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The Wednesday Night Save-the-World Society

Comedy

Intended Audience: Mature

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Eight misfits get together to save the world and end up saving each other.

The world's going straight down the drain. What's a successful, 30-year-old woman to do? If you're Dee Barnes, you organize a discussion group in hopes somebody has an answer...or at least is man enough to marry you and father your children.


Meet the Filmmaker

  • Directed by Dave Eisenstark/Fred Burke
  • Written by Dave Eisenstark/Fred Burke
  • Produced by Mary Margaret Robinson/David Nagy
  • Running Time 85 min
  • Release Date 2005
  • Country United States of America
  • Content Rating Intended Audience: mature

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Directed by Dave Eisenstark/Fred Burke

Written by Dave Eisenstark/Fred Burke

Produced by Mary Margaret Robinson/David Nagy

Cast Ruth de Sosa: Mr. Hu'ong
Dwight Hicks: M.O.
David Grammer: Troy Spalding
Roger Ranney: Marcy
Mary Margaret Robinson: Donald
Peter Szumlas: Detective Lawson
Madison Wells: deputy
Hollace Starr: Kirk Taylor
Crew Sadye Henson: Mixer of Phone Conversations
David Victor Rusch: Mixer of Phone Conversations
Alex Hajdu: Mixer of Phone Conversations
Gordon Capps: Mixer of Phone Conversations
Rebecca Anderson: Mixer of Phone Conversations
Steve Duval: Mixer of Phone Conversations
Geno Havens: Mixer of Phone Conversations
Tim Riley: Mixer of Phone Conversations
Alan Armes: Mixer of Phone Conversations
Stephen Blanor: Mixer of Phone Conversations
Mary Jo Devenney: Mixer of Phone Conversations
Jan Arcaro: Mixer of Phone Conversations
Jen Swanston/Jack Tucker: Mixer of Phone Conversations
Hollywood MiniDV Festival -- Best Feature (Won)

THE WEDNESDAY NIGHT SAVE-THE-WORLD SOCIETY is about the people in a "salon," a discussion group.

At first we envisioned each of the characters carrying equal weight, and each character having a particular story, but eventually we gave the film a hero--the most mature of the characters, but also the most detached. By doing so, the piece became strongly about alienation, loneliness and isolation.

The tension between what the characters wanted for themselves and their ideals for the planet became the central conflict in the movie, and the source for most of the comedy. This freed us from being too topical, something we wanted to avoid since we had no idea how far into the future the film would be seen.

By the time we finished the script, technology had caught up with what we had in mind. A number of films proved you could make a world-class film with consumer-grade materials. And by then we'd been personally involved with one miniDV feature, a comedy, MONKEY LOVE.

Wow, what a journey! It was nearly a decade ago, I think, when Fred came up with this idea to make a movie about these "salons" which people were forming to discuss the issues of the day. We wrote a number of drafts of the script, and even budgeted the film. It came in at $800,000, even shooting 16mm! Failing to find anybody who'd risk that kind of money on us, we set about reducing the costs by limiting the action to a few locations. We soon realized the piece would make a pretty good play, adapted it, and then the Chance Theater in Anaheim agreed to perform it. We sat in on every rehearsal and every performance, a total of nine weeks in all. What we learned from that experience helped shape the piece in major ways, so when the technology finally caught up with us--inexpensive DV cameras, non-linear editing on home
computers--we were ready. But judge for yourself.

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"...a beautiful, well-crafted film." --Ron Leming, "Hacker's Source."