Tag Archives: Reveille

2004, 2017, Comedy, Independent Film Production

Indie Comedy Film About Veterans Features Impressive Line-up Including Hollywood Legends Dick Van Dyke and Louis Gossett Jr.

May 30, 2017 Donovan Montierth Leave a comment

Summary

May 25^th, 2017 – Los Angeles: The film, “Capture The Flag”, about a Navy veteran (Dick Van Dyke) and an Army veteran (Louis Gossett Jr.) fighting over a flagpole in a retirement community recruit a group of ragtag US military vets to wage war against each other in a game that would give the winner the right to raise the flag every morning.

Twin Brothers Donovan and Adam Montierth team up with Producers Barry Van Dyke and Eric J. Adams to adapt the Emmy Award winning short film, “Reveille” into what they call their patriotic “Grumpy Old Men”. The film boasts an impressive ensemble that includes some of Hollywood’s great character actors, such as Barry Corbin, Paul Dooley, John Amos, and Rance Howard.

***

It feels like a natural progression to try and turn the Emmy Award winning short film, Reveille, into a feature film comedy. The twin brothers behind the veteran tribute are Adam and Donovan Montierth, and their company Brothers’ Ink Productions. The short film has also won awards at over 20 film festivals worldwide, as well as appearing on the Armed Forces Network and the Pentagon Channel. It’s touched a cord with audiences online as it’s become a viral sensation with over 10 million views.

In Capture the Flag, the playful banter, teasing and prank war that escalates into a paintball war game seems to fit the rivalry between different divisions of the US military well, and the bickering veterans degrading to childish behavior seems real and effective within the confines of their environment. Besides, it’s great fun.

“We felt that this was a movie that could find an audience and that people would connect with the heartfelt, comedic and patriotic tone of the screenplay.” Adam recently said. The twins soon realized that was true when they had the opportunity to have Barry Van Dyke see the short film and from there read the feature film screenplay, the twins were developing. He immediately felt a connection to Reveille and told the brothers that he wanted to help them get the film made.

It was just the spark the Indie film needed. “We’ve always been impressed with Barry and his work, so to have him come back with such a strong reaction helped validate the importance of the project to us.” Donovan goes on to say, “He immediately connected with the fun and heartfelt story.” So much so, that he shared the script with his Father, the legendary actor Dick Van Dyke. And Dick, having served himself in the Army Air Corp for two years from 1944-1945, immediately connected with the story and the characters. To the point where he surprised Barry by asking to play the lead role. Dick told Barry, “These are actor’s dream roles, I would love to play this part.”

Barry recalls that the response has been incredible. Everyone he’s introduced the project to has had a similar reaction. As a result, the team has been able to attach the Brother’s dream cast by adding Academy Award winning actor Louis Gossett Jr., and legendary character actors such as Barry Corbin, John Amos, Paul Dooley and Rance Howard.

They have been courting some excellent directors for the project, but are keeping their choices under wraps for now. Barry has, however, managed to pick up another Hollywood great by introducing the project to his friend stunt coordinator / second unit director, Allan Graf.

The team behind the production is very passionate about creating a film that realistically but thoughtfully depicts the lives of a handful of war veterans and that would stand as a tribute to all men and women who have ever served under the American flag.

This Memorial Day Weekend, if you would like to know how you can honor our vets and help to bring back the type of family comedy that could be seen on TV during many US patriotic holidays for years to come, please visit www.Film4Vets.com.

For press inquiries, please contact:

Donovan Montierth

Brothers’ Ink Productions

www.brothers-ink.com

Donovan@brothers-ink.com

602-578-5660

2004, Forgotten Films, Independent Film Production, Stories From Hollywood

James McEachin, Patriot

November 17, 2016 Donovan Montierth Leave a comment

I first met James McEachin when I worked for a marketing firm around 2002, called BookZone. I was an online marketing consultant for authors and publishers and one of my clients, turned out to be James McEachin. At that point, James was a retired actor…but I knew him as an independent author and publisher. He had written the books; Farewell to the Mockingbirds, The Heroin Factor, Pebbles in the Roadway, Say Goodnight to the Boys in Blue, and The Great Canis Lupis. We were helping him with his website and helping him with marketing his books online.

We would have several discussions a month and often found ourselves talking about his acting career. Being a big film buff and at-that-time, wannabe writer and director myself, I was very interested in his acting and writing career. He is most famous for his roles in movies such as Play Misty For Me, Buck and the Preacher, 2010, True Grit, The Undefeated and on TV in Tenafly, the Perry Mason Mysteries, The Rockford Files, First Monday and so, so much more.

