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Shattered Hopes Documentary
Shattered Hopes docu progresses; Quantum helms makeup unit
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hollywood, CA/Jan. 17, 2008 - Katco has wrapped another large portion of its documentary on the Amityville murders, Shattered Hopes, via the completion of the narrative segments.
Filming wrapped on a Hollywood soundstage last week.
"We now have all the narration for the documentary wrapped, and we're just shy of being done with the last interviews, so between having the narrative locked down, and the testimony of those involved locked in, the only thing left is to wrap the remaining re-enactment sequences that we haven't filmed yet and the project is in the can," says producer Ryan Katzenbach.
The project, which commenced filming in the summer of 2006 has toggled between re-enactments and filming interviews. "We've been all over the board with this project, all over the country, and the scope greatly increased from when we committed to the project. We were very ambitious in thinking the project would be done within a year, but it's taken a lot longer and the project has been juggled with the other numerous things we have going on," says Katzenbach. "It's been slow going, but I feel like we have a really dynamic documentary."
Above • Ryan Katzenbach behind the camera during the fall of 2007 at the DeFeo grave in Farmingdale, New York.
Research, says Kat, has also evolved and changed the scope of the project. "We've put our hands on some interesting new stuff, new photos, and it's caused us to revise the script, look for other individuals, and we've interviewed more people than we originally thought we would. It's a bigger project than either Ric, Diana or myself envisioned, but I am very happy with where we're at."
Katco is also pleased to announce that it has enlisted Burbank-based Quantum Creation FX to the Amityville docu. Quantum's credits include Scary Movie 4, and the recent Will Smith film, I Am Legend, among many other films. Quantum is handling all blood effects and make-up on the documentary. "We approached Quantum because another company we were working with recommended them. After a brief meeting, we knew they would be an awesome addition to the film. We mapped out what we wanted, specifically including recreating very specific wounds to the DeFeo victims, we provided them the autopsy photos, and we were amazed at what they were able to come up with given the very modest budget we had to work with...the wounds are very accurate recreations," says Kat. "They are absolutely incredible as a visual effects company."
Shattered Hopes should wrap filming later this spring. "We're not in a hurry, we're not on a deadline and it's [a situation] where when we decide that the film is ready, we'll get it ready to sell and not before."
Check back for more updates on Shattered Hopes. Katco also plans to release a website on the project as it gets closer to being wrapped.
Shattered Hopes Documentary
David Moretti: From vampire to mass murderer
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hollywood, CA/Jan. 18, 2008 - "He's a sly little SOB," jokes Hollywood actor David Moretti while discussing his role as Bobby Kelske in Katco's forthcoming documentary Shattered Hopes: The True Story of the Amityville Murders. Moretti was cast over a year ago to play Bobby Kelske, the best friend of Ronald "Butch" DeFeo who was convicted of murdering his family in Amityville in 1974. The story spawned The Amityville Horror franchise.
Above • The real Bobby Kelske, circa 1967, on the Amityville High football team. Katco almost passed
Surprisingly, Moretti, a Cranston, Rhode Island native and USC grad, who migrated to California at the young age of 18 wasn't producer/director Ryan Katzenbach's first choice for the project.
"Dave submitted for the part, and at the time we were casting, I was going on a description of Bobby Kelske given to me by Geraldine DeFeo-Gates, Butch's ex-wife. And when she had described Kelske, the one thing she had mentioned was that Kelske was called, locally, in Amityville, "The Brick" because of his physical stature," says Ryan Katzenbach. "In my mind's eye, I was picturing this big, tall, broad guy. So when Dave's headshot and resume came across my desk, he wasn't the very first choice because Dave was shorter than what I envisioned...he wasn't this great big, tall, broad guy. Later, when I talked to Gerri at great length, she told me I was wrong, and that Kelske was actually not that large...that he was just very ripped because of the athletics. So, we called Dave in for an audition before myself and the co-producers, and it was an instant fit for the part. Dave was very capable of being this guy...this serious guy who, when he barked at you, you knew he meant business and this was no guy to f*** around with."
Ironically, later on when Katzenbach retrieved photos of Kelske, he was astonished at just how similiar some of the physical features were between Moretti and Kelske. "It was just confirmation we made the right decision," says Kat.
Above • SH Executive Producer Diana Maiocco and Moretti at a meeting with fellow actors after being cast to the part of Bobby Kelske.
Moretti has participated in several re-enactment sequences for the documentary to date. His portion of the DeFeo trial was filmed in the summer of 2006 wherein he delivered, verbatim, Bobby Kelske's lines from the 1975 murder trial taken right from the transcript. The actor, today, says he is most looking forward to the forthcoming shoot which depicts the actual murders.
