Friday, November 4, 2011

What Is Trust Us and Who is Guy Backman?

I know I've been writing mostly about how one can get his or her first feature made, and most importantly, about how possible it really is.  But before I continue that, I feel it's important to let you all in on my own personal road to wrap.

As I've mentioned at in past blogs, Trust Us is a science-fiction drama centered around time travel.  It takes place at one of the best science schools in the country where Guy Backman, a college student, is obsessed with building a time machine.  He's waited his whole life to take a class with Dr. Victor Hughes, one of the well-known authorities on the study of time travel.  But when Guy's regretful older self travels back through time to tell him his professor is about to steal his ideas, Guy suddenly finds himself tampering with the present in order to change his future.  As more of his future selves visit to help him along and improve his life, Guy starts questioning the ethics of what he's doing... or will be doing.  He also must figure out what's really going on: has everything happened before or is he on the path to a parallel universe?

I wrote the screenplay for Trust Us and it'll be the first feature length film I direct.  I have also written and directed two short films that made their way into various film festivals, Get the Hell out of Heaven and Escape from the the Night (a Telluride Indiefest winner).  One of the film's producers is Curtis A. Smith Jr., the founder of Diamond Pictures.  He's worked on over 50 films, including the Oscar winning and nominated films, The Messenger and Man on Wire.  The other producer on board is Nicky Arezu Akmal, co-founder of Ugly Productions.  The films she's produced include HBO's Shot in the Dark and the Gotham award nominated August in the First.

We also have our two lead actors attached to the film.  Guy Backman will be played by two different actors due to the thirty year age difference of the time traveling character.  Older Guy Backman will be played by Billy Baldwin (Backdraft, The Squid and the Whale, Gossip Girl) and Younger Guy Backman will be played by Cody Linley  (Hannah Montana, Hoot, Dancing with the Stars).  In addition, we've also cast Adam Gregory (90210, The Bold and the Beautiful, 17 Again) as Guy's loyal friend and college roommate, Ted.  We expect the other major roles to be filled soon.

In future blogs, we will explain how you can follow our progress and even help us get this movie made.  For now, feel free to continue following "The Road to Wrap."

Now that I've told you a little about my project, let's get back to what to expect during the casting phase of your film.  I'll do my best to answer the question, "When Does Yes Mean Yes?" and explain how hard it really  is to attach an actor to your project.  Stay tuned...

2 comments:

  1. will everyone get to see this movie on teather? and when ? and is cody linley going to be in " playroom " ? what is the twitter account we should follow to know everything about this movie ?

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  2. Hey, thanks for the comment! Trust Us is still in its early preproduction phase, but you can follow us on Twitter at:
    https://twitter.com/#!/FilmTrustUs

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