ContentFilm Presents



ContentFilm Presents

A Robert Parigi Film

LOVE OBJECT

Starring

Desmond Harrington

Melissa Sagemiller

Udo Kier

Rip Torn

Preliminary Press Notes

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CAST

Kenneth………………………………………………………………Desmond Harrington

Lisa..……………………………………………………………………Melissa Sagemiller

Radley……………………………………………...…………...………………..Udo Kier

Martin……………………………………………………………………...Robert Bagnell

Ramirez………………………………………………………………………Michael Pena

Dotson………………………………………………………………………….Brad Henke

Jason…….…………………………………………………………………….John Cassini

Mr. Novak..…...…………………………………………………………………..Rip Torn

CREW

Writer/Director………………………………………...……………………..Robert Parigi

Producers…………………………………………………………………..Lawrence Levy

……………………………………………………………………………..Kathleen Haase

Executive Producers………………………………………………….Edward R. Pressman

………………………………………………………………………………..John Schmidt

………………………………………………………………………….Alessandro Camon

Director of Photography……………………………………………………...Sidney Sidell

Production Designer……….…………………………………………………….Trae King

Costume Designer……………………………………………………………Victoria Auth

Casting Director……………………………………...…Amanda Mackey Johnson, C.S.A.

…………………………………………………………..Cathy Sandrich Gelfond, C.S.A.

Editor ….……………………………………………………………...Troy Takaki, A.C.E.

Makeup/Hair………………………………………………………………....Tracy Wilcox

Prop Master…………………………………………………………..……..Jimmie Herron

Sound Mixer……………………………………………………………………James Dehr

Music by………………………………………………………………..……Nicholas Pike

LOVE OBJECT

Think of the last time you spent a lot of money on a new toy.

Are you the kind of person who ripped off the packaging the second you got it in the door? Did you immediately play and poke and prod and fiddle?

Or did you sit and carefully read the instructions, hoping to experience every ounce of pleasure your new toy had to offer?

“Love Object” is the twisted tale of Kenneth, socially insecure technical writer who forms an obsessive relationship with “Nikki,” an anatomically accurate silicone sex doll he orders over the Internet.

Because of his experience with his new toy, “Nikki,” Kenneth’s life takes a turn for the better when his newfound romantic skills attract the attention of Lisa, a co-worker at his office. But when the doll’s jealous personality invades his consciousness, Kenneth becomes trapped in a perverse triangle, torn between the dominating, silicone Nikki and the flesh-and-blood Lisa.

“Love Object” is a sexually charged thriller that is also a cautionary tale for our high-tech times.

Written and directed by Robert Parigi, “Love Object” stars Desmond Harrington and Melissa Sagemiller, with Rip Torn and Udo Kier in supporting roles. The film is produced by Lawrence Levy and Kathleen Haase, with ContentFilm’s Edward R. Pressman, John Schmidt and Alessandro Camon serving as executive producers.

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

“I wanted to explore the dark corners of erotic horror by making a film that will scare you in very personal and intimate ways,” Parigi says of his feature debut.

Parigi’s fascination with horror, mondo and psychotronic cinema has manifested itself in “Love Object,” a daring and audacious look at obsession and its consequences. But while the central idea of the film may seem shocking or bizarre, Parigi’s approach to is non-judgmental: he’s made a classic love triangle with a genre twist.

“I’ve always been interested in the technology of monster movies, everything from ‘King Kong’ to the splatter films of the 1980’s,” says Parigi, who while in graduate school wrote an analysis of body horror for Donald Kuspit’s journal Art Criticism, which brought aspects of make-up effects into a critical context.

As Parigi puts it, “My interest is very schizophrenic. I have a high-brow obsession with low-brow and pulp culture.”

Parigi is young producer and writer who has already found some success in Hollywood with a few genre television and films projects. Still, Parigi’s crisp appearance on the set – he wears his wears a white oxford shirt, pressed khakis and horn-rimmed glasses – at first surprises a visitor whose only familiarity with the writer director has been through this particular screenplay. And though the film is being made for very little money and even less time, Parigi appears confident and relaxed.

It is a hot, dry day in the Pasadena foothills, where Parigi and his production crew are ramping up to shoot scenes set inside a pornography store. The set is on the second floor of an ancient complex of soundstages, a sprawling timber building that feels as combustible as gunpowder. Downstairs, makeup artist Tracy Wilcox has just finished work on Desmond Harrington, who is the star of the film, and she now turns her attention to an extremely lifelike, anatomically correct silicone sex doll whose face is the spitting image of lead actress Melissa Sagemiller (“Lisa”).

