Operation Avalanche

presents

OPERATION AVALANCHE

A film by Matt Johnson

(RT: 93m, USA, 2015)

Sales contact: Nate Bolotin, XYZ Films e: [email protected] 310.956.1554 OPERATION AVALANCHE - SHORT SYNOPSIS

1967: the height of the Cold War. The CIA suspects there is a Russian mole inside of NASA, sabotaging the Apollo program. They send two young agents on a mission to go undercover, posing as documentary filmmakers, there to capture NASA's race to the moon. The real mission - use their access and technology to hunt down the leak.

But what they discover is far more shocking than soviet spies... Their government may be hiding a secret about Apollo that could define the decade, and the White House will stop at nothing to silence anyone who learns it.

OPERATION AVALANCHE – LONG SYNOPSIS

MATT JOHNSON and OWEN WILLIAMS are two young CIA agents who were recruited fresh out of Princeton as part of the Bright Recruits program, a program designed to seek out recruits who weren’t the strongest or the most intelligent but who possessed one very important skill that could not be taught, AMBITION.

They arrived at the CIA in 1966 and have been toiling away in the AV Department, making modest research projects. When we first meet them in early 1967 they are in the midst of researching whether or not filmmaker Stanley Kubrick is a Soviet spy.

But Matt desperately wants field work and a mission worth of their talents and when they hear rumblings about a new mission called OPERATION ZIPPPER, they make a pitch to their supervisor AGENT BOLES to allow them to put their name in the running for the mission. But Boles says the mission is too big for them and that it has already been assigned.

Not one to take No for an answer Matt comes up with a plan; he will use his next presentation slot in front of CIA DIRECTOR BRACKETT to pitch directly to him. His plan is to take him and his AV Team to NASA undercover as a documentary film crew there to document the Apollo Mission. When he proposes this to Brackett, he thinks it is a clever idea, but that no Soviet mole would allow himself to ever be filmed. That’s when Matt reveals his big trick: he has been secretly filming this entire conversation with Brackett from the projection booth. And at this realization Brackett thinks that just maybe this plan could work and he assigns Matt’s team Operation Zipper.

The team drives down to Texas and immediately convinces the staff at NASA that they are documentarians. They spend their days conducting interviews with scientists, secretaries and bureaucrats and gathering B-Roll and by night they plant bugs, break into offices in an effort to identify the mole. Their biggest coo is tapping the phone of the director of NASA, JAMES WEBB.

While listening to the tap on Webb’s phone Matt hears something shocking, NASA cannot make it to the moon by 1969 as JFK had promised and it seems as though they need at least five more years. That means the Russians will beat them to the moon and in doing so, might just win the cold war. Matt shares this

3 recording with Owen is shocked. He tells Matt to call Brackett, tell him the news and get their next set of instructions.

Matt calls Brackett who immediately understands the gravity of the situation and calls for Matt to bring his team home so he can send in a more experienced unit. Matt pleads his case, his team is already there, they could help, but Brackett won’t hear it. Matt is devastated, this was a dream mission and so he does the only thing he can to stay at NASA – defy his bosses orders.

Unbeknownst to Owen Matt makes up a new mission called OPERATION AVALANCHE. The mission functions as a back up plan for NASA, should they be unable to make it to the moon OPERATION AVALANCHE would ostensibly fake the lunar landing and create a filmed version of a landing that could be broadcast to the world. Owen can’t believe the CIA would lie to the American people like this and fears it is unethical, but he proceeds with shooting a test in the desert because Owen is good at following orders.

The test is a success but as Matt screens the footage to Owen, he is interrupted by some unexpected visitors. Brackett and Boles have grown wise to Matt’s made up mission and come to shut it down and fire him. Owen cannot believe Matt betrayed him like this and that he had him take part in a phony mission that defied CIA orders. It seems like Matt’s goose is cooked, until he screens the test footage to Brackett. It seems it’s pretty good and so in spite of Matt’s defiance, he is allowed to stay the course with Operation Avalanche, only this time Brackett leaves Boles behind to supervise.

Matt and Boles don’t get off to a great start as Boles tries to assert his dominance and Matt takes offence, thinking this is still his mission. Owen is still pissed off at Matt for lying to him and so Matt is left on his own to figure out how to fake the moon landing.

