EPK - The Roomies

MONGREL STUDIOS PRESENTS
WRITTEN, DIRECTED AND EDITED BY
JARED YANEZ
PRODUCED BY
QUINN ALLAN AND JARED YANEZ
STARRING
QUINN ALLAN
GENO ROMO
KATIE MENTESANA
BENJAMIN FARMER
CARLY CARCIONE
114MIN | COLOR | HDV | 1.78:1 | STEREO | USA | 2011
theroomiesmovie.com
CONTACT
JARED YANEZ
jared@mongrelstudios.com
An under-employed and over-indulgent misfit aims
to turn his life around through sobriety and religion
while moving into the least supportive environment
for either: an apartment with his old high school
friends and indie band The Entropy All-Stars.
Matt Rua (Quinn Allan) – an under-employed, over-indulgent, 20-something
nothing—knows he’s no good. He knows that. How to change that is another
matter. Charging blindly into sobriety, chastity and Christianity seemed like
a good start. Moving in with his old high school friends Chase (Geno Romo)
and Leland (Benjamin Farmer) of belligerent indie band The Entropy All-Stars?
Probably less so. Matt finds himself drawing further away from his friends and
closer to Chase’s girlfriend, Irene (Katie Mentesana), while new temptations fill
the apartment and old resentments boil to the surface. And even as he struggles
to hold onto his new ideals and grow out from his friends’ image of him, he may
already have doomed more than just his salvation by snubbing the wrong woman
on his last night of debauchery.
Featuring a cast loaded with up-and-coming Portland talent and set to an eclectic
indie soundtrack, The Roomies is a bitterly comic drama about faith, friendship,
love, hope and all that falling apart.
In 2003, former high school rivals, misfits and filmmakers Jared Yanez and Quinn
Allan gradually built a friendship over their mutual passion for film, music, comics
and storytelling. Determined to continue making movies while scraping out a
living and grinding through college, Jared and Quinn formed Mongrel Studios
in Escondido, California as an outlet for their creative endeavors in all forms of
media. They’ve since produced several short films, comics, recordings and other
miscellanea released through mongrelstudios.com.
Mongrel Studios relocated to Portland, Oregon in the fall of 2008. That winter they
shot their first Oregon production, the absurdist web series Really Good Reason.
In February 2009, they began production on The Roomies, their first feature.
JARED YANEZ
I’m not too sure how to articulate what The Roomies means to me.
Making an independent feature film has been nearly a life-long
goal and it’s not often you get to cross one of those off your list.
Back in 2003, Quinn Allan and I practically built our friendship off
discussing the movies we were going to make. By the end of 2008
this was one of the few things that’d remained constant and after
both of us had moved up to Portland to find a new start for our own
respective reasons, not a hell of a lot else made sense but finally
making the feature.
The script was initially an attempt at mashing up the last few years of
my friends’ lives and mine and grinding them down into something
we could pack into under two hours. All the things I’d left behind
in California and all the things I dragged along with me in spite of
myself got scrambled in there and came out filtered through the
entirely new experience of our first Portland production.
This was only the second project we’d filmed in Oregon and the first
that didn’t take place entirely in my apartment. Nearly everybody I
know here, I know through making The Roomies. We were absurdly
lucky to meet such talented, supportive and dedicated people
throughout the production and I couldn’t be more grateful for
everybody on the cast and crew and what they brought to the movie.
Making The Roomies was how we made our home in Portland. It
means more to me than I feel capable of expressing intelligibly and I
hope others are able to get even half as much out of it.
QUINN ALLAN
When Jared approached me with the pitch for The Roomies, I quickly
saw the appeal. Here was a charming story about a guy who just
can’t get it right. It seemed an easily relatable story. The production
of The Roomies embodied the spirit of indie-filmmaking. Here was a
skeleton crew pooling together resources and managing to pull off
what usually requires a much larger budget to achieve. Most of the
crew served multiple roles and the cast always went the distance to
help make the production a success. Everybody involved, both cast
and crew, really believed in the idea of The Roomies. It attracted a
certain type of person who realized that it would be a lot of work up
front, but the payoff would be well worth it. For many of the actors,
this was their first time getting a larger role on screen.
The shoot was hectic but mostly on schedule. Having now been
involved in a couple more independently produced feature films,
I’m only more impressed with what we were able to achieve in The
Roomies with the limitations we had. I will always remember what
a blast it was making our first feature film. The final product is a
stunning success story of what can happen when a group of talented
and hard working people pull together and unite for one cause: the
love of filmmaking.
