Sore Losers - The Movie

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What made you decide to write the screenplay for Sore Losers?

I guess it goes back to when I was about four or five years old.  My father would take me up to Chicago’s Chinatown to watch Bruce Lee movies.  I was completely blown away by what I saw.  Growing up, I was obsessed with moving pictures.  It was a dream to make a film of my own. Gambling was a natural storyline choice for me. 

Gambling has always surrounded me.   But it wasn’t the gambling I was so interested in.  It was the characters associated with the games that fascinated me.  We used to sneak around some of the older family members to watch them play cards and I used to say to my friends “this is my movie right here.”  So throughout the years I have remembered stories and strung them together with a non-fictional plot and came up with Sore Losers.  I wanted to get some feedback on my screenplay, so I let some of my friends read it on our way to a gambling junket.  They loved it, so I proceeded to finish my movie!

Where did you get your actors?

The roles were written for specific people.  Mostly my friends, family and acquaintances ended up playing themselves.  I also held auditions in Chicago, but we were only able to cast about three speaking roles from that (not including the extras.)

How many shoot locations are there in Sore Losers?

We shot Sore Losers primarily in downtown Chicago.  I think we had about 50 or so locations that included homes, restaurants, bars, warehouses and other business establishments.  We didn’t have access to a studio, so we improvised mostly.

How long did it take you to complete this project?

Well, we started shooting in October of 1999 and we finished editing around May of 2001.  

What is the film shot in and how long is the final cut?

Sore Losers was shot in primarily in High 8 Sony Digital.  Some scenes were shot in Beta.  The actual length of the finished product is 146 minutes.

After I had finally finished writing the script, my first daughter was born.  A month later she was hospitalized with a life-threatening illness.  I spent the next year in and out of hospitals.  At that time, the movie didn’t seem to matter much.  I needed to completely focus on my daughter’s health so the movie idea was put on hold. 

I was working with my father in Florida when we received the call that would save my baby’s life.  A much need liver transplant was only hours away.  So we packed up everything and moved back to my hometown Chicago.  As my daughter recovered from her surgery at Children’s Memorial Hospital, my wife was giving birth to my second daughter only a few miles away at Northwestern.  A few days later, everyone was home from the hospital.  

I was married with (two) children and no job.  I had to do something with my life.  To tell you the truth, I am actually amazed that I got this far at all.  I remember getting phone calls from friends and family members asking me what I was going to do with myself.  I had no job and honestly no clue as to what I should do.  I was actually thinking of opening a gambling house or booking, but knew I couldn’t subject my family to that lifestyle.  I remember talking about finishing the film all the time.  Finally, my wife told me to shut up and stop talking about it…. just do it!  From that point on I wouldn’t stop until it was complete.  I met with my cousin Charlie (he’s an editor in Downtown Chicago) after I had shot some scenes.  He really thought I was on to something.  I told him that I really wanted to make this project into a full feature film and he said, “It’s going to be a very long a difficult project, but I think you can do it.”  From that point on I was on a mission to fulfill one of my lifelong dreams.