He gets an idea to look for practical shooting locations in the U.S. that could pass for the lunar surface and when Owen refuses to accompany Matt on the trip (choosing to stay behind with his pregnant wife), Matt goes on the geology field trip with Boles. They slowly start to bond as they visit vast open landscapes like the Grand Canyon and the Barringer Crater.

Matt brings his findings home to Owen, but he is unimpressed. NASA just brought actual footage home from a fly by of the Moon and Matt’s photos look nothing like the real thing. Matt wonders how he can get the astronauts to act in

4 front of these actual photos of the moon. When Owen suggests Matt hire a real director for the job, he thinks back to his earlier mission and begins to track down Stanley Kubrick. Fate would have it that Kubrick is in London shooting his very own science-fiction movie and Matt plans to sneak onto the set and hopefully steal some of his special effect techniques.

Using a super-8 camera, hidden in a bag, Matt tours the set and learns of Kubrick’s special technique. It’s called front screen projection and it holds the key to how Matt will fake the moon landing.

Upon returning from London, Matt visits the CIA to update them on the progress of the mission. He lays out the entire plan for Brackett and the other senior agents and it seems like they are on board. Matt is going to build a fake lunar lander in a film studio in Texas and claim that it is all for his documentary. Brackett informs Matt that his plan better work, or else they will have to go with OPERATION NORTHWOODS. This plan entails that the CIA would shoot down the Apollo 11 rocket and blame it on the Soviets. For the first time Matt realizes human lives are at stake (namely the astronauts) and he cannot afford to mess up the mission.

As Matt and his team oversee the production of the LEM and write the dialogue that the astronauts will say when they land on the moon, trouble strikes. They are being spied on at the studio and after a shoot out and chase, are no closer to learning the identity of the men following them. They can only assume that it’s the mole and they have to close up the studio so as not to jeopardize the integrity of the mission.

Boles does some due diligence and discovers that the man at the studio was Antonin Lhotsky and that he is a NASA employee and the mole. He tells them that the CIA has captured him and he is no longer a threat. He tries to refocus Matt and Owen on the task at hand. They have to get back to work on faking the moon landing as time is of the essence and that Apollo 11 is scheduled for the summer of 1969, leaving them with only a few more months to complete the mission.

But Owen is becoming paranoid. He doesn’t think Lhotsky was the man at the studio or the mole and he thinks that the CIA is following them. He is concerned that they are covering their tracks and preparing to make Matt and Owen the fall guys should Operation Avalanche fall apart. Matt scoffs at this, but it is clearly creating conflict in the group. Especially when Owen confronts Boles about this

and Boles reveals to Matt that Owen has been calling Brackett behind his back and asking to be taken off the mission.

When the trio finally do get around to shooting the moon landing, nobody is on speaking terms. We see Owen descent the steps of the LEM ladder, playing the role of Neil Armstrong.

After production, Matt delivers the film to Boles and strikes the studio, burning all of the evidence. The Apollo 11 rocket takes off without a hitch and it seems everything has gone according to plan. That is until Matt realizes he is being followed. After a long car chase, where Matt and the camera team are shot at, Matt goes to Owen’s house to bring him to safety. But it is too late. Owen is hanging dead in his garage and Matt cannot believe the price he has had to pay for this mission.

The night of the moon landing, Matt phones Brackett and tries to blackmail him. He tells Brackett that he has been filming the entire mission and has proof that the CIA faked the moonlanding and killed Owen. Brackett has a proposition for Matt. He was so impressed by his work on Avalanche, that he wants to promote him to the head of his own division. Matt can’t believe it and hangs up on Brackett. He wanders out into the busy street where he sees a group of people gathered in front of a department store watching as man is about to walk on the moon for the first time. He hears the iconic line, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” and contemplates Brackett’s proposal.

OPERATION AVALANCHE – PRODUCTION NOTES

After making The Dirties I wanted to immediately explore how a character like Matt would exist if he were given real power. I have always been fascinated by ambition and the lengths people will go to achieve real power, and I felt like the warping gravity of that power was worth exploring. My friendship with Owen had also changed over time, in part because of these same issues, and I wanted to get that on the screen before it rotted away to nothing.