I was interested in his Army career as well and at that time, my twin brother and I had decided that we wanted to showcase our abilities in writing and film, by directing and producing the proper short film to do so. But we didn’t want to just do any old film. Our grandfather had died some months before and we were tossing back and forth, an idea of doing some kind of tribute film, for him as an American Veteran. We wrote a script we liked, very short about 3 pages and so I mentioned this to James after we were talking about his service one day and he asked me to send it to him.

I did, and he literally flipped for it. He wanted to play the Army Veteran so badly in our short. I was thrilled. Very quickly after that all the pieces seemed to fall into place and that summer in July in 2004, we set to film what would become our signature film, Reveille, with him and David Huddleston as the Navy Veteran. It was a magical 4 days, even through what would be the hottest days of the year. David and James went home and told us, they didn’t give the project much thought after that.

We finished post on the film and then scheduled a small screening in Los Angeles for David and James. They both loved the film, but afterwards, James said something that proved prophetic later. He said, “I don’t think you know what you have here. This is a really powerful film.” I think he was right. Here we had a short film, a tribute to our grandfather, that we then decided to add a tribute to all people who had served…which was supposed to be a sample of our work. A short film that could establish our abilities, become a calling card to get us hired as filmmakers in Hollywood.

The film became so much more than that. I think James, more than any other person recognized that early on. He asked if he could put the film online…now this was in 2005, before “films” went online. We filmed the short in 35mm and back then they didn’t have digital transfers, or digital was still in it’s infancy. We told him that would be fine. He got the film digitized in low rez, because video still took up a lot of space and he found a place to put it. There was a new thing called Google Video. A pre-cursor to YouTube. He put it up there and it went viral before anyone really knew what viral was.

It took off! It started to get passed around like you wouldn’t believe. Now, Adam and I were still going the traditional route with this little film, in 2005 and 2006 we went to over 30 film festivals with it, submitted it to the Academy Awards…all while online, it was being shared. We found that it became quite the little hotcake…1 Million views, 2 Million views, 3 Million…it would top out the year in 2006 just over 4 Million views. We were flooded with requests to show the film at schools, churches, events, tributes, memorials, to the troops in Iraq, on the American Forces Network, on the Pentagon Channel…we were overwhelmed.

Now, on the side, James McEachin started to represent the film and his character in his own way. He reached back and embraced his military career and started to speak to large groups of people in uniform. He spoke about what it was to be a Veteran, have pride for the service and the flag. He became an inspiration to so many people. He wrote a monologue featuring the “Old Soldier” character and performed that in front of massive audiences all across the country. He released a patriotic CD. He even produced, directed and wrote an unofficial sequel to Reveille that also had David Huddleston reprising his Navy character. James McEachin had a great career in the Army, then as an actor, then as a novelist and now it all came back full circle and he was having his last career as an image of pride.

We salute you, James, and your wonderful service to your country, our little film, and especially to the men and women who all serve under one flag.

2013, Independent Film Production, Stories From Hollywood

Animatic, Effective Pitch and Pre-Vis Tool

August 10, 2016 Donovan Montierth Leave a comment

Traditional techniques for pre-production on anything intended to be filmed, such as a potential TV show or movie is simply to have a script or treatment of it. Nowadays, that’s just not enough to get people to see your vision behind a project and get excited about your potential production. In some cases, the project has to have more documentation, maybe a show bible if it’s a TV show or drawings for a movie. It’s the paintings of Ralph McQuarrie that got 20th Century Fox excited about Star Wars in 1976, for example.

An effective modern tool for pre-visualization is the animatic. This usually is done for pre-production on a film as a way to perfect the sequence in an inexpensive medium, rather than on real footage that can be very expensive to edit into a working piece of film. Storyboarding usually comes first as a visual tool. The storyboarding stage may be followed by simplified mock-ups called “animatics” to give a better idea of how the scene will look and feel with motion and timing. At its simplest, an animatic is a series of still images edited together and displayed in sequence with rough dialogue (i.e., scratch vocals) and/or rough soundtrack added to the sequence of still images (usually taken from a storyboard, for example this one below from the Towering Inferno — I show more in a blog post for Towering Inferno here) to test whether the sound and images are working effectively together.

Now, that’s where pre-production uses the tool, but recently the tool has become very handy as a “pitch” tool. If a writer wants to show a network, studio or production company the merits of their story, they could create a trailer, or pitch video as a way to get them excited about the script’s potential. Amazon Studios is one of the few studios who uses the new techniques very effectively. We wrote a version of a story a few years ago called, Zombies Vs. Gladiators that we were very proud of. It’s an action packed Zombie origin story set in the rise of the Roman Empire (click here to see the screenplay). Here is a simple animatic test we made to visualize a part of a storyboard we were working on for the script.