JARED YANEZ: I don’t remember much about 2008 ending other than knowing we’d be doing a feature next. Quinn Allan and I’d
been living in Portland for just a few months, we’d already shot a web series and it was time take the next step. The biggest obstacle
in the past had been my inability to write a feature that wasn’t too ambitious for us to produce ourselves, but after the last couple of
years living in various roommate situations it became clear what kind of story I should be focusing on.
A good deal of the script for The Roomies came out of mashing up things that happened to me and my friends over the last few years
and shaping them around a character I’d developed for two previous screenplays in entirely different genres.
When I first moved to Portland to look for a place, I stayed at my cousin Lance Page’s apartment. He was the only person I knew up
here and his roommate Westley Cornwell wound up becoming our director of photography. They let me crash on a mattress in the
living room by a wood stove with a long, distinctive chimney pipe. When I’d settled on the story for The Roomies, my first choice for a
location was that apartment. It turned out that Lance and Wes were moving out by June ‘09 so that wound up being our first deadline.
QUINN ALLAN: Having worked with Jared on numerous productions in the past, we quickly jumped into hashing out the roles we
would fill in production. It was clear that Jared was going to direct our first feature, so I was going to be a producer. This being our
first big feature film, I dove into making sure we were going about this in a professional and legal manner. I contacted the city, filed
permits, filled out applications, and got the ground work going on setting up our interviews with potential crew members, leading up
to our casting sessions. Pulling talent from the agency I was represented by at the time, we compiled a great cast of local actors and
production on The Roomies began.
JY: The casting process was ridiculously charmed from my perspective, but that might have something to do with Quinn having to do
all the grunt work on that end. The spooky part was meeting actors during the audition phase that were eerily perfect for their roles.
Geno Romo and Benjamin Farmer in particular felt like their characters Chase and Leland had just walked off the page. If it weren’t
so damned convenient I would’ve been freaked right out.
QA: I had a habit of showing up as the lead in our short films, usually because we were hard-pressed to find actors willing to work for
free. Around the time Jared was drafting his first version of the script, he sat me down and mentioned that as he got closer to locking
down the character of Matt Rua, he felt that I would be the right choice for the role. I was hesitant at first; I knew if I tried acting and
producing my plate would be that much more full. But I relented in the end and stepped up to star in my feature-length film debut.
JY: Lance moved out of the apartment before pre-production really got going but poor Wes and his girlfriend had to endure living in
both our primary shooting location and base of operations for most of the first half of ‘09. Lucky for us that Wes was fine with living
and breathing the movie for as long as wound up being necessary. He split his days working on our film and working at Henry’s 12th
Street Tavern, which he also managed to secure as a location for the movie.
Part of what makes shooting in Portland so appealing is how cool and supportive the local businesses are about filming in their
establishments. We also had great experiences with Uptown Billiards, Tiger Bar, Airplay Cafe, First Unitarian Church of Portland
and Mississippi Records.
QA: Jared maintained control over almost every area of production, at times re-drafting storyboards the morning before the shoot,
setting up equipment and lighting during the shoot, and going home at the end of the day to review footage and prepare all the
necessary arrangements for the next day’s shoot.
JY: Beth Good, a friend of ours from California who went through the same high school video program we did, used up all her
vacation time to fly over and act as our assistant director. Quinn and I had done enough short films together to delude ourselves into
thinking we could handle a feature without much trouble but having somebody as organized as Beth on our crew really saved our
butts on numerous occasions. When Beth’s vacation time was up and there was still a chunk of movie left to finish, our lead actress
and then-film student Katie Mentesana filled in as our second AD and kept us on track ‘til we made it across the finish line. Steve
Riddle rounded out our crew as the boom operator, key grip and pretty much anything else needed on the shoot. He biked across the
city and back every day of the production to help make this movie, which made it really hard for anybody else to complain about
the commute.
JY: We were remarkably fortunate to have such an amazing selection of independent music in the film. I really dig our soundtrack, I was
consistently shocked at the stuff that’d come our way and how much it fit for a given scene. I have the damnedest time trying to buy music
that I’ll want to listen to over and over again but when we did this movie it felt like an embarrassment of riches. We had contributions
from a diverse range of bands across the west coast, including some amazing local Portland bands (Archaeology, Fever, The Family
Gun), Washington bands (Sneaky Thieves, Nathan Wade and the Dark Pioneers, The Mona Reels), one amazing electronica artist all
the way in Johannesburg, South Africa ( João Orecchia) and a bunch of our buddies from southern California.
