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a JUPITER BOX PRODUCTION | BRAD ANDERSON | DESMOND DUTCHER MARK FORD | DAVID RUDD | ALEXIS SUAREZ | BRYAN WEST
First assistant director CHRIS GORMLEY | Sound CHRISTOPHER TRUDEAU | Music supervisor FL JONES | Original score MICHAEL LEVEY
Director of photography IAN BLOOM | Produced by JASON BROWN & RICHARD LEMAY | Screenplay by JASON BROWN | Directed by RICHARD LEMAY
PRESS FOR WHIRLWIND
WINNER
BEST FEATURE
AUDIENCE AWARD
ATLANTA OUT ON FILM
FESTIVAL
OFFICIAL
SELECTION
NEWFEST
NEW YORK
OFFICIAL
SELECTION
OUTFEST
LOS ANGELES
OFFICIAL
SELECTION
MELBOURNE QUEER
FILM FESTIVAL
Jason Brown (L) and Richard LeMay (R) speak
at a panel at Turner Broadcasting.
“The banter is witty and the sex is hot, securing WHIRLWIND
a sure spot in gay boys’ hearts.”
- Southern Voice
From the director of 200 AMERICAN comes the new
feature film WHIRLWIND. Set in New York City,
the story centers on a tight knit group of gay
men. At first they appear to have it all. They are
funny, good looking and successful, but soon
a handsome stranger enters into their group
and everything changes. Drake is young, hot and
charming, but he has ulterior motives. What starts
out with Drake adding some excitement to the routine
of this circle of friends quickly begins to spiral out
of control. Both touching and funny, this story follows
the wake of one person’s deliberate attempt to
destroy the relationships of five men, all the while
letting his own friendships unravel around him.
Written by Emmy Award winning writer Jason Brown
and starring some of the most talented actors in
New York, WHIRLWIND is a surprisingly subtle and
honest depiction of thirty something gay men and
the crossroads they must face.
Contact: Jason Brown Richard LeMay
JupiterBox@aol.com www.JupiterBoxProductions.com
CAST
desmond
jd
mick
drake
bobby
sean
louis
adam
wayne
fiona
renee
lauren
robert
owen
cute server
grabby guy
guy on street
hot club guy
BRAD ANDERSON
DESMOND DUTCHER
MARK FORD
DAVID RUDD
ALEXIS SUAREZ
BRYAN WEST
MICHAEL PATERNOSTRO
ROBBIE CAIN
STEPHEN SMITH
KARMINE ALERS-GRECO
GAIL HERENDEEN
LAURA TAYLOR
VALENTINE RYDER
JIM HORVATH
CLIFTON OLIVER
STEVEN SCARPETTI
PATRICK JONES
NICK ATKINS
PRINCIPAL CREW
producer & writer
director
director of photography
1st assistant director
2nd assistant director
assistant camera
script supervisor
gaffer
key grip
grip
sound recordist
boom
sound mixer
editor
assistant editors
music supervisor
original music
hair & makeup
JASON BROWN
RICHARD LEMAY
IAN BLOOM
CHRIS GORMLEY
MICHAEL HELLMANN
RORY HANRAHAN
KIMBERLEY MARCELINO
ZAIRI MALCOLM
MEG SCHROCK
JOSE ORTIZ
TOBEY MILLER
MATT KERR
CHRISTOPHER TRUDEAU
DAVID HURLBURT
ANDREW QUINN
CURT LACHOWIN
JASON BROWN
ROBERT KRUPKA
IAN WOLFSON
FL JONES
MICHAEL LEVEY
ANDREA ROSE RILEY
ANTHONY BALLARD
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
Running Time:
Recorded On:
Aspect Ratio:
Format:
Available Formats:
Sound:
Category:
99 minutes
Mini DV
16:9, also 4:3 widescreen version
NTSC color
DIGIBETA, DVCAM, DVD, VHS
Stereo
Drama / Drama for Gay Audiences
Jupiter Box Productions
ABOUT US
Founded by Emmy award winner Jason Brown
and Richard LeMay, Jupiter Box Productions is
dedicated to creating quality entertainment with
a focus on storytelling. We create feature films,
CONTACT
develop material of professional and emerging artists.
