Synopsis:
Through a fantastic blend of comic acting and innovative computer generated imagery (CGI), award-winning filmmaker Robert M. Young ("Dominick and Eugene," "Caught") has created HUMAN ERROR, a...
Through a fantastic blend of comic acting and innovative computer generated imagery (CGI), award-winning filmmaker Robert M. Young ("Dominick and Eugene," "Caught") has created HUMAN ERROR, a post-industrial, pre-apocalyptic, existential COMEDY based Richard Dresser's award-winning play "Below the Below". New York magazine critic John Simon called its inspiration, "Harold Pinter meets the Marx Brothers."
The film stars Xander Berkeley, Tom Bower and Robert Knott as three corporate slugs jockeying for position within a decaying multi-national conglomerate.
Dobbitt (Knott) is called away from his wife for an indeterminate but lengthy stint at the grungiest of third-world factories – an increasingly dangerous plant that produces toxins as it belches out its mysterious "Units" to meet the company’s quotas. Following a seemingly endless days’ journey to his new home, Dobbitt meets his new colleague and roommate-from-hell Hanrahan (Berkeley). While Dobbitt tries his hardest to please, Hanrahan is a caustic and bitter man who immediately questions the new arrival’s motives. The two report to Merkin (Bower), a petty and paranoid manager who ruthlessly pits his two subordinates against each other. In their own ways, the three "tango" for power within the company and in their dealings with each other, forming and breaking and reforming alliances along the way.
The genesis for the film began nearly seven years ago. Young was familiar with Dresser’s sensational work, voted the Play of the Year by the Wall Street Journal. It was then that Simon compared the comedy to a merging of one of the world’s most celebrated playwrights and the classic comic geniuses. This image always stuck in the director’s mind.
During this period, Young contacted his friend, Colorado-based producer Joel Ehrlich, who embraced a passion for the project that mirrored his own. They decided to work together to bring it to the big screen.
Along the way, there were some false starts. HUMAN ERROR was originally set up to be done in Puerto Rico at an abandoned oil refinery and an aged sugar processing plant with a completely different cast. For various reasons, mostly monetary and timing, the project kept getting postponed.
Unfortunately, the locations in Puerto Rico were so fantastic that the director was never willing to settle for anything less, no matter what Ehrlich proposed. Young had a particular vision and he wouldn't entertain anything that wasn't just as "fantastic."
Based just outside of Denver, Ehrlich was keenly aware of the technological revolution that has been taking place in the film industry. When the producer uncovered the digital possibilities in Colorado, he told Young that "we could recreate exactly what we had seen in Puerto Rico because we had a huge number of photographs that we could use as a basis for the CGI." They could scan in the images, turn them into 3-D and put the actors into that environment.
Young was skeptical. He had always worked with film and it didn’t matter that filmmakers such as George Lucas were embracing the new technology. He was having difficulty visualizing the high tech possibilities. As Ehrlich says, "It took many meetings and many consultations with the digital wizards to even get him to consider such a production design."
To the director’s credit, he was not totally closed to the idea if it was a way for him to get the look that he wanted. Interestingly, most of his skepticism was based on the notion that they were going to need to create an environment that was photo realistic to match the locations in Puerto Rico.
It was at this time that Young and Ehrlich went to see Bower, Berkeley and Knott in a performance of Pinter's "The Caretaker" in Los Angeles. During the second act of the play, both men realized that the three actors had an amazing and undeniable chemistry. They would be perfect for HUMAN ERROR.
They approached the actors who were predictably excited but, because of the many demands on their time, there was only a short window for their availability together. This was March, 2002 and everything had to be wrapped by July 15. That’s when the final production sprint began.
Young and Ehrlich worked with Dresser in locking the script. The film was prepped and set for production. Young quickly formed a crew, which included cinematographer Michael Barrow and production/costume designer Hilary Rosenfeld. Both Barrow and Rosenfeld had worked with Young on many occasions.
The movie was shot with the Panavision/Sony 900 HD camera, the same camera that Lucas used on his latest "Star Wars." Actually, during production, Lucas inquired about getting the camera back for his own work. But with such a short window, there was no way they could accommodate him.
Of the 32 shooting days, 30 were spent at the Comcast Digital Media Center in the Denver suburb of Littleton. It was there that Young and the three actors spent the bulk of their time shooting against blue and green screens. The budget and, most importantly, severe time constraints imposed by the actors schedules just didn’t allow for the construction of many sets. The other 2 days were spent running around the Denver area for the few real locations in the film.
Young and Ehrlich have spent more than a year in post-production. They built their own post-production facility under the direction of Chris Healer, an immensely talented computer graphics and systems innovator, who devised, implemented and supervised all of the CGI work. Since they were starting from scratch, they designed the facility without having to incorporate any "legacy" equipment or software. The result is an absolutely state-of-the-art operation that produces the highest quality graphics in high definition format.
The most exciting part of this adventure was somewhere in the post-production process when Young began to fully embrace the possibilities of the technology. He understood that being able to control and manipulate every pixel on the screen gave him the kind of visual latitude that he never had before in his filmmaking career. He suddenly realized that what is usually considered "background" could be made to be totally expressive of the story itself, thereby adding a new dimension -- another "character" that was never there to begin with, and there was no point in making the film photo realistic. He was able to free his imagination to soar into areas that could never have been realized before, such as the "Dobbitts Halucination" which was totally visualized in the director’s mind and then turned into reality in the lab.
The film also allowed Young to work with his three children. Andy Young, an award-winning documentary filmmaker, was the camera operator, and his two youngest sons, Nick and Zack, accomplished musicians who record under the name of A.I. They released an album on the Dreamworks label in 2002 and along with virtuoso keyboard artist Milen Kirov composed and performed all of the music for the film.
HUMAN ERROR was made using a new economic model. In part because of the short prep time, there wasn't the time to put a full financing package together. As a result, the film was made as a "joint venture" among all the participants including the theatrical distributor, New Deal Pictures, headed by Ehrlich and Hank Lightstone. As part of the "Denver Model," New Deal is proving that it is possible to produce high quality independent film in a cost effective way that permits the participants to realize a significant return. -- official site
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7/15/09
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