PRIMARY TECHNICAL CREW

Written, Produced & Directed By	Michael W. Mowery
Edited By	Michael W. Mowery
Filmed By	Michael W. Mowery, Ross Nilan, Shawn Neice

PRIMARY CAST

Simon Anderson	Ross Nilan
Cody Watson	Bryan Dietzman
Doug Delaney	Michael W. Mowery
Vicki Delaney	Kim Lackovitch
Jim Oslo	Bill Shute
MacKenzie	John Valkusky
Emma Delaney	Dawn Pivinski
Jaggar Phelps	Scott Wilkinson
Nicole Rutledge	Lisa O'Neal
Charlie Melbourne	Jeff Wilkinson
Sean Miller	Mark Concannon

 

Golden Roll Productions first attempt at a serious dramatic film received good reviews. Searching For A Glory is a film in which Michael W. Mowery has been working on ever since the completion of Buddy Boys: The Movie. Over three years of research went into the writing of this film.

The end result features three separate story lines. This has its advantages as well as its disadvantages. On the plus side, the film could tackle many different problems without burning out its actors. It's also a nice change of pace to see different stories interchanging with one another. On the down side, each story could not be developed as much as if it were the only plot line in the film. The project was filmed using a "soap opera" style to eliminate the problem of getting many people together at on time. The end results was some of Golden Roll Productions better moments.

The first story line features the jealousy of an overbearing girlfriend. In this story, Nicole (Lisa O'Neal) frames her boyfriend's best friends. She will proceed to break Simon's (Ross Nilan) roller blades and make it look as if MacKenzie (John Valkusky) and Sean (Mark Concannon) were really responsible. Nicole continuously sets up MacKenzie and Sean throughout their story and then talks trash about them to Simon. Simon in stereotypical relationship fashion, is blinded by the fact that his girlfriend could be so evil. Even though Simon never says it, the audience assumes that he will pass on the opportunity to attend State University because of Nicole. Simon finally see's the light after MacKenzie and Sean set up Nicole and deliver the evidence to Simon. Nicole then gets the boot as the friendship is restored and Simon goes off to college.

The second storyline is about the trouble of dealing with the death of a family member. Vicki Delaney (Kim Lackovitch) is a young impressionable teenager. She has also been a loner with only her big brother Doug (Michael W. Mowery) to rely on. Since the death of her father, Vicki suppresses her true feelings and blames her stepmother Emma (Dawn Pivinski) for everything that is wrong in her life. Vicki also begins to resent her brother when he makes it clear that he will be leaving home in order to attend State University. Vicki has a difficult time rationalizing the differences between the death of her father and her brother's leaving for college. Eventually, Vicki and Emma will work out their problems, freeing Doug of the burden of protecting Vicki all the time.

The final story line is about three men who decide to move in together down the shore. These men known as the tremendous trio are total opposites of each other. Jaggar (Scott Wilkinson) is virtually indescribable. Jim (Bill Shute) is a very strong minded, popular student athlete. Cody (Bryan Dietzman) is a family born rich kid who resents all of the material objects his family has. These three men form a unique bond and become the best of friends. Once they move in together, it becomes obvious, only to Jaggar that it was the wrong thing to do. They each begin to allow their true identities to come out. This will lead to total anarchy in the house. It will take the disappearance of Jaggar to unite Jim and Cody again as they search for their lost friend. The story ends with the trio making up, but Jaggar moving out in order to preserve their friendship.

This has become one of Golden Roll Productions proudest achievements. Searching for A Glory displays many solid qualities in which recent productions have failed to carry. Such qualities include depth character development, acting and even better filming. Also there was several potential storylines developed which gave the creators the option of using the best stories. Some of the storylines developed and not used were: teenage pregnancy and suicide.

For the first time, a film was created without major changes occurring in the script. Michael Mowery was determined to follow the script as close as to word to word after witnessing the disaster of the second Star Trek episode. Of course anyone involved in the industry on any level knows that script modifications are a fact of life. This film was no different. The one storyline that saw a change was the roommate story. In the script, Jim (Bill Shute) has a girlfriend named Leslie Donovan. Leslie would be the voice of reason in the story and she would give advice to the members of the trio as they deal with their problems. It would be determined that Leslie qualifies as an expert because she and her roommates went through the same thing last summer. Megan Dunn was casted in the role and was to make her film debut. The trio's story was filmed late in the summer. Since the men were having a hard time getting together, when they did, Megan was unavailable. The character of Leslie would not appear on screen, but her character remained through dialogue so that she could be added at a later time. Unfortunately, Megan would never film a single scene. The producers made a second attempt at restore the character to film as they contacted Kasey Kiser. Kiser a local girl first appeared on a GRP set during the sound and light checks of T.P. Headquarters for Buddy Boys: The Movie. Footage of this will be seen in the Special Edition Buddy Boys: The Franchise DVD. Unfortunately, Kasey was not able to appear on such short notice so the producers again had to think about other casting options.