Richard LeMay
Jason Brown
Jason and Richard have many years of creative
JupiterBox@aol.com
www.JupiterBoxProductions.com
documentaries and music videos, and also help
experience under their belts. This includes producing,
directing, writing, story creation, script consulting &
doctoring, and market value enhancement. Whether
working on our own or others’ projects, we strive to
maintain the artists’ vision while bringing out the
best in the material.
Spotlight on
JASON BROWN
Jason began his career in show business at the ripe
old age of three while starring in a dog food
commercial. A little later in life he was a finalist in
the Young Playwrights Festival in New York, where
his play TENDER PLACES was produced by Joe Papp
at the Public Theater. The play was published by
Dell Books and went on to become a primetime
special produced by Group W starring Jean Stapleton,
and won a New England Emmy and a Peabody Award.
Jason received a degree in Film & Broadcasting from
Boston University, and after moving to New York
worked at organizations including the Dramatists
Guild, MTV, VH1, and as a freelance writer, director
and editor with numerous film and commercial
companies. Currently Jason is an instructor with
Writers Boot Camp, teaching writing for film and
television and is also president of Jupiter Box
Productions, a company he founded with
producer/director Richard LeMay.
Spotlight on
RICHARD LEMAY
After the success with the award winning
BACK TO ONE, LeMay went on to produce three feature
length films, one in which he wrote, directed and
edited. 200 AMERICAN is a poster child for micro
budget filmmaking, shot in and around New York City
in three weeks. The film connected to sold out
audiences in film festivals around the world and at
the end of 2004, 200 AMERICAN got worldwide
distribution. WOLFE VIDEO released the DVD in the
US and Canada in December 2004. It remained at
number 2 in the top 10 sales on the distributor’s
website (www.wolfevideo.com) for eight months and
can still be found on their best seller list today. 200
AMERICAN can found at BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO and
NETFLIX. For more information on Richard,
visit www.rlemay.com.
Press for 200 AMERICAN: Interview with Ang Lee and Richard Lemay
QX International, January 2007
qx
FEATURE
GAY LOVE ON THE
BIG
SCREEN
JACK LEGER takes a look at two
very different gay romances...
TWO current cinematic gay love stories
couldn’t be more different on the surface. One is a gritty, wrenching, expansive epic spanning 20 years in the
American West. The other’s a microbudget comedy about the Pretty
Woman fantasy: hire a gorgeous escort
and fall in love. But both films have been
criticised for a lack of explicit sexuality.
While Brokeback Mountain (now in cinemas) puts quite a bit of huffing and puffing on screen, it still hedges away from
depicting a continuous physical relationship. And 200 American (just out on
DVD and reviewed on page 18) takes
the old-style approach, in which the
story builds to that all-important first kiss.
First-time filmmaker Richard LeMay says
his goal with 200 American was to make
a light romance based on his own relationship with an Australian man who had
immigration trouble, “although he never
resorted to prostitution,” he says. “I just
wanted to tell a story about average
guys who happen to be gay. You could
put straight characters in the same
movie and it would play the same,
except a man can’t marry another man
for a green card.” (Well, not in America!)
Richard’s decision to leave out gay
stereotypes, explicit sex and big issues
was intentional. And that was one thing
that drew the young New York actor
Sean Matic to the film. Sean plays the
Aussie escort Ian, the hunk on the
film’s poster. “This film’s main theme to
me is: be true to your heart,” Sean
says. “All four leads in the film get seriously screwed (no pun intended!) until
they can admit to themselves what they
truly want.”
As an up-and-coming straight actor, he
was glad there weren’t explicit sex
scenes. “I think any time sex and nudity
come up for unknown actors, the
response is: what do I want audiences
and the industry’s first impression of me
to be? If it had been about how much
fucking the director could squeeze on
screen, and not about the characters
and their struggles, I wouldn’t have
done it,” he says. “I had never kissed a
man, but once I got in Ian’s skin it was
the same as playing any romantic character.”
While filming Brokeback Mountain,
Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal had
similar feelings. “There are not actually
love scenes for the sake of doing a love
scene,” Heath says. “There are stories
within each of those moments. The fi rst
was very poignant because it had to be
rough, it had to be fighting. He was
almost ready to punch him. Once that all
settled it had to be this innate passionate
adrenaline. It just takes over him.”
Jake has a slightly different perspective:
“When it came to doing love scenes, we
were both like, ‘Are you ready? Yeah.
