Abby Singer - The Making Of

ABBY SINGER - THE JOURNEY AND THE MAKING OF

IF Press or Media Please Also See Press / Media Kit and EPK link

The Story Behind the Making of Abby Singer - PRODUCTION

“Never the Last Shot””

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To understand how one of the most talked about, underground films began, we must go back to May 2001, when Williams began the project as a series of experimental scene shots on digital video in Provo, Utah. Williams had, at last, locked in on his cast after months of experimentation with a local acting class (The Actor’s Gang), and the initial shooting of Abby Singer was off to a resounding start.

Williams was simultaneously touring as a stand-up comic (which is how Richard Newman – Associate Producer and Williams met) to make ends meet. Having maxed out all credit cards and exhausted all personal favors, due to the inadequate income from the stand-up comedy gigs, Williams declared the road better off less traveled. Upon his forced return to Salt Lake City, Utah, he found himself homeless.

Williams’ Herculean effort required during the making of Abby Singer included: borrowing cameras (Paul Wood – Executive Producer’s camera was used for the majority of the shooting), film equipment, acquiring transportation and finding places to sleep… but it all started to take it’s toll. From his penury on the streets, plans went into motion to acquire celebrity cameos at the upcoming 2002 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. A mere twenty minutes from where Williams was then living out his meager existence as a one-man crew.

He employed spy game tactics to scope the layout and plant operatives/actors (Wendy Buss, Robin Ballard, Clint Palmer) disguised as ticket takers and bartenders at the upcoming 2002 Sundance Film Festival Awards Ceremony.

With all walls having ears in the tightly controlled, high security, post-September 11th, live, worldwide broadcast; the plans for infiltrating the Sundance facilities were hatched in a sauna of a men’s room. The operation ran into some snags when the ticket-takers ended up taking tickets in the non-VIP line, which disabled their capacity to identify and convey celebrity arrivals via cell phone. Williams and Palmer conferred. Quickly, they found themselves calling Abby Singer’s Associate Producer, Jeffrey Gold, who posed as the award-winning composer, John Barry. Now positioned in the VIP room, this imposter provided them with the much-needed mobile intelligence.

The Awards Ceremony was now in full swing. Williams informed his unsuspecting volunteer supervisor that, “We don’t have enough ice for the rest of the evening.” Then suggesting his trademark, “I’ll get some more ice”, routine, he made his escape. No longer constricted to the bartender routine, he surveyed the terrain with caution. Having gone through the proper channels to become volunteers, the gangs accreditation was for all access and fully official.

Attention then turned to: “Mission Improbable.” While the security and audience had twenty minutes to get into place, Williams and Palmer only had a 45-second launch window to infiltrate the broadcast room. Once in, they had to randomly move cables and chairs to legitimize their presence. From there, they strategically planned the subsequent seating arrangements and the placement of actors in key locations to the best suited scenes, for Abby Singer, which was to be shot during the live broadcast.

Williams whipped out his E! Entertainment (borrowed) badge and gained access to the floor, which was amazingly scarce of celebrities. From out of nowhere, someone barked an order for him to get into the press box, but once there, he decided to be a little more adventurous. He left the press box and strolled back into the control room, roamed the floor for a while, then sauntered back stage. Before running down the main aisle on the floor to get a moving shot, during the middle of the broadcast the assistant director confronted Williams chiding, “Don’t run, you have heavy shoes on.”

Williams neared the stage while the director, Rebecca Miller, of Personal Velocity, stumbled over him and nearly fell on her face on international television! The assistant director again confronted Williams, but this time to administer a scolding, “You are going to lose your job over this.” Williams just smiled returning, “I didn’t like this job anyway.” The assistant was about to escort Williams from the premises when the broadcast ended and chaos ensued, allowing for the perfect opportunity for Williams to make his escape. Cameos from Stockard Channing and others were quickly secured during the melee that followed.

Roger Ebert was approached before the screening of Jodie Foster’s, The Secret Lives of Altar Boys, seemingly to be inspired and amazed at the story of the making and graced Abby Singer with the white parasol monologue from Citizen Kane.

But that wasn’t the end, Main Street Park City became the locale for more exploits. Over an exchange of beer and cigars, Mark Borchardt and Mike Schank, American Movie, famed eager to get in front of a camera to grace Williams with yet another cameo.

