The Beginning

So, yeah, now its all up to me for a few days. The past couple of weeks have definitely introduced to a new type of film making. The aggressive ideas of my Director along with my "cut no corners" attitude are certainly setting the tone for this cinematic endeavor. Example:

KELY

I think it would be cool if Finn runs down these two
flights of stairs and then lunges over this 3ft rail
for a 20ft drop and runs away.

ME

Well I don't think I want to risk my actor nor my
production on this jump.BUT, If you want to make
this shot happen(with safety equipment), I will
schedule it for the last week of shooting.

Now, this convo took place after we entered and exited the "Gates of Hades." The "Gates of Hades" is literally a cement and brick structure erected in a non disclosed location in southeastern USA, a palace of disgust that wreaks of death and human bowel. Our escort, a soft-spoken Jedi Master Mace Windu lookalike, laggerdly navigated us through numerous rooms, hallways, and staircases illuminated only by his hand crafted makeshift newspaper torch.(no lightsaber) As we passed "zombies" peaking around corners and scattering as the light revealed them, both my Director and I realized this is not a place that will work for us. Driven by our egotistical "macho maness" we continued to tread up the staircase of swampish filth until we were welcomed by the warmth of sunshine thats spilled through a great opening on the level above.

After surviving this 1 quest, I know, we WILL make this film "By any means necessary."

This is only the beginning
******* 2 B Continued *******

The Women of Kerberos

“But what about the women?! Doesn’t Kerberos have some feminine representation?” they all shout as I post more blog entries. Yes, dear readers. Both of you can set down the torches and pitchforks. There are women in the underworld. Hey, that sounds awesome: the “Women of the Underworld” pin-up calendar. Hotties from Hades. Blasphemous Babes. Damned Damsels. Well, you get the idea…

Vivian, or Vinnie (to be played by Courtney Hogan), gets to be our version of Persephone, leading lady of the underworld. Vivian has a subdued strength despite the situations in which it could be interpreted that she is a victim. She has survived a great deal before we get this brief glimpse into her world and will likely endure much more. But she never comes across as that victimized woman operating in survival mode. We never really pity her. Moreover, she doesn’t come across as the man-hating type, either. The character, despite all temptations to the contrary, resists the pendulum mentality so often in effect. Vivian is strong and soft, displaying real emotion when she can and remaining stoic when she can’t.

Our other female focus is Katie, Lolita catalyst and the source of a lot of conflict and confusion. At times petulant and manipulative and at others defiant and scared, Katie is searching for something constant in a world of hastily shifting, rapidly increasing chaos. There is no safe haven for her in this society of bad guys and worse guys. If she can’t escape this way of life, she’ll become as damned as Vivian…or worse.

In Kerberos we get an honest look at these women, free of the pigeon-holed stereotypical caricatures so frequently portrayed in film. The femme fatale, the nurturing mother, the whore, the woman warrior, and the piteous victim cannot be isolated and amplified in these women, Vivian and Katie. Both characters contains threads of each archetype, the weaves and patterns changing and shifting to meet the needs of the moment, just like any woman adjusts her glamours.

Next topic: Burns. All Burns, all the time. You know you want it, folks!

A break away from the Kerberos madness for travel fun

The airport.

Remember when airports inspired in you that feeling of excitement, possibility, adventure? You looked forward to the beginning of some new experience, from the packing and repacking of your luggage all the way through that sense of accomplishment when the cabin doors close and you fasten your seatbelt. If you forgot a pillow and needed a nap or forgot a jacket and the flight was chilly, you could always ring a charming and courteous flight attendant to get you sorted out. Or maybe you had that positive restlessness, adjusting your hat and planning daring deeds abroad, imagining yourself on a quest like our favorite archaeologist, Dr. Jones (without the 1940s goose-stepping bad guys) even if you were only headed to Phoenix to see Aunt Ruth and Uncle Felix.

But now...eesh! Now the airport inspires that feeling of dread, frustration, hassle. After making your way through the supercomputer kiosk station just to be told there is a technical difficulty and you must go to the kiosk assistance counter, then unable to complete the process at kiosk assistance, being redirected to an unpleasant ticketing agent at the end of her shift, then bustled off to the baggage check-in counter, only then do you make progress toward the (insert serious music here) security queue winding all the way back to the parking area. Invariably, some loquacious and remarkably unaware middle aged fellow from Dubuque or Wichita or Poughkeepsie wants to tell you all about an irrelevant and wholly uninteresting experience he had in the airport in Newark while he was there for a business seminar on synergistic something-or-other in his field of electronic data storage and who-gives-a-crap.

