How an UNKNOWN FILM MAKER from Salinas, California

Teamed up So-called "Ordinary" People;

Co-Workers, Friends and Ne i ghbo r s f o r

ONE EXTRAORDINARY MOVIE!

INDIEêFILM INSIDERC O N F I D E N T I A L !

DANA B. LARRABEE’S

“M&M BOYZINTERNATIONAL”

Exclusive! on LINKEDIN Excerpts from the

forthcoming

TELL-ALL BOOK

by the FILM MAKER!

Takes You behind the scenes of

FIRST PIX OF THOSE "M&M BOYZ!"

Entire contents copyright 2015 by Dana B. Larrabee All rights reserved.

N O W I N P R O D U C T I O N !

Part One

STARRING: KYLE MORTON GABRIEL CORTÉS LARRY BOOKER KATHLEEN NOLAN WITH: MARK FRIDAY ADAM SILVER ROBERTO AMAYA-CHAVANA JEFFERY WILLIAMS

ART LOPEZ CRYSTAL CORPUZ DANIEL OKANEKU FELICIDAD JAMARILLO SAM LAIRD LAURIE MORENOEDWIN L. PLOWMAN LARRY FALLOON RON BROWN NELSON COOK, JR. AND INTRODUCING: GODZELDA T. REX

DANA B. LARRABEE’S

“M&M BOYZINTERNATIONAL”

FAITH-POWERED ROCK SCORE BY JEREMY LYLE - SOUND TRACK AVAILABLE from J-LYLE MUSIC A FILM BY DANA B. LARRABEE

T i l D e a t h D o U s A r t

“M &M BOYZ INTERNATIONAL”

DANA B. LARRABEE’S

KYLEMORTON

GABRIELCORTÉS

LARRYBOOKER

KATHLEENNOLAN

What happened

to them on

the way to

Hollywood...

"ACCIDENT POSTER" -DRAFT BY THE FILM MAKER 12-14

NOW IN PRODUCTION - TARGET RELEASE DATE: 12-2019One of several designs trying different layouts, ad copy and fonts. Frames at left show the “M&MBI” opening sequence which begins at a car show and ends in a wreck. For the O.R. scenes, I persuaded co-workers Tim Lowery and Juan Plascencia to don surgical masks and gowns, then filmed them from a loading dolly one lunch hour in the IT copier room where I worked at the time.

8 2015 by Dana B. Larrabee All rights reserved.

Kyle Morton as Teenage Mark Farraday (after "the accident")

Using as much of my 40-year-old footage of Mark Friday as possible seemed to me then like a cost-effective strategy, but was not without special challenges. First off, how do you transition from one actor filmed in 1971 to a completely different one forty-plus years later?

“What does that guy look like?” he asked. I showed him my pictures. “My next door neighbor looks like that. Even has that cleft in the chin.” Minutes later Art was introducing me to Kyle Morton and his mother, Julie. I took some test photos and explained to them the story (then working-titled “Alive in Pictures”). We began filming the “Dr. Gorey” premiere scenes the night before Halloween, 2008. For my “M&M Boyz” I rented tuxedos and purchased a black “Pachuco” hat and rubber monster hands for Gabe. Kyle’s face was hidden behind the blandly eerie mask I’d used in earlier scenes but with a new paint-job. First, we filmed by their premiere poster in the front yard, and then moved inside for the screening. Unfortunately, my film magazine jammed before I could

get Kyle unmasking. It was nearly a year before I could arrange another evening to complete that scene. When I called Julie to schedule it, she warned me Kyle had gained twenty pounds! I ordered his tux in a large, but that night when he and Gabe got into costume, something was wrong. The jacket and slacks made Kyle look even heavier, while Gabe’s had room enough to swim in. The tuxedo place got their sizes mixed up! It was closed by then, so we just made do. After prying her son into his undersized outfit and taking in Gabe’s with safety pins, Julie got Kyle made up, combed and adjusted his clean-cut ‘seventies style wig. Without any drama training, Kyle was anxious and found all this chaos distracting, but Julie kept him focused. She also had an eye for detail and continuity, and no qualms about offering suggestions. To encourage her

Like Mother,

LIKE SON...

Answer: borrow a TV soap-operatic device where the character has a disfiguring accident like a car wreck, and after a lengthy and heavily bandaged convalescence emerges with (Ta-daa!) the new face of an entirely different actor!

