nido
tips for living a creative lifestyle
zine
our spotlight artist ...
Frank Cappello
He's passionate, confident, enthusiastic, and bursting with new ideas, and when you ask him about his latest project, "He Was A Quiet Man," his eyes light up like a kid at Christmas.
Who is he? He's writer, director, producer, musician, special effects wiz, and now independent film maker Frank Cappello, and while many people are just hearing about him for the first time, he's been paying his dues in the film industry for years.
It all started at the tender age of 12, when Frank absconded with his parents' Super 8 movie camera and started shooting everything in sight. The dream of making movies was put on hold for necessities like school and making a living, but by 1981 Frank realized he wasn't cut out for the 9-to-5 grind and launched his own special effects company, Frank's Garage Productions, in, what else--the garage of his St. Petersburg Florida home.
In 1982, Frank's Garage, now more than a one-man show, moved into their first studio, a 6000 sq ft Clearwater Florida warehouse, where they began a series of promotional and special effects projects, among them Tampa Bay Bandits football, Landmark Banks, miniature packages for city logos (Tampa, Washington DC, Indianapolis, Memphis, and Chattanooga), TV station logo packages, radio station TV ads, a General Electric trade show video, the AMC Theaters Midnight Movie Express campaigns, and a host of others.
Where do you get your ideas?
I'm always perplexed by that question because I find ideas to be the simplest part of the process. Just look around or turn on the TV and if you’re interested in humans, ten stories will present themselves every single day.
That's how it was six years ago when I was watching some news show and heard the unfortunate story of another depressed worker opening fire on his co-workers and then himself. Coward, I thought... taking the easy way out. Not like the rest of us that have to stay up here and keep making ends meet, keep plugging away with struggling relationships or failed fantasies. These crazed killers ended their problems by ending their lives. Simple. Efficient. But why take others with you, I thought? If you're depressed, why not just check out by yourself. I mean if you're a spiritual sort you could say you just condemned yourself to being with those you hated - forever. After all, you took them with you. What kind of person would do that? To others. To themselves...
I sat down and started to write. I was that man, the one loading the bullets, the one harboring that hatred for those around me. But when you're writing in a stream of conscious way, unexpected things happen and if you’re smart, you allow them to. So I did and in 20 minutes I had an 11-page short story about a potential killer being beaten to the punch by another disgruntled office drone. And since I'm not really a killer, my protagonist took a turn by taking out the competition and becoming the hero. Now no one would be able to ignore him any longer. That was the birth of Bob Maconel.
I showed those 11 pages to my teenage son -- "Cool story, Dad, what comes next?" So I e-mailed it to a few friends and got the same response --"What comes next?" A studio exec I know read it and was the first to prod -- "You should turn that into a full length script." Yeah, sure, but ...
What comes next?
I went off and wrote other screenplays but Bob Maconel wouldn't leave me alone. I started flushing out the story by pitching it to friends at parties and BBQ's... and finally, after a year I pitched it to my severest critics - my parents. Perennial Happy Ending enthusiasts, I awaited their response after my 20 minute pitch. My Dad spoke first.
"That's a very very interesting story, you should really write it."
That was the spark.
Fortunately, it was during the holiday break and no one was left to remind me of my other writing deadlines. So I took off and just wrote - as fast as I could and literally watched the story come alive on my laptop. A mere two weeks later I had the script that my agent stated to my utter astonishment - "Don't change one word."
The script ended up in Christian Slater's hands about a year later and although he expressed interest at that time, I had no production company that would risk the capital on a story without a traditional Hollywood ending.
I went off and continued to write for others but it seemed Bob Maconels were springing up every week on CNN. I couldn't let this story go. So one fateful day after reading that tiny little book, The Alchemist, I decided to roll the dice on myself. Once committed, the rest of the funding, a gifted producer, an incredible crew, and a host of terrific actors, including Mr. Slater, joined me on my path up the mountain. The journey had begun.
Starting out, they had five 35mm cameras with a 12-ft tall computerized Oxberry animation stand and a second homemade stand, as well as a 36-ft horizontal motion control rig with a robot camera and electronics that Frank designed and built himself.
