How do you decide
if the risks are just too high?
Where do you draw the line?
Working Nights
When you’re living on the edge,
you’d better keep your priorities straight…
Official Website -- (still under construction)
Last updated October 1, 2007
Working Nights is currently
on an indefinite production hiatus.
A 48-minute version
of all scenes shot, plus bridging titles
to provide the complete story
Showed FRIDAY, NOV. 18th,
2005
Opening Night of the 2005 Forx Film Fest
at the Empire Arts Center, Grand Forks
(Billing order not finalized)
A new motion picture written and directed by
Christopher P. Jacobs
Produced by
Christopher P. Jacobs and Jennifer Leroux
Starring
Jennifer Leroux, Chris Campbell, Christian Clapp
With
Paul Kelly, Kari Larson, Christopher P. Jacobs,
CeAnne Reese, and Darin Kerr as “Andre”
SYNOPSIS
Several years after college, old
friends Amy and Tatiana are working long hours and dealing with tenuous
romantic relationships. Amy worries about Tatiana’s tendency to be attracted to
dangerous men like the drug-addicted Trevor and crime kingpin Andre. She also
regrets her own past relationship with Tatiana’s brother Nick, another player
in the local underworld. Amy has recently broken up with Nick’s brother
Michael, a musician who decided that leaving town would both further his career
and help distance him from his troubled family, whereas Amy felt she needed to
remain at her key position in her uncle’s business. Then old classmate Daniel
Tanner, who had an unrequited crush on
Tatiana back in college, returns to town as an accountant in Amy’s
building. He soon finds himself hired to audit Tatiana’s business, just at the
time Tatiana has “borrowed” a large sum from her expense account to finance
some of Trevor’s shady dealings. It does not take long before someone winds up
dead and the others must deal with the consequences. [The latest draft of the
screenplay adds a new character, Gina, long-time close friend of Tatiana, who
befriends Daniel at a time of crisis in their lives.]
PRODUCTION NOTES
WORKING NIGHTS is being shot with Sony digital video cameras using the
anamorphic aspect ratio of 1.78:1. The screenplay was written in November 2002,
inspired by cast conversations at the party after the November 1st
theatrical premiere of Vengeance of the Sorceress, with
preproduction starting about three weeks later. The movie was designed to
feature several of the same actors from that picture and The Threat of the
Mummy, and utilize a number of nighttime locations in downtown Grand
Forks. Auditions to fill remaining roles were held December 17th.
Shortly after completion of its third draft, Working Nights began
principal photography on December 22, 2002 with the intention of completing it
by the end of January. However, with increasingly sporadic shooting, it was
slightly over half-finished by early April 2003 before shutting down due to
schedule difficulties. As production days were getting fewer and further
between, Jacobs started writing some scenes that developed into the screenplay
for Dark Highways,
and when Working Nights was finally put on hold, the rest of Dark
Highways was quickly written, went into production during the summer of
2003, and premiered in November 2003. While Dark Highways was making the
rounds of several film festivals throughout 2004, during April-May Jacobs shot
a fourth feature-length movie, Miss Mystic, editing over the summer and
winning “Best Feature” at the Forx Film Fest in November. Over winter
2004-2005, the existing footage of Working Nights was finally edited
into about 45 minutes’ worth of scenes, including roughly the first half-hour
of the movie plus other scattered sections. If schedules of the two leads
can ever be co-ordinated and some additional casting or recasting done for the revised
screenplay, production may resume or simply start over, possibly sometime by 2010.
CAST AND CREW
Christopher P. Jacobs teaches “Introduction to Film” and sometimes “Creative Writing”
at the University of North Dakota. He had two feature-length movies released on
video in 2002 after limited theatrical runs, a third in 2003, and a fourth in
2004. During the summer of 2001, he wrote, produced, and directed The Threat of the
Mummy. In the summer of 2002 he produced and directed its
sequel, Vengeance
of the Sorceress, from a screenplay by Mary Novacek. In summer
of 2003 he shot Dark
Highways (nominated for “Best Screenplay” at the 2004 SMMASH
Film Festival in Minneapolis), which he quickly followed in spring 2004 with Miss Mystic
(winner of “Best Feature” at the 2004 Forx Film Fest and an honorable mention
at the 2005 Subrosa Studios B-Movie Fest). During 2005 and early 2006 he made the feature-length backstage movie musical Music to My Ears,
which he directed from a script he co-wrote and
co-produced with Mark Landa and Jenny Morris. It premiered in February
2006 and was awarded Third Place in the Family Features category of the 2006 Cleveland Indie Gathering. In 2007 he made the suspense thriller Dangers from Within. Besides being director of photography, Jacobs also played the supporting
role of “Marc” in Vengeance of the Sorceress, and takes on the
supporting role of “Nick” in Working Nights (later reprising the
character as an extended cameo in Dark Highways).
Jennifer Leroux had a very small role in The Threat of the Mummy and
co-starred as “Rachael” in Vengeance of the Sorceress. She was working
full-time in retail sales when production started, and later went back to
school full-time. With Working Nights, she took on not only a starring
role as “Tatiana,” but shared producer responsibilities, helped out with
casting, as well as assisting with directing and running the camera.
Chris Campbell makes his motion picture debut as “Daniel” in Working Nights.
While working on his degree in theatre from UND, he appeared in many university
theatre productions.
Christian Clapp, who was a law student when production began and took her bar
exams in summer of 2005, co-stars as “Amy” in Working Nights. She previously appeared in a small role in The
Threat of the Mummy and co-starred in Vengeance of the Sorceress as
“Nikki.”
Paul Kelly sells cars at a local dealership, works as a professional emcee, is a musician (guitar), has been a
radio disc jockey, and has frequently returned to being a university student.
He co-starred as “Professor Casey Wallace” in The Threat of the Mummy
and returns to the screen in Working Nights in the supporting role of
“Trevor.” He also had a memorable cameo role as notorious criminal entrepreneur
“Alex Montana” in Dark Highways, stars as Broadway producer “Bill
Warren” in Music to My Ears, and has a supporting role as the mysterious "Charlie" in Dangers from Within.
Kari Larson is a university student with a theatre background, and makes her
movie debut in Working Nights as “Lisa,” the latest girlfriend of Nick.
Darin Kerr has been a lecturer in the UND English and Honors Departments and a
veteran of numerous regional theatre productions (both acting and directing),
as well as several motion pictures. He starred as “Caesarion,” the title
character in The Threat of the Mummy, reprising the role for Vengeance
of the Sorceress. For Working Nights he took time from his busy schedule
to appear in a cameo role as “Andre.” In 2007 he left Grand Forks to pursue his PhD.
