I got these transcripts from the movie's web site > Olive-Juice Yes they are real!
Film Freak Show #1
(January 16, 1999)
LEO: Ken are you there, man?
KEN: Yes sir, hello
LEO: Hey, how ya doin' man?
KEN: How are you doin' Leo?
LEO: Good, I thank you for calling on this show, the show we're talking about tonight, to get you up to speed, is we're talking about actors and actresses and people in the industry who have not gotten their pot of gold yet. They're out there making it happen, and your one of those people right?
KEN: That is exactly it, and let me let you know that Nicholas is on the phone as well, Nicholas Karvounis.
LEO: O.K., Nicholas Karvounis, and tell me about Nicholas. Introduce him to the audience.
NICK: Yes, this is Nick speaking, we're both on. Were in Florida right now, calling you from across the country.
LEO: Yes. Now you guys have made an independent feature. A 35 mm. And the name of it is.. it's called….
NICK: It's called Olive Juice.
LEO: Olive Juice, right.
NICK: It's a romantic comedy, and we're actually shooting it in about 3 months.
LEO: O.k. now this is where I get excited for guys like you. Now you guys are definitely not rolling in dough, am I right?
NICK: We are not rolling in dough. We would like to be, but we are not.
LEO: So what do you have to give up for your vision?
NICK: Well, we're doing a lot actually, a lot of people go to finance their film and go the credit card route. They go so into debt with their credit cards, and you know we looked at that and said that's not realistic for us. We came up with this idea of holding a sweepstakes through out the nation, we have a website hooked up, where people are purchasing a postcard size version of our movie poster and a sweepstakes entry and in 3 months one grand prize winner will be chosen to win a speaking role in the film and also a Las Vegas getaway. So that's how we are beginning to raise the money for the film.
LEO: That's a great way of marketing.
KEN: I understand you've been looking for a speaking role in a film?
LEO: Uh lets see, I had one in Volcano but it was cut out, uh, but I'm still getting the residuals so life is good with that. Yeah, I have nothing to speak of as far as acting but sure I would. Listen, I want to know what this movie Olive Juice is about, and who wrote it and, oh, writer and director Ken Hastings. Oh, so whets it about man?
KEN: It's about, without revealing too much about the story, it is a romantic comedy, it's set in Orlando, written about Orlando, as Orlando, not Anywhere,USA, so we did a lot of stuff here for writing it. The actual story itself, without saying too much, lets just say it involves a great leading actor James Berlau, a great leading actress Leaghanne Wallace, and a lot of animals. Not to sound kinky, it's nothing kinky.
LEO: Now can you give me a little hint on why you guys went with the title Olive Juice? Does it have something to do with the story?
KEN: Yes, Olive Juice, if you remember from your childhood, olive juice are words that you would mouth to someone to say I love you.
LEO: No kidding, I never said that!
KEN: You never did that?
LEO: I never said Olive Juice and mouthed it like that, but that's cool!
NICK: Give it a shot, it looks exactly like it.
KEN: It gets you a lot of numbers Leo.
LEO: So you guys are currently filming? How long is the shoot?
NICK: The shoot is going to be about 4 and a half weeks. And we are looking to shoot in about 2 and a half months from now. So at this point the sweepstakes is the big thing that's happening for us. The people of Central Florida have already started entering. And the music, we already have bands from Central Florida sending in songs that they feel would be worthy of the film. We're taking a look at them and making the soundtrack and getting the music together way before the film is shot.
LEO: What a great idea, so hungry bands, and hungry moviemakers getting together.
NICK: Yeah, you've gotta do it. You've gotta come up with creative ways to make money, and I think we've come up with some creative things to do.
KEN: It takes up every hour of every day Leo, and if your not willing to commit that then your not going to be successful.
LEO: O.k., lets say you need a big chunk of money and it's not all going to come from the web, so how do you guys go about raising money? Are there just guys out there with millions who just want to get in the movie business?
NICK: There are people out there with millions, and I have to tell you we have sent out millions of proposals. You get all the rejection letters and you hope you get one or two out of the people that you sent them to who will call and send back what they think is helpful to the project. As well, we're going out in Orlando, any big festival here, any big event, and we'll have a booth set up and sell the postcards right there.
KEN: We're even advertising on movie screens too.
LEO: Wow. So in an audition or casting, what really ticks you guys off, something that actors do?
KEN: In an audition? Wow, just incompetence. Coming unprepared. I mean, we're independent filmmakers so when we had our auditions we weren't exactly the most experienced at it either. We had it as organized and professional as we could get it and then people would come to an audition where they are trying to bank on their performance for making them famous, they'd walk in with flip-flops and ripped jeans, and just unprepared. We even had people "diss" the sides from the script. That's a great way to get a part!
LEO: So being lazy, being a little pretentious, and being not involved and not prepared. So what are you guys looking for?
NICK: You know, it all depends on the role. Ken did have a vision of what he wanted for the lead actor and actress. I told him before we went in there that morning, " At least leave it open, cause you never know." Someone could come in there with different color hair, different face than what he's looking for, and the performance will just totally change the character into something he's not seen. I think the female lead we chose was not exactly what he was looking for. Once we settled down on the lead actress he decided it's perfect. It wasn't exactly what he was looking for, but it's something he's definitely happy with.
KEN: And the other thing that surprised me Leo were all these headshots we received in the mail. None of the people looked like their headshots in real life.
LEO: Right.
KEN: None of them.
LEO: Wow.
KEN: Some of the headshots looked like total beautiful people and a totally different person walked in.
LEO: (SCREAMS)
KEN: Exactly.
