First: This film was written over a year before Phone Booth came out.

This is probably the most frustrating film I've ever worked on. We originally shot this in January '02. It didn't get finished until now, October '03 - and it's not OFFICIALLY finished at that! But I'm jumping the gun in the story.

The idea for the film originated from three different aspects: 1) all my friends and potential crew members were home for winter break, and it was an ample time to do a fairly ambitious project; 2) I wanted to do something in Boston, with a lot of running ala Run Lola Run; and 3) I wanted to do a joke of a student art film, with a combination of art school retention and Hollywood cheese. In the end, I came up with the idea of a guy of a guy getting a phone call seemingly at random from a pay phone, in which the caller orders him to retrieve a journal or his death will result. For some reason, everyone who reads the journal disappears. In the end, the protagonist reads the journal and suffers a similar fate.

Go watch the film. Done? Here's the explanation (I offer it because if I try and hide it, then it means I'm actually trying to pass this off as an art film, which it's not): it's all about metaphors. What is written in the journal? Nothing. What happens to people when they read the journal? They become nothing. The journal represents nothing, and throughout the film, people pursue this nothing until they ultimately become nothing themselves. This could be taken to mean many things. For example, the first man possessing the journal is reading a financial newspaper prior to the chase - money is just one type of this pursuit. The second character, the girl, hides in a church - perhaps religion is a second? The protagonist eventually succumbs to the pressure and reads the journal, and suffers a similar fate. The fact that others are pursuing this nothing has instilled the same desire in him to follow the crowd. One question remains: who is the weird guy in the suit who throws the journal away at the end? Me, I believe. The person attempting to save everyone else by warning them of the danger's of a life of pursuing nothing.

We filmed this on three freezing days in January, and our crew diminished accordingly. The first day, everyone was extremely excited to get to work. Spencer Slam, Austin Carr, and Conor Maguire all turned up for crew duties without complaint. Later that day, as everyone's fingers numbed through, we began having second thoughts about how much fun it all was. On day two, we had lost nearly everyone, and the third day was even worse. I don't blame them - I only showed up cuz it was my damn film.

Jack Phelps gives his most accomplished performance to date as the protagonist. Rob Southern is in this and does a great job as the first owner of the journal. Andrew is quite mysterious as the guy in the suit, and his now ex-girlfriend Ashley McCarthy was excellent in her role. At one point, an overly flamboyant gay guy came up to us and claimed that "she was no Barbara Streisand." I disagree.

Anyway, I began editing this as soon as I returned to school, but there was a problem. Since we had filmed in 16x9 widescreen, my computer capture card was having trouble interpreting the footage. I managed putting it all together in near finalized form when I realized there would be NO way I could get it off my computer, either to tape or simply to digital format. I got very depressed, and even more depressed when my computer crashed badly, taking all my data with it. Some months later, I began editing from the very beginning. Then my computer crashed YET AGAIN, and this caused me to become absolutely sick of the film. I dreaded the thought of working on it. It became the unfinished 3rd Rate project, and I was constantly hounded by all those who had contracted hypothermia on the shoot wondering when it would be finished.

Well, now equipped with a decent computer that probably won't crash, the film is finally nearing completion in it's 3rd edit. The only changes that need to be made is a few voice overs during key parts, and a new soundtrack. If you have been "featured" on the soundtrack and have a problem, drop a line and the song will be removed. Please don't sue! Seriously, I have no money!

This film is finally almost finished, and I'm very proud of it. On the other hand, I feel I've gotten a bit too close to it, and will really appreciate some time apart. Then I will be able to look at it with a more removed eye and decide whether it is as good as I hoped it would be. So far though, I think it is.

---Nick