Film Description:
Steven, Joseph, and Chris go through a series of misadventures during their first day on campus.
Film History:
Ah, the pilot episode. Man, do I hate this episode. Now only because of the content but because of the hell it put us through. It's amazing the episode was even finished. It was a long a shaky road and in the end content was sacrificed, sleep was lost, and some people probably got hurt.
When writing this first episode, I had higher hopes for it. It was a story starter but the content we had seemed funnier on paper then what we got in the final results. For instance, in the original script, we had this gross fat lunch lady walking around yelling out "Peas! Do we have any peas?!" during the scene where Chris was having a pee problem of his own. Instead we had to replace it with someone drinking out of a water fountain. It may seem simple, but I think it made a big difference for that scene. And some of the jokes I had hoped for fell flat in the end (this wasn't the fault of the actors).
Speaking of the water fountain scene, that almost didn't get done. Over half our extras didn't' show up. So, we had to pull people who were walking around campus, have them sign release forms, and then make them stand in a line. Michael Nodine actually played three different parts in that line scene by dressing up as different people (ah, movie magic). Also, the night we were filming this, some work study thing was going on in the office we were filming at. So we have people in the background. And so during this, some jackass (who will remain nameless) thought it was cute to pose and make faces at the camera. I didn't catch this until I started to edit the footage. So we had to go back and re-shoot that. During the same scene (yes, this scene was a bitch), we had a part where Chris looks over at someone who is engulfing a bottle of water. At first Erich Bartz was going to play this part. As I hit record and he started to do it, the battery went dead. So I ran over to the wall and plugged the camera in. However, Erich was was drenched, so I had to assume his role and do it myself. Other scheduling issues arose during the first day when it was snowing when we were going to shoot the outside scenes. Also, we forgot to shoot certain scenes for Chris during the beginning montage. So that tacked on an extra week for our film schedule.
When we finally got it all filmed, I scrambled to get it edited. We wanted to show the first episode on March 29th. On March 28th I stayed up all night slaving away over a hot computer monitor trying to piece the episode together. Editing obviously took longer then I first thought. So, after sleeping through some classes, I went and talked to Josh and we planned to show it the week after, thus April 5th became the new air date. However, it didn't end there. Due to computer issues, I was editing all the way up until April 4th. But the worst part of all was when Josh and I sat down to watch the final product and we both realized it was shit. With no other choice, we held our breaths and handed it to Jed (the person who ran the campus channel at the time).
The reaction from the audience was very mixed. Some people liked it, others weren't too thrilled with it. In the end, I'm just happy we got it done. The good thing is it led to 4 good episodes for the first season. And I'm sure many people who are reading this now did enjoy the episode, but you have to understand I'm very critical about my work.
Film Information:
Title: Roomies - Episode 1 - Season 1
Genre: Comedy
Released: April 5th, 2006
Director: Chad Troftgruben
Writers: Chad Troftgruben, Josh Nichols
Cast and Crew:
Bennett Gackle as Steven
Josh Nichols as Joseph
Ivan Mazala as Chris
Lydia Johnson as Erin
Amy Tichy as Kayla
Scott Rojic as The Stranger
Missy Maenle as Office Lady
Josh Wirtzfeld as The Teacher
Zach Tibor as Parking Lot Guy
Casey Neumiller as The Janitor
Chad Troftgruben as The Water Lover
Pramita Sen as Dorm Room Girl
Amanda Martin as Line Person #1
Wade Messer as Line Person #2
Michael Nodine as Line Person #3
Beth L. Hurt as Line Person #4
Erich Bartz as Line Person #5
Dustin Huber as Line Person #6
Josh Grinsteinner as Line Person #7
Brandon DeSanti as Officer Worker #1
Erica Reimers as Officer Worker #2
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wtf is this??
hardditchdiger 1 month ago
did i hear the nutcracker song? what the heck?!?!
08rachels 3 years ago
WTF jaja
dangerblondy 3 years ago