The doll sits in a wheelchair, which is the most efficient way to get her place to place, since she weighs about the same as a real person, only she cannot move.

This is the second half of the shoot, and new surroundings for the filmmakers, who have just come from a week and a half inside an abandoned unemployment office in downtown LA. There, production designer Trae King had created the sleek, Southern California retro look of a company that creates technical manuals for the consumer electronics and defense industries – a dry-as-dust enterprise that calls for the focus and precision of a brain surgeon. Maybe this is why Kenneth, the central consciousness of “Love Object” and the top technical writer at Accurate Technical Publishing (ATP), is the perfect character for a story about hidden experimentation that becomes a dangerous erotic obsession.

In any case, it helps a great deal that Kenneth is being played by the gifted young actor Desmond Harrington. In his scenes at the ATP office, Harrington projects a steely confidence in his work, especially when he is around his boss, Mr. Novak (Rip Torn). But around his male co-workers, whose behavior is more suited to a locker room than a place of business, Kenneth seems slightly uncomfortable. These co-workers introduce Kenneth to the website where he finds “Nikki,” and once he does, his life will be changed forever.

This part of the story is drawn from directly from an experience in life, which is how Parigi was inspired to write “Love Object.”

“I was mixing a show with William Dotson, my sound supervisor, when he showed me the website for on his notebook computer,” Parigi recalls. “At first, I thought it was a joke, that someone took centerfold pictures and made up a hoax website. But on second glance, I could tell the pictures were dolls, only they had a nauseous inertness that I had once seen in corpses laid out like unclaimed luggage at the L.A. County Coroner’s Office.”

Indeed, Parigi had seen corpses at the Coroner’s office when he’d “taken the tour” doing research on “Chrome Gothic,” a love story set in the intersecting subcultures of hot-rods and black-market body modifications.

As Parigi clicked through , he realized that the more photo-realistic the dolls, the less they looked like live girls, and the more they looked like real corpses.

“The pornographic poses of the ‘bodies’ made the pictures look like a serial killer’s souvenir-photos, rather than cheesecake pictures. It was like finding a serial killer’s home page.

“There’s a very fine line between screwing an inanimate body and a dead one,” Parigi continues. “These dolls seemed like a sublimated form of necrophilia, and I was amazed to see such a bizarre practice turned into a product and marketed. It made me wonder, are the people who buy these dolls consciously indulging in necrophilia, or are they unconsciously fulfilling an urge they don’t recognize?

“It was all very creepy, and I figured if it creeped me out, it might make a disturbing horror movie.”

Meanwhile, back on the second floor of the timber soundstage, the crew has created an entirely new world, an emporium of pornography and sex paraphernalia, including harnesses and bondage devices. With its black walls and hanging mannequins, this particular porn store is a menacing place. As Kenneth explores the merchandise, the old man behind the counter, whose disfigured head and purple face resembles a bloody cauliflower, observes him warily.

For the duration of the shoot, the crew will move from set to set within this tinderbox of a studio, shooting scenes Parigi has written to take place in Kenneth’s apartment and in the home of his love interest, Lisa. At the beginning of the film, Kenneth’s place is as austere and as rigid as his personality. But as the film goes on, and Kenneth’s obsession with “Nikki” grows, so does the contraption he’s built of pulleys and ropes. And while he’s built the harness for “Nikki,” he’s done it so he can carry out a fantasy about Lisa, his real-life, flesh and blood co-worker.

And that’s where the production was faced with some interesting challenges.

Lisa, as played by the beautiful ingenue Melissa Sagemiller, is an independent girl with all-American good looks, a new typist at ATP who is assigned to help Kenneth on a huge project of great importance to the company. When Kenneth orders his “fantasy doll” over the Internet, he uses Lisa’s face and body as a model.

“I knew from the beginning that the doll was going to be the most important prop in the movie, so I started researching it early with make-up effect shops and looking at sex dolls on the Internet,” Parigi recalls.

At first, Parigi thought he’d make a full-body cast of whatever actress he hired for the role of Lisa, but he’d soon learn that such a process would be massively expensive.

So the decision was made to order the real thing from Abyss Creations and their website – the undisputed leader in the field whose products have been written up in Time magazine and endorsed by Howard Stern. Though not cheap – anatomically correct, made-to-order silicone sex dolls like “Nikki” in “Love Object” cost several thousand dollars – they also require several months to create. And the production would need at least two dolls.

