Amber Love 24-MAY-2012 VODKA O’CLOCK EPISODE 1213: Today my special guests are Darin Beckstead (writer/director) & Guillermo Suescum (producer) from Backlit Pictures. They’re here today to talk about the DVD release of their movie SOMEBODY’S HERO. Available Father’s Day June 17th in a variety of outlets. The film won the Best Feature award in the Coney Island Film Festival in 2011.

Download on iTunes or listen to episode 1213 here.

In SOMEBODY’S HERO, an accountant named Dennis Sullivan played by Christopher Gorham, meets a young beautiful widow who is raising her son in a luxurious estate. This single mom Katie Wells played by Susan Misner holds nothing but resentment towards comic book hero that her son worships, Man America. The accountant becomes an example of what we call today Real Life Superhero, a non-powered person that dons a colorful costume and makes an effort to improve his neighborhood.

“My parents would always have to give me a quick once over a check before going out the door because I”d put my costume on, my Superman costume, or whatever the pick of the week was underneath my clothes and the idea that we were gonna run into trouble whether it be at the public library or the grocery store I was gonna be ready for action, ya know, as an 8-year-old kid. My parents would always see a tuft of cape sticking out of my collar, telling me to go change.” ~DB

Beckstead and Seuscum firmly agree that a location is an important autonomous character to a film. Here, New York City was an important role to show normalcy of city life that is transferable to other cities but the on-location filming and preservation of the landmarks conveys personality in itself. So many films set in New York are specifically delineated as pre-9/11 and post-9/11; this movie doesn’t do that. It creates a feeling that the family in the story in part of a more intimate neighborhood rather than a drop within millions of people.

“Just by telling the story of the movie and what it was about, he [Peter Volynsky, the location scout] convinced a lot of people to give us locations for really almost nothing, just pennies what a bigger production would pay for them.” ~GS

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdHb4ofEXcY

“Some time ago, my father gave me a painting by artist Liz Lemon Swindle. It still hangs on my wall today. The title of the piece is ‘Even Superman needs a dad.’ Look it up if you have a chance. The work certainly speaks for itself and it is easy to see the inspiration. My father recently passed away – He did however see Somebody’s Hero his preferred way… in his easy chair. As a son and a father myself, it truly is an honor to celebrate the first Father’s Day since his passing with the release of Somebody’s Hero. Add to this the premise of the film, it becomes a magic and emotional combination.” ~DB

LINKS:

Somebody’s Hero Official Website

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