WHO IS IN LIMBO?___________________________________________________
" ...I'm broke and have no real direction in life,...
or a life actually."
The Making Of Limbo
The story behind the story.
"Limbo" came about because of a few seemingly unrelated incidents. In 2003
Michael Winfrey was working as an assistant parts manager at a Tacoma area car
dealership, and was growing very tired of it. He had been there since high school
and needed a change. He decided it was enough and enrolled in Pierce College
with his long time friend and film making partner, Nick Snapp.
That first quarter he met Joe Rosati who was at low point in his life. He had
previously owned a night club in the Tacoma area and had tried to make it work
and even putting all his credit into it didn't save the club. He tried a few other things
and eventually fell even more down. But he didn't give up there. He decided to
go back to Pierce College where he had gone nearly ten years before, and enroll
in an acting class. He wanted to meet new people, have a new experiences and see
if anything would come of it. There he met Ben Warner and Mike Winfrey who
were also taking the acting class. The three of them hit it off early on and quickly
became friends with each other and the rest of the class. Over the course of
that quarter, as they worked on the plays for the class, Mike began taking notes
on some of what Joe had told him about his club life. The outline for "Limbo"
was beginning to take shape. Mike cast Joe in a short film which they were
working on at the time entitled, "The Warrior". It was during the filming of this
movie that Joe met Nick Snapp. As that quarter and the play that Joe, Ben and
Mike performed in wrapped up, they talked more and more about making a film
about Joes' experiences.
It was something that was a breath of fresh air for Nick and Mike who had
always had a love of film and dreamed of filmmaking as a career. Joe, through
all his networking at the club, there were a lot of people that knew what he
had been through and wanted to help and offered to connect us with extras and
actors and everything we needed. But first a sold story had to be written.
Joe, Ben, Mike and Nick all began that summer of 2004 meeting at a restaurant
or just hanging out and talking about things they thought would fit in the story
and be not so far off what really happened. Over the course of the summer
the story began to really grow and by the end of the summer Mike had more
than enough material to use in the script. It was over the next couple of months
the script in its various firsts formats came to be. But like all first drafts they
have to be changed and improved. These early version are far different than
the final draft which was completed mid-November 2004.
The excitement began to take hold as the final version of the script came
about and they now set their sights on finding locations that would make the script
real. Some locations were determined already , such as the fair scene. There was
no other place to film a fair scene. The spring fair was coming up in April and
they knew they had to contact who would be able to let them in to shoot. For a
month or so they didn't know if they would be even able to shoot due to
someone not knowing and that they would have talk to someone else, and
so on. This did not stop Nick, Mike, Joe, or Ben they continued finding locations
and castings the parts that were left to fill as April was rapidly approaching.
Finally there was confirmation, they were allowed to shoot at the fair all they
wanted. It was a relief . Without that hanging over their heads they went full
speed ahead and prepared for the first shoot.
It had been nearly one year since they first began talking about making
a film together and on a party cloudy day in April at one of the largest fairs
in the nation the following was asked, "Okay, are you ready?" Smiles and
nods where the answer. Then Nick checked the eye piece of the camera
again, closed the opposite eye and said, "ACTION!"
(C) New Empire Productions 2005-2011