“Because of the turnaround, we had to order the dolls before I even had an actress cast for Lisa. So we ordered “medium” on all the options: skin color, height, build, etc. We ordered blonde hair, figuring it would be the easiest to dye if necessary,” says Parigi.

Once Melissa Sagemiller had been cast, Parigi and his team began to modify the realdoll to look like her. Make-up and Monsters, the Southern California special effects shop that did “Jeepers Creepers,” modified the dolls. (Parigi chose Make-up and Monsters because they had previous experience with Realdolls from work they did for the Patricia Arquette horror film “Stigmata”).

“Melissa went to their shop in Chatsworth, where they made a life-mask from her face. They took photo references of her eyes and skin color,” recalls Parigi. “I was fascinated by the process and I watched the whole session. They peeled the factory face from the Realdoll, and replaced it with a silicone casting from Melissa’s mold. They also replaced the eyes and teeth with more realistic matches for Melissa.

“Melissa is taller than the Nikki doll, but you don’t notice since they don’t have any scenes together. The biggest problem was the skin color. Melissa is very fair, so we had to repaint the doll’s entire body to match. Make-up and Monsters had to experiment with different paints to find one that would adhere to the Realdoll’s silicone skin. Then, Tracy Wilcox, our make up and hair stylist for the human cast, styled a wig to match Lisa’s glamour look, and did Nikki’s cosmetic makeup also.”

Kenneth’s fantasy for Lisa, the co-worker he has come to know (and of whom his love object, “Nikki,” is growing increasingly jealous), is as it turns out pretty tame. Kenneth has observed that Lisa, a quirky romantic who buys second hand clothes, likes to dance to Waltz music, so Kenneth rigs those pulleys and harnesses to hold “Nikki” upright and make her more light on her feet. Kenneth dotes on “Nikki” –he buys her a new suit, paints her nails, and quietly watches “The English Patient” with her – sends Kenneth into something of a romantic limbo, in which the harnesses disappear and he and “Nikki” glide off arm in arm, in perfect synch to a Strauss Waltz.

But Kenneth’s reverie is broken by the spark of real-world romance with Lisa, who has asked Kenneth out on a date. Torn between an increasingly hostile and dominant “Nikki” and a chance to begin a healthy relationship with a charming but flawed – let’s face it, Lisa’s apartment is as sloppy as Kenneth’s lovemaking – flesh and blood woman, it’s only a matter of time before Lisa discovers her co-worker’s “hobby.”

Under increasing pressure to finish a massive project for ATP, which carries a promised bonus that would cover the overdraft caused by the purchase of “Nikki,” and under the uncomfortable scrutiny of the nosy building manager next door, Kenneth snaps. He wants his life back, and in order to get it he must eliminate the one who has brought his whole life to the brink of oblivion – the doll.

By the time Parigi and his team finish shooting “Love Object,” they will have visited a dumpster in a downtown Los Angeles back alley where the bodies have started to pile up. They will have created a set for and shot a scene in a mortuary supply store, the kind of place that stocks large needles and embalming fluid. And they will have created a “gore gun” to do a more efficient job of dispersing fake blood.

“Even though some of the action is extreme, it’s presented in a very clinical way,” he says. “I wanted to imitate the cold, distanced style of Coppola’s ‘The Conversation,’ as if we’re watching these bizarre events unfold in real life, instead of seeing them in an exploitation movie. No matter how bizarre Kenneth’s actions, they proceed with a kind of crazy, clockwork logic. So mostly it was a matter of relating Kenneth’s actions to his deranged reasoning, and keeping Lisa’s reactions as real as possible.”

Parigi’s approach to the material applied to the direction he gave his actors.

He points out that dialogue scenes are very different for Kenneth than they are for Lisa. “Kenneth is sealed off in his own world, saying and doing things that have a special, sometimes pathological meaning to him. Meanwhile, Lisa can only see him from the outside, where he appears quite normal,” he explains.

Indeed, the most unsettling aspects of “Love Object” have little to do with harnesses and gore guns, and ultimately everything to do with the inner workings of Kenneth’s mind. Because we’ve come to know Kenneth just as he’s come to know himself, it’s as if we’re meeting the young neighbor next door – a neighbor who is about to become a monster.

A FEW QUESTIONS FOR ROBERT PARIGI

Q: If one were to go to the website , which is where “Nikki” started out, one would learn that these dolls cost around $7,000, and the production had to buy at least two. What's the story with that, and do you still have "Nikki"?

