The team comes together

I had briefly met producer Kari Hollend a year or so prior to walking into her office.  Back then, at that first meeting, she wouldn't work with me. I wanted to make a film cast with a bunch of Canadian actors that had all won awards and blah blah blah , but nobody would recognize. Kari felt like she could get access to name talent and was only interested in making movies that people would actually want to watch:)

I knew I could whip up a documentary talking to the hordes of people that gush over what Hughes movies mean to them, but was faced with a pretty difficult challenge of how I'd get interviews with the stars of those films. Enter Kari Hollend.



When I walked into her office and pitched her the project she was visibly excited. But knowing that this would be a long undertaking, she hesitated, telling me that she would get back to me in a weeks time with an answer. I walked out of her office. She called me to tell me she was in before the next block.

Next came Lenny Panzer, a man who can recite every line of dialogue from every one of Hughes' films.



We had met earlier in the year to talk about writing our very own teen film. We knew that we wanted to make something as close to a Hughes film as possible and as far away from something like American Pie as we could...we got nowhere. This documentary, dissecting Hughes and his impact,  would be the perfect thing for us to forge together on.

Lastly came my uber creative best buddy Michael Facciolo. 



We had gone through a lot together (he crashed on my couch for a year) and we had promised each other that in the years to come we'd start our own production company together. We both would write. He would produce. I would direct. I already had some directing experience, but he was new to producing. I couldn't think of a better project to get his feet wet with and a better producer than Kari Hollend to work with. And besides, on a project where I would be on the road quite bit, why not have your best bud along for the ride.  Little did I know the hyginx that would insue (you'll read about them...).

And lastly there's me : 



I still regret wearing that pink shirt. John Hughes movies changed the way I looked at myself and the kind of films I wanted to make. I went into this project with a couple of short films, a very independent experimental feature film under my belt and experience shooting with the camera we would use. But zero experience making a doc. Oh, the lessons I would learn. 

So that's the team. We'd all be working together , through thick and thin, over the next 3+ years.



It had been about a day and a half before the four of us met in Kari's tiny office. Kari got on the phone to try and schedule our first interview. 

Within 30 minutes we had one with Ally Sheedy.

 -Matt