LEO: Guys, good luck to you. I hope we're doin' this face-to-face when you guys are out here doing the L.A. junket.
NICK: Of course, and thanks for the time and letting everyone know about this. Again, anyone who wants to check in and let us know check out the website. You can e-mail us as well. Let us know what you think.
LEO: Alright.
KEN: And Leo, not only do I intend to shoot this film, but I also intend to be the next person to date Gwynneth Paltrow.
LEO: Yeah! (clapping) Get in line baby!
KEN: Gwynneth and Kenneth in '99 baby!
LEO: Alright guys, much success to ya!
KEN: Thanks Leo.
NICK: Have a good one. •
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Film Freak Show #2
(March 27, 1999)
LEO- So you guys have a movie coming out.
NICK - yes we do
LEO- You guys are working on a movie called Olive Juice. This is really cool because you guys are not just like; "man it would be so great if we could you know like sometime make a movie." No, you guys are actually doing it. So tell me a little bit about Olive Juice.
NICK: We're giving it a shot. You know, we sat around for years with our friends saying," why aren't we making a movie?" and finally we decided lets just do it. So about eight months ago we got the script from our friend Ken Hastings who's a screenwriter in Florida and it's a great script. We said this is an independent film right here. It's a budget of under five hundred thousand dollars, and it's something we can do ourselves. Not a lot of special effects, it's a story film. It's about people, so you don't need the special effects for it to take off. We've been at it for about seven months now, developing it in pre-production and hopefully go into production in the next couple of months.
LEO: So what is the genre of the movie?
NICK: It's a romantic comedy, boy meets girl. Basically, the general story is a girl from Atlanta comes down to Orlando to visit her mom whose a little sick and while she's there the only person who cheers her up is a little pet shop owner and his pets that are in the store. He makes her laugh. It's a great romantic story.
LEO: Right on! You guys have a very unique way of raising money, and I think it's ingenious and the wave of the future. You guys were kind of on the foreground of this, go ahead and tell me briefly how you guys are soliciting this Olive Juice campaign.
ALEX: I think what you know is the first wave of what we are doing, and that's holding a sweepstakes. Right now it's nationwide, it started in Orlando, and what we're doing is giving a speaking role in the film and we're also giving away a trip to Las Vegas, air fare and hotel included. And what we're doing is selling movie postcards. It's a miniature of the actual movie poster, and by donating a few dollars to that you get the movie postcard and you get entered into the sweepstakes. It's only five dollars to enter, or if we should say enter, it's a donation, a five-dollar donation that will help us make the film. You can purchase as many as you want. The more times you enter the better your chances of winning. It's been selling really well. Especially in Orlando, because that's where the bulk of our advertising has been.
LEO: And how many does the Film Freak own of those little postcards?
ALEX: Five, that's correct then?
LEO: And who's that lovely young lady on the postcard?
ALEX: Leighanne Wallace. She is absolutely phenomenal. She was just in Wild America with Jonathan Taylor Thomas. She's a great actress; she has a great personality. We are really looking forward to having her on that film.
NICK: We went through about three days of auditions for the part of Michelle, which is the part Leighanne auditioned for. She was one of the last ones to come in and within five minutes all three of us, Ken, Alex and I knew she was perfect for the part. We're so happy with her.
ALEX: And the great part about it was, after all of these young women we were auditioning, she was the only one that come in with her dog. She didn't know anything about the film that the lead character was going to fall in love with a dog, but she had it there. It was almost like a sign.
LEO: A lot of actresses won't bring their agent to an audition.
ALEX: Well, I don't know about that.
LEO: I'm kidding. So when are we going to be able to see a finished cut of Olive Juice?
NICK: Well as an independent film things don't always go exactly as planned. We are hoping to have something finished by the end of the year. If not, about three months after that.
LEO: That's really cool though.
NICK: I'm just being realistic, you know.
LEO: Are you guys shooting in sequence, out of sequence. Well, obviously you're shooting out of sequence. What do you have left?
NICK: A lot of the stuff is interiors of a nightclub. That's the biggest scene to shoot. Obviously I've never shot a nightclub scene. Alex is actually the Director of Photography, he's never shot a night club scene either. We're not sure where to go with that, that's one of our man locations. That's where we are now.
LEO: So how long was it before you guys said, " hey, let's do it."
ALEX: We graduated in '94 from NYU.
NICK: Yeah, and we sat for three years doing our other career. Finally we said, look we've got these things sitting on the shelf, let's do something.
LEO; Now the big question. I'm going to be in the Florida area pretty soon.
ALEX: Is that right Leo?
LEO: And what part has been laid aside for me? Alex and Nick Karvounis you guys are now on the spot.
NICK: We are on the spot.
LEO: You've been on my show twice.
ALEX: That's right, you've been very good about that.
NICK: We've got two characters you could play pretty well. The opening scene has a great character whose purchasing a dog, it's a small part, it's about four minutes on screen, but it's the opening scene. It sets the tone for the entire movie.
LEO: I'll believe it when I get my script and my call time.
ALEX: There's DJ Naughty, the gay emcee. That's a great role in the movie.
NICK: Hey, you know, they say it's acting.
ALEX: Exactly
LEO: Uh, I like the dog buyer better.
ALEX: Let me tell you, that's a great opening scene. It's before the credits, before the music comes in, it's one of those scenes that you start in where the lights go down and the scene pops up.
LEO: Well, you know these guys will be on my show every week until Olive Juice gets made and makes a big splash. Alex and Nick, thank you for coming in.
NICK: Thank you Leo. •
