Hello, my name is Faith Granger and I am the creative force behind the full feature period hotrod drama "DEUCE OF SPADES".
I am sure you have many questions and I will try to answer them on this page, which I have designed to be printer friendly. If you need more information regarding my film, or have specific questions that were not addressed here, don't hesitate to email me at deuceofspadesmv@aol.com
I would like to divide this page in four sections:
1. The filmmaker : A little about me
2. The film : Everything you want to know about my film
3. The cast : Meet the talented actors who brought the script to life.
4. The car: Basic information about the deuce, the star of the film.
It is my hope this fact sheet will help you provide your readers and audience with the most accurate information regarding DEUCE OF SPADES. Thank you for your support.
Originally from Nice, (France) I was raised in Beirut where I survived a civil war and lived through many years of hardship. This experience built character and made me who I am today. War and destruction were sweeping the land all around me and I learned a new appreciation for life, people and most of all, a loving God. Finding refuge in spirituality and artistic creation, I have always been first and foremost a songwriter, starting at the early age of 12. At age 15 I was given a national award for "Best New Artist". At age 18, I helped launch a FM radio station that would become the number one FM station in Lebanon (and last I checked, still is today).
Longing for peace and for artistic growth, I left Lebanon and traveled for two years. I then landed in Los Angeles in the late eighties, with the goal to work on my craft and pursue my music journey, and have been residing here ever since. The US were to become my homeland and country, where I felt I belonged most. But I do consider myself a citizen of the world with a heart without borders.
I continued to pursue music, my passion, for many years, releasing two records on my independent label "Abrasive Records" and performing over 500 live shows with my modern rock band ALTERNATE FAITH (www.alternatefaith.com) . A self taught multi-instrumentalist, I play guitar, sitar, oud, mandolin on stage while delivering both western and eastern vocals. I also produce and run my own recording home studio. Because of the necessity to promote my band I started toying with video editing, creating small promos for ALTERNATE FAITH over the years. I discovered I had quite the knack for it and truly enjoyed the process.
Writing was another of my love, and it started with poetry when I was 12, soon moving to songwriting. I wrote a first screenplay when I was 22 but was to not write another one until I started working on DEUCE OF SPADES in January of 2007.
As a teenager, I enjoyed performing arts and was in a theater group. Acting came very naturally to me. Becoming a professional actress however never had much of an appeal to me and even though I enjoyed acting, it could not possibly compare to the fulfillment I felt when singing my own songs and pouring my heart out to an audience through them. For that reason, I did not pursue a career in the film industry when I came to Los Angeles, despite the opportunities.
Another passion of mine was for anything mechanical. It started with motorcycles when I was 13 and soon I was tearing my dad's car's two barrel carburetor and cleaning it for him. I remember walking into our livingroom one day, when I was 14, and asking my father, out of the blue, to explain how a car worked. As he went on about pistons, compression, ignition, cam and overhead valves, I found myself both fascinated and delighted. I picked up a book about mechanics and started devouring it. I believe my passion for cars came from my grandfather, who was a mechanic himself and ran his own shop, quite successfully so, until a tragic car crash claimed his life. He was only 32. I never had the chance to meet him but he must be smiling upon me now as I carry the torch and create this hotrod film, a tribute to the golden era of the automobile.
A hopeless idealist with a good head on her shoulder, I am a "move mountain" "do it yourself" renaissance woman who believes anything is possible, with a little faith and if you put your mind to it. I enjoy learning and constantly need new challenges to keep my mind stimulated. In short, everything you need to pull off a full feature period film on a zero budget and entirely by yourself.
A self taught cinematographer, I found that perhaps making films might have been my calling all along, but I was too busy with music to hear it... It just seems to come naturally to me. I can waltz in on a set, do everything from A to Z, film an entire scene without a story board or even a shot list and waltz out and it will edit seamlessly (as well as look very professional) This phenomenon has puzzled quite a few of my industry 'pro' friends. "How does she do it?" commented Blue Nelson, a filmmaker friend of mine who has worked in the film industry all his life: "It costs us lots of money to make a shot look good and she does it effortlessly, with no crew and on a zero budget".
Working on a zero budget can be real rough. I have been known to film standing up for 12 hours straight, with no time to break for food and on occasion no time for a bathroom break either. I will then sleep for 3 to 4 hours and start again the very next day. One night I had to sleep sitting in my truck after a 16 hour filming day and then filmed all day the next day. Most people who see me work on my set wonder: "You never stop for a second! You're moving so fast you are a blur: How do you have the energy to do this?"... Blame it on Passion. It is the force that drives me, and it drives me hard. But I am like a jalopy: I just got to GO GO GO! Built for speed and tough as nails. I take a beating but I keep on revving !
I usually work with a crew of one or two people plus me. Although this was initially due to my lack of budget, it has now become a preference and I enjoy traveling light. Less people on the set means less distractions and it is easier to shoot "run and gun" this way, flying under the radar. I have done quite a few shoots with no crew at all. Just me and my actors. I actually really like to film alone and favor it whenever possible. I currently have over 1500 hours behind the camera and can frame, pull focus, monitor sound and direct all simultaneously. In fact, I can't do it any other way, I have the need to be completely submerged in the filming process when I shoot a scene.
It has been extremely gratifying to see all this HARD work pay off and witness my film project snow balling into epic proportions, none of which I ever dreamt could be possible. I have been getting "hats down" from both the hotrodding community and the indie filmmaking community. I have received many emails of support from people:
"Thank you for making this movie - You brought my youth back!" or even: "I didn't think it was possible but after looking at your movie trailer, you have inspired me to finally get started on my own movie and do it myself" and sometimes: "You inspired me to start working again on my hotrod, which had been sitting in the garage for 5 years, now, untouched. I can't wait to finish it and drive my roadster and I am going to keep it old school, just like your car in the film"
If I can touch and inspire people with this film, I will have already been blessed ten times over. I could not hope for more.