We also did a teaser trailer for the script which we liked very much and seemed to get the most favorable views and reviews from the readers and studio personnel that saw it, but it eventually was passed on and they never pursued it further. Here’s that if you would like to see it:

Over the years, we’ve also developed a lot of pre-vis videos and documents for a feature film we are still actively pursuing based on our Emmy- award winning short film Reveille, called Capture the Flag. We have information about that on our “In Development” page. We have a poster mock-up for example. But since the film is still being pitched actively, I can’t show you a lot of those materials (unless you’re an executive or producer then contact us on the contact us page and I will let you see more). But I can show you two small clips of animatics that we developed as a few more examples how the animatic tool can be effective in creating a simple visual, that once added with the proper music and dialogue by professional actors can be effective in getting people to read your script or bible. Now with that said, all levels of the pitch should be strong…good writing and strong follow through on a query letter, treatment, show bible, script, storyboard, animatic, trailer, and verbal pitch, is still crucial in order to be picked up.

2016, Independent Film Production, Stories From Hollywood

David Huddleston, Star of Reveille, Locker 13 RIP

August 5, 2016 Donovan Montierth Leave a comment

We met David when we were casting for our short film tribute to American vets, Reveille. We had originally cast Gordon Jump from WKRP in Cincinnati, but he had to drop out due to Pulmonary Fibrosis, which he eventually died of. We were very sad about Gordon, but was pleased when we got a hold of David over the phone. He was willing to consider the role on short notice and asked that we fax over the 3 page script. He told us initially that he would get back to us within the week, but called us back immediately after 5 minutes and accepted the role because he loved the script.

You see, David is an American Air Force Veteran. So the film had a special place in his heart…and I think it shows on screen. He became the heart of the film. See for yourself, if you haven’t had a chance to view the film: David Huddleston in Reveille, Veteran Film Tribute

Now, when we finished the film we showed it in a special screening just for David and James McEachin, who plays the Army Veteran. They both were incredible touched by the end result and later each of them told us that the film was one of the proudest moments they ever had as actors. We are extremely proud of that, and of them. They were the perfect representation to our tribute. James McEachin was also an American Army Veteran in real life and he spent the next 7 years playing the Old Army Soldier at patriotic events across the country in front of thousands of people.
When we produced our 1st feature film, we had the opportunity to work with David again for Locker 13, a supernatural thriller anthology. He played Floyd Marley, the leader of the Benevolent Byzantine Order of the Nobles of the Enigmatic Oracle, at a shady local lodge. He was great in the film and really stands out in the segment. Curtis Armstrong, from such movies as Revenge of the Nerds and Better Off Dead, jumped at the chance to work with him and played the role of Clifford. He had loved the actor since he was young and always wanted to work with him. He recently said in a tweet, “#RIP #DavidHuddleston. I once did a movie just so I could work with him. One of those actors who steals everything they’re in. Great actor.”

We couldn’t agree with you more, Curtis. David, you will be missed. We enjoyed every minute we shared with you.

1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1992, Comedy, Forgotten Films, Stunts

Terence Hill and Bud Spencer

May 24, 2016 Donovan Montierth Leave a comment

A successful screen pairing usually last for 3 or 4 films. Some of the really great pairings did 15 or more films together, but most of these were comedy teams, not just actors who would come together every so often and do a film together. Actors who did this that come to mind is Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, who did 10 movies together and Amy Poehler and Tina Fey, who’ve done 4 movies together so far. It’s unheard of that Terence Hill and Bud Spencer performed in 18 films together over their lifetimes! My brother wrote a great post on comedy teams here.

They appeared together in a movie for the first time in 1967 for God Forgives…I Don’t. The movie has many of the elements that made them a popular pairing over the years, being a spaghetti western and having them “buddy” up, but it wasn’t until they were featured in a comedy that they really became popular worldwide. This is, however, identified as a trilogy, as Terence Hill and Bud Spencer play the same characters Cat Stevens and Hutch Bessy again in Ace High (1968) and Boot Hill (1969) all directed by Guiseppi Colizzi. He would direct them one more time for the 1972 film, All The Way Boys, but it is not a western, but it’s a comedy and is considered a “Trinity” film.