After the three weeks of the security cattle queue, winding back and forth and back and forth, listening to Poughkeepsie Pete and watching the loop of the TSA "put your liquid explosives in ziploc bags" video, wondering to yourself how the Department of Homeland Security and TSA managed to capture footage of only obese, middle aged, Middle America representatives of non-Asian, non-Middle Eastern descent you reach the Marker Brigade. Oh yes, those surly blokes in blue neoprene gloves wielding the orange marker of ultimate power, perched on that stool and sizing you up against your government issued I.D. photo. Power is so sexy, isn't it?

And...off to another security queue, this one more hurried as the throngs from the cattle lines are now dumped into two loosely-defined mobs jostling for the grey bins into which you must put your watch, your spectacles, your laptop, cell phone, ziploc bags of chapstick and foot creme, detonators, shoes, belt, dignity, jacket, carry-on bag... After which you step through the Stargate portal and hold your breath, praying for silence so as not to be wanded in public without a follow up hug. Then get prepared for the shove from behind as you try to retrieve your gear and dress yourself at a pace that'd make newsman Clark Kent jealous of your skill.

Now you get to do your Amazing Race dash of panic while trying not to look suspicious and be tackled by a former linebacker for the Ravens who blew out a knee in the early nineties and now takes his airport security job very seriously despite how badly it burns that he once could've been a Pro Bowl pick.

Your gate is right in the middle of the last concourse in the airport, nestled nice and cozy in the midst of the Sbarro, Starbucks, CandyLand, B. Dalton, Cinnabon, smoking lounge, vending area, baby changing station, Burger King, and cleverly named sports bar in honor of the home team. You sigh with relief, negotiate the chomping herds, and park your wheeled carry-on beside you as you check in at the gate. The gate agent pops her gum, rolls her eyes, and cocks an ample hip as she pecks at the keyboard and squints at the screen, only to then tell you that the gate, you guessed it, has been changed. You have to go all the way across the airport, avoiding the balding ex-Raven with the Old Milwaukee's Best gut hanging over the Sam Browne belt, back to a gate in the last decade.

And don't even dream of a peaceful nap once you finally cry, cajole, and shout your way onto a flight, successful only after you agree to some arbitrary upgrade and re-ticketing fee. With the children allowed to misbehave, the parents with no sense of decorum, the exhausted members of the flight crew fielding snack-related questions about food allergies and South Beach Diet categories, the teenage softball team from Bradenton flirting with the drink-swilling dentists across the aisle, you aren't resting. You're chewing a pocketful of Xanax and trying to remember if the Mythbusters debunked or supported the question of opening the cabin doors in midflight and being sucked out into the wild blue yonder as the aircraft is ripped apart like the kid in "The Hitcher."

Remember when it was fun?

From the airport for the second time this week, I bid you all happy travels and loads of tranquilizers.

Okay, back to the Kerberosity soon, finding gangsters and hoodrats and all manner of underworld creatures. Hey, should've recruited a few from the airport--huh, Kely?

Three Heads Are Better Than One

Bad Guy - Good Guy
Good Guy - Bad Guy
Bad Guy - Bad Guy

These are the heads of Kerberos, guardian of the underworld. The concept of Good Guy – Good Guy never comes into play in the upcoming film Kerberos. And rightfully so, as the hound only has three heads. But also because people are rarely, if ever, capable of being good guy-good guy for longer than a single action or series of interrelated events. Call it cynical if you like, but even saints are capable of cruelty and even sinners are capable of compassion. This recognition by writer/director Kely McClung is one of the more subtle yet engaging qualities about the project. The moral ambiguity gives depth to every character, large or small, both good and bad playing out onscreen as the results of choices made by each character. Ah, the existentialist dream!

Since the whole story spans only 36 hours, the consequences of each choice are going to be amplified in the microcosm that the film presents. That means violence. A lot of violence. But this isn’t Quentin’s violence—violence for violence’s sake, gratuitous and shocking just because it can be. This is a more meaningful violence that more clearly illustrates the light and dark of each person. This duality is evident in more than just those three main characters. Every role becomes incredibly important because of this. And more than in just that warm, fuzzy “there are no small parts” kind of way. Every character has to be as believable bathed in benevolent light as they are ensconced in shadow.

