I DREAM OF EXPLODING

Brandon and Jared Drake spin a new tale about corporate nightmares

By Robert Ham

Countless numbers of films, novels and plays have followed the story of a man living a dreary existence who one day wakes up and starts seeking something more. Few stories, though, obstruct their protagonist’s path as drastically as in dark comedy Visioneers. In the world imagined by brothers Jared and Brandon Drake, the lead character George Washington Winsterhammerman experiences a dreary environment that starts to effect people so much that they spontaneously combust.

Sound far-fetched? Not so, according to screenwriter Brandon Drake. “When I started thinking about the ideas for the script,” he recalls, “I kept seeing people around me that looked like they were going to explode.”

Brandon says that many of those people were co-workers at his former employer, AAA, where he toiled over the company’s travel magazine. “It was miserable. They only put out six issues a year, so the deadlines were really long. I would get this work that would take me two hours and they would say, ‘No, you’ve got two weeks!’ So, most everyone just sat at their desks pretending to work.”

It’s a sentiment reminiscent of Office Space, another film that aims to find the humor in the often-surreal, bureaucratic corporate universe. But, where that film plays its hand in broad comic strokes, Visioneers works much more subtle territory marked along the way by marvelously absurdist moments.

In this world we find George (played by standup comic Zach Galifianakis), a paper-pusher at the fictional Jeffers Corporation, a multi-national corporation that separates workers out by levels and has a “friendly” computerized voice to let you know every minute how much time is left in the work week. After learning that one of his co-workers has exploded, George starts to fear for his own life as he starts suffering from the first symptoms – he starts having dreams.

Although Brandon spun the story from his experiences in the world of cubicles and ID badges, the awakening of George actually feels more akin to his younger brother Jared, especially when he talks about what inspired him to become a filmmaker, in this case, a point and shoot camera he had gotten as a gift.

“I just pointed it out the car window as we were passing the lakeside,” he recalls, “but the photo I took just turned out awesome. From that moment on, I was, like, ‘Wow, this is really interesting how you can capture something that is beautiful and that means so much to you.’”

At this point, Jared was a sophomore at UCLA and when he returned to school from the holidays, he turned his attentions to photography. This, along with a friend’s interest in editing, led him down a path to the famed film program at his college, which he joined his junior year. After graduating, Jared and Brandon joined forces, forming the production company Fireside Films, with the goal of “developing and producing our films, together, the way we want them done.”

The two brothers began work on Visioneers in earnest late 2005, setting a deadline for themselves to start shooting the film a year later. “We just felt that regardless of how people respond to it,” says Jared, “We’re going to shoot this thing, even if we cast our dad in the lead role.” But, as they say, they did find some producers who were interested and they were able to get a cast together that included Galifianakis and veteran character actors James LeGros (Singles, Living in Oblivion) and Judy Greer (27 Dresses, TV’s Arrested Development).

“I worked in a place that had a buzzer that told me when to go to lunch. I never went back there.”

They were also able to secure an experienced director of photography, Dino Parks, who was the key to capturing the feel of the hypermodern world that Brandon had created, according to Jared. “He really got the script and the tone we were going for. A lot of people read it and wanted it to be a really, wacky Brazil world, but he really connected with it and helped set it more in reality.”

Jared also credits Parks for giving the first-time director the rare opportunity to pay attention to the one thing that often gets worried about last on low-budget independent film shoots – the acting. “We were able to get together way ahead of time,” says Jared, “and map out storyboards and floor plans and everything we wanted to do, so when we got to set, I didn’t have to worry about the camera and could just focus on the performances.”

The film was shot in and around the brothers’ hometown of Snoqualmie, Washington. This was as much a cost-cutting measure as it was a logistical one, as the majority of the scenes were written with particular locations in mind. “We used our family’s house, used the local golf course, and my father had this boat, so we used his boat,” remembers Brandon.

Matthew Glave in Visioneers

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Also unlike a number of low-budget film shoots, the Drake brothers ran into little to no problems during the production of the film, gathering the support of the folks in their hometown and getting a little extra help from Mother Nature. “We had 24 straight days of sunshine,” says Jared, “and the week after we finished production, it started raining and they had the worst flooding and storms that they’ve had in years.”

What ended up taking up most of the filmmakers’ time, not to mention the rest of their meager budget, was the post-production work, which ended up being stretched out over the course of a year. But, from what the Drakes will tell you, they wouldn’t have done it any other way. “After production,” says Jared, “we decided let’s take the time to finish this – find the right deals, find the right composer – and get it done piece by piece.”

Both Jared and Brandon agree that one of their biggest coups was being able to have Tim DeLaughter of The Polyphonic Spree compose and record the score for the film, something he did while on tour with his band. “Apparently, he was up at night recording in hotel rooms,” says Jared, “They’d bring in extra mattresses to soundproof the room and get 15 people from his band in there, blaring out music.”

Now, it just remains to be seen how an audience will react to Brandon and Jared’s warped vision of American society. The two have run some test and focus screenings of the film but will be premiering the final version at this year’s Seattle International Film Festival.

They will admit to being nervous about how Visioneers will go over with viewers, but also sound like they are ready for anything. “You just don’t know,” says Brandon, “We’ve seen the movie really connect with people that we thought it would never connect with.”

For example, Brandon points out a particular test screening that was attended by his and Jared’s uncle, along with a few of his sexagenarian friends. “I thought, “Oh, they’re conservative and they all play golf together. They’re gonna hate this!’ But this one guy came up after and said to me, ‘Yeah, I worked in place like that where they had a buzzer that told me when to go to lunch. I never went back there.’”