On October 27, the movie “The BIG Something” had its premiere at the Pollack Tempe Cinema, and it was a glorious time to be sitting in a darkened theater.
If you’ve never heard of Running Wild Films’ “The BIG Something”, it’s because it’s not Hollywood’s latest blockbuster. It’s an independent film directed by local filmmaker Travis Mills, who also wrote the script along with Ryan Gaumont.
“The BIG Something” is evidence that indie filmmaking is alive and well in Arizona, and that you can make something big out of something small. In this case, $2000.
If I had $2000 to spend, I’d blow it on a trip or pay a bill. Travis Mills makes a feature-length film.
The movie is an homage to the old film noir classics, with a modern quirky twist. It’s as though Mills’ role model, legendary director Howard Hawks, breathed all over it. It centers on Lewis (played to perfection by Michael Coleman), a slacker who lives in a record store. (Tracks in Wax plays its own critical part in the plot of this movie shot entirely in the Phoenix area, as do many other distinctive locales.)
When Lewis discovers his boss Marcus-the record store’s owner-has been shot, he makes it his personal project to uncover the mystery that’s no mystery to the disinterested cop who labels it a suicide. But Lewis remains unconvinced. Along the way he meets an assortment of characters, each one odder than the last, as screwball comedy meets gritty detective story.
On a personal level, “The BIG Something” has been haunting me for the past year. Shortly after I became involved in the Arizona acting community, Travis Mills sent me the script and asked me to read for a part in it. Unfortunately we couldn’t coordinate our schedules and I never got to do it. (I can’t remember now what kept me from being able to meet, but it obviously paled in excitement compared to what Mills had going on.)
But all these months while the script was resting comfortably in my desk, somewhere out there copies of it were being worked hard as the production moved forward. Every so often I would hear it calling to me, and I’d take it out and read parts of it, wondering how it would all turn out on the big screen.
But never did I imagine the quality of the end result. Veteran actors Michael Harrelson (with whom I’m honored to have worked in the past year) and Eddie Jones are also part of an ensemble cast that makes you forget you’re watching an indie. The superb soundtrack alone is worth the price of admission; it’s full of vintage Be Bop, blues and jazz.
They say write what you know, and apparently Travis Mills took that to heart because he used to work in a record store in Tempe. That experience partly inspired the film. As Travis explains, “The people who work and frequent these places are often the broken-hearted, people who wanted to be something and didn't make it or never knew what to be. It is a pit of lost dreams and lives going nowhere. That might sound a little too serious but this really is a place with as much sadness as joy. The characters I met in real life were too interesting to forget; they forced their way through me onto the screen.”
Mills studied film at ASU, though he doesn’t necessarily believe film school is the best place to learn how to make movies. But he does credit an English teacher there named Paul Cook for teaching him something about telling stories which has stayed with him ever since. “He showed me the basics for what has become my firm ground as a storyteller.”
And when it comes to storytelling, Mills positively radiates creative passion and intensity. Seeing him up close, one can almost hear his next projects’ wheels turning in his head. He wants to break new ground in the Arizona movie industry. And he’s off to a great start as Running Wild Films also won this year’s IFP “Beat the Clock” film challenge with their film “Shine Like Gold”.
It was their first entry.
When asked whether independent filmmaking in Arizona is in its infancy, or more an angst-ridden adolescent, Mills replied, “American film and film in general is in its infancy. Arizona cinema (meaning filmmaking that doesn't point East, West, or anywhere but to itself and for itself) is almost non-existent. The impression I get from the local industry is that it is either trying to attract or emulate Hollywood and it's only when we are content to exist on our own terms with disregard towards the outside that we can build something worthwhile. This is the meaning of local independent filmmaking to me. So yes, it's just the beginning; the bloody child has come forth from the womb.”
“The BIG Something” will be available for download online in November at RunningWildFilms.com.
And in the future, expect to hear a lot more about Travis Mills and his big somethings.
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