Alt-rap/electronica artist Jamaal Harley, rock musician Vanja James and Hylton Edingfield of psychedelic folk band Permanent Starlight
were all friends who just happened to have the right songs for the right scenes. My cousin Troy Page even provided some didgeridoo for
us. Didgeridoo. We recruited award-winning LA folk artist and friend Michael Mazochi for our original acoustic compositions and also
used my two favorite songs of his (“For And Of An Unborn Child” is one of my favorite songs, period). We first met up with him when he
recorded Quinn’s first album, “The Story of Elston Gunn,” which we also used a bit from to kick off the film.
One of my oldest friends and my current roommate (as of this writing), Andrew Parish, handled all the original electronic compositions for
the film, contributed my favorite song of his as well and also brought The Entropy All-Stars’ songs to life with his backing instrumentation.
Gilberto Martin Del Campo, the actor who plays Entropy All-Stars frontman Rey Dazzle, performed on all three original Entropy All-Stars
tracks and contributed one of his own songs as well, “Four Horsemen.” All of The Entropy All-Stars songs are about the end of the world so
it was some pretty nice luck that we cast a guy who already had one of those in his repertoire. (I provided the other two, as I had more than
a couple on the theme.)
QUINN ALLAN – Quinn began writing and directing his own short films at the age of 16. It was through an extensive
high school film program that Quinn first met Jared Yanez, the filmmaker he would later partner with on many
productions. After high school, the two formed Mongrel Studios and began producing their own work. Quinn began
acting with small roles, which gradually developed into leads and before long he’d develop an impressive portfolio
through his own productions. After moving to Portland, OR, Quinn starred in Mongrel Studios’ first feature-length film,
The Roomies. Following that production Quinn was offered the lead in another indie feature, Tandem Hearts. Since then
he has continued to appear in short films, commercials, documentaries, web series, and feature films. He is represented
by local talent agency Option Model and Media.
BENJAMIN FARMER – Born and raised in Salem, OR, Ben studied acting at The American Musical and Dramatic
Academy in New York City. After graduating, Ben returned to Oregon, migrating north to Portland where he has lived for
the past 3 years. Ben is signed with Arthouse Talent and Literary and has been heavily involved in the Portland film and
theater communities, appearing in various feature films, industrials, music videos, commercials and television roles,
including the sitcom pilot Nick Bradley Might Be An Alcoholic and TNT’s Leverage, as well as numerous Shakespeare and
musical theater productions. The Roomies marked Ben’s second feature film in Portland and he considers it one of the
best experiences during one of the best summers of his life thus far.
GENO ROMO – Geno Romo has been on the air for nearly 15 years, starting at a young age and evolving toward seeing
some of his dreams come true. With the acting bug hitting him in his childhood days and on into adulthood, Geno
has developed his acting abilities through building upon his life experience. In addition to The Roomies, Geno’s credits
include appearances on the TV show Leverage and feature films such as American Disciples, Terrible Angels and Rid of Me.
KATIE MENTESANA – Ever since Katie could remember she’s had the desire to be a film actress, although she didn’t
start her acting career until the spring of 2007 when she was cast as the lead in the suspenseful thriller Never Return.
This was a film that deepened her passion as an artist and her desire to become a more serious actor. In 2009 she won
the role of Irene in the film The Roomies. Since then Katie has been working on her bachelor’s degree in film studies
at Portland State University. For the past year she’s studied improvisations and Meisner with local instructors. She is
represented by Option Model and Media.
CARLY CARCIONE – Carly attended the University of Utah and studied theater in London. She moved to Portland
and, due to the failing job market, she found that she had plenty of free time to pursue acting. After answering an ad for
a local Indie Film called Miracle of the Widow she landed her first gig. She won the part of femme fatale Evelyn Hall in
The Roomies, shot a few commercials and webisodes and recently wrapped filming on a sci-fi movie entitled Ingenium.
She now juggles acting with full-time work at a local hospital and plans to maintain a presence in the ever-expanding
Portland Film Industry.
JARED YANEZ – Writer/Director/Editor/Producer
Jared studied film at Palomar Community College and San Diego State University. Since founding Mongrel Studios in
2003 with frequent collaborator Quinn Allan he’s made several short films, web comics (Orcakinder), websites, a web
series (Really Good Reason), some pictures, some music and some other stuff. The Roomies is Jared’s feature debut as a
writer, director, editor and producer.
WESTLEY CORNWELL – Director of Photography
Westley Cornwell studied at the Northwest Film Center. He is a film lover and a cool guy.
