American Rebellion - A Consuming Passion

I came up with the story of "American Rebellion" in September of this year, it was a "What if?" type of movie set in the late 1990's. The story is about a group of Americans called "American Liberty" fighting for independence from the British Empire in an alternative history. Instead of the USA getting it's independance in the 1700's it starts to in the 1990's. The two world superpowers are The British Empire and The German Empire in a world that both the USSR and USA do not exist.

The short film shows the arrest of Josh Franklin by the Royal Colonial Security Service, an organisation who police and control colonial life in the British Empire. Josh is taken to a detention centre in Boston where he is interogated by Major Steven Claymore for information about "American Liberty". I aim for the short to be dramatic and disturbing. The short film will hopefully lead to the making of a feature length version which I will start writing in February 2010.

Once I had done several drafts of the script (much to the annoyance of my partner in crime Paul Dolmen) We finally started the audition process for the short in October 2009. We decided to place an advertisement on Casting Call Pro and of course on our Facebook Group. In the space of 12 hours we had over 50 applicants in our mail box! Eventually we managed to narrow that down to 28 applicants and started auditions at VUE Fulham Broadway. By we I mean Paul Dolmen my 1st Assistant Director and Nikki Porscin my 2nd Assistant Director.

I have to say the standard of acting was very high and for the first time we had to do call backs on 10 actors for the roles of Josh Franklin and Major Steven Claymore. As I could not make my mind up on who to play the two pivotal roles in the short. In the call backs I was assisted in my decision process by Edward Mitchell a very talented actor who had worked with us on our short film "The Mayfly". We had decided to pair up the actors so we could see them interact with each other. After a three hour session I had cut the list further. After seeing the last candidates in Birmingham at the end of November I then made up my mind on who I wanted to make "American Rebellion" reality.

Once we had our actors the task of sourcing costumes started, so after searching the internet for hours I finally got my uniforms and military props sorted. I even had badges made for the uniforms of the "Royal Colonial Security Service". In December we also found the perfect location for the short in Wednesbury in the West Midlands. A large old municipal building which had been derelict for ten years with loads of atomsphere and I hope make the film stand out and be seen.