| By Fred Topel
In Theaters August 5
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If you think today’s movies just look like some dude with a camera decided to shoot a movie, get ready for My Date with Drew. Here, some dude literally got a camera from Circuit City (which he returned within 30 days) and shot a movie about trying to get a date with his childhood crush, Drew Barrymore. Brian Herzlinger felt that with no career structure in place for budding filmmakers, doing it himself (with the help of his college buddies) was the only step to take.
“We shot this home movie on a video camera that fits in the palm of your hand,” Herzlinger said. “We didn’t have a microphone, didn’t have lighting equipment, didn’t have a tripod. We cut the whole movie on a laptop computer, so if you have a story that you want to tell, then there’s no excuse to not do it.”
In chronicling his quest for a date, Herzlinger ran into a lot of cynics, many of whom appear in the film. Once the project concluded, the supporters began to overwhelm them. Take, for example, Bill D’Elia, the filmmaker who tells Herzlinger he’s afraid for moviegoers if he succeeds.
“Bill D’Elia was the first person to stand up and cheer at the very first screening of the movie. He’s a really good guy. He’s got his opinions but the thing is that he got the journey. That’s the same response we’ve had actually with audiences around the country who’ve seen the movie, where they come up and they feel inspired by our journey. They come up to me and say, ‘Thank you for making the movie, you’ve inspired me to follow my own lifelong dream.’ The movie is about me trying to get this dream date with Drew, but more than just whether or not I got the date, it’s about the journey, about the ride. And people identify with the quest because it’s a universal theme. Everybody’s had a crush on somebody that’s seemingly unattainable, that somebody that was on the poster in your bedroom wall growing up that you dreamed about meeting. Even Bill D’Elia I’m sure has that, so once they see it they love it.”
The inspiration came when Herzlinger appeared on a game show pilot and won $1100 when the answer to a question Drew Barrymore. Taking it as a sign, he set out on his mission, a time frame which included his own family reunion and the premiere of Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle,.
"We decided on a Friday to make the movie and we started shooting on Monday. It was a 30 day window. We decided to just go and do it and actually, it worked out great because I really wanted to get my family’s opinion. I wanted to get my friends that I grew up with in Jersey. I wanted to get all their opinions on what they thought about me getting this date with Drew. Coincidentally during the 30 days, we knew that the Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle premiere was going to be happening. That’s the one thing we knew that was happening for sure during our travels because we had no idea what was going to happen from day to day.”
The Charlie’s Angels sequel was two years ago, and it did not take two years to finish editing to the film. “We wound up going to do the film festival circuit because we wanted a distributor. It was a long road to get this movie sold and to get it into theaters. We turned down offers to turn this movie into an eight episode reality TV show. We turned down a lot of money to put this on television. Together, we really banded together and believed in our project enough to say, ‘No, this belongs in a theater, we cut it like a movie, it’s our dream to get this into theaters, we’re going to go for it.’”
Finally, DEJ Productions picked up the film, and Herzlinger’s career is on track. Ironically, his next project is producing a reality TV series tracking another person’s quest to make his lifelong dream come true within 30 days. Of course, they can’t call their show 30 Days now.
“What’s funny is Supersize Me, we were playing the festivals with that and nobody had heard of SuperSize Me when we started shooting our movie. It is very funny that the 30 Day policy really plays into ours and Morgan’s as well I guess.”
Herzlinger does have his eye on writing and directing feature films, particularly “the ones that Spielberg makes.” Yet, right now he still has no income. “All the money we got from the movie, we put right back into the movie to promote it and for the marketing, so it has to do well in the theaters for us to see something. And I wouldn’t change anything about this ride for any money amount. It’s been an amazing ride.”
My Date with Drew opens Friday. |