In 1986, Frank was tasked with creating over 120 different visual effects for the film Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam, which Frank describes as "the first and worst 'Hey Vern' movie." Ever the optimist, he was undaunted when Variety listed it as "one of the worst films ever made."
By 1987, Frank was making so many business-related trips to L.A., he decided to move his operation there. It was there that he branched into writing, penning the screenplay for the 1991 film Suburban Commando, starring Hulk Hogan and Christopher Lloyd. He also wrote Dummies for Universal and The Seventh Sparrow, a project that was shut down by George W. Bush Sr's G-men (no lie!)
In 1993, he directed American Yakuza with Viggo Mortensen, a film-noir-inspired crime drama about an ex-FBI agent lured into the Japanese Yakuza. He also wrote and directed the sequel, No Way Back, in 1995 with Russell Crowe and Helen Slater.
In 1999, Frank did a 10-minute short entitled Easy as Pie to test the advances in home movie making, the shooting of DV and editing, and doing his own effects on computers. The project proved to him it was possible to shoot high quality footage and do all production work in-house. A lot of the lessons and effects learned during this project were used in the making of He Was A Quiet Man.
Additional screenwriting projects have included Ironclad, which fell apart when the producers couldn't secure their financing, and The Rain In Spain, written as a spec script that drew the attention of the industry and was eventually optioned by Miramax, who still considers it one of their prime properties. Blond Bomber, a female boxing movie in the tone of Coal Miner's Daughter, was written for Monticeeto pictures. Frozen, written for Sony Pictures, was a story where the bad guy crashes a plane into Times Square and another into the Washington Monument. The project was shelved when, the morning after writing the aforementioned scenes, Frank awoke to the horror of 9/11.
Frank did the final rewrite for the 2003 Michael Crichton-inspired movie, Timeline, but lost the writer's rights to it when arbitration couldn't determine what was actual script and what was Richard Donner-encouraged ad-libbing. One of Frank's most recognized projects was co-writing the script for the 2005 Warner Brothers comic book turned action/drama, Constantine, with Keanu Reeves and Rachel Weisz. In the same vein, Frank also adapted Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six video game for the big screen for Paramount, a project that is still being considered.
A never-produced pilot for NBC about Nascar racing, entitled Victory Lane, followed that, as well as The Man Who Could Cheat Death for Paramount, about how far a person would go to stay young, and Voices for New Regency, which is in active development for next year with Frank currently attached to it as director.
Frank's most recent project, He Was A Quiet Man, was inspired by a series of office and school shootings. Written in 2001, it took five years and his own money to finally reach fruition. As well as writing the screenplay, Frank also directed, co-produced, edited,did almost 100 special effects shots, and even composed and performed two songs for the movie.
So what makes a guy like Frank Cappello tick? We were wondering the same thing, so we asked him about his work and life in general.
NZ: What aspect of your work do enjoy the most?
Frank: Sleeping late.
NZ: If money was no object, what would be your dream project?
Frank: Making The Rain in Spain. It's my own script and it's locked away by the Weinstein brothers. And it's not about the money, but about those Big Shots not believing that I'm the guy to bring my own script to life. That story, based on real events, embodies everything I love about movies. Great characters, class struggles, and a tiny human story set against a giant backdrop. In a way, it's a throw-back to a more traditional style of storytelling, a place I knew we'd end up back to when special effects became so prevalent. When you can show anything your imagination can conceive, the only thing left to wow an audience is your story. Who knew ...
NZ: If you could live anywhere in the world, where would live and why?
Frank: My dream is to own a Pershing Deep Sea speed boat docked in Venice Italy and cruise the Mediterreanean. I'd visit the Greek Islands and hang out all over the French Riviera. I just love the light and feel of a foreign land and being the captain of a very fast boat would make me feel like some kind of modern day pirate. Of course, I'd have to have the right woman along--one with a zest for adventure and a very large, sharp sword.
For more information about Frank Cappello and/or He Was A Quiet Man, visit Frank's personal site, fcappello.com, or the official He Was A Quiet Man website.
Production shots from He Was A Quiet Man
(Click on thumbnails to open larger image)