Kyle Morton was

born in Tri-Cities,

Washington in 1994, and was a

Freshman at Salinas

High in 2008 when

I Recruited Him for

the Role of Teenage

Monster Movie Maker

Mark Farraday in

"M&M Boyz International..."

The gimmick that would introduce Kyle as the “new” Mark Farraday was a switch on a scene right out of “Phantom of the Opera.” Following the Halloween night premiere of Mark and Migel’s second film, “An Evening with Dr. Gorey,” Mark would finally unmask in front of the audience. But a suitable location and children to react had to be found. My supervisor’s son, Art Lopez had three kids, and since they always decorated for Halloween, I went by their place to check it out. Art accepted my offer of compensation to film there on the spot. I also engaged his sons Christian and Julian to appear in the picture and help out on the set. I was still stuck for someone to replace Mark Friday, though, and explained my dilemma to Art.

pPre-production test photo of Kyle Morton taken in the fall of 2008.

Mark Friday in scenes from Larrabee’s unfinished “Cartoon

Kid,” tell the story up to the disfiguring car accident in “M&M

Boyz International.” q

INDIEêFILM INSIDERC O N F I D E N T I A L !

by Dana B. Larrabee

"Gabe and I Aways Had

A BALL ON THE SET.. ."

ongoing involvement, I offered her extra money to regularly serve as A.D. (Assistant Director), make-up and continuity person.

together, and he is a good friend to have.” Kyle enjoys camping, swimming, and like any other teenager, just hanging out with friends. Friday nights, he would play Mindcraft, Elder Scrolls, or Grand Theft Auto with Christian and Julian Lopez into the wee hours on his PlayStation. Getting him awake, breakfasted and on location by eleven the next morning could be challenging. And he was frequently yawning between takes and lethargic on the set. But when we did Mark’s “hippy days” scenes at Royal Oaks Park and I was setting up, Kyle was

zooming all around the picnic area, climbing trees, etc. Over time, he was less hyper-active, and that’s when he really started gaining weight. In less than a year, the callow youthful look I wanted for the role was gone. I went on with sequences as planned anyhow-- even the “hippy artist” scenes where he’s bare-chested and the poundage really shows. Then he began a series of jobs: vacuum

pJuie Morton helps her son Kyle into his instant ‘70’s hair-do for his first scenes in “M&M Boyz International.”

. . .a switch on a scene r ight out of "Phantom of the Opera!"

pArt Lopez as Migel’s father snaps PR pix of “M&M Boyz” Mark, Migel and friend posing by their “Dr. Gorey” premiere poster.

p Kyle Morton prepares for his unmasking scene. It’s inspired by the horror classic “Phantom of the Opera,” but with an unexpected twist!

t Gabe Cortés as Migel Bravo prepares to douse the lights while Kyle Morton as Mark Farraday threads up the 8mm projector for the premiere of “An Evening with Dr. Gorey.”

In those early sessions Kyle was uncomfortable in front of the camera, but when his first scenes came back from the lab, I was elated. The camera, as they say, “loved” him. I couldn’t screen my “camera original” film or afford a work print, so I gave them still photos taken during filming and made up a new poster with Kyle’s pictures and name prominently displayed so he could show friends and classmates. He liked that and began to look forward to performing. (Maybe it was the extra pocket money!) He became more relaxed, due in large measure to co-star, Gabriel Cortés, who has a patient way with young people. The two clicked on-screen and their “chemistry” was great, even though we were always filming on the fly with scant preparation or rehearsal time. “Gabe and I always had a ball on the set,” Kyle recalls. “We would joke around all the time, playing off each other. We worked great

SOMETHING WAS WRONG...

"Every Time We Got Together I t Was SOMETHING DIFFERENT.. ."

cleaner sales, recyclable sorter, and for many months, a picker for one of the valley growers. Co-workers called him “the White Mexican.” The growing season had to end before I could get him for the space ship and draft notice scenes with Gabe. But in December, 2012, when I finally did, we hardly recognized him, he’d lost so much weight!

