RoundAbout Madison - Movie Madison 11-01 Movie a labor of love

'Madison' movie a labor of love

Bindley brothers retell hardships of making movie

By Don Ward
Editor
FRANKLIN, Ind. (November 2001) – Watching the movie "Madison" may be enjoyable for director Bill Bindley, but making it was "pure hell."
Speaking to a Franklin College audience Oct. 17 as part of the opening night of the 10th annual Heartland Film Festival, Bindley described the making of the independent movie as a labor of love that often drained him physically and emotionally.
Bindley appeared on stage with his brother, Scott Bindley, who wrote the "Madison" script 10 years earlier, and moderator Angelo Pizzo, producer and screenwriter of "Hoosiers" and "Rudy." In an hour-long question-and-answer session, Bindley recapped his experiences of obtaining financing for the film, hiring a cast and getting the movie made, despite numerous problems ranging from keeping the vintage hydroplanes running to shooting summer scenes in Madison before the fall leaves turned colors.
Bindley kept a diary of his movie-making experience. It was published in the October issue of Indianapolis Monthly. Much of what Bindley told the Franklin College audience – made up largely of college faculty and students – was recapped in the article.
Prior to the discussion, Bindley showed a series of movie clips that he was said was made two weeks into the filming "just to fire up the crew because we were working them so hard."
Bindley began by relating that the "dying town" aspect of the script was highlighted in the movie to help make a dramatic story out of it and to avoid making "just another sports film." This story line also provided the vehicle for having Jim McCormick's character try to put the issue of a town pulling together for a good cause into words that his 9-year-old son could understand.
Scott Bindley said he was a senior at Northwestern University when he wrote the original script as a class project. "I had already taken all the script writing courses, so I arranged to do this as a sort of independent study. Bill was in Los Angeles, so my job was to meet with the original Miss Madison team members to make the script as real as possible."
Scott traveled to Madison and sat down with several men who worked on the 1971 Miss Madison crew. They brought old photo albums and memorabilia to the meeting.
"With many of them tearing up at times and four hours later, I had enough to get started," said Scott Bindley, 31. "What struck me most was how dangerous this sport is and the fact they lost friends to it."
Scott also visited with the wives of these crew members and the real Harry Volpi, played in the film by veteran actor Bruce Dern.
Ten years later, Scott said, "I was still writing scenes on the set in Madison. It turned out to be an 11-year writing process."
Bill also contributed largely to the script over the years, adding, "Scott is better at comedy and I focus more on character."
Once the original script was finished, Bill said they initially just wanted to sell it to a studio. Unfortunately for the brothers, the commercial failure at the time of the race car movie, "Days of Thunder," hindered their efforts to promote another sports movie in 1993. They eventually decided that "Madison" might be more of an independent film project but with the monumental task of recreating a boat race using 50-year-old technology.
"We were in an odd situation because it was a small, character-driven thing but with this boat race going on, so it was also a big movie to make," Bill said.
In 1995 they began getting calls from a man who wanted to finance the project. Executive producer Carl Amari of Chicago entered the picture as the co-financier.
Amari said he was introduced to Bindley through a mutual friend who had appeared in one of Bindley's previous films. Amari had made his fortune by syndicating radio programming nationwide and had recently sold his company. He said he was looking to get into the film industry and decided to take a chance on the "Madison" project.
Amari said he helped Bindley cast the movie and then, aside from a few trips to Madison and daily reports by telephone on the film's progress, he "stayed out of the way."
"When we were casting the movie, I wasn't thinking so much about the lead role of Jim McCormick, I was thinking about who would play the kid. I thought if we get the right kid, it would be a success, because the story is basically told through the eyes of the kid."
That was in 1998 when the "Star Wars Episode I – The Phantom Menace" had just come out. Jake Lloyd, who had been in "Jingle All the Way" with Arnold Schwarzzenegger, was the child star of the newest Star Wars film and his face was about to be plastered on Taco Bell cups, Pepsi-Cola cans and posters nationwide, not to mention the cover of Time magazine. Amari sent a script to Lloyd's family and agent and then "I left the rest up to fate."
Lloyd accepted the part of then 9-year-old Mike McCormick.
"Getting Jake really juiced the project, because now it was pay or play, and if the movie doesn't happen, somebody was going to be out of a bunch of money," Bill Bindley said.
Finding an actor to play Jim McCormick turned out to be more difficult, however.
Bindley had several possible actors in mind for the role of Jim McCormick – Viggo Mortenson, Dennis Quaid, Kurt Russell, Bill Paxton. None worked out.
Then one agent suggested Jim Caviezel, a little-known actor who had just appeared with Quaid in "The Thin Red Line." With only eight weeks before filming begins, Bindley and his wife, Cathy, flew to New York to meet Caviezel and his wife, Kerry. After discussing the project over dinner, Bindley decided that Caviezel was the one.
But Caviezel was being considered for a Robert Redford film, "The Legend of Bagger Vance." Sure enough, three weeks before filming, Caviezel called to ask that "Madison" be delayed so he could accept the lead role in Bagger Vance. In doing so, Caviezel offered to do "Madison" for free, waiving his $750,000 fee.
Bindley hastily began making costly arrangements for a split-schedule shoot – to shoot only the vintage boat racing scenes over Labor Day Weekend and postpone shooting the rest of the movie the following spring.
But within a week's time, Caviezel was on the phone again saying he had lost the part in the Redford film and was available after all. Bindley rushed up the shoot schedule, rallied his crew and began casting the rest of the 32 speaking roles and filming in late August 1999.
"We had a great crew – some with experience and some with very little experience, but they all stepped up with a lot of pressure and people's money on the line," Bindley said. "It was a real home grown crew. And the fans really got into seeing these old boats race again on the Ohio River. "
The last shot in Madison was filmed at 3 a.m. Oct. 26. A party at 3: 30 a.m. followed at the Madison Elks Lodge.
A year and a half later, the film premiered to two standing ovations at Redford's own Sundance Film Festival before an audience of 500 in the Eccles Theatre. John and Elaine Mellencamp attended as did the film's producers and actors and Bonnie McCormick. Redford himself watched "Madison" in his private screening room.
Bindley credited the Sundance exposure for producing three distribution offers for "Madison." It was at one point scheduled for release last spring, but Bindley blamed the delay on last year's threat of an actors' strike that forced many studios to push up production of additional movies to have in reserve. Now the film is scheduled for release in spring 2002.
Pizzo, whose 1987 film "Hoosiers" set the standard for Indiana-based, against-all-odds sports movies, said the film industry operated much differently back when he was seeking financing and distribution.
"The industry is still changing," said Pizzo, an Indiana University graduate who later studied at the University of California Film School. " 'Hoosiers' had a platform opening on a regional basis at Thanksgiving, and then word of mouth helped it expand to screens nationwide by January. Word of mouth distribution is becoming more and more a phantom concept to studios, but there is something called 'buzz' that can cause a film to take off if it's good."
Pizzo said the Internet and multiple cable entertainment shows, such as Entertainment Tonight, have come along in recent years and often help launch smaller films.
"Maybe that will happen with 'Madison.' "