The ID Project

Making The ID Project a Reality

A Still Gallery

In June 1998, Director Tyler Purcell started working on a short film entitled 'ID'. It was a short screenplay which reminded all who read it of the "Wizard of Oz". The story of a man's journey into the mind and how to get himself out. It was a complex story with a great ending, great cast and even better, an entire summer to shoot! Everything looked up for the crew and cast of 'ID'.

Picture by: Alexey Mohr "having fun in the van"

The Production started on a 107 degree day and it was a VERY HOT 107 because it was unexpected and people over dressed. With heavy equipment, a trunk packed with sodas and a few crew people who had never worked in film before, the crew set out to start shooting. After going over the equipment with people, the first day of the ID Project commenced. It was June 5th 1998 and the director had just started to make 16mm films for the first time. He was new to the equipment, but the crew and him had suffered through a comedy feature before, so he knew their competence.

Picture by: Alexey Mohr "Ben Stanbury in the foreground, Simon DeSantis (running sound) in the background. Sadly this is the only surviving picture of Simon working on location."

Every director knows when its time to quit, not Tyler. He worked the crew until finally something broke. To this day nobody will ever know the truth, but the story goes like this. The crew was working hard in the sun. Caleb Hodes (sitting down) was feeling quite ill when this picture was taken. He asked for water, they did not have any, but the show must go on. To the utter ignorance of a director, Tyler never knew the severity of Caleb's case of being sick. The rest of the crew, for that matter, were also getting slightly sick. Its called DEHYDRATION! A word Tyler never thought to think of when shooting. Most of the crew were wearing black and by the 4th hour of shooting in the sun, things were starting to get a bit wacky. Alexey tried to settle people down with a trip to the pizza shop.

Picture By: Tyler Purcell "The crew poses for a picture"

The cast and crew had lunch. This took up some time and settled everybody, except for Caleb, for he was already getting ill and there was nothing to be done but keep shooting and hope for the best. The next shot was the classic dolly shot down the street in Needham Center, followed by the conversation dialog by Caleb and Geoff Stanbury. After those scenes were done, the production moved inside and wrapped up shooting around 10:30 PM in Geoff Stanburys house in Wellesley. They called it a night and proceeded to break the set down. Caleb walked over to Tyler and asked him weather or not he could give Caleb a ride home. Caleb's car was outside and Tyler was confused, Caleb started to act REALLY sick towards Tyler and finally decided to drive the .5 miles home. He made it home and went to bed. This was the end of Caleb Hodes as the crew knew him. From that day forward, Caleb was sick for 3 weeks, two days of which he spent in and out of a hospital being treated for sun stroke.

Picture By: Alexey Mohr "The crew poses for a quick moment in between takes."

The Production of 'ID' came to a halt 3 days later after the film came back from the lab. Alexey and Tyler saw the film and decided to stop making the project. The number one reason was because Caleb was sick and nobody they knew could play the part. The number 2 reason was, the film was severely scratched and there was no way to resurrect scratched film, so everything the production had shot was ruined. This put director Tyler Purcell into a thought process that most directors don't have to deal with. How does one make a movie without a lead actor? The answer Tyler came up with was, well, unique. Tyler decided to interview his friends and assemble this interviewed footage with the footage of the movie and BANG! A documentary would be created. So without further adiue, Tyler sat down with his friends, none of whom were filmmakers, and began interviewing them. This is how the film "The ID Project Revisited" came to be. Over 3 rolls of film were shot and Tyler had some footage that some day he could assemble into a documentary.

In Winter of 2001, the dream to assemble "The ID Project Revisited" came to life. Director Tyler Purcell had access to equipment, talent and Alexey Mohr and onece again, the production of ID continued, this time with a new name.

"The ID Project Revisited" would have a new star. Richard Carlton, fresh off the boat from the UK was our main talent. He was found at a local High School and was convinced to play the part of interviewer in the film. This was a key roll that needed to be filled before the film could be finished. On a cold wintery day in January, the production started shooting with Richard and for 2 days shoot all his interview material and complete a shoot that started 3 years earlier.

Picture By: Tyler Purcell from: "The ID Project Revisited"

The next phase of "The ID Project Revisited" was pretty complex. The filmmakers asked themselves the question; "How does one make this shit funny?" The answer came in over 9 months of constant work. There have been 3 different final versions of "The ID Project Revisited" made in the past 9 months. Alexey Mohr and Tyler Purcell worked day and night to complete the final version for the March 1st 2002 release here on Tp Production Films.com. After 4 years, 10 months of constant work shooting and or editing, the film would be finally completed March 3rd only 2 days behind schedule. After heavy screen testing and some cuts made, the final film has a run time of a little bit under 30 min. Alexey and Tyler would be in 7th heaven if somebody important liked there film, but thats in the future now isn't it.

Picture By: Tyler Purcell "A 2001 look at DVPro's editing suite, its pretty primitive"