Background Story
It was just after Xmas, 1998. Rafael Gomez (writer and director) and Bill
Russell (producer) met at a party in Miami.
Rafael: “You’ll enjoy it at McKinsey. You should come and work here”.
Rafael already worked at the consulting company and was trying to convince
Bill to accept the job offer to come to Miami and join the firm. Bill
accepted the job, worked directly with Rafael, then Rafael left
immediately afterwards! History and circumstances would suggest that Bill
and Rafael wouldn’t likely go into business together but two years later
they did, and with the money they'd saved up over the years they started Archangel Films, LLC in Miami, FL in summer
2001.
Rafael’s aspirations were always to write and direct movies. He had
written a rough first draft of Robbery 101 by the summer of 2001. Between
August 2001 and February of 2002 he concentrated on two other screenplays:
“.357 Mambo” (about a Cuban spies, hit-men and the FBI investigation) and
“Revolucion” (about the Cuban Revolution in the between 1959 and 1966).
While Rafael was busy writing and doing his research, Bill was busy taking
care of operations, writing the business plan, developing the business and
entertaining investors.
Rafael: “Then realized all of a sudden that we hadn’t had any income for
seven months and we were running low on $. Given that we wanted to
invest a significant amount of our remaining savings in our first movies
we needed to act quickly.”
He suggested that he concentrate on Robbery 101 (originally it was called
Revenge 101 since it was formerly about a gang of 6 marginalized kids who
gained revenge on individuals and society who had wronged them.)
Bill: “We had to make the best movie we could.
Period. We wanted to shoot it on various formats to give it a
certain sense of reality. We made a rational decision to shoot
some of it digitally for artistic integrity and to keep costs from
escalating. Rafael incorporated all this into his screenplay.”
Trying to find investors was the hardest thing Bill had ever done. The
budget for Robbery 101 was significant: much, much more than Bill and
Rafa had ever raised in their lives, but Bill felt most of the
investment would come from Bill’s personal ("financially-secure")
friends and the relatively well-off folks with whom Bill and Rafael had
worked at McKinsey. Bill did manage to raise the money,
but depending on how the film does, he may not have any friends left to
talk to in the years to come... Rafael kept working on drafts of the script. He talked to
several people in law enforcement including friends and relatives.
Rafael: “There was a Dateline special on the Columbine killings and we
tried to identify the key questions that the documentary was trying to
answer”.
And the script really got an identity and morphed into a movie that
explored the modern day issue of disgruntled and violent youth as well as
the effects media has on this violence. The “Horsemen of the Apocalypse”
(the gang in the movie) were created to embody all of the hatred and
vengefulness of youth hell-bent of striking back at society. They use a
video camera to film their acts, giving the audience a vicarious glimpse
into the lives of these kids.
Bill: “I’d essentially raised the money but
then it dawned on me how much work I had to do. I had no idea how I was
going to get it done. It’s a miracle that we shot the movie on time and
on budget.” The shoot date
for production was set at August 1st and an aggressive schedule
was planned.
Preproduction was a new word to Bill.
Bill: “I did it backwards. I read the books afterwards. I didn’t have time
to read them before… Now that I have a better understanding of
pre-production and production, I can appreciate all the mistakes I made
and nearly made”.
He was lucky to have an excellent support network (other producers like
Julie Lynn (Wit, Twin Falls Idaho) and Marshall Persinger (Amos & Andrew,
Still Breathing, Wild Iris) and several other personal friends in the
industry) that told him the what-to-do’s and the what-not-to-do’s. Rafael
also had inspiration from the most unlikely of sources. Rafael realised
that the director’s name on the movie Memento (Christopher Nolan (also
Insomnia)) was the same as his pal from University of London – UCL and it
turned out to be THE Christopher Nolan. He had no idea Christopher was
directing, and Christopher had no idea Rafael had co-founded his own
production company and was writing.
Rafael: “I think I should direct Robbery 101,
after all.”
He'd always planned on directing the movie but this was his motivation
and it was enough to convince Bill.
And the rest is history. Bill agreed to Rafael's direction, and took on the
role of Producer by himself. Originally Rafael and Bill aimed to
co-produce several movies with Rafael eventually directing and Bill
eventually becoming an executive producer.
Bill: “It all happened so fast. Rafael became
a feature-film director overnight and I
became an independent producer just as quickly.”
