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Last Updated: Aug 28, 2009

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Reviews and Interviews By Scott Lewis
Lewis lives in Dallas, Texas, by way of Houston.

He writes Catching Up With . . . celebrity interviews for This Week in Texas as well as movie reviews .

Scott Lewis can be reached by e-mail HERE

Catching Up With . . . Filmmaker Michael Sammaciccia By Scott Lewis Mar 27, 2007

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Michael Sammaciccia

The pleasure of getting to do these articles is that I never know what will show up in my mailbox needing promotion.  Many times what ends up in my DVD player is bad, sometime can’Äôt even finish it bad.  Example, I just watched Anna Nicole’Äôs last movie Illegal Aliens out on DVD on May 1st.  Sometimes though, I pop in a film, which sounds interesting and actually leaves me very happy I do this.  The best part of all is that I get to tell you about it. 

That is the case with the film I write about today.  It is a delightful independent film brought to us by the Disney Executive behind the blockbuster Holes.  Always Will explores a fantasy that we have all had, the ability to go back in time and make changes to your past.  What Always Will offers that was lacking in say Back to the Future (all parts) is the lesson that sometimes fantasy is better left as that.  While Back to the Future is light hearted fun that I enjoy to this day, Always Will is enjoyable fun that allows you to identify with a character that may actually remind you of your own younger years while reminding us that while there are most probably things in all our lives we would change if we could, if we did make those changes, we may miss out on the greater promise that life holds for us.  The best part?  It isn’Äôt heavy handed with the message.  I was happy to catch up with the filmmaker as he prepared for the DVD release of his film’Ķ

Scott Lewis:  You wrote Always Will and took it with you back to your home town and Upper Darby High School to make it into a film.  You are not the first Upper Darby Alum to do a creative project about their high school.  What do you think it is about Upper Darby that makes such an impression?

Michael S:  I think you may be referring to Tina Fey with Mean Girls, Tina Fey did it with sort of satire where she took stereotypes and make sort of caricatures out of them and did it really well.  What I did was I thought a bit more of a real genuine approach of painting a picture of what I think High School really is for a lot of kids.  You travel through those hallways often times a nobody bumping into people left and right, people you are going to spend four years with and then that’Äôs that.  I wrote Always Will based not so much on my own experiences, but more like a generalization of what I thought High School was to a lot of people.  Upper Darby High School lent itself to that because it’Äôs such a large school.  It is the largest in the state of Pennsylvania. 

My experience in High School was a really, really good one.  I wrote this story about a kid in High School and as I began to put my thoughts on paper, actually what came out was geography that I knew existed.  Now maybe I was limiting my creative juices but I was writing what I knew and that was part of the decision that lead to me making it there, because what I had on paper was so vivid and so clear that I knew this story could unfold at Upper Darby High School. 


SL:  The great back-story of this film is that you got 3,000 students and faculty to help both in front of and behind the camera.  Tell me about Film Club.

MS:  I walk in the door of my school and I have a plan, I have a plan to make this movie.  Now it’Äôs awfully ambitious because there are football scenes and cafeteria scenes and proms and all these elements that were a part of High School.  How am I going to make this authentic was the question.  I could have gone down the Hollywood path and contacted agencies and possibly raised money and get investors involved and then we would deal with SAG and we would deal with all these big elements which come with a lot of headache and restriction or I could do what was in my gut which was to try lift from a real student body the talent which I knew existed there. 

I stood before the school and I said ’ÄúHow many have seen the movie Holes?’Äù  A lot of hands went up, that was a Disney film that had recently come out and I was happy to tell everybody that I was the executive in charge of.   Right away it gave me a layer of legitimacy to these kids.  Secondly, my sister Christine was a Third Grade teacher at Hillcrest Elementary School, so a lot of the school district already knew that ’ÄúMs. Samiciccia’Äôs brother Michael is coming to town to make a movie of his own.’Äù  Those two things kind of converged and kind of cemented me in a great place which is to actually be authorized to run this film club. 

I looked out at all the students and I said ’ÄúSome of you may be interested in working in front of the camera, and some of you may be interested in being behind it, and some of you just may be interested to see how movies are made.  The answer to all these questions lies in being a part of Film Club and anyone who wants to be a part is going to be a part.  I am not going to audition to be in this club anyone who wants to help can and anyone who wants to be in this movie will be. 

I remember there was real excitement that a real movie was going to be made.  Then auditions begin.  I will tell you Scott there is a real difference between telling high school kids that they can come out and audition for Guys and Dolls on Friday afternoon or they can come out and audition for a movie.  It is pandemonium.  The school literally had to shut down.  It was all great because the energy was so positive and the turnout was so amazing.  I found myself staring at a community driven home town bred Production Company in the form of kids from 9th grade to 12th grade. 

The approach was like any other club in the school.  We would meet on a consistent basis, and the subject of our meetings would be what shoot is coming up and what do we need to prepare for that shoot.  If I needed a sign that said ten days til graduation or I needed some prom photos Film Club would mobilize and make that happen.  Within Film Club we would have captains and two days before a shoot we would call that one person and they would be responsible for farming out the information to ten or fifteen others in their little mini club.  When I would show up to shoot at 3:30 and the school bell would ring sure enough Film Club would be staring at me in the costumes they were supposed to wear, holding the props they were supposed to bring.  I can’Äôt say enough about how dedicated these kids were.  They really were my saving grace.