You may be wondering what that means…it’s important to note that after awhile all the films they did together would be classified under one word, “Trinity”, to denote that the actors appeared together in a film, but was not necessarily a western. It could have been modern day, or in the past, but was always action, and mostly comedy. It became almost a genre of it’s own, their genre. It refers to their most popular film which came out in 1970, They Call Me Trinity, and really had all of the elements in place by then…comedy, action, fighting, buddy-buddy, some kind of clever con…it was all there. Billed as E.B. Clucher, the movie was directed by Enzo Barboni who has helmed a number of Terence Hill and Bud Spencer comedy collaborations. They are: They Call Me Trinity (1970), Trinity Is STILL My Name! (1971), Go For It! (1983), Crime Busters (1977) and Double Trouble (1984).

They did the movie Blackie the Pirate (1971) the same year they made the sequel Trinity is Still My Name!. By then the Trinity movie was a huge hit and they went back into production on the new one. While on the set they improvised a bit and started to play with the set and made up a few scenes on the spot. This would be a technique that Jackie Chan would utilize in many of his movies from the 80’s and 90’s and Hill and Spencer would continue with in their future films. You can see all of these things and how their fight scenes and comedy are used in very similar ways. In 1974 they released, Watch Out, We’re Mad and The Two Missionaries. Their next film, Crimebusters (1976) was the first movie that my brother and I saw and we loved them instantly. We went home within a short time caught up on all their movies. Little did we know back then that we would eventually work with a star from that movie, David Huddleston in our first film, Reveille and later in our movie, Locker 13. David Huddleston would also star in Go For It (1983). In 2004, when we first worked with him, he told us he was still very good friends with Terence Hill and Bud Spencer.

About this time, Hill and Spencer teamed up with a director also famous for spaghetti westerns to make a few of the modern day – non-western Trinty films. The director was Sergio Corbucci and the films were Trinity: Gambling For High Stakes (Odds and Evens) (1978) and Who Finds a Friend, Finds a Treasure (1981). To make things a little confusing, Sergio’s brother, Bruno Corbucci, also made several movies with Hill and Spencer and directed his last one Miami Cops in 1985. To make the connection between Hill-Spencer and Jackie Chan and “brothers” even closer, the film they made in 1984 Double Trouble and the film Chan made in 1992, Twin Dragons are very similar. They both feature all 3 of the actors playing a set of twins that get mixed up with another twin. One set of twins in both films are even musicians. Now over the years, Bud Spencer and Terence Hill felt a lot like brothers. In their last film together, they played brothers again in Troublemakers (The Night Before Christmas) in 1984, directed by Terence Hill himself.

2004, Comedy, Forgotten Films, Independent Film Production

Reveille, a Tribute Video to all Veterans

December 9, 2015 Donovan Montierth Leave a comment

In 2004, twin brothers Adam Montierth and Donovan Montierth along with writing partner, Jason Walters, wrote, produced and directed a little 35mm film that changed their lives. That film, which started out as a tribute to their grandfather, was called Reveille and starred film and American Forces Veteran’s David Huddleston and James McEachin. Reveille soon was screened at over 50 film festivals, winning over 20 awards and was shown on The Pentagon Channel and the American Forces Network. In 2007, it was viewed by the Armed Forces in Balad, Iraq, became a viral sensation by being viewed to over 5 million people on Google Video (before there was YouTube) and won the twins an Emmy Award.

Adam and Donovan spent the next few years trying to get a feature film based on Reveille produced called Capture the Flag. At one point, in 2008-2009, the film looked like it was finally going to be made, they had a $5 million dollar budget through a hedge fund and signed actors and Veteran’s James Garner and Louis Gossett Jr. The recession hit and the hedge fund withdrew the funds before they could start production and the film went into turnaround.

Brothers’ Ink Productions went on to make Locker 13 with Ricky Schroder and a slew of great actors and Capture the Flag w CTF Poster as eventually optioned by Sleeperwave Films and Producer Eric J. Adams. Eric is a producer, screenwriter, journalist and author. He wrote the script and produced (consulting) the feature film“Supremacy” (2015), starring Danny Glover and Joe Anderson, and he co-wrote and produced “Archie’s Final Project” (aka My Suicide) (2011). Archie’s Final Project won 21 major international film festival awards, including the Crystal Bear in Berlin.

Sleeperwave Films is still in development on the project but has already brought Producer Michael Birnbaum (Bandits, The Big White and John Tucker Must Die) and Director Jeremiah Chechik (Benny and Joon, Christmas Vacation, and The Avengers).

Reveille, the short film that started it all is now available on Facebook. Please share and like the film, as the more people that see the short film, the faster we can get the feature film made:

Posted by Reveille on Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Brothers' Ink Productions