Wednesday, July 6, 2011

The Story Behind "The Jay DeMerit Story"

Photo Credit: JayDeMeritStory.com
Tonight the Free Beer Movement, in conjunction with the Austin chapter of the American Outlaws, will screening "Rise and Shine: The Jay DeMerit Story" at Draft Pick American Grill (1620 E. Riverside Dr) at 8:00pm. Free popcorn, food/drink specials, and drawings for door prizes are all on-deck! 


ONLY A FEW DAYS LEFT!!! HELP SUPPORT GETTING THIS MOVIE MADE: DONATE TO JAY'S KICKSTARTER PAGE!!!

In late February United States National Team and Vancouver Whitecaps defender Jay DeMerit tweeted out to his followers that “Rise and Shine: The Jay Demerit Story” was not up for one of this year’s Oscars. He ended his statement with the hash tag “coming to a theater near you”. If you follow DeMerit on Twitter, or know anything about him, there are very few things that he does or says off the field that one should take serious. It appeared as though his announcement was just a well-timed joke.

Fast forward two weeks and a trailer for “Rise and Shine” pops up on the Internet. It quickly makes the rounds across various soccer blogs, websites, and media outlets (including this one) and by the end of the day has been pulled off of YouTube. Soccer fans were left wondering if this was the real deal or some sort of mockumentary.

Enter Nick Lewis to clear up the confusion. Lewis is the co-director and co-producer, along with a friend, Ranko Tutulugdzija, of this mystery film.

“Rise and Shine” is, in fact, a real movie and it is just as advertised, “The Jay DeMerit Story.” The documentary’s mission, as Lewis put it, was to “recreate his path” and follow DeMerit’s unbelievable rags to riches American soccer story.

The film’s own story began about six or seven months before the 2010 World Cup. Tutulugdzija, who has played soccer with DeMerit in college at the University of Illinois at Chicago, approached his former teammate with the idea to tell his tale.

“We had a passion, we wrote a script, and Jay said ‘This is great,’” Lewis said. “He’s very interested in hearing what others had to say (about him) along the way.”

Setting aside their day jobs, Lewis and Tutulugdzija, an attorney and an acupuncturist, respectively, set off on a journey to track down many of the people in DeMerit’s past; an American soccer, “This Is Your Life.”

They were joined by a fresh-out-of-college 24-year old director of photography Zach Salsman, who they found on the Internet. In another twist, Lewis and Tutulugdzija were originally only going to write and pitch the script, but after their original director bailed on them, they were now at the helm.

Lewis wanted to emphasize, “We could not have made this without (Zach).”

The three trekked off to interview and film Jay’s story from Green Bay, Wisconsin, a small Midwest (American) football town, to Chicago to throughout Europe and to the English Premier League and, finally, to the U.S. National Team.

Along the way the filmmakers were able to get great interviews with some of the lives that Jay’s story has touched along the way; from the family he stayed with during his trial days to his Watford coaches to USMNT coach Bob Bradley and teammates Tim Howard and Carlos Bocanegra. Some of the most interesting parts of the film are these moments when these people open up about how unique and inspiring a tale Jay has woven.

Photo Credit: JayDeMeritStory.com
Lewis said the whole project took about a year and landed the crew on three continents.

“There’s a story within a story about how this film was made,” Lewis said.

He continued, “In a lot of ways it was just like Jay’s story.”

Lewis, Tutulugdzija, and Salsman have made this movie completely from their own money. At this point they’re sitting on a nearly finished project. According to Tutulugdzija the film was recently honored with the “Rising Star” award at the Canadian International Film Festival.

The film is set to be screened for DeMerit’s family, friends, and teammates in Vancouver on April 4th at the District319 Theater.

“It will be a community celebration of soccer and Vancouver,” Tutulugdzija said in an e-mail to FBM.

At this point, unfortunately, the film is limited to the private screening on April 4th and the film festival circuit until its makers can find more financial and distributional support.
Lewis indicated that the movie, which includes footage of DeMerit’s time at Watford and with the USMNT, would have to pay extremely expensive rights fees to FIFA and the Premier League for it to see a large audience. Just a minute of World Cup footage, according to Lewis, runs upwards of $50,000.

