The Actors Playground and Blue J Productions presents

Mr. Graves

HOME - Cast/Crew - Making It - Images

STORY:

Jim Graves blew the whistle on a corrupt power company. Now he's holed up in his house, certain that his days are numbered. He's alone and separated from reality. He works himself into a frenzy, and then the doorbell finally rings ... will he be able to handle the shock?

TRAILER!

Here's the trailer for the film. It's a 6-meg MPEG video file, running time 40 seconds. Click this screen shot ...

.

Now available on DVD

Audio clips

Here are some MP3 sound bytes from the show:

• TV reporter (144k) (Tara Clark)
• New York reporter (65k) (Scott Langston)
• Happy weather report (76k) (Deborah Langston)
• Wall street report (126k) (Anatole Ginsberg)

BACKGROUND:
Where did this story come from? Ask Scott V:

Of all places, "Mr.Graves" came from a song I wrote back in 1994, called "Foul Play". While mixing down the tracks, I felt an emptiness that had to be filled. I tried to think of an instrument that would fit, but it turned out what the song needed was a paranoid sort of mumbling. Sometimes I just go with what feels right at the time. No point trying to explain it or water it down or make it go away. In 2003, I began converting old short stories into short scripts, and this song kept nagging me. I just knew there was a story there. So I wrote it, originally as a 5-minute one-act play. After a local film group ignored me completely, I presented the idea to the Actors Playground. I added some meat for a short film version, and Jorge wanted to see more of the bad guys, so the dream sequence evolved. After some tweaking and a name change, "Mr. Graves" was ready to roll. In between filming days, there was that huge blackout in the Northeast, proving that this little tale was just paranoid enough!

For fun, here's a link to the original song, (an MP3 file) which will probably end up as the closing credits theme.