Tea Party (2006)
About

Tea Party started out as a Halloween themed project for my high school senior year media class in 2006.  At the time I was desperately trying to finish a project that was a year and a half in the making called Hitmen.  However due to haircuts, budget restraints and a faulty, overly cliched script, I never finished it.  So October rolled around and the requirements for the project were: create suspense and tension without dialogue. I called Leo (whom I had known from Sanford Maine Stage Company for years and who had just finished playing Mr. Boss in Hitmen) to play a creepy, childlike Old Man.  We hit the city and filmed a few scenes that turned out so well I asked my teacher, Jamie Anderson, if I could keep going with the film.  He told me to run with it.  Leo and I filmed Tea Party for roughly six months, writing and changing the story as we went. We hit many technical and physical problems (as every independent film does) including: weather, recasting the young man three times, money, continuity ...

and (my favorite) the young lady refusing to come back to set because "... The old guy who tied me to the chair sketched me out!" In the end, killing the Old Man was Leo's idea and worked out better than I ever could have imagined.  The final scene was (unlike the rest of the film) carefully crafted and symmetrically shot.  The film ended on a powerful note and whether you, as the audience, felt sympathy or dislike for the Old Man, you weren't bound to forget his journey soon.

Roughly a month later we submitted it to a film festival in Portland, Maine.  It received mixed emotions and a critique from a woman sitting in front of us who said to her girlfriend "I didn't like that one, it was too long and the old man was creepy!"

All in all I am proud to call Tea Party my first piece.  It was never, by any means, perfect, but it still holds its own and raises eyebrows every time it is watched.

Derek R. Brigham

Prior to actually partaking in Tea Party, I had watched some rough footage that Derek had shot for Hitmen and was impressed with his creative camera shots and ambitious nature.  For a young guy, Derek had it all going on.  From there it was easy for me to agree to play the "Old Man" in his school project.

I vividly remember day one on set when DB asked if I’d mind taking out my upper dentures for the film – a request that I readily agreed to.  It was all about creating a new look for me.  So I removed my dentures, donned some wire rimmed glasses and a trench coat and we were off and filming.  Six months later we had a finished product.

From that initial soiree we formed an unlikely team of a young, ambitious guy (Derek) and an older, grounded guy (me) which resulted in the formation of Gold Shoe Productions.  I believe that the differences in our age and approach to filmmaking create a perfect match as we fill in the blanks for each other.

Tea Party does have its flaws; but it is a project that I am gratified to have been a part of.  Incidentally, DB and I have talked on and off about the possibilities of tweaking Tea Party in a different direction so the ultimate climax of the film becomes an indictment on society.  Hey, you never know, it just may happen.

PEACE

Leo Lunser