Chris Redish lives in Sedona, Ariz. So when he decided to write and direct a film about UFOs, he knew he wouldn’t have to go far.

“It was always a Sedona story,” he says on the set of his next movie, Eleven Eleven. “This is the place for people interested in alien abductions.”

A tourist destination known for its majestic red rock formations, Sedona also is home to reputed energy vortexes and a high concentration of UFO sightings. “A vortex is a concentrated energy field that radiates from the ground,” according to the Sedona Verde Valley Tourism Council’s website. “Many people who have meditated on vortexes claim to have come away with a new clarity and focus in life, a physcological ‘tune-up’ if you will.

“Sedona also has one of the highest concentrations of UFO sightings in the United States,” the website continues. “Some say the aliens are attracted to the magnetism in the red-rock spires. Many of these sightings have been near the four major vortex areas.”

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In keeping with the sic-fi theme, let’s hop into the ol’ Wayback Machine.

Having written and/or directed a number of short films, Redish (pronounced REED-ish) was looking to make his first full-length feature.

“I was looking at play scripts – stage plays – because I wanted to make something low-budget,” he says. “And I figured if I could find a good stage play, I could film it cheap.”

He says he found one with potential, but the main element didn’t work for him. Rather than try to rewrite it, he decided to create an original screenplay that incorporated the elements he liked: A couple having an affair, secrecy and a tight-knit group of people.

“I started to think: ‘What group of people would we like to see that we really haven’t seen a lot of movies about?’ I made a long list, and the one that really stood out to me was UFO hunters,” he says. “We haven’t see a lot of movies about people who are really into UFOs and aliens and abductions. So I decided that was the group I wanted to write about.”

Casting and Shooting

The result is the sci-fi comedy Eleven Eleven, about a man who desperately wants to be abducted by aliens to escape his mundane life. The independent film stars Charles Baker (“Skinny Pete” from Breaking Bad) as Tim Faris, and Krista Allen (The L.A. Complex, Baywatch Hawaii and Liar Liar) as a mysterious women from his past. Tim has a wife, Eve (played by Phoenix-based actress Jennifer Pfalzgraff), and daughter, Mallory (Christina Rose).

Redish shot the film in December – exterior scenes in Sedona, interiors in greater Phoenix. He also gained access to the “green screen” at Collins College. “It’s huge,” he says, “very professional. Saved us a lot of hassle and money, and gave us great results.”

There was also a comfort factor in filming close to home.

“I wanted to shoot in Arizona,” he says. “Then I could cast my friends; I could use my friends as crew. It’s a lot easier for me here.”

All of the crew, and many of the actors, are Arizona-based, the director says. For instance, Redish and Pfalzgraff go way back.

“I’ve known Jennifer for 10 years,” Redish says. “We first met when I was a casting director for my friends’ short films. … Either she or her children have worked on just about every film I’ve made since then.”

Still, he imported some of his key actors from Los Angeles. Independent films can earn publicity and facilitate distribution by casting name actors.

Redish said he’s surveyed film distributors at trade events about what makes a film marketable. “Ninety percent of the answers were ‘cast.’ Second place was Christmas. They said they could never get enough Christmas films. But story and genre and all of those other things were lower down the list. The No. 1 thing they look for is the cast.”

So, he says, “Even though we had such a tiny budget, I really wanted to have name actors. … We didn’t know we were going to get that. There was a long time when we just thought we were going to be scraping together a few dollars that we could — that everybody would be unpaid and that all of the actors would just be local friends. Then we had some money come in, and it was just enough for us to start considering name actors.”

Baker came up on Redish’s radar thanks to a connection between the film’s Los Angeles casting director and the actor’s manager.

“There was no decision on our side,” Redish recalls. “I’ve been a Breaking Bad fan for years. I just love that show, so I knew his character already. As soon as we heard that there was just a chance that he might take it, it was like ‘Oh, absolutely. We’ve got to do anything we can to get him.’

“We found out later that he had a strong feeling he wanted to work with us,” Redish adds. “We didn’t know that at the time.”

For Baker, it was an opportunity to play a different kind of role, that of a family guy rather than a druggie.

“They wanted someone who had some recognition,” the actor says, “and – thanks to [Breaking Bad stars] Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul – people recognize me now.”

Landing Baker provided some much-needed buzz. “He started posting on Facebook and Twitter about it,” the director says. “We started getting a lot of ‘likes’ on Facebook. We started getting lots of attention.

“It grew very rapidly … from a very small project of friends to ‘This is a real movie now. We’ve got real investors. We’ve got a real cast. We’d better get our act together and do a good job.’”

Redish already had his eye on Rose to portray Tom’s daughter, Eve. When veteran actress Allen expressed interest in playing the sexy, mysterious Andromeda, he jumped at the opportunity.

“As far as I understand marketing, we’ve got a dream cast — but also in terms of acting ability,” he says. “I’ve worked on projects before where we’ve had a name actor or two, but not where we’ve had several of them. Just to have that experience of people who really understand the process of acting – and just get things like that and adjust like that – and just bring such a quality performance on the first take. For me, this is something that is just wonderful.”

Post Production

Redish completed shooting in December but says plenty of work remains. He says it might be spring of 2015 before the film premieres.

“We’ve got a lot of quite-technical editing to do,” he says. “In terms of a simple edit, we’re probably only looking at a few months. But we’ve got a lot of special effects, and for the most part those can’t start until we’ve locked in the basic edit.”

Though Eleven Eleven is a low-budget production, it’s still science fiction. Redish doesn’t plan to skimp on the special effects.

“There is some pretty high-tech stuff,” he promises. “I did not want it to be the kind of movie where the inside of a spaceship is a bunch of egg crates stuck on a wall.”

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Stuart J. Robinson practices writing, editing, media relations and social media through his business, Phoenix-based Lightbulb Communications.

 

 

 

Tags: alien abductions, aliens, Arizona, Charles Baker, Chris Redish, Christina Rose, Collins College, Eleven Eleven, Jennifer Pfalzgraff, Krista Allen, Phoenix, Sedona, UFO, UFOs