SL:  I was stunned, after seeing this movie, to learn that there are no SAG members in this film.  Everyone onscreen was chosen from the Elementary and High Schools.

MS:  Everybody you see on screen is a real live student.  There are no stage moms five feet off camera and there’Äôs no agent.  Kids would finish a shoot with me and then they would go home and do their homework.  They would be with me on a Saturday and I would have to finish up with them by 4 O’Äôclock because they would have band practice.  One day a mini van pulled up and I was in the middle of getting a close up and I said ’ÄúIs that your Mom?’Äù   My actor would say ’ÄúYea.’Äù  I would say ’ÄúOh, they are here to watch us shoot, cool.’Äù  And the actor would say ’ÄúActually, Michael I have an orthodontist appointment at Five.’Äù  Then I would see the mini van door slide open and the mother would say ’ÄúIs he going to be much longer Michael?’Äù  Suddenly I would have to turn the camera and shoot my close up because in ten minutes I am losing Johnny.

That’Äôs one example of the many things we juggled over the course of making this movie that really adds to the charm of how it was made.  I remember when the fall play came out suddenly there was another competitor of sorts so I met with the director of the Fall school play and I said, ’ÄúLook, we both have jobs we have to do here, I don’Äôt want to get in your hair, I don’Äôt want you to get in mine, let’Äôs make this work.’Äù  We both decided the best thing to do was to leave it up to the kids. 

So I stood in front of Film Club, and I said, ’ÄúLook guys, as much as it pains me I will tell you that there are auditions for the school play.  So for those of you that are interested in going into theater that’Äôs a great opportunity and I wouldn’Äôt in anyway be offended if you chose to pursue that.  I think you should try to do both if you could.  We would love to have you on a day here or there when you can be with us, but if you get a nice part in the school play, by all means, you should do the school play.’Äù  We made that work, so everything that came our way we worked with and worked around.  It went very smoothly, I have to say.

SL:  Always Will follows the life of an unpopular student and his relationship with two friends who together dig up a time capsule shortly after its burial in front of their Elementary School.  Were you someone that would have done something that bold in Elementary School?

MS:  NO! I would not.  I’Äôll tell you this Scott that is based on a true event.  When I was in fifth grade our class did bury a time capsule right there at that spot.  If I turned camera ten more feet to the left you would see a real plaque that was on the wall that said here lies a time capsule’ĶIt still lies there to this day.  So I was inspired by something that happened to me in the Fifth Grade. 

SL:  When in High School Will learns that the time capsule gives him the ability to go back into his own past and make changes.  When he realizes what he’Äôs got and how to use it to his own advantage its fun to watch.  What made you want to write this story?

MS:  The answer is two fold.  I thought it would make an interesting story if a bunch of guys went back and dug it (the time capsule) up.  And then the whole town got up in arms and it became this sort of small town mystery who done it?  I put that idea with another idea.  What if you could go and talk to the pretty girl because you never had the guts to do it, just to see what she would say and if you didn’Äôt like the way she responded then you could just erase it from happening.  The same thing with the bully and you could go and finally slap him back for once.  Just to see would it really make him back away or would he become even more of a nightmare.  So I had this what if scenario and I though it would be really interesting to play these circumstances out. 

Then I thought, ’Äúlet me put these two ideas together’Äù.  The time capsule gets dug up and it sort of allows this pulling of the strings of fate.  So I sat with that idea and that became the crux of Always Will.  Then I just placed the story in my hometown.  My High School, my Elementary School, the places where I actually went to school.  So the geography in my mind is the same that it is on the page. 

SL:  Being able to travel back in time and make changes in your past is a great fantasy.  Your film offers several great messages, one of which is given the opportunity to go back in time and make changes to our past at some point no amount of changing will get us where we are trying to go.  I think that Will realizes this when he sits in his basement trying to explain the power of the capsule to one of his friends, who in an argument hits him.  Will goes back in time and blocks the hit, to only be surprised by another.  No matter how many times he goes back.  No matter how many hits he blocks, there is always one more. 

MS:  That’Äôs exactly right.  To me the message of Always Will is that you shouldn’Äôt want to change your past.  What you should want to do is learn from it.  You shouldn’Äôt want to take away experiences you’Äôve had you should simply learn from them good and bad.  You should never want a time capsule is my point.  You should just want to learn as you roll with the punches.  Then ultimately what Always Will teaches you is the best lesson you can learn is to just stay true to who you are.  Just be who you are.  It’Äôs a simple message but it resonates.

SL:  Tell me what’Äôs next for you?

MS:  I wrote a screenplay based on my experience making Always Will.  It sounds crazy but to make this film I moved back to my home town recruited a group of kids and we called ourselves Film Club.  Film Club was the whole production strategy of Always Will.  We were a group of dedicated people and we just happen to range in age from first grade to twelfth with me as a captain of the ship.  So I wrote about my experience and it’Äôs kind of the movie version of School of Rock.  Making Always Will was full of very humorous, amusing, interesting anecdotes.  I would like to dip into the comedy genre, so hopefully that is what I do next.

***

If you can overlook the fact that there was no huge budget and that at times you can tell the actors aren’Äôt professional.  If you can live without lots of special effects and lots of crazy car chases and crashes, you are in for a real treat with Always Will.  If not, Anna Nicole Smiths’Äô final film Illegal Aliens will arrive at the video store May 1.  You will get your car chases and special effects, but the acting is better in Always Will.

Buy Always Will on DVD

Visit the website, alwayswillthemovie.com.

© This Week In Texas


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