KICKING LIARS UNTIL THEY BLEED THE TRUTH
Founded in 2001 by outlaw filmmaker Richard O'Sullivan, Lost Colony Entertainment has quickly earned a reputation as perhaps the most controversial prodco in independent cinema.
"Our initial goal was to make a six million dollar film with a buncha twigs and yarn we found in the backyard," says O'Sullivan. "We had just lost our distribution deal, our financing, and our big-name stars...but we still thought we could pull off the impossible."
The funny thing is...they almost did.
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Flash back to a little over a decade earlier. O'Sullivan, just out of his teens, was working at a semi-automated radio station in Charlotte, North Carolina when the seeds for 'Radio Free Babylon' were planted in his mind.
"I had grown up in a small town, across the street from the guy who ran the local radio station, was best friends with his kid, and had a very clear idea--well, at least as clear as things get in my mind--as to what a radio station was supposed to be. A DJ sitting in a little booth, playing songs he or she liked, taking requests, and hopefully speaking the truth."
What O'Sullivan encountered when he began his radio career, however, was an eye-opener.
"I think the moment I realized I was just another brick in the wall was when they taught me how to spool the automation reels. I kinda felt like I was selling out. Like I was aiding Big Brother in his efforts to drain people's minds and individuality."
Just as Winston Smith had done in George Orwell's '1984,' O'Sullivan began writing unsafe thoughts in his journal, setting the stage for a screenplay that he would soon begin working on, initially entitled, 'Warren Peace.'
The script, in its rawest form, told the story of a renegade DJ, Adam Duffy, and his attempts to ward off a mind control plot by an evil corporation, who's secret ultimate goal was global totalitarianism.
"It was a lot different in the beginning. Most of the main characters were there but the situations and setting weren't the same. It hadn't yet taken on the layers that it later would nor had it become consumed by that all-out madness that it became noted for...but then again, neither had I."
In fact, it wasn't until O'Sullivan's own personal life got thrown into the abyss that the script truly began to morph. While living in a run-down dump with a bunch of cats (dubbed 'The Great Collective Kitty'), O'Sullivan entered into a strange and tumultuous romance with a young woman he now refers to only as 'The Teenage Kurdish Supermodel.'
"It was pretty messed-up right from the start. Just fire-in-the-hole, put-on-your-oxygen-masks, sound-the-alarms wrong. I mean, there isn't a single human being on this planet who would've taken one look at this girl and me and said, 'Hey, great idea for a coupling.' The whole thing was just...a bad plot twist."
But the relationship endured. Through breakups, reconciliations, and enough emotional turmoil to choke a soap opera writer, it chugged along like the little-train-that-could-even-though-it-probably-shouldn't and imbibed O'Sullivan with enough angst and introspection to fill a dozen screenplays.
"I really loved this girl. Like on a scale that wouldn't even allow logic or rational thought to intervene. We're talking walk-through-fire, crawl-across-broken-glass kinda stuff. So when all of that mojo started working itself into the script, it sorta livened things up a bit. I was miserable in my own life but for the first time ever, I knew I was creating great art."
The screenplay, redubbed "How to Suck the Brain of a President's Daughter," was finally ready to be shopped. The only question that remained was, 'What will Hollywood think?'
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"It's like 'Dude, Where's My Car?'"
Those words, spoken by the personal manager of a certain A-list actress, still ring in O'Sullivan's ears.
"It was obvious that she a) hadn't read the script, or b) woke up that morning with a massive head wound which robbed her of her basic comprehension skills...but either way, hey, no sweat, other fish in the sea."
Indeed. After a couple of years floating around L.A., 'How to Suck the Brain of a President's Daughter' became a bit of a cult favorite among some Hollywood insiders. It received strong coverage wherever it went and eventually landed attachments from an Emmy-winning director and three name stars.
"All the pieces were falling into place and it looked like things were 'a go' in early 2001."
Then it all fell apart. A distributor had to pull financing due to reasons not relating to the project and LCE was forced to scramble to hold things together.
"It was completely demoralizing, but nobody's fault really. It wasn't a situation where anybody said, 'Hey, I don't wanna make money. Let's sink something we've all been working hard on for years.' It was just one of those things that happen."
Almost a year-and-a-half went by. O'Sullivan and company--unable to restart the project inside the Hollywood system--grew antsy and decided finally that a movie about an outlaw should be made by outlaws, and thus set out to bring 'How to Suck' to life on a shoestring budget. No stars. No frills. Just independent filmmaking without a net.
But such an undertaking is wrought with compromise, and compromise can often take the form of a deal with the devil.