"We strongly believe, based on forensics, that there were accomplices that helped Butch DeFeo murder the family that night, and I personally believe that Butch wasn't necessarily the one who instigated the crime," says Kat. "We believe very strongly that Bob Kelske was there and he pulled the trigger on at least one of the DeFeos."
Moretti, since signing on to the project, has become a successful actor in his own right. In his most recent gig he plays Thom, a lead reporter for a newspaper that stumbles onto a series of bizarre vampire-esque murders in here! TV's The Lair. here, a subscription based cable network caters to the gay/lesbian community, and the success of the show's first season has brought about a publicity tour that has taken Moretti all over the country promoting the show. The second season of Lair starts filming in February.
"Dave is but one stellar example of our four leads in this project. Dave's devotion, like his three co-stars, is quite unusual to find because Dave, like his three co-stars, really went the extra mile to research the story, and they really delved into their characters, really explored them, their dark sides, and what really made them tick," says Kat. "That's just so damn cool to find that kind of devotion to the project."
Above • David Moretti, center, meets one of the real-life DeFeo jurors [front left corner] during a reception for another Katco event. Moretti and the juror got an opportunity to chat about Kelske's testimony on the stand during the actual 1975 trial.
Moretti's most intrigued by how Kelske managed to escape the fate of conviction. "He was very sly," says Moretti, "He was willing to let his friend take the fall while he ran away scott-free. He's a very smart character though, and he knew just who to play and how to get what he wanted. I find this very intuitive for the golden boy jock of the town, who is too often typically stereotyped as an idiot."
"Even though the cast has been hired to portray the story based on our findings and our conclusions, I definitely encouraged them to explore the Amityville story for themselves and draw their own conclusions as to whether the house was haunted or not," says Kat. The actors were provided with whatever books were available on the subject, and encouraged to check out all the available movies and documentaries. "Dave and our other leads all jumped all over this, and I think they've all really come to view the story as an elaborate hoax."
"It's amazing how over-hyped the whole lore of Amityville is in reality," says Dave Moretti. "It's really nothing more than an unfortunate story of murders within an exceedingly dysfunctional family. Those murders became a tool of propoganda for the Lutzes in their effort to make a fortune from a faux ghost story. It really was a brilliant business move on their part," he added. "The contrived story is really all anyone knows who doesn't look beyond the hype and further into the facts."
Moretti, in October, brought his role as Bobby Kelske to life on the stage when he starred in Katco's reading of the feature film script "The Amityville Murders" at the Whitmore-Lindley Theatre in North Hollywood.
Shattered Hopes docu progresses; Quantum helms makeup unit
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hollywood, CA/Jan. 17, 2008 - Katco has wrapped another large portion of its documentary on the Amityville murders, Shattered Hopes, via the completion of the narrative segments.
Filming wrapped on a Hollywood soundstage last week.
"We now have all the narration for the documentary wrapped, and we're just shy of being done with the last interviews, so between having the narrative locked down, and the testimony of those involved locked in, the only thing left is to wrap the remaining re-enactment sequences that we haven't filmed yet and the project is in the can," says producer Ryan Katzenbach.
The project, which commenced filming in the summer of 2006 has toggled between re-enactments and filming interviews. "We've been all over the board with this project, all over the country, and the scope greatly increased from when we committed to the project. We were very ambitious in thinking the project would be done within a year, but it's taken a lot longer and the project has been juggled with the other numerous things we have going on," says Katzenbach. "It's been slow going, but I feel like we have a really dynamic documentary."
Above • Ryan Katzenbach behind the camera during the fall of 2007 at the DeFeo grave in Farmingdale, New York.
Research, says Kat, has also evolved and changed the scope of the project. "We've put our hands on some interesting new stuff, new photos, and it's caused us to revise the script, look for other individuals, and we've interviewed more people than we originally thought we would. It's a bigger project than either Ric, Diana or myself envisioned, but I am very happy with where we're at."
Katco is also pleased to announce that it has enlisted Burbank-based Quantum Creation FX to the Amityville docu. Quantum's credits include Scary Movie 4, and the recent Will Smith film, I Am Legend, among many other films. Quantum is handling all blood effects and make-up on the documentary. "We approached Quantum because another company we were working with recommended them. After a brief meeting, we knew they would be an awesome addition to the film. We mapped out what we wanted, specifically including recreating very specific wounds to the DeFeo victims, we provided them the autopsy photos, and we were amazed at what they were able to come up with given the very modest budget we had to work with...the wounds are very accurate recreations," says Kat. "They are absolutely incredible as a visual effects company."
Shattered Hopes should wrap filming later this spring. "We're not in a hurry, we're not on a deadline and it's [a situation] where when we decide that the film is ready, we'll get it ready to sell and not before."
Check back for more updates on Shattered Hopes. Katco also plans to release a website on the project as it gets closer to being wrapped.