If the movie had a distributor, someone to take on these fees and help get it to mainstream audiences, Lewis believes it would “do well worldwide.”

“We tried to capture the game and how powerful it is,” Lewis said. “But it’s not just about soccer. It’s a universal theme.”

“A lot of people know who Jay is, but they don’t know his story,” he continued.

DeMerit’s story took him from Wisconsin to Watford, with soccer panhandling stops all across Europe, before his dream of playing professional soccer was realized. In 2003 DeMerit set off for Europe with $1,800 and barely a hope; only armed with perseverance. With friend Kieren Keane the two of them showed up on the door steps of clubs all across the continent looking for a tryout. Starting in the ninth-tier of English soccer for Southall both DeMerit and Keane moved to seventh division Northwood where, in a pre-season match, Jay impressed the coaching staff of Watford, a team in the English Championship.

By 2007 he was the captain of Watford in the EPL and by 2010 starting in the World Cup for the United States. Following the World Cup DeMerit signed with the Major League Soccer expansion side, Vancouver Whitecaps, and last week was named its captain before the opening of the 2011 season.

Right now, though, the film version of his fairytale sits at a crossroads. Few who would or could be captivated by this story will see it if the makers can’t get over their distribution and rights roadblocks.

DeMerit’s dream hinged on the hopes of getting noticed and proving he could play top flight soccer. His story’s tellers now hope their project follows a parallel path: get noticed, prove the film’s value, and show it off on the world’s stage.

For more information and information on how to donate to help finish the project visit: www.jaydemeritstory.com

Become a "fan" on Facebook of "Rise And Shine" to stay up-to-date with all the film's developments and information about how you can help.

Editor's Note: This article was written by the FBM's Dan Wiersema and originally posted over at our friends, The Shin Guardian)

Support the Movement. Get the Free Beer Movement T-Shirt. Only from Objectivo.com

8 comments:

  1. Excellent, informative interview. I was thinking this sounded like Jay's story for filmmakers before it was clearly stated. I cannot even imagine the 7th tier of English football, you have to have so much mental strength to get past that point when you're not 'young'. Hopefully this can beat the odds make it around the film festival circuits and beyond.

    Side note, what a disgrace about those fees to show Prem/World Cup footage. Not surprised though.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the kind words, Eric. Glad you appreciate the work we do. You keep up the great work over at A Football Report, too. Read that almost everyday.

    ReplyDelete
  3. We're proud to have him as our Captain !!!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I prefer merely excellent resources - you will see these people in 토토커뮤니티

    ReplyDelete
  5. The overall look of your website is awesome, not to mention the content material! i clearly enjoy without a doubt analyzing all of your weblogs. Absolutely desired to tell you that you have humans like me who appreciate your work. Truely a outstanding submit. Hats off to you! The statistics that you have furnished is very helpful. The information you have posted could be very beneficial. The sites you have referred become appropriate. Thanks for sharing 먹튀검증

    ReplyDelete
  6. i’ve been surfing online extra than 3 hours nowadays, but i by no means observed any thrilling article like yours. It’s pretty worth enough for me. For my part, if all web owners and bloggers made top content material as you probably did, the internet could be plenty greater beneficial than ever earlier than. Certainly all of what you country takes place to be astonishingly suitable and it makes me surprise the reason why i hadn’t looked at this with this light before. This specific piece absolutely did turn the light on for me personally as some distance as this specific subject count goes. But at this time there's virtually 1 aspect i am no longer honestly too at ease with and whilst i take some time to reconcile that with the real significant idea of your factor, permit me examine simply what the rest of the readers should factor out. Well completed. 토토사이트

    ReplyDelete
  7. I wish more authors of this type of content would take the time you did to research and write so well. I am very impressed with your vision and insight. avalon 1246 85th

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hmm!! This blog is really cool, I’m so lucky that I have reached here and got this awesome information. 토토

    ReplyDelete

"Anyone who tells me soccer is boring, I'm going to punch them in the face."
- Former Dallas Burn (aka FC Dallas) coach Dave Dir

Thanks for leaving a comment!