"We trusted people we shouldn't have trusted. Gave power to people who used it against us. Of course, the big lesson there is, you learn to only crawl into trenches with people you trust--or distrust the least--and make sure you always hold the cards on the important things."
Giving away too much power to a minority partner and a Line Production-for-hire company, the filmmakers soon found themselves the victims of an old-fashioned Hollywood hijacking...or at least an attempt at one.
"They held up our location agreements, our insurance, our footage, our props, our wardrobe, our equipment...everything. They even cost us our SAG contract. But we didn't fold. We went to the cops to get our physical property back and wouldn't give in to their blackmail demands."
Production, however, was suspended two weeks into shooting as LCE attempted, once again, to crawl from the wreckage and survey the damage.
"It was nuts. The whole thing was completely polluted. But then, when the smoke cleared, we finally figured out exactly who these people really were and what they were all about. They were running around sticking guns to the heads of producers, hadn't done one-third of what they had been paid up front to do, and had spent most of the pre-production period trying to sabotage us and start what they themselves called 'a mutiny' on the set."
LCE's attempts to rectify the matter took an unexpected twist when it was revealed that the minority partner partially responsible for the turmoil was actually a convicted criminal who had ratted out his old bosses in exchange for a life inside the Witness Protection Program.
"That's the craziest part about this. Here's a guy who should've been keeping a low profile but instead, he goes out, marries a Playboy model-turned-actress and starts pimping himself as a big-shot producer. Then he pulls a stunt like this and is surprised when people fight back."
'Fighting back,' however, is what landed O'Sullivan a visit from the FBI.
"That was the day that my last shred of faith in the U.S. government was shaken. The FBI shows up at our production offices, waving their badges around like Muldur and Scully, and we're thinking, 'Great, they're here to help.' No. They were there to give us a [verbal] 'cease and desist order,' to shut us up about their pet criminal."
O'Sullivan asked the FBI to put that 'cease and desist' into writing and they refused. He immediately contacted free speech groups, including the ACLU, who assured him that the moment the feds tried to enforce their 'order' that they would slap a lawsuit on the government agency so big it would have J. Edgar Hoover's head spinning in his grave.
"The whole thing was just...emotionally draining. All the legal shit, and the death threats, and the harassment. It was like, all the sudden, we had to fight the whole goddamn world at once. But we knew we were right--that we were justified--so our attitude was just like Adam Duffy's in the script. We were like, 'Fuck the world...if we can't save it, fuck it.' But we would've preferred to be back on the set."
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Lost Colony Entertainment got back to making movies in late 2002, when O'Sullivan directed a surreal look into a serial killer's mind called 'The Rejection Letters of Dan Lashley' (starring Jerla Gross and Aleksandra Plotnicki).
The script was written, interestingly enough, by a guy named Dan Lashley, an actor who had originally been cast by O'Sullivan in the role of Senator Mulch in 'How to Suck' (by that point rechristened 'Radio Free Babylon').
"That script was one of the bravest things I'd ever seen from a writer. I mean, the sheer audacity of it all. You've got a lead character who's this bigoted, psychotic, amoral asshole--a guy with absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever--and yet Danny not only writes the role for himself to play but gives the character his own real name. It was pure balls."
O'Sullivan followed up 'Rejection Letters' with 'Poor Sense of Direction' (starring Meredith Sause and Jerry Schuller), a highly-fictionalized retelling of a Sunday afternoon drive he took once with the Teenage Kurdish Supermodel.
"It was pretty true-to-life. I mean, no, she never actually shot me or left me to die by the side of the road or anything, but I think you get the overall gist of the carin' and sharin' by looking at that film."
O'Sullivan's latest work can be seen in Chapel Grove Films' 'Afterlife,' which will mark the directorial debut of 'Blood Bath' creator David W. Richardson. O'Sullivan worked on two drafts of the script, based upon an original story by Richardson, but isn't involved with the production of the film.
Most recently, O'Sullivan found himself in the middle of a new Hollywood rhubarb--the dreaded 'fake Angel spoiler script' fiasco--involving Harry Knowles of the website Ain't It Cool News.
"The story on that is simple. I was asked to submit a writing sample to a producer of an unsold pilot, who was looking for 'Joss Whedon-like' material. I wrote a spec script for 'Angel'--not to sell to Mutant Enemy but simply as a sample--and sent it to the aforementioned producer. It somehow got into the hands of the 'Buffy' spoiler sites, Knowles and his writers thought it was the 'Angel' season opener, and the next thing I know, I'm at the center of some sort of global controversy."
Which should certainly come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the exploits of Richard O'Sullivan and Lost Colony Entertainment.
Contact LCE at LostColonyRFB@aol.com