Shattered Hopes Documentary
David Moretti: From vampire to mass murderer
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hollywood, CA/Jan. 18, 2008 - "He's a sly little SOB," jokes Hollywood actor David Moretti while discussing his role as Bobby Kelske in Katco's forthcoming documentary Shattered Hopes: The True Story of the Amityville Murders. Moretti was cast over a year ago to play Bobby Kelske, the best friend of Ronald "Butch" DeFeo who was convicted of murdering his family in Amityville in 1974. The story spawned The Amityville Horror franchise.
Above • The real Bobby Kelske, circa 1967, on the Amityville High football team. Katco almost passed
Surprisingly, Moretti, a Cranston, Rhode Island native and USC grad, who migrated to California at the young age of 18 wasn't producer/director Ryan Katzenbach's first choice for the project.
"Dave submitted for the part, and at the time we were casting, I was going on a description of Bobby Kelske given to me by Geraldine DeFeo-Gates, Butch's ex-wife. And when she had described Kelske, the one thing she had mentioned was that Kelske was called, locally, in Amityville, "The Brick" because of his physical stature," says Ryan Katzenbach. "In my mind's eye, I was picturing this big, tall, broad guy. So when Dave's headshot and resume came across my desk, he wasn't the very first choice because Dave was shorter than what I envisioned...he wasn't this great big, tall, broad guy. Later, when I talked to Gerri at great length, she told me I was wrong, and that Kelske was actually not that large...that he was just very ripped because of the athletics. So, we called Dave in for an audition before myself and the co-producers, and it was an instant fit for the part. Dave was very capable of being this guy...this serious guy who, when he barked at you, you knew he meant business and this was no guy to f*** around with."
Ironically, later on when Katzenbach retrieved photos of Kelske, he was astonished at just how similiar some of the physical features were between Moretti and Kelske. "It was just confirmation we made the right decision," says Kat.
Above • SH Executive Producer Diana Maiocco and Moretti at a meeting with fellow actors after being cast to the part of Bobby Kelske.
Moretti has participated in several re-enactment sequences for the documentary to date. His portion of the DeFeo trial was filmed in the summer of 2006 wherein he delivered, verbatim, Bobby Kelske's lines from the 1975 murder trial taken right from the transcript. The actor, today, says he is most looking forward to the forthcoming shoot which depicts the actual murders.
"We strongly believe, based on forensics, that there were accomplices that helped Butch DeFeo murder the family that night, and I personally believe that Butch wasn't necessarily the one who instigated the crime," says Kat. "We believe very strongly that Bob Kelske was there and he pulled the trigger on at least one of the DeFeos."
Moretti, since signing on to the project, has become a successful actor in his own right. In his most recent gig he plays Thom, a lead reporter for a newspaper that stumbles onto a series of bizarre vampire-esque murders in here! TV's The Lair. here, a subscription based cable network caters to the gay/lesbian community, and the success of the show's first season has brought about a publicity tour that has taken Moretti all over the country promoting the show. The second season of Lair starts filming in February.
"Dave is but one stellar example of our four leads in this project. Dave's devotion, like his three co-stars, is quite unusual to find because Dave, like his three co-stars, really went the extra mile to research the story, and they really delved into their characters, really explored them, their dark sides, and what really made them tick," says Kat. "That's just so damn cool to find that kind of devotion to the project."
Above • David Moretti, center, meets one of the real-life DeFeo jurors [front left corner] during a reception for another Katco event. Moretti and the juror got an opportunity to chat about Kelske's testimony on the stand during the actual 1975 trial.
Moretti's most intrigued by how Kelske managed to escape the fate of conviction. "He was very sly," says Moretti, "He was willing to let his friend take the fall while he ran away scott-free. He's a very smart character though, and he knew just who to play and how to get what he wanted. I find this very intuitive for the golden boy jock of the town, who is too often typically stereotyped as an idiot."
"Even though the cast has been hired to portray the story based on our findings and our conclusions, I definitely encouraged them to explore the Amityville story for themselves and draw their own conclusions as to whether the house was haunted or not," says Kat. The actors were provided with whatever books were available on the subject, and encouraged to check out all the available movies and documentaries. "Dave and our other leads all jumped all over this, and I think they've all really come to view the story as an elaborate hoax."
"It's amazing how over-hyped the whole lore of Amityville is in reality," says Dave Moretti. "It's really nothing more than an unfortunate story of murders within an exceedingly dysfunctional family. Those murders became a tool of propoganda for the Lutzes in their effort to make a fortune from a faux ghost story. It really was a brilliant business move on their part," he added. "The contrived story is really all anyone knows who doesn't look beyond the hype and further into the facts."
Moretti, in October, brought his role as Bobby Kelske to life on the stage when he starred in Katco's reading of the feature film script "The Amityville Murders" at the Whitmore-Lindley Theatre in North Hollywood.