A: Much is disturbing about these dolls, but to me it’s equally creepy that they’re so expensive, because whoever buys them must really want them, or even need them. Also, the customers have to function well enough in the real world to have that kind of discretionary income. That’s one reason why I made Kenneth the bland, invisible psycho who walks among us.

We needed to buy two dolls for insurance reasons, but we learned that the company doesn’t sell individual parts or defectives; that’s one of the FAQ’s on the Realdoll website. I’ll leave it to your imagination why so many people want life-like dismembered parts.

To save money, our original plan was to keep the second doll in mint condition, like an action figure, and re-sell it on the internet. Bruce Wayne Gillies, our line producer, discovered there’s an eager after-market for used sex-dolls.

Eventually, we had to modify the spare doll so I don’t think the company that financed the movie, ContentFilm, will sell it. The last time I saw it, it was packed in the Modern Appliances crate, in their offices.

Q: There’s something of a cinematic tradition of the frustrated, dangerous loner who lives in the same world we all do but who experiences it in a radically different – some might say pathological – way. I’m thinking here of Travis Bickle in “Taxi Driver,” “Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer,” “The Tenant.” Do you think your character Kenneth fits into that tradition, and if so, how?

A: Kenneth is very much in that tradition, and I wanted his character to reflect certain change sin the world. Today’s marginal working stiff is just as likely to have a technical job as a manual one. With all the corporate downsizing and exploitation, traditionally white-collar, middle-class jobs are now barely subsistence level.

It’s also disturbing to me how often we confuse technical facility with intelligence. We consider someone “smart” if they know how to operate a computer. But there’s very little intelligence involved, it’s just following directions. It’s clever, but it’s not smart, and it’s not creative the way that inventing technology is creative. Kenneth embodies this sterile mentality: he has a certain mechanical cleverness, but an utter lack of insight or self-awareness.

Also, one of the things I loved about Jacques Tourneur’s “Cat People” is that the characters had real jobs. That made the story more real, more believable. So I gave Kenneth a real job that reflects his obsessive need to control, devoid of creativity or understanding. Kenneth’s pathology becomes a sexual expression of his need for complete control.

Q: Desmond Harrington is amazing in the movie. He’s good looking of course but also has a dangerous streak and a vulnerable streak. Why’d you choose him for the role?

A: I saw Desmond’s work in “My First Mister,” and I was very impressed by his charisma, how he could be appealing in a kind of dangerous way. I wanted Kenneth to be handsome, to make his isolation a product of his own mind, rather than the result of anything external, and also to make Lisa’s attraction to him understandable.

Regardless of his menace, Kenneth is actually a very fragile character. That’s why he’s so dangerous: he’s on the verge of crumbling. So I needed someone who could project both that fragility and that rage, and Desmond did a great job at both.

Desmond was brought to my attention by our casting directors at Mackey Sandrich, who did an excellent job helping us put together a great cast for an unusual film.

Q: There were a number of “closed set” days during production, and the script calls for Desmond’s character to be intimate with the doll a number of times. Those early scenes – like when he strokes Nikki’s cheek and watches a movie with her -- are so tender, they actually outweigh the raunchier stuff in terms of shock value. What was it like on set when those scenes were shot?

A: Desmond was completely believable on-set with the doll. He acted his scenes with it as if it was a real person. He had to provide both sides of those scenes, his own and Nikki’s. I noticed when we shot those scenes, the crew didn’t laugh, they were more creeped out.

A: We shot some far more explicit sex scenes with the doll, but I downplayed those to put more emphasis on Kenneth’s personal relationship with the doll, for lack of a better term. Sex is fairly simple; the real weirdness is in what we make of it. Like the instruction manual says, the brain is your largest sexual organ. It can be infinite and at the same time a prison, like a maze.

Q: Speaking of raunchy, I found the scene immediately after Kenneth comes to know Nikki for the first time extremely real and wonderful – who doesn’t rush to play with any expensive new toy the second they yank it out of the box? Please talk about how this contradicts what we’ve come to expect from Kenneth’s character and how he might have made his first experience with Nikki more pleasurable.

A: Kenneth takes for granted his mastery or understanding of sex. He’s an adult; he knows about sex, so who needs an instruction manual? He doesn’t even notice it in the crate, at first. Besides, he’s eager to get down to business. And he’s got that deadline at work breathing down his neck. When his sex with the doll doesn’t bring him the relief he expected, Kenneth has to confront the deeper mysteries. And his inability to accommodate them destroys him.

