IT WAS the perfect road to
nowhere.
Flat fields stretching to the horizon, bisected by a curving strip of
asphalt.
Jonathan Friedman found this road out in rural Pungo, out past all the
strip malls and parking lots of suburban Virginia Beach. A grand place, he
figured, for a scene in his surreal comic film.
See, the heroes of his movie toss their lot in with a couple flashy
dames who turn out to be gun molls who knock over a store, and you know
it's not going to end up well for the heroes, who end up being tossed from
a convertible in their skivvies, in the dirt beside the road to nowhere.
He set up the shot, got the camera and crew out there a couple months
later, and discovered the wonder of nature.
``There was corn everywhere,'' said his brother and fellow filmmaker,
Matthew Friedman. ``No fields. Corn.''
They shot it anyway. A caper in the corn patch. Looked pretty good on
film, too.
A month later, they assembled the cast to go back and shoot a tiny
segment they'd missed, and what happened?
``No more corn,'' Jonathan said.
Who'd have thought?
In the beginning, there were the Marx brothers, turning out
madcap comedies. An eon later, the Coen brothers stepped in, creating sly,
satiric films.
Perhaps the time is right for the Friedman brothers. They've made their
own movie, ``Moving.'' They shot it right here in Hampton Roads --
``Look, isn't that the Oceana exit off I-264?!'' _ and it premieres
this weekend at an actual theater, the Roper Performing Arts Center in
downtown Norfolk.
``We're seeking fortune and glory,'' Matthew deadpanned.
``Yeah, that fortune and glory stuff,'' added Jonathan. ``Seriously, we
wanted to show what we can do. This is something we can show the film
festivals.''
``We wanted to have something to show the parole board, too,'' cracked
Matthew.
The Friedmans are actually pretty respectable. They live and work in
Virginia Beach's Great Neck area, in an airy home with little furniture
and lots of cool video equipment.
The brothers -- Jonathan is 29, Matthew is 28 -- have a graphic design
business, Marjoram Productions. They design book covers, including the
wildly popular ``Conversations with God'' series.
John McClung, a longtime local videographer, also works out of the
house; he worked extensively on ``Moving.''
Jonathan made his first movie as a kid at the Beach's First Colonial
High School. ``Thirty, 40 people showed up at my house for the premiere,''
he said. ``They were laughing, enjoying it, clapping. I loved it.''
Jonathan wrote part of the ``Moving'' script as a student at James
Madison University. Years later, he and Matthew decided to finish it, and
then began saving up. It cost $8,000 to shoot, and another $7,000 more in
film processing costs. The Friedmans' mom pitched in $500 to feed the cast
and crew.
``It was like nothing I've ever done. The time, the effort,'' Jonathan
said. ``It was the work of 100 people -- Honestly on a film crew, where
you'd have 100 people doing lights, camera, make-up, props, location
scouting, editing, sound work, sound effects, titles -- instead, you had
us. We really got in over our heads, but we learned.''
A fast-forward view of ``Moving'': Guy comes home and finds he
hasn't got a home. His house, and all his belongings are gone, except for
a rather grubby toothbrush. He grabs his best bud and the two men (actors
L. Derek Leonidoff and Terry Jernigan) hit the road in search of his
stuff, and perhaps ``stuff'' of a more ephemeral nature. The
Friedman brothers shot the film in summer of 2000. It was the
third-rainiest summer in Hampton Roads in more than 120 years. At least,
that's what it says on their Web site, www.whatismoving.com.
What can go wrong on a film? Besides the corn and the rain? Well, there
was the actress they cast as a prostitute, only to find out she was 14
years old. There were the actors who quit the night before their big flea
market action scene. There was the ticked-off woman who ran a lawn mower
in the yard adjoining a shoot. She mowed and mowed, and then she talked
another homeowner into mowing for another hour or so, just for spite.
``Don't forget the cops,'' Jonathan said.
``They showed up everywhere, every time we were shooting,'' Matthew
said. ``Even our neighbors called the cops. Then at the flea market, we
had a table full of props, and people kept trying to buy our stuff. Which
got even more confusing when one of the actors started bringing his
sculptures along and selling them.''
Cameras jammed, cars broke down, even the Dumpster truck had mechanical
problems. In fact, the only vehicle that worked every time was a junker of
a Chevette that the Friedmans bought for $200 to use in the film.
To get a couple Atlantic City shots, Jonathan drove up to New Jersey.
Of course, it rained. ``It was like we were cursed,'' he said.
In the end, they had a film.
``It's tough to believe,'' Matthew said, ``that people would place so
much faith in us.''
Reach Roberta T. Vowell at 446-2327 or rvowell@pilotonline.com