Frank Cassini
CAPRICA AND CONTINUUM STAR MAGDA APANOWICZ LANDS LEAD FEMALE ROLE IN SMITH BROTHERS’ SCI-FI THRILLER, “VOLITION”
Vancouver, B.C., April 17th, 2017 — Celebrated actor Magda Apanowicz lands the lead female role in the Smith Brothers’ sci-fi
thriller, VOLITION. Apanowicz is well-known to sci-fi fans for her lead roles in both Caprica, of the Battlestar Galactica franchise, and Simon Barry’s Continuum. Apanowicz’s previous credits include meaty roles in Eli Roth’s The Green Inferno, The Butterfly Effect, and in dozens of other films and TV series, including a series regular role in ABC Studios’ Kyle XY.
Apanowicz will be playing against an already-robust cast of Adrian Glynn McMorran (The Revenant, Arrow), John Cassini (Se7en, The Game, Continuum), Frank Cassini (Good Fellas, Watchmen, The Bridge) and Bill Marchant (Chappie, Godzilla, Strange Empire).
Volition is directed by award-winning director, Tony Dean Smith, based on a screenplay written by Tony Dean Smith & Ryan W. Smith. It is a gritty sci-fi thriller, about a man, afflicted with clairvoyance, who tries to change his fate when a series of events leads to a vision of his own murder. The Smith Brothers have partnered with Paly Productions, Inc. to produce the film, with Principal Photography set for June 2017.
“I worked with Magda years ago and I have always seen her as just a brilliant actor. She’s a true talent, who exudes pure authenticity and raw grit,” says Tony Dean Smith, the film’s director, co-writer and co-producer. “She has a fierce energy that perfectly matches the role. We can’t wait to work with her!” says Ryan W. Smith, the film’s co-writer and co-producer.
In connection with Volition, the Smith Brothers are releasing a series of semi-monthly webisodes, offering fans a
behind-the-scenes glimpse into the making of the film. Fans are encouraged to visit the Smith Brothers Film Company Facebook page, www.volitionthemovie.com, Twitter or Instagram, for behind-the-scenes content and news.
SMITH BROTHERS FILM COMPANY
Smith Brothers Film Company is the creative partnership of Tony Dean Smith & Ryan W. Smith. Tony is a filmmaker who has worked for Universal, CTV, Neill Blomkamp, and Syfy, among others. Ryan is a screenwriter, who has worked for Disney, Netflix, YTV and Syfy, among others. For more information, visit www.smithbrothersfc.com.
PALY PRODUCTIONS, INC.
Paly Productions, Inc. is a U.S.-based investment fund, focused on high-quality artistic projects for the world market.
Blog Post 2: Script to Screen
Finishing a screenplay is always thrilling! 90-120 pages of blood, sweat and tears, and its all right there before your very eyes. What’s next? A vacation to Hawaii? Diving into a bank-vault of gold coins? Ideally, yes! But generally, no. It doesn’t take too long for that overjoyed feeling to be replaced with one of self-flagellation: you see all the mistakes you’ve made, the shortcuts you’ve taken, and the glaring errors in logic. Hopefully, you also see the potential of what you’ve written, the mini-strikes of brilliance, the kernels of something truly unique! Either way, it soon becomes apparent that, if this piece is going to stand on its own, you have to keep digging. As cliche as it is, yes, “writing is re-writing,” so you dive back in.
In writing Volition, we churned through a huge amounts of drafts — sometimes shifting the entire plot-structure, other times, pulling out set-pieces, and other times re-thinking characters and sharpening their arcs. After this intense process, we finally felt that we had created a draft worthy of shooting. So, what was next? The trip to Hawaii? The Maldives? Well, that didn’t quite happen, but we finally did have a draft that we could send to financiers. After various stalled attempts, we finally reached Paly Productions, and here we are today, gearing up to shoot! But, if you thought that was the end of the re-writing process, you may want to think again.
We’re currently going through a unique round of re-writes, looking at the draft from a very practical perspective. While, initially, our draft existed entirely in our heads. Now, it needs to actually manifest itself in real-life, and this means, we need to find realistic ways of achieving our vision. For us, this has meant looking to reduce extraneous locations, unnecessarily complicated sequences, and impractical set-pieces. Of course, the battle we have internally is by wearing both our writer hats and our producer hats. We want to retain all that is special and unique about the piece, while still finding a way to shoot it on a budget. Sometimes, we have to push hard to find creative solutions, but we believe we’re achieving this goal.
The next round of re-writes will likely emerge once we start collaborating with our actors. They will have thoughts on their characters, or thoughts on the way certain lines are expressed. We look forward to diving back into the draft at that point, polishing it up so that on the first day of Principal Photography, we’re in the best position possible. And then there’s the re-writes that will happen on set, and, of course, in the edit suite. But, surely, once all is said and done, that vacation to Hawaii, paid for entirely by our vault of gold coins, will be just around the corner. Ironically, knowing us, that entire vacation will be spent inside, re-writing a brand new script!