Enter Jamal (played by the intimidating man in braids, Rock), hardcore gangsta and another admirable Good Guy – Bad Guy. Jamal protects his own, doesn’t care about taking the money that isn’t his, and has no need to flex for the Peckerwoods. He is just hellbent on eliminating Tony and Armstrong no matter the cost to himself. Don’t know about you, but I really like that sense of justice.

Lo Wei, the enigmatic Asian character, brings balance and more than a little indirect humor, being called just about every ethnicity except actor Vince Canlas’ own. Lo Wei himself is ever composed, detached, and purposeful. Even as he exchanges extreme unpleasantries with Vivian, Bad Guy – Good Guy Lo Wei is honorable and dispassionate, never getting caught up in the maelstrom of his boss Armstrong’s bloodlust.

A more identifiable honor is displayed by crackhead hoodrat Darius (played by Hajji Golightly). Shot, beaten, and facing the business end of a Mossberg 590, Darius’ first instinct is to save his brother. Knowing full well that his own end is going to be a messy one, either at the hands of the cops with whom he agrees to cooperate or on the streets when his neighborhood discovers how he tricked out for the boys in blue.

Good guys, bad guys, I sure as hell don’t know. But Kerberos has certainly got plenty of characters with parts of both in whatever measure.

Kerberos: What's in a name?

We've all heard, whether or not we understand the implications, that bit from Romeo and Juliet (act 2, scene 2) where the star-crossed lovers lament their feuding clans and question the impact of their respective family names. Persuasively, with great conviction, Juliet asks her beau: "What's in a name?" Now while I find her to be almost as distasteful a character as Ophelia, I gotta give Miss J the nod on this one. It is a very down question, and not many people would give the same answer. That rose smells the same, but our perception of it changes until we can convince ourselves it is the same thing. No, don't give me that look--think about it. You are going to perceive green mashed potatoes differently even if they taste the same...until you are blindfolded and can't tell a difference. Only then does Juliet get the win. My point, and I do have one, is that names matter to the intellectual part of us, so we have to force ourselves to peel it back and expose the visceral.

Case in point: Kerberos.

Now, this one is tough from the jump. People are squinting and wrinkling up their noses, trying any way they can find to avoid having to pronounce the name of the film for fear of getting it wrong, or are heckling thinking it is a typo that just isn't getting picked up by scores of editors. "Do I say it with that hard K sound or is it the soft S?" or "Can't believe they misspelled the name of the film!" So, how do you decide to go forward with a name like that when already it is causing friction? In my opinion, because it is causing friction. Let people argue it out. Let them spill their blood in the streets like the Capulets and Montagues. Better publicity, right? (Nah, we'll have enough of that on film to go around.)

So then it occurs to me that the director is totally stacking the deck in his favor with a hybrid "Juliet name syndrome meets neurolinguistic programming" in his right- and left-hand guys on this project: Attila (1st AD) and Future (Producer). Real names. No kidding. Talk about heraldic symmetry!! Very nice, in that "devil is in the details" kind of way.
With the ferocity of a barbaric horde and unmatched strategic genius, First AD Attila will be cracking the whip and making sure everything runs as close to smooth as it will get, people are where they need to be, places are what they need to be. Lock up your daughters and your livestock, villagers. And with everyone looking toward the f/Future, Kerberos' producer will be unstoppable, no matter what he undertakes. The Future is now!

But wait--there's more! Check out the character names in the story. The triad referenced by the film's title leads off with Quint VonCanon fleshing out the more sinister and volatile elements of Detective Tony Menace. (Yeah, read it first, then say it in your head with an Italian flavor.) And Rob Pralgo as Armstrong, criminal mastermind leading a cabal of evil minions but carrying a filthy little secret. These two dudes are pitted against not only each other but also against the protagonist Finn, played by Kely McClung, the name taken from an Irish warrior hero in the 12th century. Now those are some big shoes to fill for each of the three heads of the title hellhound.

So, what's in a name? To some lame Italian chic hanging off her balcony for centuries and speaking in measured rhyme, maybe not a whole hell of a lot. But for the kick ass action film Kerberos, the names carry a great deal more weight than we realize at first blush.