RIT Alumni Filmmakers Debut After Image at 2001 Sundance Film Festival - Press Screening Set for Jan. 8 & 21
A pared-down version of Hollywood came to Rochester, N.Y., for 31 days last May and June via a handful of Rochester Institute of Technology alumni who brought a pacific-style of glitz and glitter to the "North Coast" (Lake Ontario shoreline). The cast and crew of After Image set up camp in the area, using city locations as a film backdrop. According to Jerry Stoeffhaas, former director of the Rochester/Finger Lakes Film and Video office, it’s the largest independent film to be done primarily in Rochester.
After Image was written by Robert Mangenelli ’83. Chris Nakis ’83 co-produced the film; Kurt Brabbée ’75 was film cinematographer. Manganelli and Brabbée both live in the Los Angeles area; Nakis lives in Rochester.
RIT students worked as production assistants alongside the cast and crew, for the unique opportunity to work on film without traveling to New York City or Los Angeles. RIT student Dave Adam showed up at the Sheraton Production office, in response to a flier he saw on campus. He was willing to do anything, he said on arrival. "I just want the experience of working on a real film," he said. "I’m planning on going to Hollywood after I graduate."
Louise Fletcher, Oscar-winning Big Nurse in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and John Mellencamp, "Jack and Diane" creator, star in the film. Terrylene, a deaf actress with credits in such films as Natural Born Killers and City of Angels, also stars in the film. She is married to Manganelli. Actor Michael Zelnicker, whose credits include Clint Eastwood’s Bird, also has a part in the film.
After Image is a psychological thriller about a clairvoyant deaf woman (Terrylene) who enables a crime scene photographer (Mellencamp) to confront a serial killer (Zelniker ). The photographer has returned to Rochester and temporarily stays with his aunt (Fletcher). Manganelli admits to choosing Rochester for its cloud cover, to give scenes a certain ominous quality. A local resident, used as an extra in the film, reports that, in true modern film fashion, the story is "a mite grisly."
Manganelli, originally a still photographer, scratched his filmmaking itch in graduate school at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He was invited to Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute in 1992, based on an early draft of After Image, then called Seeing in the Dark. Only a half dozen or so directors are invited to the institute each year.
The institute provides a cabin on the scenic Redford ranch for each director (with a hot tub in each, Manganelli reports.) Actors and crewmembers are also provided and each director uses the resources to shoot three or four scenes of his or her film. "It was a great and intense experience," Manganelli says. At the end of a week, "You’re on the hot seat," he says. "Several advisors, each with an Oscar in his or her respective discipline, critiques your work." Redford himself, along with various other luminaries, tear the work apart, in order to help improve the product. After rewrites, revisions, and more rewrites, the group pronounced After Image "good to go," Manganelli says.
Not all good scripts, though, no matter who has critiqued them, become movies, and Manganelli credits Nakis and co-producer John Cocca as instrumental in raising the $1.4 million needed for the project. Nakis pounded the pavement to shake down financing, Manganelli says, becoming a fixture on city streets and at hockey games, handing out fliers and soliciting investors. "Chris is the true unsung hero of this film," Manganelli says. "His commitment is unbelievable. This movie wouldn’t be without him."
After Image filming finished in late June. Manganelli and his entourage then left for Los Angeles for post-production work. At this stage, a film is edited, sound and visual effects are added or tweaked, muffled dialogue is re-recorded, and the music score is added.
The next step for After Image? Well, since the Sundance Film Festival is considered a major launching pad for independent films, After Image could end up with a national distributor, allowing it to appear in local theatres as early as this spring.
Seems to be a risky business, but one that Manganelli, Nakis, Brabbée and crew are willing, no, happy, to take on again. Nakis and Cocca hope to produce more films in Rochester, a location they think could become serious competition in the film market. Manganelli has another script finished and is working on more.
What’s next? "We’ll see," says Bob Manganelli.