December 3, 2008

• “F.T.P.”

  A couple of entries ago, I mentioned a new project that I’m doing with the director of “Hatchet” called “Fairy Tale Police“.  It’s going to be shown on Dec 17th for XBOX LIVE subscribers and then online everywhere thereafter. 

  XBOX has this project that they’re trying out to bring original programming to their 10 million subscribers and this one is “Horror Directors do Comedy“.  So folks like James Gunn (“Slither”) and James Wan (“Saw”) are also doing pilot shows of their own as well.

  The really cool part about this project is that each creator (in this case, Adam Green — being arrested in photo below) retains the rights to their project — so eventually these episodes can be brought over to say, Comedy Central, and air on there – all ready to go.  

  We shot ours a few weeks ago and it was tons of fun.  It’s basically “COPS” meets “SHREK” for lack of a better analogy.  And in January, we’ll find out if we’ll get ‘picked up’ to make more episodes. 

  I play Officer Chad Pappas and as you can see, I sport a sweet ‘stache (with my partner, Office Stacy Duffy a.k.a. Rachael Leigh Cook)! 

  I actually went on a ride-along prior to shooting so I could get the mannerisms and jargon down and it was awesome!  I highly suggest everyone do it once in their lives.  All you need to do is go to your local Police Department, fill out a Ride-Along application, they run a background check and then you’re off.

  When I did mine, I got to take someone to jail, pull 3 people over for moving violations and respond to two “5150′s” – which is officially police code for “Mentally Disturbed Party “… or more informally “a crazy person”. 

  In doing the ride-along, I really got a sense of just how much cops have to deal with and understand why sometimes they seem like jerks for pulling people over for minor infractions.  Because when people ask, “Don’t you have something better to do like catching rapists or murders?”… honestly, the answer is: No — because they’d much rather be doing that than the mundane pullover.  Most of the time they’re  just looking for something to do – it’s not TV/CSI action going on all the time, so in between — they’ll resort to handling the minor stuff.  

  But believe me, when there is a call to do something more exciting (hence: a more critical/elevated situation), they are all chompin’ at the bit to all get there!

  One interesting thing I started to notice and integrated into “F.T.P.” was that cops talk to people the way parents do to non-behaving kids.  “You have anything in your pockets?”  “Don’t lie to me.”  “Stay right there and don’t move.”  “Now the reason why I pulled you over [substitute: 'put you on a time-out']…”  See what I mean?  But they really have to immediately take command of every situation because there are so many potential dangerous variables they need to be ready for — and parents, good ones, have a certain tone when they need to get their kids in check.

  Anyway, here’s the trailer below:

  • 7:56 pm
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