MICHAEL MAZOCHI – Composer
Michael Mazochi is an award-winning songwriter out of Los Angeles CA. He’s an all-around swell guy. As a writer,
musician, producer, and engineer Mazochi has released 3 solo records independently (as well as produced a handful of
records for other artists) and is preparing his 4th solo record in 2011.
ANDREW PARISH – Composer
Andy is a long time friend of director Jared Yanez. He has been involved in many Mongrel Studios productions, including
a starring role in one of their Most Notorious Online Videos. He currently lives in Portland, OR where he is earning a
graduate degree and working in many musical side projects.
STARRING (in order of appearance)
Quinn Allan
Tracy Conklin
Carly Carcione
Torrey Cornwell
Benjamin Farmer
Geno Romo
Krista Johnson
Jasmine Moon
Kim Bissett
Brian Bressler
Kim Howard
Laurel Buckley
Katie Mentesana
Gilberto Martin Del Campo
Philip De Lorenzo
Tiffany Forni
Bevin Victoria
Brian Elston
Lance Page
Autumn Phillips
Jeffrey Parsons
Cassie Windham
Jeremiah Benjamin
Peter David Connelly,
April Schief & Summer Schief
Roland
Matt Mascaro
Kim Page
Jaime Langton
Brandon
Lisa Mentesana
Tessa McCarter
Harrison Timothy Taunton
Dylan Rosemus
MATT RUA
THE PASTOR
EVELYN HALL
THE BARTENDER
LELAND BARNES
CHASE ULRICH
LADIES ROOM LADY
LANA (flashback girl #1)
LUNA (flashback girl #2)
GRANDPA MOSELY
BRITTANY MOSELY
GALA GERSHWIN
IRENE SILVESTRI
REY DAZZLE
SKIZ NOONAN
SASHA VENKMAN
JOANNA RUA
REGGIE PIERCE
MILO HENSON
GIRL AT THE BAR
GUY AT THE BAR
LENA (flashback girl #3)
LENA’S BOYFRIEND
THE MONA REELS
THE BARISTA
PAUL
THE BLUE LADY
CORI COLLINS
GALA’S FRIEND
MRS. MOSELY
VYRA MOSELY
LUKAS
BRAEDYN
BAR/PARTY CROWD
Peter “Happy” V. Apostal
Jaclyn Sorbets
Rosaline Worsley
Dominic Haulicek
Brandon Steinke
Christina Yahiro
CHURCH-GOERS
Leslie Bressler
Alexander C. Cohen
Wyeth Holman
Charles Rowell
Sarah Thornton
Mariela Brooks
Erin Harvey
Sean Jeronimo
Linda Sue Randolph
FLASHBACK BAR CROWD
Charlie Apple
Allison Brook
James Fitzgerald
Jeff Hammond
Andrew Karas
Ryan Long
Kevin Melhorn
Anthony Opett
William J Whelan
Anthony Argostino
Erica Eschman
Coleman Gociro
Aaron Johnson
Meg Lawson
Philip A Marshall
Douglas James
Sara Salas
Josh Zink
AIRPLAY CAFE CROWD
Malik K Alokpovi
Matt French
Stephen Marshall
Sara Palistino
Jackie Robertson
Rose St. Denis
Mark Tyler
Ramiro Flores
Andrew Gass
Matt McKeozie
Stefano Paparo
Andy Simon
Jourdan Sweeney
WRITTEN, DIRECTED AND EDITED BY
Jared Yanez
PRODUCED BY
Quinn Allan and Jared Yanez
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS
Beth Good
Katie Mentesana
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Westley Cornwell
GLIDECAM OPERATOR
Lance Page
BOOM/GRIP
Steven Riddle
SUPERVISING SOUND EDITOR / RE-RECORDING MIXER
Xandra Fehrman
SOUND DESIGN / DIALOGUE EDITING
Jillinda Palmer
RE-RECORDING MIXER
Aaron Levy
ORIGINAL MUSIC
Michael Mazochi
Andrew Parish
RECORDED AT
Todd AO
FEATURING ART BY
Kevin Dart and Chris Turnham of Fleet Street Scandal
SPECIAL THANKS
Tessa Sage
The Tiger Bar
Mississippi Records
Ms. McCarter
Joe Marler and Family
Uptown Billiards
Andy Simon
Airplay Cafe
©2011 Mongrel Studios llc
|
Philip A Marshall
Eric Isaacson
Tessa McCarter
Christina Yahiro
Kent Lewis
Henry’s
Patti Jagger
mongrelstudios.com
contact
jared yanez
jared@mongrelstudios.com
|
theroomiesmovie.com