As a result of Megan's unavailability, a good scene between Leslie and Jim on the beach had to be cut. The scene was at the end of the film where Jim realizes that without Leslie's input, the trio would still be fighting. Deep down, Jim knows that Cody and Jaggar are all he has and he has Leslie to thank for keeping them together. Another scene that was cut as a result of the Leslie character being cut was the finding Jaggar on the beach scene. Originally, Leslie and her friend Kristen find Jaggar and he in turn runs away from them. As a result of this change, another scene was reworked. The scene where Cody comes yelling that he found Jaggar was originally written for the girls to deliver the news.

Another direct change resulting from the Leslie Donovan character being changed was that the supporting role of Kristen was totally omitted. Tiffany Gehman was originally casted in the role. She was dropped in favor of Jessica Huffman because Huffman's schedule was more flexible. When Megan Dunn couldn't make the shooting schedule, Jessica was actually considered for the Leslie role. Unfortunately she was only available for a few hours the day the shore scenes were shot. Based on her time restraints, it was decide that Leslie would be omitted from the film and retained only in dialogue after all. The Kristen character was created to help give the Cody character some depth. One scene eventually cut from the film had Kristen and Cody sharing a tender moment the morning after Jaggar and the guys talked out their problems. Since Kristen was cut, it was decide to let Cody do the cross over scenes to help out his character.

The one character who went under considerable changes and casting was the role of Jaggar. Originally the role was to be a stuck on himself ladies man. The script called for Jaggar to hit on Leslie when she first showed up. She would blow him off in favor of Jim. Chad Damiani was slated to play the role. Chad took a job in Philadelphia and could no longer be available for filming. A replacement was desperately needed. The next choice was Billy Cahill. His work schedule dominated the shooting schedule and it was determined that he could not play the role. He was impressive enough that writer Michael Mowery added lines to the party scenes and gave Cahill a speaking role as an extra named Jake. Rob Aitken, Tom McCarthy, Nick Troiano and Ollie Sabitsana (who was seen as the beach bum) were all considered and passed on before the role was finally granted to Scott Wilkinson. The big knock on Wilkinson (who was great in Star Wars) was that he was less than adequate as the bartender in the Star Trek Series. The Producer was concerned that he wouldn't take the role seriously and the Jaggar role was extremely important to the script. Wilkinsons' performance couldn't have been better and as a result, his interpretation of Jaggar was one of the films and Golden Roll Productions most notable characters.

The relationship storyline was probably the best developed of the three. It also had it's share of set backs as well. The biggest problem was that John Valkusky who landed the role of MacKenzie based on his one time cameo performance in Star Trek, walked off the set before filming was complete. Although he had filmed the majority of his scenes, he was still missing a few important ones. One scene that was eventually cut was when MacKenzie and Sean would follow Nicole around to set her up for framing them. Another scene originally written for MacKenzie was when Nicole is being filmed letting the air out of Simon's tires. As a result of Valkusky's departure, Brian McCallion's role was increased during the party clean up scene. He was the extra thrown in the pool. The character of Sean was then giving the lines at the end of the scene.

Even though Sean Niece went unaccredited (he does receive credited in the updated version) as a camera operator, he was largely responsible for the filming of the Delaney storyline. Dawn Pivinski and Kim Lackovitch made their film debuts here. Ironically neither of them were originally casted. The sister was going to be played by Shannon Vail and the mother by Carrie Lane. When Shannon didn't show, Ross Nilan crossed dressed to play the role. That can be seen in the bloopers reel. After these set backs, Mowery decided to recast the roles and now pleased that he did.

The idea of allowing character's from the different story lines to interact was written so that their could be some continuity of time line in the film. Cody, Doug and Simon were chosen for these scenes. The final result is the dramatic scene when each character describes their individual situations and say the moral of the film. Yes the graduation footage was the actual high school graduation of Michael Mowery, Bill Shute, Bryan Dietzman, Scott Wilkinson, and Ross Nilan.