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Now having acquired footage, the Abby Singer gang faced the problem of finishing their movie with no beginning in sight to the editing process. With lacking funds to eat, let alone buying an editing system, the project seemed hopeless, Celebrities and all. Then no small miracle occurred, when Williams sold the first script he ever wrote, Blood White, to Cosmic Pictures, although for little money, it was enough to pay for the editing system.

To kick off the summer and the little triumphs here and there, the Abby Singer gang (Palmer, Williams and Producer Jonathan M Black) decided to throw a very successful party at their residence. All was going as planned until an uninvited Tongan gang blessed the party with their good grace and proceeded in trashing the party. After all was said and done, their (Palmer, Black and Williams) domicile left uninhabitable, people injured and gang members arrested, the trio was in the midst of homelessness.

In a desperate attempt to sidestep homelessness, Black returned to college to work on a second bachelor’s degree, and to live in the dorms for nothing. Williams and Palmer also joined him there in the one-bedroom dorm, editing in the closet. Shortly, some suspicious students began complaining of late night noises from Williams’ editing. Eviction was stalking the trio once again, forcing them from their shelter. They retreated to a single bedroom apartment in a slum near the SLC airport.

Settled in their new inhabitance and with various deadlines approaching for the 2003 festival circuit, postproduction was drawing to a close. Williams, Black and Palmer looked to the future and considered themselves victorious already. Kamell Clauson, a student at the University of Utah in which the trio had met that previous summer, was soon brought into help with the preparation for the festival promotions, marketing, secretarial duties and various other tasks.

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With ongoing problems with technical glitches and hardware malfunction, the editing process dragged on longer than was anticipated, with the 2003 festival circuit nipping at their coat tails, the realization set in that festival festivities would have to wait till 2004. With that, it was decided that efforts in getting the word out about Abby Singer would be better spent if in Los Angeles, California. Upon the decision, Williams, Palmer, Black and Clauson piled all of their belongings into only three cars and trucked it out to Sherman Oaks, California where they set up shop. But no rest for the weary, as soon as they arrived and unpacked, editing resumed and preparations for the pre-conceived publicity stunt, “Operation Night Hawk” were underway. (The details of this operation will are revealed in more detail in Tim Cooper’s exclusive, first-hand, tell-all article in the UK Observer.)

After the completion of Operation Night Hawk, editing was coming along nicely but something just didn’t seem quite right, something was missing, which was right around the same time as the Independent Spirit Awards. Still having a wild hair about them, the group decided that it was time to get more celebrity cameos and that their next target was the Independent Spirit Awards, the prefect battleground for Black Palmer, Williams and actor, Wendy Buss, to conquer. It required dedicating a week of hard labor as “volunteers,” making gift bags for celebrities they would soon ask to be in their film. As the ceremony was televised around the globe, from a tent on Santa Monica beach, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jill Hennessy, Don Cheadle and a score of other celebrities succumb to their own independent spirit and joined the cast of Abby Singer.

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Within a six-moth period, they managed to crash the Golden Globes, carry out the publicity stunt dubbed, “Operation Nighthawk” featured in an article written by Tim Cooper for the UK Observer and even gained more celebrity footage after running a similar M.O. at the Independent Spirit Awards.

But even with all the small victories, the team also faced defeat. When they hit rock bottom, the team split up. Faced with a pending eviction, unemployment, homelessness, and other such obstacles, the film seemed to dead-end. Editing had all but completely stopped.

For a length of time that seemed a lifetime, the film laid fallow until Williams made a decision to sell his share of the company and all of its assets to Palmer. At this point, the film’s fait seemed to perk upwards. After obtaining all of the celebrity releases, what previously seemed an impossible task, he teamed back up with Black. Now the film looked to have nowhere else to go but up.

Upon the reworking of the soundtrack, final touches on the edit and the updating of all marketing material, ABBY SINGER was now ready to run the film festival circuit.

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Abby Singer is an unbelievably moving and darkly comic picture nakedly displaying the dreams and aspirations existing in the ironic entanglement of the desperate characters, and the filmmakers who created them. After a long and challenging road, Abby Singer has proven over time to always prevail and triumph over defeatist attitude and beliefs by attending several film festivals and winning a slew of awards. Seen by many as, “the little film that couldn’t”, it is the filmmaker’s hope that others can look at their journey and see that the underdog truly does have a shot if there is enough belief and determination.

Abby Singer Official Website - www.abbysingermovie.com