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Brothers are tearing up Las Vegas film scene
Jerry, Mike Thompson's movie THOR AT THE BUS STOP was crowd favorite at local festival
By Ginger Mikkelsen
Courtesy of The View Newspapers
Original publication date: 10.29.03
Hollywood has the Wachowski brothers, the Farrelly brothers and the Coen brothers. But in Las Vegas, the brothers to watch are the Thompson brothers.
Big Brother/Little Brother Productions, run by Centennial Hills siblings Jerry and Mike Thompson has only a handful of short films to their credit. But already, the brothers are dreaming big with plans for a future full-length feature.
The brother's most recent release, THOR AT THE BUS STOP, was the audience choice pick at this year's Mercury Film Festival, sponsored by the weekly alternative newspaper The Las Vegas Mercury. At the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the film took first place in the annual Spring Flix student film competition.
THOR and the brothers' SONG OF THE UNSUNG were two out of a handful of student films selected for international screening as part of UNLV's offerings at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Jerry is 29 and Mike is 21. In spite of the age difference, both get along well enough to work and live together.
When the brothers aren't writing and directing films, they both work as caricature artists at the Excalibur.
Jerry has a film degree from UNLV and Mike is currently taking classes to complete the film program as well.
Both brothers have loved film all their lives. They credit their father, Las Vegas Review-Journal photographer Gary Thompson, with providing early inspiration.
"We've been making movies since I was 11 or 12," Jerry said. "The early ones were horrible. We made them up as we went. We didn't edit and we'd shoot the whole movie in four hours. If we flubbed a line, we had to start over. I didn't edit a movie until I was in high school."
Once the big brother hit high school, his filmmaking skills improved, but his writing still lacked the punch it has today.
"I did a lot of bad parodies. When you're young, that's what you do. I wasn't creative enough to think up original ideas, I'd just play with things that already existed," he said.
Filmmaking and art were just hobbies for Jerry until his third year at UNLV. As a student, Thompson indulged his creative side with a Rebel Yell college newspaper comic strip. But for the first two years, he studied biochemistry with the intent of becoming a doctor or a dentist.
Thompson worked his way through school with a part-time job as a security guard at a jeans factory.
"I had to keep all the pants from escaping," he said. "If someone would have wanted to steal them, I would have let them. If they wanted me to fight crime, I'd have to get paid more money."
The filmmaker left the security job and became a caricature artist at the Excalibur. Drawing and making a living at it gave him the confidence to give up medicine and pursue the education he really wanted in film.
While Jerry was in school, Mike helped out on every movie from MIND MAN, DUMB LUCK BOY and PEARLS BEFORE SWINE to MADE LARGE IN THE USA.
"I've always lived the dream," Mike said.
Now that Jerry is two years out of UNLV and Mike is in school, the brothers are at work on Mike's film inspirations.
Mike's ideas come from observation. THOR popped into his head while watching pedestrians on a trip to California. A half-naked man hustled by lugging a jug of milk in each hand and the wheels in Mike's head started turning.
"While we were driving I saw all these crazy people. Then I saw the milk strider and I realized, we had to make a movie about that guy," he said.
The milk strider is only one of the odd people THOR viewers encounter. Thor, played by Jerry Thompson, must wait at a bus stop alongside a pesky yet perky grade school girl who demands to know if he plays basketball.
She then assumes with that big hammer, he must be a repairman. Thor, insulted by the interaction, trudges off to another bus stop only to be hassled by an old woman on crutches.
When stray lightening bolts, turn both senior and school girl to ashes, the audience is left to assume the worst.
Mike acts as co-star, White Trash Chuck, a character who taunts Thor and ruffs up neighborhood thugs.
The whole Thompson family shows up in the movie. The other three Thompson brothers; Erick, 31, Matt, 26, and Scott, 18; all have speaking roles. Mike and Jerry's parents, grandmother and their cousin's daughter serve as actors and extras.
"Most of the cast is family and friends, but they're all pretty good," Jerry said.
Mike said casting his 6-foot 4-inch tall brother as "Thor" was an obvious choice.
"The first thing I thought of was Jerry as Thor," he said.
"I grew a real beard for that part," Jerry said. "I didn't shave for four months. I looked like a homeless lumberjack for two minutes of screen time."
While the beard was real, the stunts in THOR were created digitally using all the tricks of the trade. Excalibur juggler, and Thompson family friend, Jason Neistadt, helped the brothers and their film editor Andrew Hamilton create a pedestrian/car collision using a combination of green screen technology and film manipulation.
Jerry returned the favor, helping Neistadt film a how-to DVD series with films on juggling, guitar playing and caricature art.
Much of the brother's filming is done guerilla-style without permits or pre-arraignment. Since they're still small and they don't make any money off the films, they rarely get in trouble.
Filming MIND MAN, DUMB LUCKY BOY was the exception. Local police interrupted filming at least four or five times during the climactic back alley fight scene.
"The first time they came out, the cop had his hand on his gun and told us to stop. I put my hands up and said, 'We've just making a student film.' He could see the cameras, so he let us keep working," Jerry said.
By the fourth time, police officers told the crew to keep working, "They said they knew all about us, but they'd got a couple of calls and had to be seen responding," Jerry said.
Kai Murphy, a film instructor at UNLV and director of Mercury Film Festival, said he can't wait to see what the Thompson brothers come up with next.
"I see them maturing as writer directors. That was seen in THOR. It's an excellent start. I think they've got tremendous potential and I'm kind of excited to see what the next project is. Every time they've made a new film, there's a huge leap in terms of their creativity and story telling."
DESCENT TO GREATNESS, the duo's film in the works, promises to be their longest. Mike's "Samurai movie without any samurai in it" could run as long as 20 to 25 minutes.
If the short of DESCENT TO GREATNESS does well, the brothers have toyed with turning it into their first feature-length production.
"Eventually we have to do a feature and get it into film festivals," Mike said.
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