Brad Leong, Tony Vallone & Daniel Engelhardt

Spotlight By: Michael Dance
MichaelDance@TheCinemaSource.com

While most movies at the Tribeca Film Festival could be seen as underdogs, Palo Alto particularly seems like the little guy to hit it big. The film was made by guys either college-aged or in their early twenties, and it's about a handful of college students meeting each other back in their hometown of Palo Alto, CA over Thanksgiving break.

TheCinemaSource recently sat down with many of those involved in the film, including director Brad Leong, screenwriter Tony Vallone, and producer Daniel Engelhardt. And guess what' They're all still in college.

"We don't know anybody in particular," Leong says when asked just how he was able to make this film. "We definitely come from semi-affluent families, had a nice easy suburban upbringing, which is what the movie is essentially about, but my family really has no entertainment connections."

"Same with mine," Vallone echoes.

"We were all very, very driven," Leong explains. "We knew this was something we really wanted to do, and we would dedicate as much time as possible to getting it done. And if that meant sacrificing other things in our lives, we'd do that. So that's one thing. And the other thing is, Dan was the one who had the original vision to step it up a notch, and really do something large with this project. He kind of got the ball rolling, which then snowballed into what the film has turned out to be. Tony and myself just wanted to write a script and get it filmed, whether it be jwith a DV camera and some friends, or try to get some actors, or do the best we can. Dan was the one who was like, we should wait a little bit, you should develop the script, I'll work with my dad to see if we can get us some financing, and from there it just snowballed and we kept moving."

"The hardest part was picking up the vendors," Englehardt adds. He currently attends UCLA but sounds like an old producing pro. "Once we had that credibility established, we were able to raise the money. I think the fact that we were so young made people really interested, and they wanted to work with us...The script in general is a huge part of why we were able to make it happen. I mean, once we started casting, I was getting calls from major agencies, just wanting to get their clients in on the project, because they'd read the script, thought it was fantastic, and that really built up a huge buzz throughout the casting process. So that was obviously really exciting."

The film is a compilation of each character's different story arcs - some of the early buzz indicated it was a natural successor to American Graffiti. "The script is very much character driven," Leong says. But according to Vallone, they tried specifically not to make it autobiographical. "Nothing is true to any one person. [The characters] aren't real, but they're differently people who could be. There are little things that are from life, but it's not autobiographical. It's easy to write, though, because it's kids our age."

"I was always talking about how these characters needed to change, and have arcs, and all that," Leong says. "And Tony was adamant that things should be more subtle, no 180-degree shifts from characters, it has to be organic. So we kept bouncing off each other, and from that I think we found a good balance."

They also found a balance between being specific to their characters' voices and universal in their themes. For example, even though the film is called Palo Alto, the location is almost irrelevant. "If you watch the movie, there isn't much specific about Palo Alto in the movie," Vallone says. "It could be anyplace."

"It's upper-class suburbia, essentially," Leong agrees. "Which I think is really underrepresented in films, a lot of times. Like, I saw Alpha Dog, because that whole thing happened in suburbia, and I find that really interesting."

Vallone looks over at him. "Was that movie any good'"

Leong grimaces. "No, not really." He laughs.

Despite the level of professionalism they seem to exude, the filmmakers are still college students at heart. Take one of the film's jokes:

"Tell about the boobie leg," Leong says to Vallone.

Vallone laughs. "I actually talked about this in the last Q&A. I think I came up with that when I was writing that scene, the way I was sitting, I guess I was just thinking and playing with my calf muscle. I've played with it before, when I was a kid, because it's kind of jiggly or whatever, but now that I'm older, I guess I associated it with a boob. So then we had times when we would just sit in the living room playing with our calves, and discussing how much like a boob [they] felt. A close friend of mine, when I tried to explain it to her, she was the first girl, I was like, 'Can you touch this' It feels like a boob.' And then Autumn Reaser's line in the movie, when she denies it, and says it doesn't feel anything like a boob, that's exactly what my friend said. And I still haven't found any girls, I don't think, who have admitted that their boobs feel like hairy, long, skinny calf muscles."

There's also a little scene involving a porn tape. "My AD called me," Leong says, "and he's like, 'Brad, I'm at the porn store,' and he's reading me off titles to these gay porn movies."

Yeah," Vallone says, "he actually ended up getting it from the used bin, so..."

"Yeah, we didn't even have money for porn."

Apparently it all paid off, though, because now these kids find themselves with a film at Tribeca (and an exclusive interview with the best movie site on the Web, to boot). "It's been great, it's been amazing," Leong says. "I wish we had more time to watch some films; we just keep running around with our stuff."

And will Palo Alto get a distributor and have a real future' "We're working on that right now," Engelhardt says coyly. "There's definitely people who have attended the screenings, and will continue to, but you know, it's definitely a process that we're starting to work on."

Check out our other EXCLUSIVE interviews with cast members Ben Savage, Johnny Lewis, Ryan Hansen, and Justin Mentell, and be sure to check out the film if you get a chance.