Q: So let’s talk about the doll. When I was on set the property master was very protective of her. He kept her hidden away in her own space and eyeballed me whenever I went near her. What was the crew’s overall attitude towards Nikki?

A: At first, everyone was very curious about the doll: just how realistic is it? Then they’re a little creeped out by it. Then it just becomes another cast member, although a very difficult one! It’s a hundred and twenty pounds of dead weight that has to be muscled to and from the set, wrestled into clothes, cleaned and made up before every take. If anything, people came to dislike her. Regardless of the cost and inconvenience, I had to use a doll for Nikki, instead of Melissa in make-up, to insure that Nikki had that corpse-like inertness which is so disturbing in a human simulacrum.

As an interesting side note, Make-up and Monsters has its studio in Chatsworth, in Simi Valley. Simi Valley is where all the big make-up effect shops have their studios, and coincidentally it is also where the porn industry does most of it’s shooting. Perhaps a make-up effects guy got the idea for these dolls from encounters with the nearby porn industry?

Q: Several people in the film – from the guy with the shipping company who delivers Nikki’s crate to the people in the porn store to, by the end of the film, Kenneth himself, carry a purple stain on their faces. What’s up with that?

A: There’s a weird pattern I noticed in newspaper read sex-advice columns. Some week a person will write in, “Dear Sex Advice Column, I’m so scared to write this letter, because I’m really into ‘fill in the blank perversion.’ Am I sick, or are other people into the same thing?” The Column answers, “Why no, ‘fill in the blank’ is quite common. Check out the following web-sites and support groups.” And then the next week some one else will write in, “I’m so glad you printed the first letter. I’m also into ‘fill-in-the-blank, and was so glad to find out that there are so many others out there just like me!” So there’s this expanding web of perversion that gets more widespread than you ever imagined. So on one level, I wanted a visual expression of Kenneth noticing that slowly expanding web, at first with revulsion, and then realizing he’s a part of it. It’s his home.

On a psychological level, it’s as if Kenneth can recognize in others the same disease or sickness that’s inside his own mind. All those people have walked the same path Kenneth is walking in the story we see, and now they’re helping him do the same.

Or maybe it’s just a chemical reaction to something toxic inside the dolls? Maybe a chemical is accidentally driving people who use the dolls insane, like the ergot-infected rye that perhaps triggered the Salem witch trials?

I think it’s scarier not to know for sure.

Q: LOVE OBJECT has a crisp yet sort of retro LA design. I was particularly taken with the spartan look of Kenneth’s residence and the office, but I can’t get the ornate headboard and the color of Lisa’s sheets out of my head. Can you talk about some of those choices?

A: Since we couldn’t build elaborate sets, I tried to make the blankness part of the look, the way Carl Dreyer used minimalism in “Vampyr.” But I wanted a contemporary minimalism that bordered on realistic, just a shade or two off kilter. We shot Kenneth’s office scenes in a vacant Unemployment Office building, which had perfectly depressing bureaucratic architecture. Using a decayed, mid-century style is a visual reference to the failure of rationality. It’s also a reflection of Kenneth’s mind: a rigid structure whose internal logic is isolated from human reality.

I wanted Lisa’s apartment to be the exact opposite, a kind of thrift-store chic that reflects her open and diverse experience, a more eclectic approach to life rather than Kenneth’s coldly rational one. Kenneth ordered his furniture out of catalogue; a matching set that someone else put together and packaged. Lisa collected stuff she liked and created her own style, not really worrying if it was too funky or goofy, as long as it was comfortable and pretty.

Q: Much of the magic of LOVE OBJECT comes from the process of getting into the scary place that is Kenneth’s head, a layer-by-layer revealing of who this guy is. But there are also some movie magic special effects in the film that must have been fun to do. Who worked with you on those, and were f/x days technically harder than other days?

A: I wanted to keep the visual effects simple, in order to make the story seem more real, and therefore more creepy. We shot the eyeball reflections against black, which was easier than green screen work for shooting and just as good for compositing the reflection plates. I have a background in visual effects and the shots are pretty basic in today’s digital world, so the shooting went quickly.

Chris Miller at Visionbox Media advised us on all that. He’s done a great job helping us get the right look and sound for the “Love Object.” Chris supervised our whole process of shooting on Super16mm, transferring to Hi-Def, digital internegative color-timing, and scanning out to film. A lot of this process is still new, so I’m glad Chris gave us the benefit of his skills and talent.

