Reel Life Translations
19th and Wilson broadens its scene spectrum to go beyond the everyday industry
By Brian Truitt
Courtesy of 19th + Wilson
It takes more than just fancy computer software and a high-tech video camera to be the next Martin Scorsese. And it’s that extra something that Eric Espejo believes will make his independent Northern Virginia film-production company a success.
Founded by Espejo’s friend and fellow IT person Aaron Goodmiller in 2001, 19th and Wilson, Inc., brought Espejo on a year later as vice president, and the collaboration has resulted in a number of acclaimed short films. Two, the Scorsese spoofs “TechFellas” and “The Department,” have already been online hits, and the latest, the romantic horror “Love Story of Henry and Carol,” has been entered in the 21st Virginia Film Festival, to be held later this month in Charlottesville.
Written and directed by Espejo, an Ashburn resident who works for Microsoft when not moonlighting as a filmmaker, “Henry and Carol” is about a woman who plays pranks on her husband until one proves fatal—or mostly fatal. It took one day and one night to film in a house in Loudoun County’s Stone Ridge with a local cast and crew.
“Writers always have a notebook full of ideas, and that was one of them that just kept calling out to me to get written,” said Espejo, 38, who said he never considered a life in film until joining 19th and Wilson. “I realized I could do this for a living. I’m spending 12 hours a day researching stuff, and I don’t mind.”
While he and Goodmiller have thus far established sturdier footing in comedic territory, Espejo, for one, dreams of doing a supernatural flick someday soon like one of his influences, M. Night Shyamalan. Which is why they’re currently trying to scrounge up money and investors to film the full-length feature “Ghosts Don’t Exist.” They’ve signed on Richmond’s James Mercurio as an executive producer, whom Espejo said he hopes will give them some extra credibility and momentum in collecting the $100,000 needed to greenlight the movie.
“Sometimes we even debate with shooting it for $50,000. What happens there, though, is you start to cut costs and have to find a really good crew for cheap,” said Espejo, who added that he recently had the chance to meet Scorsese at the Kennedy Center Honors.
So what is that key that takes an independent filmmaker to the directorial idol’s level?
“There’s a concrete answer to that question, and that is story,” Espejo said. “What makes you stand out is always the product. Whoever has the product, whoever has the story, is king. It’s story that separates the best and the rest.”
(October 2008)
Tags: Entertainment, film, Media