Don’t meteors fall?
Space Rex, Space Wrecks,Spacerex.
The term “meteoric rise” very accurately describes mine and Bryan Root’s filmmaking career in 1991.
He was accepted into the very prestigious and competitive directing program at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, based on The Benefactor, a short film we started at the Tyler School of Art in 1986.
After years of working in obscurity, collecting 16mm film equipment, building sound studios and working as housepainters and a sculptor’s assistants, Bryan and I were suddenly in Hollywood, he as one of 28 directors to be chosen from over a thousand other applicants–to direct the projects of other film students in different disciplines, I as his non-matriculating collaborator–working while he slept and sleeping while he was in class.
We made 3 films in the 1991-92 school year and he was accepted into the even-more prestigious Master of Fine Arts program at AFI in 1993 (at the time only 8 of 28 directors were chosen).
That summer, back to Philadelphia clearing out his storage space, Bryan came down with what he took to be the deep and terrible beginnings of The World’s Worst Hemorrhoid. Embarrassed to discuss his most-private with anyone, or admit to such a middle-aged malady, he suffered in private for several days before breaking out in a rash that ran up the back of his left thigh, across his buttock and bisected, as if drawn with a straight-edge, the left half of his penis.
For the first 2 weeks he had a pain that came in waves, cresting every five minutes or so “like someone pounding a 6 foot icicle up my ass with a heavy mallet.” The weepy rash on Bryan’s skin was just the outward excrescence of a nerve path that must have looked much the same where it connected to his brainstem. He had an advanced case of shingles.
He had not yet started writing his master’s thesis and he still had shingles when he handed it in 6 weeks later.
Space Rex, Space Wrecks, This was the birth of Spacerex.
Man In Space, a sci-fi kung fu script loosely based on The Old Testament, On the Origin of Species and Huckleberry Finn was a high-concept work of pure genius, albeit a little violent and not unlike a cinematic and philosophical case of shingles, which, along with the marijuana he smoked to dull the pain, shaped the very fabric of the narrative.
The head the Center for Advanced Film and Television Studies at AFI, Dezso Magyar, described the script as “a piece of shit” and counseled Bryan to “throw it away.”
The committee which decided which of the 16 submitted scripts would get green lighted for production, rejected Man In Space as well. He ended up directing Laura Sobers the script by his writer/producer friend, Wayne Reynolds, which the school liked better.
I thought, and still think, that Man in Space was a worthy enterprise.
That Bryan and I have fallen out, he pursuing a career in real estate and procrastination and only getting drawn intoSpace Rex, Space Wrecks, Spacerex when I push it forward and then only to sabotage it, speaks to the meteoric falling of Bryan’s career. It’s a shame, really. He had so much going for him. Laura Sobers took Bryan away from Spacerex. He has taken to “gritty contemporary,” shelving our project in 2003 to write and direct Dirty Habit which was well received by the underground film festivals, but failed to perform in the marketplace and has been a disappointment to everyone involved (I was the editor). Bryan seems to have given up on ever making another film and I’m continuing on with my own solo projects.
Since the lawsuit between Bryan and I, Space Rex, Space Wrecks, Spacerex has gone through a complex evolution. It was called Loft in Space for a time, became a rock band, but always took a back seat to Bryan’s more pragmatic enterprises like union set dressing careers, family life and real estate ventures. It has finally truly become mine and Spatz Curtis‘ project, if we ever find him, and, while we struggle to stay one step ahead of the robots and spiders of the future white collar crime syndicate, Fat Baby Food, we plan on making a movie and a record. I hope you find it interesting.
Thanks,
Will Dailyrest
Space Rex, Space Wrecks, Spacerex.com
I have to say it pains me to read about my “falling out” with Will Dailyrest. My very first film, “Dailyrest’s Destiny,” was a surreal short film about a guilt-ridden filmmaker on his way to an important meeting. My character from that film has come to inhabit minor roles in the credit sequences of my subsequent films and was, I thought, a fun way to disguise my own control freakish tendency to do everything in my own films. Now, at 50, Will has struck out on his own and I wish him all the luck in his endeavors. I just hope he stays on his meds and steers clear of law enforcement.
However, I don’t think that a public blog is any place to air personal grievances and discuss lawsuits.
or your penis?
Bryan are you saying that Will Dailyrest is a fictional character?
That’s exactly what he’s saying, Mother. It’s amazing how you can think you know and like someone and come to find that they are absolutely nuts. Bryan, I feel your pain, but in a different place. Still waiting on that royalty check from Dirty Habit.