I shot the Limbo shots stark and practical, so they would feel real instead of being like special effects. I worked within the minimalist design by keeping them empty.

ABOUT THE CAST

Desmond Harrington (Kenneth) - Born in Savannah, Georgia, Desmond Harrington grew up in the Bronx, NY. Desmond attended catholic schools for twelve years. The pinnacle of his academic career occurred his senior year of high school, when a play that he had written was chosen by the theatre department to be performed.

After finishing high school, Desmond spent six weeks in college before realizing that he needed some time off from academia. A student of cinema since his early childhood, Desmond spent his days watching films over and over until he could recite every line. Desmond’s dream was to become an actor, and in order to finance his ambition; he found work in construction. He began working as a landscaper and laborer for a construction company and worked as a bartender at night so he could pay for acting classes in Manhattan with John Strassberg.

Desmond booked the first film that he ever read for, “Joan Of Arc” starring Mila Jovovich, John Malkovich and Dustin Hoffman and directed by Luc Besson. He then starred with Ben Affleck and Giovanni Ribisi in the New Line feature “Boiler Room.” He went on to star with James LeGros and Amber Valetta in Stacy Cochran’s “Drop Back Ten,” which competed at the Sundance Film Festival, and completed the independent film, “Massholes,” in 2000.

Audiences saw him co-star in Christine Lahti’s feature film directorial debut, “My First Mister,” opposite Albert Brooks and Leelee Sobieski, which Paramount Classics premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001. He was also seen co-starring in “Riding In Cars with Boys” opposite Drew Barrymore and Brittany Murphy for director Penny Marshall that Sony pictures released in 2001.

Most recently, Desmond completed a starring role in the Joel Silver produced horror movie, “Ghost Ship,” which was released in October by Warner Bros.

Melissa Sagemiller (Lisa) – Born into a political family, Melissa Sagemiller started her path in the performing arts at a very young age. At age three she began to study dance; tap ballet jazz and modern. Melissa made her stage debut at 9 as ‘Dill’ in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” after responding to an ad in the Washington Post. She soon became a regular on the DC stages.

Acting took a back seat when Eileen Ford discovered Melissa in a Manhattan jewelry store at the age of 14. Modeling took her to New York and Paris, until bored with her life as a model, Melissa decided that the whole scene was not for her and with the help of a little Vaseline and some eye liner, used her acting skills to create an elaborate story to her booking agent about an allergy to make-up. Soon thereafter she left Paris and followed through with her initial desire to go to the University of Virginia and resume a “normal” student life.

After graduation she moved back to New York, her love of art turning into a hobby.

When she decided to return to acting full time, she began studying at The Stella Adler Conservatory, NYU’s Stonestreet Studio and at the Michael Howard Studio. Her professional life as an actor began shortly thereafter in the commercial world.

But it wasn’t long before Melissa went from starring in commercials to starring on the big screen. In the spring of 2002 Melissa was cast as the lead in Steve Carpenter’s “Soul Survivors” opposite Wes Bentley, Casey Affleck, Eliza Dushku and Luke Wilson.

Not long after that she landed a starring role as Allison in Miramax’s “Get Over It” opposite Kirsten Dunst, Martin Short and Ben Foster.

In the spring of 2001 she started production on her third film, Disney/Touchstone’s “Dog Catcher.” Melissa played the role of Leah, a quirky, headstrong student activist who learns a lesson or two about what it means to be a real woman.

In the fall of 2002, Melissa began shooting Fox’s “The Clearing” opposite Robert Redford, Helen Mirren and Willem Dafoe.

Udo Kier (Radley) - One of the most well known actors in the world, Udo Kier began his career at the young age of 18. After moving to London to study English, he received his first role playing a gigolo in “Road to Saint Tropez” for director Mike Sarne. While the role was small, it was the springboard for his illustrious career in film.

Kier’s first "hit" film was 1970's “Mark of the Devil,” which garnered him critical acclaim. It wasn't long before he made cinematic history by starring in Andy Warhol’s cult classics “Flesh for Frankenstein” and “Blood for Dracula,” which gained him international notoriety, and established him as a star on the rise.

Prior to his mainstream exposure to American audiences, in the 1970's and 1980's, Kier worked primarily in Europe. Some of his films from this period include “The Story of O,” “Suspiria,” “The Salzburg Connection,” “Lili Marleen,” “The Cruel Woman,” “Lulu” and “Zentropa.”

