Quest for Quality Films Amid the Lemons

When I first heard about the new film “30, Still Single: Contemplating Suicide,” the thought struck me that it must be a documentary.

After all, the film was shot in L.A., where high school seniors get the gift of liposuction for graduation; and where a bad haircut or a failed delivery of a late-model SUV is grounds for a nervous breakdown.

Within such an ethos, it seems reasonable to believe that statistically significant numbers of 30-year-olds are choosing death over the ignominy of turning 31 without a life partner with whom to share exercise equipment and plastic surgery.

Reasonable, but still a bummer to watch in a dark theater.

Fortunately for all of us movie-goers, writer/director Gregory J. Lanesey’s “30, Still Single: Contemplating Suicide” is both a feature and a comedic look at the perils of modern dating.

“There is documentary footage in it,” Lanesey said during a recent interview. “I videotaped 30 women for the movie, which forms the basis for the story. And I wrote it, directed it and lived it.”

With the movie completed, Lanesey no longer has to live it. But he does have to live with it, nurture it and take it around with him wherever he goes--and hope, in return, that the movie launches him into a bigtime feature film career.

Which explains what both of us are doing in an Oxnard studio on a Monday.

Bouquet Multimedia is a hint of Hollywood hiding behind a bank of trees on a stretch of California 1. Now a budding movie production complex, it was once part of the military industrial complex. Directly across from Point Mugu, the facility was owned by the defense contractor Raytheon, but since 1995 has belonged to the husband and wife team of Stanton Kaye and Terese Myers.

Myers, Kaye and a small but committed band of cronies, one of whom is Lanesey, are attempting to produce movies, television--and lemons--in Ventura County. So far, they are succeeding on all fronts, though on a modest scale.

Outside the studio is the lemon grove planted by Myers and Kaye. The fruit is being sold to Sunkist.

Inside the studio is Lanesey, who, with a degree in business administration from the University of Michigan and a master’s from USC’s school of film and television, has the right kind of credentials to be head of production at this studio and Bouquet’s post-production facility in Pacific Palisades. And there are 10 more full-timers, including the delightful and equally well-educated Sweeney Brothers, Paul and Bill, who do what Bill describes as “research projects and other managerial stuff.”

These days, team Bouquet is overseeing the completion of sound studios and stages being built on the property. They are also attempting to cut deals with independent producers who might want to use facilities off the beaten track and across the tilled field.

And, right now, they are distributing Lanesey’s film.

Lanesey, meanwhile, has traveled a great distance since that time, a few years back, when he went to a film festival and found himself rooming with five women in a hotel in Park City, Utah. That complicated living arrangement ignited a simple cinematic vision: Why not take a comic look at the burdens of being 30, single and a dater in the ‘90s?

“The concept for the movie comes from something I used to tell my friends when I was dating,” said Lanesey, a Midwesterner who came to California nine years ago. “You go out with someone new, and 10 minutes into the date you are asking yourself, ‘Would I rather finish this date or hang myself?’ ”

He wasn’t casting aspersions on his dates, said Lanesey; rather he was taking stock of his priorities at a time in life when he had been out there seeking a career and looking for Ms. Right for more than 10 years.

“You are looking for the right person, and you have a lot of other things in your life that you could be doing--working on your career, doing sports. The last thing you want to do is act like you are 22 years old.”

That means not wasting time with someone “you don’t want to end up spending your life with,” he said.

“A lot of people hear the title and assume it refers to women and their biological clocks,” Lanesey said. “But in the movie there is nothing about the biological clock. It is about the personal clock, for both men and women.”

After years of struggle, Lanesey’s clock seems to be keeping pretty good time.

He has a finished movie, which earlier this week won the Moxie for Best Film at the Santa Monica Film Festival. It has also been shown at festivals in Fort Lauderdale and Palm Springs, where it was well received by critics and audiences alike. This week Lanesey is taking his movie to the Santa Barbara Film Festival for screenings Saturday night and next week.

And he has survived the transition into his mid-30s quite well, even emerging out of the smoke and fire of the singles’ wars triumphant: During the making of the film, he met his wife, Megan. Not on the set, but the old fashioned way, at a church volleyball game. The couple had their first child, a boy named Kyle, four months ago.

Professionally, Lanesey divides his time between promoting his film and overseeing Bouquet studios.

“I approached Terry and Stanton well into the making of the movie because I had run out of money,” he said. “They liked it and helped me complete it.”

Now they are working with him to distribute it, and in turn, he is helping them grow a production studio among the lemon trees.

“This is a company of filmmakers,” he said. “Our goal is to bring filmmaking and filmmakers to Ventura County.”

Wendy Miller, staff writer, can be reached by e-mail at wendy.miller@aol.com.

FYI

The Santa Barbara Film Festival runs today through March 14. For tickets, call the Arlington Ticket Agency at 963-4408. For other festival information, call 963-0023. “30, Still Single: Contemplating Suicide,” will be shown at 6 p.m. Saturday and at 2 p.m. March 12. A Q&A; with the director follows the second screening. Fiesta Five, 916 State St., Santa Barbara.

* OUT & ABOUT: Daytime low tides enhance exploring tide pools at this time of year. For an office spoof, try dining at the play “Pink Slip.” B7