Now I had scenes of him fat, lean-- and in between! I told myself the movie might actually benefit from the weight ups and downs. After all, in real life it’s an issue many deal with, yet such “weighty” plot elements seldom turn up in movies. I took a cue from one of my film making books and made it “the character’s problem,” not mine; and filmed new scenes to integrate Kyle’s ever-changing weight into the story. What could have been a continuity gaffe was now a special effect! Then there were hair issues! Suddenly Kyle wanted it long, down past his shoulders long. The look was perfect for Mark’s “hippy days” scenes after Migel’s death, so we shot those earlier than I planned. Months later, another news flash from Julie: “Kyle’s going out on job interviews. He’s cut his hair really short...” “A wig will fix that,” I said. The next day I hit the beauty shops and found one. The color wasn’t perfect, but our shoot was only a day away. Fortunately it looked fine on film. The post-car wreck scenes were fun for him, but messy. Migel comes to, finds “Chad,” the driver dead and then Mark all bloody, face down on the pavement. I splattered fake blood all over the curb, and in the gutter mixed up the blood with shredded paper and stewed tomatoes. Kyle had to lie face down in the stuff! He was really good about it except he couldn’t stop laughing! “Every time we got together, it was something different,” Kyle recalls. “My friends all say my being in this movie is so cool. It has taken a very long time to make, though. But I’ve had a blast doing it. And not just the acting. I loved being in on the special effects-- like the rocket launching. And climbing up on the roof to help make the smoke and sparks for the fire scenes-- that’s the really fun stuff! “And just goofing around between shots-- like before the fire scenes. There was this cactus near where we were filming-- all bent over, it looked just like a big penis. I stood over it like I was taking a pee. John, the ‘Rocket Man,’ saw me and was doing it too. Then my Mom took pictures on her cell phone. We couldn’t stop laughing!”

Just after the car crash; Kyle was laughing the whole time! q

tThe “business cut” revealed after wrapping a “hairy” M&MBI scene.

pKyle needs to “suck it in” for the camera

in one of Mark’s “hippy days” scenes.

pKyle’s first scene with the “longhair” wig: Migel interrupts the rocket assembly with the bad news-- he’s been drafted!

July 14, 2012-

For Adam's death scenes, I had

him lie down on the asphalt,

removed his sunglasses and

placed them close to the

camera. A few weeks

earlier, there'd been

a fender-bender near

work. I gathered up

shattered tail light

fragments from the

gutter and saved them

all in a shoe box.

When I brought out the box and strewed the car shards around, Adam was surprised I included such detail. Dabs of fake blood went on his forehead and a pool of it just ahead of him. I lay down in the road directly in front of him, my Bolex hand-held, resting on a bean-bag support. On cue Adam reaches out to an off-camera Migel, clutches at the air, gasps and expires. Adam “died great,” but he did have to be reminded to hold his breath ‘til I called “Cut!”

Up next were A.J.’s final scenes just after the accident. We see him through the legs of bystanders, bruised and shaken in a torn shirt and jeans. I made him up with burnt cork for scuffs and two shades of lipstick for fa-

The fake “blood pool” was placed

just ahead of Adam so he wouldn’t get

the sticky stuff on his face to eliminate time-

consuming clean-ups

between takes.

With his battered bike rescued by one of the bystanders, a “shaken” A.J. sits by the side of the road after the accident.

cial bruises. We filmed this curb-side on a nearby street with a weathered gray fence matching the Blanco Road accident site. “This will be easy,” I assured him. “No moving cars today! All you have to do is sit tight and

9. ADAM'S DEATH SCENE

and "A.J." REACTS!

The Saga of the $ILVER CAMARO

LINKEDIN

Exclusive!

look miserable.” Again, I asked him to think of that troubling “some-thing” when I called “action.” Adam, Ronnie and Ben stood in front of him as the bystand-ers, and I filmed A.J.’s last scene. He was wonderful! I was stowing my gear when he sud-denly began crying his

heart out. Adam couldn’t figure it. “What’s wrong, son? What’s the matter?” My ploy to get AJ to display his emotions worked too well. Whatever he recalled for the benefit of my scenes was truly painful. I felt bad, but Adam quickly comforted him and had A.J. back to his happy self in no time. I didn’t dwell on it. We needed to move on and re-group at Peninsula Auto Wreckers just north of Salinas for scenes of Adam during the crash where I’d filmed with Kyle and Rob-erto a few weeks before. I had Adam crawl into one of the wrecks, cut the wheel, shake and grimace, etc., while filming him through the shat-tered passenger window. I under-cranked at twelve frames per second, while spasmodically gyrating and jerking the camera to simulate the car being hit and banged around. The footage that came back from the lab of Kyle and Roberto where I first tried this “shaky-cam” technique was so spectacular, I wanted scenes of Adam with the same effect. so spectacular, I wanted scen

