TV is the New Reading

Former N.D. resident: For

$100, you can be in my movie

Writer and filmmaker Nathan Anderson, creator of NoDak Films, is seeking funding for an independent film project called “Last Summer for Boys.” For $100, you can be in shot.

Anderson is seeking $100 from 1,889 people – a number chosen not based on his estimated production costs, but because 1889 is the year North Dakota became a state, which seems pause-givingly arbitrary.

While contributors to the cause have a chance to audition for one of the 55 speaking parts in “Last Summer for Boys,” that audition process is open to everyone. What it does guarantee is an appearance as an extra somewhere in the film and credit as an associate producer.

The fact that there are 55 speaking roles suggests that the show is already written, although I haven’t seen an especially fleshed-out plot summary. The following is from Anderson’s blog entry at (nodakfilms.com) about a column by Ryan Bakken in the Feb. 18 Grand Forks Herald:

Mr. Bakken said: “Anderson’s script is about two childhood friends coming home to Plaza, one from the Twin Cities and one from Fargo. It will be shot in Plaza.”

Anderson’s response: “Two things: The script is not entirely about two childhood friends coming home to Plaza. Plaza is only one part of the script that maneuvers between other cities and other elements about the two friends and the people who surround them. Secondly, Plaza is not the only shooting location. We will shoot in Minot, Fargo, Ray, along Highway 83, along I-94, in Minneapolis, and perhaps other North Dakota locations.”

OK, well, that clears up a lot.

Gut feeling

I want to be happy about this project. I want to be ineffably positive about it. From his Web profile, Anderson seems like an idealistic young filmmaker, creatively driven and committed to this area and to his family. He said he created NoDak Films to highlight the positive aspects of North Dakota by using: “North Dakota individuals, topics, resources, funding, artists, musicians and land in the form of pseudo-fictional feature-length films.”

According to his Web site, Anderson has three goals: Make the films he's written, act as ambassador of and for North Dakota, and act as a North Dakota tour guide through the films he creates, which have local, national and international appeal.

One concern is the vagueness of the project, which could be good or could be irrepressibly drab and awful, depending entirely on Anderson’s writing, shooting and editing skills.

I’ll simply note for the record that a few other projects with North Dakota ties have been breathtakingly awful. Anderson himself argues that “Wooly Boys” missed the mark, and that the Coen Brothers’ “Fargo” highlighted every negative stereotype in the North Country.

Personally, I liked “Fargo.” And as my mother always told me, if you don’t have anything nice to say about “Van Hook,” don’t write a column about it.

Zillion things

So the summary of two friends who return to Plaza from Fargo and Minneapolis is itself perfectly meaningless to me. Sure, it’s got potential. Everything has potential. It’s the production and execution we’ve got no real window on. Because let’s face it: Anyone with a cellphone can call themselves a filmmaker. Anyone with a cellphone and a YouTube account can call themselves an auteur.

And honestly, anyone without either can call themselves both.

So with a good-weather shooting season of maybe eight to 10 weeks in this part of the world – and tossing in the contractually obligated coordination of nearly 2,000 people’s schedules – it’s a conservative estimate to conclude that something like a zillion things can go wrong – and that’s before we even mention production qualities.

Adding in that set of intangibles, the acting could be brilliant and the filming terrible. Or the filming wonderful and the story entirely incoherent. Or the acting, filming and story nothing short of brilliant, but funding shortfalls could limit distribution to 8-track cartridges in Bangladesh. Or it could hit a nationwide release to empty theaters for reasons ranging from crappy promotion to zero buzz to bad weather.

The sheer improbability of success is part of why the Bank of North Dakota declined. And who can blame them, after having to eat $1.66 million on “Wooly Boys” – a film that had some actual names attached to it.

Anderson does say in the production agreement that contributors – credited as associate producers – will get their money back if the film is never made.

No one is discussing what will happen when the film is a socko-boffo box office smash.

Probably because Midwesterners are, at their core, a reasonable and realistic people.

Personally, I wish him well. But until there’s more to be positive about, it’s hard to get too excited about this project.

Features Editor Terry J. Aman compiles the Best Bets for The Minot Daily News.

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