Ode To My Brethren - Part 2 - Pre Production

Once satisfied with our story, Carey and I decided to share it with the actors/friends. We had chosen the real people that we wrote about to represent themselves. Donnie Deliva, was to play Dino, the lead role without a single word of dialogue. It wasn't that we didn't trust that he would learn his lines, although we know he has trouble reading, but we wanted the character to act without dialogue. It was an experiment in story telling as well. Something we both knew Donnie could pull off, drawing from his real life experiences and emotions. Donnie read the script and asked, "Where are my lines?" We then involved Kenny Sullivan , to play Kool-Aid, and Curtis Ali, to play Pappi. They both enjoyed the script and were anxious to get going on it. Peter MacGregor, playing Lil'Pete, was also interested in the script and excited about shooting. We asked my brother's son, Wayne Ashton, to play the boy in the cemetery. There were a few other roles written into the script, that eventually got cut out, do to no money, no time, and no locations.

The actors, my brother and I got together at my place and read through the script together. The reading went really well. We knew that we chose the right people for the job (considering we wrote it about them in their voices). The most common question asked after everyone had read it was, "What happened to Dino?" Everyone asked what was in the envelope, but most of all they wanted to know what was up with Dino and why he didn't talk. I was thrilled that everyone was asking questions. I really wanted this small script to allude to a much greater story, but not give those answers. My experiment was to make the audience an active participant in creating and furthering the story. When ever anyone asked the question, I would answer, "Whatever you think."

The next part was to shoot the bloody thing!