Three student filmmakers premier their second movie
The movie business is full of brothers.
For example, Andy and Larry Wachowski directed “The Matrix” and “The Matrix Reloaded” and Keenen, Joel and Ethan Coen wrote and produced “The Man Who Wasn’t There,” “Fargo” and “O’ Brother, Where Art Thou.”
Possibly joining their ranks soon will be Andrew, Wendell and William Pace with “Shift” and “Shift 2: Second Gear.”
The Pace brothers have been making movies for about 10 years. Originally, it was just a creative outlet for them to express themselves.
“We have been interested in movies all our lives,” Andrew said. “It started with radio shows and then went to camcorders as we got older.”
“Shift 2: Second Gear” is a sequel to “Shift”, which was originally intended to be a spoof off of the “Shaft” movies and the 1970s-style of cop movies. The brothers have come a long way since the first “Shift,” which was made in 1997, they said.
“We went from a cast of 13 to a cast of more than 130, and the movie went from 18 minutes to an hour and 40 minutes,” William said.
Filming for “Shift 2” began in January 1998.
“It wasn’t like we were filming every day for five years. It was more like two or three days every month,” Andrew said.
The crew members all contributed something, Andrew said.
“We are all creative in our own little way, and when we get together, it’s almost atomic,” Andrew said. “We all work together and play off each other’s strengths and weaknesses.”
The movie was filmed all over Northern Utah with no budget. William said everything in the film was already owned by the brothers or other crew members, or it was borrowed.
“We had lots of extremely creative volunteers for this, and they helped so much in the filming process,” William said
“It was a really fun experience working with my brothers,” he said. “They were really honest and forthcoming with suggestions on what to do with the film. We all think along the same lines so that made things easier.”
The brothers all aspire to ultimately be involved in the movie business.
Andrew is interested in writing and currently has 20 scripts in the works. He never really considered acting and has had no formal training, but would pursue it if the opportunity came along, he said.
Wendell, director of videography, has worked on other films before: “Share The Moon” and the currently-unreleased “The Work and The Story.”
“I’m not going to sell my soul to the movie gods, but I like the movie business,” he said.
William said, “I would like to keep working with my brothers, but I would like to work on some more ambitious projects of my own.”
William enjoys directing, illustrating, designing and concept drawing, he said.
“I would enjoy having a chance to be in every avenue that film offers,” William said.
Andrew said he knows he and his brothers could make entertaining movies.
“We have new ideas, and we want to share them with the world as soon as we get the chance. We want to show people how much we can do with so little money,” he said. “We can do die-hard everything, and people can trust us for good films.”
The brothers have talked to the Utah Film Commission to see about getting “Shift 2” shown in Salt Lake City.
“But for right now, we really just want to pack the house and hope that everyone has fun,” Andrew said.
“Shift 2” is being premiered Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Kent Concert Hall.
-kassrobison@cc.usu.edu