Let’s go!’ And we dove off the boat into
the deep end. We knew we had to consummate this somehow. It couldn’t just
be a story about friendship
because there’s a part of
two people connecting intimately, sexually, that drives that
intimacy through the years. In my opinion when you see the
movie, as soon as that happens, you’re like, ‘Okay, I’m here
now. I’m ready to see what’s going to happen.’ Or, ‘I’m out
of here. I’ll see you later.’ But either way it does knock you
into something.”
When a film focuses on the story and characters, rather
than the sex scenes, the most important thing is to develop
chemistry. “For Heath and I, it’s a friendship and a trust
that, as actors, we were going to go someplace that we
both were afraid of,” Jake says. “We just trusted each other
and I think, in that trust, there was a real connection. And
being straight, we didn’t have that complication that you
usually have when you’re working with a female. We knew,
at a certain point, we only had each other. Because we
never knew how people were going to respond to the
movie, we kind of just joined up and said, ‘Fuck ’em, let’s
go for it.’ And we did. And I think you probably see that.”
For Heath, the main challenge wasn’t the gay aspect of the
movie. “In fact, in this year I can’t understand why anyone
— agent, manager, publicist — would even question any
actor taking a gay role. I hate to call it “daring” or “brave”.
Firemen are daring and brave. I’m acting!” For him the main
challenge was to age 20 years and nail the accent. “As he
gets older, his voice gets deeper,” he says. “I had to go
“I think we’re slowly coming
around to recognising that
there’s more to being gay”
from 20-year-old to 40-year-old sounding voice in a
Midwestern American accent.”
For 200 American, Sean’s had to do the reverse accent. “It
was a challenge trying to pull off an Australian accent in a
short time without the luxury of a vocal coach. Luckily my
Londoner girlfriend had a good ear for it and helped me
out,” he says, adding that “she graciously points out all the
places I missed the mark!”
This is, of course, Ang Lee’s second gay movie after
1993’s superb The Wedding Banquet. “I do what’s truthful
to my feelings,” he says about both films. “I brought some
universal feelings, whether you’re gay or straight, about
love, about romance. I don’t squeeze the characters into
gay cinema. I put myself in the middle to try to make the
story work.”
And while Richard didn’t set out to become a ‘gay filmmaker’, he says he’s excited about having a voice in gay cinema. We’ve seen movies about issues like Aids and homophobia, and stories with a lot of camp value, and it’s all
good. But I think we’re slowly coming around to recognis ing that there’s more to being gay. I think we’re going to
see a lot of stories celebrating being gay in cinema, and I
can’t wait.”
Brokeback Mountain is on general release now.
200 American is out on DVD now through Millivres.
Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger), left, with Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), right, in Brokeback Mountain.
Smouldering rent-boy Tyler (Sean Matic), left, with high-powered advertising
agency director Conrad (Matt Walton), right, in 200 American
10
Scrap Book
200 AMERICAN is a
top seller for
WOLFE VIDEO.
In October of 2006 VANITY FAIR and
HUGO BOSS launched MOVE, a new documentary
produced by Richard LeMay and co-directed by
Jason Brown and LeMay. MOVE takes a look behind
the scenes as World renowned photographer
James Houston shoots the dancers of New York for a
global event dedicated to AIDS related charities
worldwide. MOVE was picked up by Pan-Asian MTV and
Fox-Tel Network in Australia as a cornerstone for World AIDS Day.
For more information on MOVE, check out www.moveforaids.com.
Richard’s producing credits
also include the feature
film WATER, starring
Idina Menzel (RENT, 2004 TONY award winner-Best Actress for her
role in WICKED), Michael Shannon (THE WOODSMAN, 8 MILE, SAVING
PRIVATE RYAN) and Shea Whigham (TIGERLAND, HEAD OF STATE).
The first stop on the festival tour brought Idina a Best Actress
award at the New York Film and Video Festival.
Whirlwind Photos
Sean (Bryan West) and Bobby (Alexis Suarez)
Sean (Bryan West), Bobby (Alexis Suarez), Desmond (Brad Anderson), JD (Desmond Dutcher)
and Mick (Mark Ford)
Whirlwind Photos
Drake (David Rudd) and Adam (Robbie Cain)
Desmond (Brad Anderson) and Louis (Michael Paternostro)