The Jon Stokes Blog

I am so happy we have found Zack Bennett to play the lead role of Will. Special thanks to Gary Cairns for the introduction.
Zack is 19, and from what I can tell, some sort of prodigy. He is incredibly natural - a completely unselfconscious actor. When he delivers lines, I see the [...]

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Socrates had a number of useful things to say. Know thyself and whatnot. But perhaps his most important message was to constantly keep in mind how little you know. As a new director, I’m constantly doing my best not to B.S. anyone, over-represent my knowledge, or generally make the mistake of assuming [...]

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It’s as though the characters are stepping out of my psyche and into the real world.
I took one look at Gary Cairns’ headshot and said: “there’s The Trip.”

Gary blew my mind in his audition. We were reading lines, and I fed him the set up, “Trip, maybe you should be on Ritalin, like, prescribed [...]

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When I decided to write my own movie, I set it entirely in one house, because that was the single cheapest location I could think of. Now, after a lot of searching, and three houses that were really, really close, I think we’ve found a winner.
It’s a beautiful multi-million dollar home, and perfect to [...]

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Tonight we had our first pre-production meeting for The Last Hurrah. From my corporate days, I set my watch on the table and begin the meeting at 09:00:00 - regardless of if everyone has arrived. This trains Los Angelinos to arrive on time.
I pass out typed agendas because I know that nearly every [...]

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I sent the script to some friends interested in Producing.  Three out of five of them agreed to come onboard.  Together, my team has a combined producing experience of zero years.  But we are all good friends, nice people, and let’s face it - working for free.
Having signed on the producers, I was surprised when [...]

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I met Chuck DeRosa (Cinematographer) at a friend’s birthday party at The Dresden. We had similar taste in movies and I liked him from the start. Chuck mentioned he was a DP, so I told him I wrote a script in one take. I asked him if he thought it would be [...]

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I wrote The Last Hurrah for fun on a weekend in November 2005.
I was in a strange place at the time. Although, I suppose I am always in a strange place.
In October, my reps had gone out with my script “The Pirates of Nantucket.” Everyone clapped me on the back and told me [...]

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