- Matt Johnson

Development

Development on Operation Avalanche started in early 2013. On the flight home from Utah where his debut film The Dirties had won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature, Johnson and his team were thinking about the future. But in looking ahead, they kept being pulled back in time. Excitement started swelling as soon as the idea came about of taking the production model from The Dirties and applying it to a period film.

But what period would it be, what would be fun, compelling and somehow relevant today? Johnson soon circled onto the idea of a fake documentary about the greatest conspiracy theory of them all, the idea that NASA faked landing on the moon.

The Dirties was a fake documentary set in a contemporary high school. Johnson had assembled a team who were used to working in a quick, free-flowing, highly improvisational style. The challenge would be to maintain this environment which allows for the magic while expanding the scope of the project to a massive scale.

The team got back together Matthew Miller (producer), Jared Raab (Co-Producer, DP), Curt Lobb (Editor), Andy Appelle (DP), Josh Boles (co-writer, actor), Owen Williams (actor) and Jay McCarrol (composer) and development began as an outline of the story came together.

Research began immediately and the team dove into all of the conspiracy theories, NASA documentation and hours of archival footage.

As the scope of the project expanded some additional key crew were added and Lee Kim (producer) and Tristan Zerafa (VFX Supervisor) came on board with production planned for summer 2014.

The Look

While Johnson and co-writer Josh Boles were developing the story, cinematographers Andrew Appelle and Jared Raab were starting to research the visual style of the film. Looking at 1960s verité documentaries by the likes of the Maysles Brothers, D.A. Pennebaker and Alan King, the duo honed in on what would be their visual approach and together, tried to figure out how to achieve that vintage look in 2014. The film needed to not only look period but “feel” period, down to the grain structure of the final image.

It started with the lenses. Using vintage French 16mm documentary lenses with a 2K RED sensor was the foundation of the final image. The vintage glass was mounted onto a custom-built RED camera rig, modeled after the earliest 16mm hand-held documentary cameras. From there, footage would be graded by colorist Connor Fisher who did an initial digital grade. After multiple tests, it became clear that the only way to make something truly look and feel like 16mm film was to print to actual film stock. Conor would hand his finished grade off to Pablo Perez, who operated a system that transferred each frame of digital footage onto 16mm negative film. That film would then be printed onto a number of various film stocks, and then scanned (or digitized) and graded by Fisher once again. The process took about a year to refine and makes for the final look seen in the film.

The Shoot

Unlike most conventional filmmaking, Matt Johnson’s first two features have been shot without scripts. In place of scripts, Johnson works from a detailed outline (this time penned with the help of Josh Boles). This 30 page document provided the bible for the Avalanche shoot and the entire production schedule and plan was based on this outline.

The majority of the film was shot in the summer of 2014 in Toronto. It was here that the key set of the film studio and Lunar lander were constructed and all of

8 the major set pieces were filmed (the 4th of July BBQ, the desert test, the car chase). After principal photography, smaller stripped down units would go off and fill in the gaps in the outline. There were four shoots outside of Toronto, one in London, two trips to Texas and one trip to Arizona and the Grand Canyon.

Depending on the day and the scope of the shoot, the size of the crew fluctuated. At its largest it was about 50 people and at its smallest, it was no more than 2.

For the most part, the sets were closed to nothing but key crew for hours at a time, as scenes took shape through the active collaboration of each team member. The free flowing of ideas and the use of improvisation was an important part of the process and empowered each person to make meaningful contributions the film.

The VFX

Inspired by films like Zelig and Forrest Gump, Matt knew early on that he wanted his characters to be integrated into stock footage to help sell the fact that this was a period documentary. Working with Tristan Zerafa (VFX Supervisor) and Curt Lobb (Editor), Matt was able to pull this trick off a few times and truly blur the lines between fact and fiction. How else can you explain Matt actually interviewing NASA director James Webb, asking Stanley Kubrick for an autograph or walking through a bustling mission control to meet with his camera team.

The Edit

Curt Lobb was the first person to see most of the footage from set and would immediately start editing and assembling scenes and sequences.

