The Pink House Movie: due for wild success July 2005

RESUME

Ian Williams

Brooklyn, NY

EXPERIENCE:

Writer/Director, The Pink House, a college comedy. 1999-present. Oversaw a disastrous production that included insane actors, a broken hand, the hottest two days in North Carolina history, a typhoon that washed away the set, a lightning bolt that nearly killed the art crew, and a lead gaffer who had gone off rage medication and threatened to slug Tessa. Due for wild success July 2005.

Kyle Spencer Goes Country

In 2002, our former Pink Housemate and favorite globe-trotting journalist Kyle York Spencer published her first book, She's Gone Country. It was a fish-out-of-water account of her experiences as a twenty-something "lost soul" (courtesy of the book jacket) born and bred in Manhattan who wound up working as a reporter for the Raleigh News & Observer during the mid-90s.


Jay and I came out to represent at both her Triangle readings - McIntyre's Fine Books in Fearrington Village and The Regulator on Ninth Street in Durham. Rolling down 15-501 South to the McIntyre's reading, it was an extremely hot June afternoon, and the air conditioning in my recently acquired vintage (aka falling apart) Volvo wagon gave out for good. That sucked! I also remember that Kyle and I had a long conversation with the manager there about trends in bookselling and retailing, recent books, authors, the writing and editing process, and the book industry in general.


After Kyle signed books for her fans at the Regulator, where I met ubiquitous scenester Dave Graedon for the first ever time, we caught up with some of her N&O pals at George's Garage and kicked back over drinks.

As weird as the people I lived with in the house

Filmmaker Magazine, Spring 2002

IN FOCUS: Mary Glucksman profiles six new feature films in production.

By MARY GLUCKSMAN

THE PINK HOUSE

"Woody Allen does Animal House" is how co-directors Tessa Blake and Ian Williams describe The Pink House, their pungent comedy about five left-leaning college housemates and the conservative sorority next door. Containing a '20s-set prologue and 10 animated sequences, the film, says co-director and writer Williams, "is as intense, philosophical, independent and weird as the people I lived with in the house the film is based on."

Blake and Williams met as undergraduates at UNC's Chapel Hill campus. By the time they reconnected several years after graduation she had launched a film career with her documentary Five Wives, Three Secretaries and Me, and he had parlayed his cultural studies screed, 13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail, into Hollywood interest. Williams also worked as a trailer editor, cutting clips for films like Sleepy Hollow. "It was incredible preparation for directing," he says. "You distill a movie to its absolute vertebrae."

The live-action portion of The Pink House was shot in Chapel Hill last summer on 16mm (the prologue) and DV with the Sony DSR 500. With a rough cut nearly ready by February 2002, the directors focused on the animated sequences and a final chunk of financing. Pink House stars Heather Matarazzo as the evil sorority queen and Zack Ward (Titus), Matt Dawson (Climax), Omar Scroogins (Law and Order), model Natane Boudreau and Spanish ingenue Pilar Punzano as the housemates.