I'm Black And I'm Proud - Part 2 - Pre Production

I started talking to people about the production and opening up to a few trusted friends about what I wanted to do. It was actually very hard for me - exposing myself this way was a lot easier than getting drunk and whipping out my Cocker Spaniel! I had worked quite a bit on other peoples productions, but never asked people to work on something of my own. Probably the first person I asked, was a man who's name will add utter confusion to the story, but is so damn cool, Guinness Rider. I had recently met Guinness in a Director's Workshop with Roger Cardinal and had been the DOP on his short film, Three Million Yen. I asked him to be the first assistant director and all around go-to-guy! He was probably the first person I allowed to read the script and has since become my most trusted creative confidant.

The story is much the same as in the final product that you can see when you watch the film: Sweet Daddy having some trouble at home; taking a long lonely walk; running into a couple of guys and almost getting into a fight; but then he meets an old Irishman. He helps the old man and talks with him. The old man tells him to cheer up and gives him a "lucky" coin. Sweet Daddy starts flipping it, thanks the man, and continues on to the pub. He walks into the pub, it is completely empty. He meets and greets his friendly barman and offers him a challenge - flip the coin and the loser buys the pints. He flips the coin, it dances on the bar, and instantly the pub is full of patrons with pints of Guinness in their hands. Again, at this point the story continues as it does in the final product: Sweet Daddy meets a girl at the bar; also meets a big guy; and the girl disappears. In the script he flips his coin, is bumped by the big guy, loses the "lucky" coin and the girl. He sees she has walked off flipping the coin. He hurries after her and finds her trying to feed the coin into the nut machine. Sweet Daddy intercepts, gets his coin back and makes a formal introduction. "Hi, I'm Sweet Daddy, what's your name." She smiles, "Rockwell." He laughs, "I'm sure you do!" The big guy interrupts and wants to fight with Sweet Daddy. Sweet Daddy flips his coin high in the air, the big guy's eyes follow it, Sweet Daddy gives him a flurry of punches to no effect, catches the coin and the big guy turns into a wee leprechaun. Sweet Daddy taps him on the head, grabs the girl by the arm, and takes her onto the dance floor. The end!

I approached Rita Wong, a good friend and fellow bartender at McLean's to play the role of Rockwell. To my surprise she accepted. I wanted a friend of mine Sydney "Buddy" Langford to play the role of the big guy, but he was somewhere missing in action. I asked another friend, who shall remain nameless, who agreed, but eventually didn't show up on set that day. I asked aspecial little customer, Frank Dietrich, to play the leprechaun – he also agreed and didn't show up. I wanted another customer, Desmond Scanlon, to play the old Irishman, but he couldn't, so I ended up getting my brother to play the role and readapting it to be his wheel chair stuck in a train track that Sweet Daddy helps him with. My nephew, Jared Ashton, and Donnie Deliva agreed to play the two tough guys that run into Sweet Daddy. Kenny Sullivan agreed to the part of the bartender. Guinness had arranged to have a bunch of his friends hang out as extras and drink free pints. I got a couple of the girls from the pub to do the same.

The main actors and I rehearsed and went over the script multiple times. They were completely ready to film. I blocked out everything and storyboarded every detail I wanted. In doing so I knew exactly how the film would be edited. I planned on directing as well as shooting the film, and I was comfortable with both roles. I rented sound equipment and the technician also agreed to record for us. Guinness and I scheduled everything and planned for a one (long) day shoot - what could possibly go wrong?