In the 1990’s, while still working regularly in Europe, Kier burst onto the American cinema scene with his breakthrough role opposite River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves in “My Own Private Idaho,” directed by Gus Van Sant.

Kier has starred in many other films, including “End of Days,” “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective,” “Shadow of the Vampire,” “Dancer in the Dark,” “Armaggedon,” “Breaking the Waves” and “Blade.” He has also worked with a slew of talented directors, including Paul Morrisey, Wim Wenders, Charles Matton, Dario Argento, Michael Bay, Stephen Norrington, Gus Van Sant, Werner Herzog and Lars Von Trier.

Kier is currently starring in Lars Von Trier’s “Dogville” opposite Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall and James Caan, which is set to premiere at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival.

Kier was raised in Germany during World War II, and currently resides in California.

Rip Torn (Mr. Novak) - Rip Torn has had a long and illustrious career in film, theater and television. One of his best known roles was Artie, the acerbic talk show producer on Garry Shandling’s “The Larry Sanders Show,” which won him an Emmy in 1996 for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series, two Cable Ace Awards as Best Actor in a Comedy, the American Comedy Award and six consecutive Emmy nominations. His turn as the boss of the alien-hunters in “Men in Black,” brought him a whole new audience, and this summer, Torn re-teamed with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones for “Men in Black II. ” Other memorable roles include “The Insider” for Touchstone Pictures opposite Al Pacino and Russell Crowe and Paramount’s “The Wonder Boys” opposite Michael Douglas, while his turn opposite Tom Green in the outrageous comedy, “Freddie Got Fingered” reminded audiences that Torn is a comedian at heart.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

Robert Parigi (writer / director) makes his debut as a director with “Love Object.”

Parigi interned with Michael DeLuca at New Line Cinema in New York while earning a Masters’ degree in philosophy, then worked as a producer on “Tales from the Crypt” for HBO and on “Profiler” for NBC. Parigi co-wrote the screenplay for “Holywood” with Marilyn Manson, and also worked as a screenwriter on “Blair Witch 2” and “The Mirror” for Artisan. He is currently working on a project with Andrew Mason, producer of “The Matrix” trilogy.

Lawrence Levy (producer) most recently produced Bruce Beresford’s “Bride of the Wind,” which was released by Paramount Classics last summer. Prior to that he produced the feature “Inferno,” directed by John Avildsen and starring Jean-Claude van Damme and Pat Morita.

Kathleen Haase (producer) has also produced “Detroit Rock City,” directed by Adam Rifkin and released by New Line Cinema, and Paul Schrader’s “Forever Mine,” released by Lions Gate.

Edward R. Pressman and John Schmidt (executive producers) - Pressman and Schmidt launched ContentFilm on September 7, 2001. A fully-financed production and distribution company based in New York, ContentFilm is financing and producing an initial slate of twelve to fifteen director-driven feature films that take advantage of new technology to keep budgets low.

ContentFilm has financed and produced a number of high-profile projects. The first ContentFilm production to play before an audience was “The Guys,” the film version of Anne Nelson’s acclaimed post-9/11 play of the same title starring Sigourney Weaver and Anthony LaPaglia. “The Guys” had its world at the 2002 Toronto Film Festival, after which Focus Features acquired worldwide rights to the film. Focus will release the film in March 2003. Other ContentFilm projects include “The Cooler,” a dark comedy set in Las Vegas starring William H. Macy and Alec Baldwin, and “The Hebrew Hammer,” a “Jewxploitation” comedy starring Adam Goldberg, both of which had their world premiere at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, where “The Cooler” was acquired for distribution by Lions Gate Films.

ContentFilm also co-financed and owns U.S. rights to “Party Monster,” the chilling story of New York club-kid killer Michael Alig, starring Macaulay Culkin and Seth Green. Produced with Killer Films and Fortissimo, “Party Monster” is directed by Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey. The film also had its world premiere at Sundance.

Pressman is a veteran producer of over 60 films, from “Badlands,” “The Bad Lieutenant” and “Wall Street” to “The Crow” and “American Psycho.” Schmidt was a founding partner of October Films.

Alessandro Camon (executive producer)

A veteran of the Edward R. Pressman Film Corp., where he served as Senior Vice President of Production since 1995, Alessandro Camon is ContentFilm’s Head of Production, Los Angeles. Prior to his work at the Edward R. Pressman Film Corp., Camon served as Vice President, Creative affairs for Penta Pictures, and also served as a programming executive at Milan’s Mediaset. A former film critic and scholar, Camon has had a number of books on such filmmakers as Francis Ford Coppola, John Milius and David Lynch published in both the US and Italy. At Pressman Film Corp., Camon was involved in producing such films as “The Blackout,” “The Crow: Salvation,” “American Psycho” and “Owning Mahowny,” starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Minnie Driver, which recently completed production in Toronto. Camon graduated from UCLA with a Master of Arts in film and television on a Fulbright Grant.

