ABOUT THE MOVIE

THE KEYS TO THE CASTLE
We shot the film at a diner in Manhattan, on the corner of 28th and 7th. Gregg had approached the owner of the diner and (for a reasonable price) he had agreed to let us shoot there over the weekend, at night, since he would be closed anyway.

Gregg asked if he would be there to open and close the diner for us; he said no, he’d just give him the key. Which he did. So we had the keys to his business for the entire weekend, with essentially no supervision.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TOMORROW NIGHT?
We had originally planned to shoot the entire film in two nights – Friday night and Saturday night. By the middle of night on Saturday, it became clear we wouldn’t be able to finish before dawn. So we had to ask if our crew could work a third night. Some couldn’t, so Chris, the producer, found himself making phone calls Sunday morning to find additional crewpeople to work that very night.

WHO NEEDS A BED?
By night three of the shoot, Chris had gone at least 40 hours without sleep. So, during a lull in shooting he went out to Jason’s car and ended up sleeping there for almost two hours.

LOOK OUT! HE’S GOT A GUN!
When we went to a prop house to get a handgun for Gregg to use, the only one that looked right turned out to be a real gun. Although we swapped out the real barrel, we were always aware that we were in possession of an actual firearm. In addition, the cops in the film (who were all real cops) brought their own guns, which, of course, were also real. All of which seemed to heighten the tension just a bit during shooting…

A VOICE, A VOICE – MY KINGDOM FOR A VOICE.
We filmed the scene where Gregg comes back into the diner yelling and is confronted by the cops towards the middle of night two. After several takes of Gregg giving his all, he began to lose his voice. The problem only got worse through the rest of the night, and by the next day, he had almost completely lost his voice.

Which was a problem, as we were scheduled to film all the close-ups of his and Steven’s dialogue that night. But, fortunately, through a combination of tea, cough lozenges and throat spray, he managed to regain enough of his voice to do the scenes.