the movie cher!!

 

France originally, but a California hot rodder for years.

 

Dude... all good movies have fire. LOL!

And yeah... pancake syrup. Well, Karo syrup, anyway. The dark stuff can be motor oil, or at night, blood. The clear stuff can be tinted to any color you want.

Thicken it with corn starch as needed.

It's biodegradable, and washes off clean with water (the warmer, the better).

Any left over? Bake a cake. Put it on pancakes. Grab a spatula and give that special someone the "Aunt Jemima Treatment". Make Humming Bird food. You'll find a use.

~Jason

 

I am French. From Nice. Was born in France, raised in Beirut amidst a civil war and have been living in the US since 1987. You guys are STUCK with me hehe.

below: coming back from a test drive after a brake adjustment on FRESNO's red 29 roadster. This was part of our prep work to shoot the night race scene.

 

Over the past 21 years here, I'm sure you've found that as Americans we're actually great fans of your fries, kissing, braids, dip, and bread here.

I am actually entertaining the idea of heading to France within the next 5 years or so. Perhaps I will try all of the above in their native land... LOL!

Beirut has always sounded interesting, despite the turmoil there. Over the years, I've run across it in several history books, Keanu Reeves was born there, and back when I was starting out a promising career in medicine (before I met a girl and started skipping labs, pretty much removing the "promising" part), I'd often wondered what it would be like to intern there... and what it would be like to walk on streets that people 3,000 years before me had walked on. Here, nothing's over a few hundred years old, you know?

It's off the Mediterranean... and besides, who wouldn't want to see the "Paris of the East"?

~Jason

 

I think you'll especially enjoy the "kissing" part. The French have perfected the art. ... Now if only I could find me someone to practice with .

Wait... I'm filming every week-end. There goes my love life ...

below: Johnny Callaway does not film every week-end. The lucky bastard!

 

Im here to fix that for ya

 

Ah, but the French call it "English" kissing.

The Queen of England is a great kisser, but unfortunately, she also requires her subjects to "pull her bloody finger" upon occasion, too.

~Jason


"Bitch, pull my bloody finger." the Queen said Friday, extending it for one of her subjects to so indulge the monarch. "Oh, Lord Jesus... not AGAIN!" groaned the Prince.

 

Voitures belles, intelligentes, douées et d'amours vieilles ! Vous devrez les battre au loin avec un bâton !

 

Ok guys, we're digressing... Let's get back on the topic at hand here: Jalopies . And of course, the film about jalopies.

I was looking at my shooting schedule and it suddenly hit me that I am almost all done with all my flashback scenes...

Wow.

Almost, but not quite, so I still have a few shoot to tackle, and they are challenging ones, so I find myself waking up at 4AM again, my brains are working overtime. So many details to coordinate...

Picked up a narly collectors item 40's photocamera for my reporter. The flash still works! It was loaned to me by a very nice gentleman I bumped into at Bob's a year ago. He made good on his promise and did loan me his rare camera. Not only that, he also gave me 7 flash bulbs so we can FIRE IT! This is going to look Goooood.

 

"Wow" is right!


~Jason

 

"Wouldn't it be awesome to find a trashed rod - something beyond repair, maybe paper thin from rusting for decades - and do a quick clone paint job on it, so it looked okay from 20 feet or so to use as the "wreck". Hell, you could actually set it on fire, etc and no one would care!"

hell you cant find a car like that with HAMBERS around! [beyond repair!]

 

Packing it up and getting ready to head out to Fillmore to film.

Here is the photo for today:

I think the deuce looks even better when it's covered in dust.

 

Wow Faith! Its lookin good. I might have to let you use my '48 Cheby for a sceen.

 

BACK FROM THE FRONTLINE!

We sustained heavy losses but did win the battle. Came home with lots of goodies in the can. Started cutting some of it this morning and I was like:

"OH SHIT! This looks soooo GOOD"

Both night shoots back to back were exhausting and I went one day for 24 hours straight on my feet working on prepping everything and then filming, then the next night went back at it for another full night of filming, wrap at 6AM drive home and then directly to work and work all day.

Did awesome special effects, including smoking engine, plowed roadster and very heavy bleeding for Johnny, who was lying in the dirt.

It was awesome.

I also slept outside on a cott next to my deuce, under the famous oak tree. That was awesome too.

Photo for the day:

 

Looks great cant wait till it comes out.

 

Awesome shoot last night! Had a bunch of young swing dancers that flocked from all over So CAl to be in the film. It took me 3 hours to prep this little crowd, go over wardrobe, make up, hair does, but when I was done I had a bunch of extremely period correct younger looking 50's dancers.

All I did was put the word out that I was doing a hotrod movie and looking for dancers and next thing I know, everyone is emailing everyone and wham bam I got all these awesome dancers! It only took a week. All of them are so DAMN EXCITED about the film! It's been forever since a film combined great swing dancing and hotrods. So yesterday, I definitely felt we were making history.

I was honored to have the national champions of Lindy Hop and Balboa, which means, in other words, the best swing dancing couple in the world. They contacted me when they heard about my film and saw the footage and were eager to be in DEUCE OF SPADES, resulting in some pretty awesome aerials. the cool thing is they researched 50's dance moves and performed those, so even the dancing is period correct.

Here are a couple screengrabs, This scene will start in black and white and then turn to color, more than likely.

Enjoy!! (and remember you can read the blog for more details on each of my shoots and to follow the progress of the movie, week by week).

 

Wow!

It's been a long time... I haven't been swing dancing since before the kids were born!

~Jason

 

Wow, nice photography, and the film I've seen looks really professional. You would not think low-budget from the clips. My ONLY nitpick..those new gauges...it's kinda like when Christopher Reeves pulls out the modern penny in "Somewhere in Time"...
But good work..!

 

What do you mean low Budget? It's a NOOOO budget. As in ZILTCH, NADA, RIEN DE RIEN.