Sidney Sidell (director of photography) - Sidney Sidell literally grew up on Motion Picture sets. His great Uncle was the Make-up artist for Elvis Presley and John Wayne. His parents were also Make-up artists. Sidney has been on Motion Picture and Television locations and sets since the age of 5.

He worked 13 years as an Assistant Cameraman on Motion Pictures, Television shows, Commercials and Music Videos. He was fortunate to work and learn his craft from some of the world’s top Cinematographers and Directors.

Since becoming a Director of Photography in 1996, Sidney has continued to develop as an artist and stay current by using what he has learned, as well as many of his own personal experiences to develop an ever growing list of credits and award nominations. To date Sidney has photographed over 24 Music Videos, almost 100 Commercials and 8 Features, in addition to acting as Director of Photography on over 12 2nd Unit and additional photography units.

Sidney is currently dividing his time between postproduction duties on his latest film project The Love Object and doing 2nd Unit Photography on Kingpin for NBC Television.

Trae King (production designer) – If you were impressed with the look of the futuristic commercialism that constantly bombarded Tom Cruise’s character in Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi thriller, “Minority Report,” then you’ve noticed the production design work of Trae King. Kings design influence is seen throughout the film for such companies as American Express, Lexus, Aqua Fina, Pepsi, Reebok and Guinness. He also designed the feature film “Breed” for Sony Screen Gems, directed by Michael Oblowitz. The Hollywood Reporter described King’s production design for “Breed” as, “ A magnificently stark and foreboding look that befits its bleak vision.” Other features include “Frozen,” “Aftershock,” “Public Enemy #1,” “Baby Face Nelson,” “High Desert Run,” and “Ground Zero”.

In the commercial and music video scene, King designed celebrity campaign spots for Gladware and Warner Brothers, Nickelodeon and Major League Baseball. He has also created the cutting edge look of music videos for such artists as Matchbox 20, TOOL, Blink 182, Outkast, Ludicris and Incubus.

You can view Trae Kings continuing production design and fine art at .

Tracy Wilcox (hair & makeup) – Tracy Wilcox is a journeyman make-up artist skilled in straight make-up as well as special make-up effects. She has had the opportunity to work on exceptional projects with talented individuals. Two independent feature films that she has worked on in the past year have been admitted to the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. The first being “Love Object,” a Robert Parigi film starring Desmond Harrington, Melissa Sagemiller, Rip Torn and Udo Kier. The second is Tim Hunter’s “The Failures,” starring Ashley Johnson, Chad Lindberg, Henry Czemy, Joseph Reitman, Seth Adkins and Michael Ironside.

Brian Penikas/Make-up & Monsters - For 20 years, Brian Penikas has made a career of bringing interesting characters to the screen with the use of Special Make-up Effects. His career began as an assistant and designer to many of Hollywood’s top make-up artists. His early works include “Cocoon,” “Aliens,” and the Oscar winning “Mask” (with Eric Stolz and Cher).

In recent years, as Creative Director for Make-up & Monsters Studios, Brian and his team have contributed their unique skills and talents to films such as “Batman & Robin,” “Galaxy Quest,” “Rules of Engagement,” “Man on the Moon,” “The General’s Daughter,” and “Stigmata.”

Whether it’s creating something as small as a scar for Dr. Evil (“Austin Powers II: The Spy Who Shagged Me”) or a nose for Al Pacino (“Any Given Sunday”), or something as monumental as the creatures and victims for “Jeepers Creepers 1 & 2,” Penikas and his crew approach each project with the same creative enthusiasm and attention to detail that has driven them for two decades. Every project presents new creative challenges and Brian says he “feeds on” and welcomes those challenges.

What’s Brian doing when he’s not creating make-up effects for the cinema? He is the “Keeper of the Glue and Faith” for his group, Apemanie, a re-enactment/parody troupe that pays tribute to Planet of the Apes. Penikas credits Planet of the Apes as being his inspiration since childhood to pursue make-up and effects as his chosen career. He also says that dressing up as a gorilla with his friends to entertain people is just another defiant excuse to never truly grow up and get a “real job.”

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