Larrabee mounts a

totalled automobile

preparing for “shaky-cam” scenes with

Kyle and Roberto.u

How the edited sequence will go

together. Co-workers Tim Lowery and Juan

Plascencia portray the two ER doctors. u

pAdam Silver in a “shaky-cam” scene for the the car wreck sequence in “M&M Boyz International.”

pBen Banek adjusts weeds in foreground for A.J.’s. accident reaction scenes while Larrabee composes the shot in his director’s ‘scope.

INDIEêFILM INSIDERC O N F I D E N T I A L !

Dana B. Larrabee grew up in Framingham, Mas-sachusetts, where in 1962, he began making short stop-motion films, graduat-ing from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1968. He enlisted in the U.S. Army, trained as a photolab tech at Fort Monmouth, N.J., before being sent to Korea where he met his future wife, and also purchased the 16mm Bolex camera used to film“M &M Boyz International.” From 1970-71 he served as an assistant film editor for CDCEC at Fort Ord, California. After discharge, he worked in a camera store until hiring on as a commercial cinematographer for Mon-terey’s KMST TV in 1973. With access to a 16mm film processor, he made the live-action shorts which became the core of his story about teenage film makers in “M&MBI.” Radio station KWAV was in the same building, and when their production director discovered Larrabee did character voices, he found a new source of income. “I’d leave KMST after souping their news film, trot down the hall to KWAV and voice some of their commercials. That’s also where I got my first shot at commercial copy writing.” He took film, journalism and business classes in sales, advertising and mar-keting nights at Monterey Peninsula College for the educational allowance on the G.I. bill. With the extra money, the couple bought a home in Salinas. And with the help of KMST co-worker Larry Falloon (who also appears in M&MBI), Larrabee built an anima-tion camera stand and started doing freelance ani-mation for local advertisers and even made a “demo reel” which unfortunately proved his undoing. “I pitched my animation service to one KMST ad-vertiser, and it got back to the station’s general man-ager. He was furious and fired my ass.” He took odd jobs-- including a stint at the Atlas Pawn Shop in Monterey (where he acquired the 16mm projector he still uses) and continued his free-lance animation until landing full time work in adver-tising for a local chain of carpet stores. When the in-store ad department folded in 1983, back he went to radio full-time-- first in sales, then as creative direc-tor for KTOM FM where he learned word processing on an old Apple 2E. It was then he developed the “Godzelda T. Rex” stories with ‘toon-style art in the manner of classic “cell animation” which appear in M&MBI as Mark Farraday’s creation. He left KTOM in 1991 for a position with the County of Monterey’s print shop as a graphic arts technician, typesetting and preparing camera-ready art work for reproduction. At age 61 in 2008, four years before retiring, Larrabee began work on“M & M Boyz International.”

Exclusive by Nathan Brent

1967, animating scenes from the elaborate

“Pinkertwins”stop-motion movie for his degree project while attending the Rhode

Island School of Design. u

pLarrabee directs the “beer binge” sequence in “M & M Boyz International.” At right: On the

miniature rocket launch pad set with Kyle Morton as Mark Farraday and model-maker John Landaker.

pWith Gabriel Cortés (left) who plays Migel Bravo and Larry Booker (center) at an M&MBI cast luncheon. Above, right: Larrabee’s “Original Cast” ‘toon.

About the Film Maker...

Editing the M&MBI rough cut on lunch hour.q

t Helping Jacob Jones with his “fire fighter” outfit.

tHigh school yearbook photo from 1964, the year Larrabee was making “An evening with Dr. Gorey,” clips from which appear in M&MBI.

August, 1995; the final coat of paint goes on the saucer built to illustrate a narrative about a

co-worker’s elaborate April Fool prank. Seventeen years later,

Larrabee worked it into a sequence for “M & M Boyz International.” u

p1975 at KMST TV, processing 16mm news film plus scenes for his short “The Sad Young Men,” part of the concluding sequence in M&MBI.

pFilming the artwork for a local BMW dealer’s TV commercial on his home-built animation camera stand.

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