Bar Moments: Local independent filmmakers turn
a funny idea into a very promising short film

By Luis Alonso Pérez
La Prensa San Diego

February 18, 2005

One simple rule in cinematography production says that if you want to make a movie you need three things: Money, money and more money. But for a group of local independent filmmakers an original idea, a talented crew and a group of gorgeous women where all it took to turn a hilarious script into a 15 minute short film sure to turn a lot of heads.

Bar Moments is the name of the film written, produced, directed and stared by local filmmaker and comedian Adam Rudder, who plays a club going nerd trying to pick up on stunning girls way above his league while the whole thing is being narrated like a football game gone wrong, with comments from the experts and comical interviews from spectators. According to Rudder the screenplay was written in the NFL Films style and “it reads like a funny beer commercial or a Saturday Night Live sketch”.

Latin beauty Elizabeth Bress (Miss Bolivia 2004) joins Adam Rudder and a multi-ethnic cast composed by Brandi Hall, Elizabeth Shapiro and Greta Valenti, who play Elizabeth’s friends, and Jaimyon Parker, Anup Sugunan and Ernie McCray who play Rudder’s geeky friends trying to get lucky with the lovely girls in the nightclub.

“When I first read it I thought it was a very crazy and original idea, it’s quite different from other ideas I have heard of before” said Elizabeth. “Everyone in the cast and crew are very young and full of talent, Adam is a very creative guy, I’m sure he is going to be very successful in this business”.

The project began just a few months ago, “Everything moved very quickly” said Rudder “when we told people about it everyone wanted to be involved in it. Over 500 people came to our casting, that’s the largest turnout for a casting I have been to, which was very rewarding”.

According to the director most of the crew is composed of local filmmakers tired of being stuck in the development part of a production and just wanted to get back to filming, so they got together and found out a way of doing this the fastest and cheapest way possible. “There has been a lot of community involvement, motels are donating rooms, restaurants are donating food, and we’re in discussions with local musicians about the score”.

The film is directed to a young audience that likes going to clubs and enjoys watching the old NFL commercials. “We want it to appeal to the San Diego community and to people who go to clubs” said Rudder “we got beautiful woman in it, we got cool clubs, so we are really focusing on what people really want and I believe it has everything”. Diverse is a way of describing the cast involved in the film. According to Anup Sugunan, one of the actors who plays Rudder’s nerdy companions “the cast has a very realistic feel to it, very close to what you find in a real nightclub”.

Production began Monday, February 7, in a Gaslamp District’s popular bar and will include scenes shot in Del Mar and other North County locations. The film is co directed by Tony Baldridge and photographed by Karl Kozak, head of the San Diego Film Foundation and San Diego Film Festival. The production staff includes local filmmakers Kristen Martin and Dan Margules.

The director, Adam Rudder, says he wants the film to be finished quickly so it can be submitted to several film festivals and post it up on the internet. When it’s done, he hopes to screen it in the Thin Room’s Cinema Social on Wednesdays and the San Diego Film Festival.