In January of 2007, the nation was celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the Deuce and I decided to contribute by making a one hour home made documentary about women and 32 Roadsters, called "LAST OF THE HIBOY GIRLS", honoring the female pioneers of hotrodding who paved the way for women like me, such as Veda Orr. I played my documentary next to my Deuce inside the Suede Palace at the Grand National Roadster Show, where my car was displayed. To my surprise and delight, I found that people kept flocking to watch it. I saw the huge smile on their faces and how happy they were to see this film about a Deuce and I became inspired to try my hand, at a full feature fiction film next, which would be, needless to say, about a Deuce Roadster. At the time I thought that was, by far, the craziest idea I had ever had and would be the most challenging undertaking to date. So you bet I had to do it and I had to do it NOW. So I got started on it a mere two weeks later.
The rest is history!
Pulling out my screenplay writer hat out of the closet once again, I started working on writing the script. The idea, inspired by true events, was that a modern day hotrodder stumbles upon a barn find and buys it. While restoring it she accidentally stumbles upon an old letter, in a sealed, stamped envelope, ready to be mailed, but never postmarked, stuck in one of the quarter panels. It is dated 1955 and inside it she finds a mysterious love letter which will set her on a challenging quest for answers. Who is Johnny Callaway, the mysterious man behind the letter? What is the history behind her deuce? As the girl starts to uncover the truth, we go from flashback to flashback, retracing the steps of Johnny, who owned the DEUCE OF SPADES, the fastest street car in the area from 1952 to 1955.
With over 90 minutes of period footage showing the 50's, the film aims at bringing the old jalopies back into the spotlight, resurrecting the "good old days" of hotrodding and bringing a slice of Americana back to life. It is my tribute to all the hotrodders who were a part of it. The film is a pure labor of Love and to retain the integrity of my artistic vision, I knew I would have to do it myself and keep investors, corporate funding and the film industry basically "out". Which meant going out on a limb financially and dumping every last dime I had (and quite a few I don't), into this film. And putting myself at financial jeopardy in the process. Retirement funds, savings, checking funds were all spent in order to the make this film. It could have been very tempting to accept help and sell out. But, turning down opportunities from investors who started knocking at my door after hearing about the project, I remained true to my goal of making this a "do it yourself no budget completely independent period film of epic proportions". A very ambitious undertaking in deed. Could it be done? One woman behind her camera, doing it all, not unlike what Chaplin used to do, being involved in every aspect of the pre-production, production and post production process. My duties included: Writing the script, casting the actors, scouting the period correct locations, purchasing all the gear needed and learning how to use it, directing, producing, filming, being the Director of Photography, doing set decors, props, hair and make up, wardrobe, as well as special effects. Last but not least, editing the footage, doing the sound design and providing some of the soundtrack and scoring. I will also land my acting chops and become "the girl", and be united with my deuce on screen as I am in real life.
I filmed this feature on weekends, working around my day job schedule. The usual rate was a scene per day - aka two scenes per weekend, which I would then promptly edit during the following week. I have basically filmed non stop every single weekend, for an entire year now, since I initially started rolling in October of 2007, after buying my gear, to test it with a first "practice" film "THE PARK BENCH" and to work on my cinematographic craft and prepare for DEUCE OF SPADES.
Currently we are all wrapped with all the fiming!! Making the flashback scenes was extremely challenging. Finding period correct location for free is a near impossible task, but many miracles happened along the way and somehow, providence seemed to always provide me with what I needed, just when I needed it. It put people on my path that would become instrumental in helping me fulfill my mission. It inspired strangers to contact me offering their help. And it kept happening, over and over again. We called this strange, wonderful phenomenon "the Deuce Of Spades miracles".
Just about everything in the film was donated: Period correct locations, cars, crew and cast. Thanks to the help of my many friends in the local hotrod community, I was able to pull off on a ZERO budget, what it would cost a major studio many hundreds of thousands of dollars to film.
In the end, my extreme dedication, tenacity and loyalty to the project would pay off.
DEUCE OF SPADES is expected to be around 2 hours and a half long, ranking in length right alongside period dramas such as "Fried Green Tomatoes", "The Notebook", "Master and Commander", "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" etc... It will feature about 65% of period flashbacks and 35% of modern days footage. Included in the film are a 1955 flashback dragstrip scene, two 1953 flashback street race scenes, including a cop and jalopy chase, a modern day dragstrip scene, a 1955 night illegal street race, 1953 flashback gas station scene, 1953 flashback dry lake racing scene, 1953 flashback swing dancing (featuring the world's champion Lindy Hop dancers). In the modern day section: Car shows, drag races, dry lake racing (STCA), a car meet, a group cruise and more...
DEUCE OF SPADES is truly a hotrod movie, made by a hotrodder, about the car culture of yesterday and today and it promises to delight the hotrodders worldwide and to establish itself as a one-of-its- kind cult film. Because the story line is one of depth and strong human interest, the film also has the potential for broad appeal and to reach a much broader audience, introducing the old hotrods to the general public.
The target completion date is December 2009 ...
Ultimately, the final DVD will feature not only the film but also some behind the scenes clips, bloopers, interviews with the cast and the filmmaker and most importantly the specs of the three main hotrods as well as a recap of most of the classic cars and hotrods that can be seen during the film's flashbacks.