Last night was the final night of filming on my movie “No Clue”.  It was an amazing and surreal experience.  Very surreal actually.  I remember, plain as day, being a fat little kid sitting in the movie theatre back in my hometown, cramming popcorn into my fat little face and thinking “I want to make a movie some day.”  So here I am – a mere three (maybe four) decades later – having wrapped production of my very own movie, starring my very own fat little face!  Ok… not so little… but, my face!  And now that shooting is complete, I want to take a moment to thank all the other faces in the movie.

Firstly, Amy Smart came on board to play Kyra, the beautiful and mysterious damsel in distress.  Working with her was about as enjoyable an experience as I’ve ever had – fun, funny, razor sharp, and incredibly talented.  The HILARIOUS David Koechner stepped up to play my buddy Ernie, and he is (as always) equal parts loveable and hysterical.  David Cubitt came in to play the morally questionable businessman, Mr.Horn.  I have been a fan of his for many years, and when he agreed to do this, I was so thrilled.  Dan Payne brought his immense talent (and size) to the role of Church – a dark and dangerous individual. Dustin Milligan and Kirsten Prout rounded out the main cast, respectively playing a shifty computer game programmer and a spoiled little rich girl who is unaccustomed to not getting her way.  All their performances are flat-out fantastic!  There are also a number of other very talented and terrific actors who came on to do day roles (including a very hilarious cameo) and I am very grateful to them for lending their skills to this project.  Honestly, there isn’t a weak link in the bunch.  Although,… they say if you can’t see the patsy, you’re probably the patsy.  So there’s always the possibility the weak link is me… and I can live with that.

I also want to thank the incredible crew, led by the visionary director Carl Bessai.  The stuff they were able to pull off with limited resources is truly staggering.  The dailies look incredible.  You know what it looks like?…It looks like a damn good movie, that’s what it looks like!   Carl, you are one talented S.O.B.

I also want to thank everyone at Alliance and Myriad for their expertise, their support, and their faith.

Now the process of post-production begins: editing, colour correcting, marketing etc., all of which is also fun and enjoyable.  It will be at least a year until this thing hits the festivals and theatres (likely even a bit longer than that) but when it does, it’s my hope that I can appeal to all of you to help with getting word out about this film.  We won’t have the kind of advertising budget that the big Hollywood machines will have, so word of mouth is going to be hugely important.  When we have a trailer cut together, I’ll post a link to it on Twitter.  Please watch the trailer, and if you think the movie looks good, please tell folks about it, and pass the link on to as many people as possible.  If you think the movie looks horrible, then just pass the link on to people you hate.

Thanks for everything everybody.

Sincerely,

BB

The only real social media I participate in is Twitter, and I do enjoy it.  It’s easy, requires little commitment, and most people on there actually seem quite cool.    There’s the odd knob, sure, but you’re going to encounter some dim dorks in any environment, no reason to expect the internet to be any different.

Lately I’ve been posting some tweets about my upcoming movie “NO CLUE”.  Most of my Twitter followers are in the loop about this, because it’s something I’ve been working on (and talking about) for over two years now.  But there are also some newer folks who have just joined the discussion, and some of them have been asking “what’s No Clue?”  Well, Twitter isn’t the best place to try and explain anything because it only lets a person write 140 characters at a time.  So I thought I’d bang off a quick little blog post that explains what NO CLUE is.

NO CLUE is a feature film that I wrote and that my production company, Sparrow Media Co., is producing.  It’s an exciting time, because it’s the first film we’ve ever done – it’s always been TV up to now.  The process of getting the project from the page to the screen has been very tough and tricky, because making a feature film is a totally different animal than making a TV show.  Luckily, Sparrow’s VP and head of Business Affairs is Laura Lightbown, who just happens to be a really, really, really smart person.  She was able to navigate and juggle and negotiate and wrestle with all the various elements that need to be lined up in a very specific way so that it could all come together.  We started the process about three years ago, and we came close to closing the deal a few times, only to have it fall apart, and that was tough.  But ultimately, we got it done.  I learned a great deal from watching Laura work at this (and by asking her about 500 questions a day) and for that I will always be hugely grateful to her.  Thanks Laura! (She’ll never see this, because she doesn’t do “the Twitter thing”.)  Anyway, those who have been following me for awhile have heard me talk about this movie for some time – even saying that we were going to start shooting soon – but we never did.  I am happy to announce that it is now OFFICIAL.  NO CLUE is a go, and we begin shooting on Monday (Oct.15, 2012).

But, you may ask, what is NO CLUE about?  Well, if you want me to put a genre label on it, I’d have to say “comedic mystery thriller”.  It’s a comedy, for sure, but I wanted to write a script that wasn’t a zany or wacky comedy.  I wanted to write a real, honest-to-goodness, mystery thriller that just HAPPENS to be funny.  I’m a big fan of detective movies and mysteries in general, so I wanted to honour the genre in that way, and make a movie that would work even if it weren’t funny.  And then it happens to be funny because the main character is in a bit over his head.  That’s the plan, anyway.  We’ll see if it works.  We have put together an AMAZING cast, including Amy Smart, David Koechner, David Cubitt, Dustin Milligan, Dan Payne, and Kirsten Prout all bringing their skills to the project to help create a twisting and intriguing “whodunit”.  Oh,…and there’ll also be me, as the guy trying to figure the whole mess out.  We’ve also wrangled Carl Bessai to direct the film – a truly talented and visionary storyteller.

I can’t express how excited I am to finally start shooting NO CLUE, and I hope that when it hits the theatres you’ll all venture out of your warm homes to visit your local picture house to see it.  And if I can ask a favour of you, please TALK ABOUT IT with your friends and family and co-workers, to help create a bit of buzz around it.  Everything helps.  In the meantime, stay tuned to Twitter and join the BB BULLETINS mailing list on this website for updates, photos and videos from behind the scenes as we make an honest-to-goodness MOVIE!!!  Who knows?  If it does well, perhaps it will be the first in a string of movies.  At any rate, thanks so much for your ongoing support over the years.  It really means the world to me.

Sincerely,

Brent