I was scanning through the back section of the local paper a month ago when a small article caught my eye. A couple of local guys had rented out a local theater to premiere "Friday's Menu," an indie film they made. I thought that was kinda cool. Since EInsiders.com is always on the lookout for up and coming filmmakers, I gave the guys a call.

      A week later I met writer director Jeremy Benson and film editor Rusty Herring at Madison Avenue Video and Post. They were putting the finishing touches on the movie. Rusty showed me around the studio. He and Jeremy were finishing the editing process with Madison's AVID video editing software. Filmed on Super VHS, the picture and sound quality of "Friday's Menu" surprised me. Jeremy arrived moments later and we sat down to watch the first half of the movie. Jeremy and Rusty had seen the film numerous times in the process of cutting it together. I found myself to be the only one laughing at first. Maybe they were seeing it new through my eyes because all three of us were laughing for the next 45 minutes.

      Jeremy had told me on the phone that he was proud of the movie. He spoke highly of Mr. Herring, the editor. He stated that Mr. Heron was so impressed that he wanted to help Jeremy with the sequel, and make all the technology at Madison Post's available for Jeremy's use. I had to admit that I was cynical going into the interview. I admired the filmmaker's chutzpah for renting a theater to show his film. I thought to myself as Jeremy spoke about the editor "Sure he's taking nice about your movie. You hired him to edit it for you!" I ate crow that night. When I told Jeremy about my misgivings, and made the comment about Rusty being paid so of course he would talk nice about the film, Jeremy said "That thought never crossed my mind." After seeing the movie and getting to know the two of them a little better, I saw why he had no doubts. Jeremy (and the rest of the cast and crew) has a lot to proud of. "Friday's Menu" is a very good movie.

      After the screening we sat down to talk in front of the computer console where the two men had spent many hours getting "Friday's Menu" into shape. Jeremy Benson talks in a down home matter of fact way. His humor this night was dry and at times under the radar. What I found impressive about Jeremy Benson was the fact although he wrote, coproduced and directed this film, he is quick to point out and give credit to his cast and crew. Filmmaking is a collaborative effort. Jeremy knew what he wanted as far as the story and the look were concerned. He surrounded himself with like minded friends to turn out a fine film.

EInsiders.com: Gotta say, I'm not sucking up or anything, but I've seen the first half of the movie and I'm really impressed.

Jeremy Benson: Well, I appreciate that.

One thing that struck me was that your female characters were so well written. Men and women are completely different animals, and you seemed to have captured it...at least the women I know.

We put a lot of thought into any dialogue we put into a female character. We always try to, as a matter of fact when I got through with the script for "Yellow" (the sequel to "Friday's Menu") I went to my friend Brian's house and sat down with his wife. I said if "You and your friends were sitting around talking about sex, how would you talk about it? I want to know words." She was embarrassed at first but eventually she talked about it. It really helped to know the words they use, because guys will just makes jokes about it constantly." And Girls, they will talk about it seriously. Brian and I were completely shocked, "Man, they take this serious!"

(Laughs) I have to give credit to Mark (Mark Williams, the star and co-producer of "Friday's Menu"). In the original script I had the word 'cunt,' but Mark said "Wouldn't it be funny if Ricky, who has a bad mouth in the movie, couldn't come up with a word for it, that he was shy about it. That was Mark's joke. I have to give that to him.

For the sequel we did, but for "Friday's Menu," no. I wrote a script that was way to long for the time restraints we had. I cut it down to what we had. This was just the dialogue I wrote. We had a hard time casting this because a lot of girls wouldn't say the lines. (imitating the women who turned him down) "I can't say that!" But these girls (Chris Bowman, Georganna Wallace), they've been to the theater, they know this is just acting. They rehearsed over the phone. When we got on set, they rehearsed while moving, so they wouldn't bump into each other. That scene was a turning point in the production. The guys were blown away. Mark said, "Damn, they know their lines!" From that point on Mark and Rezia got their scripts, memorized their lines and practiced.

(laughs) Now way they were going to be outdone by the girls.

We thought it would be funny to have them eating bratwursts, drinking Old Milwaukee and dipping chewing tobacco while they watched a horror movie. We wanted them to have all these male attributes but have them have a feminine discussion. They are talking about being submissive, emotions and love and the whole time they are spitting chewing tobacco into cups and drinking Old Milwaukee.

No, we (JB and Mark Williams) did "16 Section" (the cheesy horror film playing on the TV during Alice and Poe's sex discussion). I met Harry Dach at school. He was in "Teenage Tupelo" (see EI's interview with Michael McCarthey). We were going to do a movie with him but it didn't work. I directed one scene. In fact that scene is in "Friday's Menu." The scene when the crooks come in and rob the store. We filmed that for a movie he wanted to do called "Ninja's" which was going to be a spoof on "Cops" where the cops were Ninja's and they would come in and bust the place up. We shot that, but we didn't shoot anything else. At that point I was hooked. I wanted to do more of this. About that time, "The Blair Witch Project" came out. My friend Brian and I went to see. We said "We can do that." So Harry (Dach) gave us the camera and said "Sure, go do it." But he didn't tell us anything....didn't tell us anything about lighting, sound...all he said was 'take the camera.' We went out and made a 45 minute piece of shit that nobody wanted to watch. About halfway through I realized that it wasn't a horror movie, that it was a comedy. So we turned it into a weird comedy with people killing each other, people dying but we tried to make it funny. We didn't have an ending. We had no script. We had nothing. We ended up with 45 minutes of nothing. I take that back. We had some gunplay. We tied a guy up and jerked the rope to make it look like he had been shot. That was the only good thing we ended up with besides the fact that Harry taught me a good lesson by not telling me anything. He taught me that we have to have lights, we have to have sound, we have to have a script, we have to have a story line. So I sat down and wrote this script that Mark and I had been talking about for a long time. It was real dramatic. We cast it, and had rehearsals. I could tell that it wasn't going to work. Rezia would say his lines and then end it with some pop off joke. I said "Rezia, you can crack jokes." He would respond saying "I know, I know, I'm just doing this now." Mark would get going on one of his preaching modes and end up saying things that weren't remotely close to the script. We cast a girl named Chelsea, this real beautiful girl as Kelly. She showed up once. I told Mark that this wasn't going to work. We can't put all this money into this and have nobody show up, nobody work. Mark and I went out to eat and got to talking. I told him an idea about following a group of kids from high school until they got married. "Follow this leap. We're all 20 years, 22, 23 years old. We're all living this. Watching our friends going off and get married. It's funny. We're living in a funny age. Can we capture it? I think "Maybe."

CONTINUE INTERVIEW (Part II)

Rusty White