fiscal sponsorship
Greenblood
TYPE: Narrative Feature
GENRE: Drama
STATUS: Completed
LOGLINE
An unlikely partnership is formed when an old school Northern California marijuana farmer and a young, undocumented Mexican worker team up to rob an ancient strain of Mayan weed from an illegal grow ran by unsavory characters deep in the hills.
SYNOPSIS
An old school pot farmer, struggling in the new age of legalized marijuana, helps an injured undocumented Mexican who's escaped an illegal grow with a bleeding stomach and a pocket full of pink weed. An unlikely partnership is formed and dangerous enemies created when the two team up to rob the young man's employers of their mythologicial marijuana strain, no one has ever seen let alone smoked, developed by the Mayans thousands of years ago with unrealised potential and power.
ARTISTIC STATEMENT
At its heart, the story of Greenblood is rooted in realism, so we’ll let it unfold in as natural a way as possible. The story does encompass a fantastical element of a mythological strain of marijuana that opens doors to the spirit world but this should also feel rooted in reality within this world. We want the audience to feel as if they are watching a potentially true story and to help with this, we want to capture the spirit of cinema verite. For the most part, we’ll rely on handheld camera both to bring the audience in close to the story and to save time and resources. We’ll be moving quickly to get our shots in thirty production days. There will be a handful of calculated camera movements which should have a powerful effect on the audience as they will be few and far between.
Matching the style and tone to the way the story is written is extremely important to our team of filmmakers. The group we’ve assembled to execute Greenblood will be essential in achieving what we want to capture during production in Northern California as well as how we put the film together in post production back in Los Angeles. We have the experience behind us to achieve our goals with this film on the budget we’ll have to work with. We’re ambitious but at the same time practical and realistic, knowing full well what is achievable with our collected resources.
Greenblood is set in Northern California’s Emerald Triangle at the start of harvest, early November. Every morning the hills are covered in low lying fog helping to create a very atmospheric setting for our true crime feeling narrative. Over half of the story's dialogue is in Spanish as several of the main characters are Mexican. Having Spanish speaking actors and crew will be essential. The story presents a backdrop to explore socio-political and humanitarian themes which our storytellers will not shy away from.
The hope is to capture the spirit of small town Northern California and all that it encapsulates while telling a compelling story full of intriguing characters, thoughtful themes, and stunning visuals.
KEY CREW
Beau Ballinger - Writer/Director
After graduating from Saint Mary’s College of California with a B.F.A in Performing Arts, Beau moved to the Philippines to work on several action and horror movies produced by Roger Corman. Beau was both an actor and producer on these projects and quickly learned the production ropes of Philippine genre films. He established his own production company, Thrilla Entertainment and lived in the Philippines for nearly five years working on over thirty productions, both local and foreign. Most recently Beau graduated with an MFA in screenwriting from The University of Austin Texas (2017) where he was nominated and a finalist for the Humanitas Prize for his spec screenplay, Transparent: Silent P. The community of filmmakers he is fortunate to be a part of are excited about the project and immensely supportive.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3008065/?ref_=nv_sr_1
Virginia Saenz McCarthy - Producer
Virginia has been working as a script supervisor for 25 years and has worked on over 36 projects in 7 states, with 30 feature films and 3 highly acclaimed television series (Netflix-13 Reasons Why, HBO-Looking, ABC-When We Rise) to her credit. Three of the feature films she worked on premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, including critically acclaimed In the Bedroom (nominated for 5 Oscars including Best Picture) and Fruitvale Station (Sundance Grand Jury Prize Winner). Virginia has worked side by side with some of the most accomplished filmmakers of our time: Woody Allen (Blue Jasmine, Irrational Man), Spike Lee (Livin’ Da Dream-NBA 2K), Todd Field (In the Bedroom, Little Children), Philip Kaufman (Hemingway and Gellhorn), Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station), Curtis Hanson / Michael Apted (Chasing Mavericks), and Billie August (55 Steps). In addition to her script supervising work, Virginia was the producer of Love,Concord - an independent feature film shot in the SF Bay Area (named one of the top 10 Latino films of 2012). As producer on Greenblood, Virginia will bring extensive production knowledge, skill and experience, as well as an extensive network of experienced San Francisco Bay Area crew and professionals to the project.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006529/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1
Carlo Mendoza - Director of Photography
Carlo worked on over 30 projects as cinematographer in the Philippines both in small indie productions seen by audiences across the globe in various film festivals as well as larger mainstream projects for local Filipino film and television. Carlo worked with some of the biggest names in Philippines cinema before deciding to apply to AFI's cinematography master's program where he got accepted and is now in his final semester. He's honed his craft the last two years, coming out of the internationally recognized program with a greater sense of story telling through lighting and camera movement, ready to help bring Greenblood to life and collaborate with the talented team being put together.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2744712/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1
http://www.carlomen.com/feature-films.html
Jorge Diaz - Producer/Casting
Jorge has been working in film and television since he was eleven years old as a child actor on Mexican telenovelas. He is known for his work on Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014), The 33 (2015) and The Long Road Home where he stars alongside Michael Kelly (House of Cards). Jorge is an incredible actor with deep roots in the Spanish speaking filmmaking and acting community. He's an invaluable member of the Greenblood team.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0246612/?ref_=nmbio_bio_nm
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