Weapon of Mass Destruction Movie

PRODUCTION ANECDOTES

BREAK-INS and INSURANCE
The possibility of making a movie had its seeds in a cold rainy night before Christmas 2002, when burglars broke into Nicholas Anthony's home and stole his camcorder. It took several months for insurance money to materialize but when it did, the amount seemed enough to allow Nicholas Anthony and collaborator Mr. Dave Brown to dream of making a no-budget feature film. One day, without any intention of writing an action-adventure screenplay, they met at their usual deserted Silverlake coffee spot TSUNAMI (home of the best Jalapeno Tuna Melt in the Hollywood), and after a few cups of particularly strong cafe mocha, the ideas for an anti-war political-action satire started coming together in an unstoppable and almost-violent flow. It was only after hearing a colossal BOOM and the showering of glass coming from just outside the place that they took a break – looking out to discover that both their parked-cars had been smashed by a reckless driver. And many months later, after another lengthy wait, another insurance settlement came through – this time enabling them to complete the editing of the film.

BOOKS INTO FILM
Since graduating from AFI in 2000, Tony has been supporting his film career by running a business selling rare books, vintage paperbacks and pulp fiction, on ebay. It was after spending a dusty book-scouting afternoon (with accomplished actor/producer Grand L. Bush, going through his Bush’s late-father’s book collection), that Nicholas Anthony first decided to move on a plan to make a no-budget film – perhaps with Grand Bush as the leading man. When the project came together as WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION, Nicholas Anthony and Mr. Dave Brown felt it was “meant to be” when they envisioned taking the film to Cannes with a poster that read:

Unfortunately, Grand Bush declined the part due to prior commitments and Nicholas Anthony and Dave plunged into several weeks of intense Backstage-West auditioning, eventually discovering their real leading man, accomplished LA theater veteran and star of several national commercials, Michael Massengale.
Along with casting, Nicholas and Mr. Dave were trying to gather a small crew of multi-tasking creatives. The going was slow until one day in the midst of casting; Nicholas Anthony paid a call on a woman named Pamela Bazcuk who wanted him to appraise her late-father-in-law’s book collection. Upon arriving at her apartment, Nicholas Anthony mentioned he was working on a low-budget anti-war film and Pamela in turn revealed that she was a wardrobe designer – and volunteered to do wardrobe on WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION. Little did she know that she would be signing on as the third member of what was to be a four-person production team. In the coming weeks, she would provide costumes for a cast of sixty characters, decorate sets, make breakfasts, act in the film, and have her living space converted into the Baghdad International Airport.

THE FIRST ALL-EBAY MOVIE?
Since Nicholas Anthony’s paperback business is primarily conducted on ebay, it was only natural that he turned to “the ‘bay” when contemplating the purchase of equipment for the upcoming project. After monitoring auctions for quality digital video cameras during the week prior to shooting, Nicholas Anthony began placing bids on a local equipment package that could be inspected in-person, only to find himself “sniped” at the last minute and left with no camera right up until the day before the shoot was to commence. However, hope was not lost, and at last he found a “Buy-It-Now” deal from a local seller nearby. The camera proved a good value as it had been barely used. And of course, at the end of the shoot, Nicholas Anthony immediately placed the camera back on ebay to pay off the accumulation of food and incidental bills run up during the month of production.

“NO FEELINGS WERE HARMED DURING THE MAKING OF THIS MOVIE”

An important lesson gleaned from working on “big-budget” films is the brusque lack of consideration from the producers can often “bum out” the crew. Tempers flair and feelings get hurt. This can destroy any good creative spirit that should flower during film production -- no matter how low-budget. Thus, one objective for Nicholas Anthony and Mr. Dave as producers was to carefully choose the people involved so that everyone was happy-as-heck to be on the project – despite no money. Furthermore, Nicholas Anthony and Mr. Dave Brown made all efforts to feed and pamper the creators so that by the end of the project, the final credits could proudly proclaim “No personal feelings were harmed during the making of this motion picture.”