Due to the style of filmmaking Curt would need to edit together a lot of sequences which would then need to be printed to film and used as a prop in the shooting of the film. Take for example the scene where Matt projects the moon tests for Owen. The scene in the desert needed to be shot and then edited and then printed to film so that Matt could have a copy of the film to project in the scene. Together with producer Matthew Miller, Curt and Johnson would work backwards and schedule according to these film props.

There was a lot of footage shot for Operation Avalanche. This style of shooting generally makes for lengthy edits. There is no script to refer back to and the film

becomes a living thing that is constantly evolving. Take into consideration that the entire film is shot on two cameras continuously and that some takes last over an hour and you can imagine how challenging editing something like this could be.

The edit of the film started in the summer of 2014 and picture was locked in June 2015.

The Music

Matt always knew the music would be very important to the film. It was a way to help sell the period of the film and to underscore the action. Early on while writing the outline Josh Boles suggested Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain, specifically the first track composed by Joaquin Rodrigo. It created a perfect tone for the spy sequences of the film.

Much of the film’s soundtrack is made up of iconic classic rock by the likes of Credence Clearwater Revival and The Allman Brothers’ Band. These are artists near and dear to the filmmaker’s hearts and working with music supervisor David Hayman (another collaborator from The Dirties) they were thrilled to be able to have this music in the film.

The final coo of the film’s soundtrack is that it was able to incorporate and reappropriate the score used in the two Stanley Kubrick films referenced in Operation Avalanche. These include The Bomb Run from Dr. Strangelove (composed by Laurie Johnson) and Blue Danube from 2001: a space odyssey (composed by John Strauss II)

Rounding out the soundtrack are some subtle cues composed by Jay McCarrol.

The Cast

Operation Avalanche was a non-union production and most of the lead actors (Matt Johnson, Owen Williams, Josh Boles) come from within the company that Matt has assembled. Working with non-actors allows the team to illicit highly natural performances which work well in helping to establish the tone and style of the fake documentary. This is also the reason that wherever possible actor’s real names are used in production. It helps to scrape away the artifice that comes along with conventional narrative filmmaking.

Crew Bios

Matt Johnson – Director/Writer/Producer

Matt Johnson was born in Toronto and studied film at York University. He co- created the series Nirvana the Band the Show (09) and directed The Dirties (2013). Operation Avalanche is his second feature.

Matthew Miller – Producer

Matthew Miller is a producer best know for his work with director Matt Johnson. He produced his debut feature The Dirties which won the grand jury prize at Slamdance in 2013 and his follow up feature Operation Avalanche due out from by Lionsgate in 2016. In addition to producing, Miller is also an accomplished writer and director. His films have screened and won top prizes at festivals around the world including TIFF, Locarno, Slamdance & Busan. Along with Johnson he founded Zapruder Films in 2013. He lives in Toronto with his wife and son.

Jared Raab – Co-Director of Photography, Co-Producer

Jared Raab shoots, edits and produces in equal fashion. He graduated from York University with Matt Johnson, who tricked him into shooting and producing the cult web-series Nirvana The Band The Show, and they have been working together ever since. He went on to fulfil the same roles on The Dirties (2013) and Operation Avalanche (2016). In his spare time, he directs award-winning music videos for prominent indie bands including Tokyo Police Club, Born Ruffians, Arkells and July Talk to name a few. In 2014 he received the Prism Prize Arthur Lipsett Award for Technical Innovation in Music Video. His favourite movie is

Bande à part but if you ask him what it’s about, he pretends to be asleep.

Curt Lobb – Editor

Curt Lobb graduated from Humber College's Film & Television Program in 2011 with the highest average in his year, earning him the Academic Award of Excellence. He majored in Directing as well as Editing and after graduation was selected to be a participant in the "DOC U" program for the Toronto Hot Docs film festival as an emerging documentary filmmaker.

From 2012 to 2014 Curt edited two seasons of the TV show BBQ Crawl (Travel Channel), for which he was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for Best Editing in a Reality Competition Program or Series. He also has editing department credits on the documentary Turtle Power: The Definitive History of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Paramount Pictures), and the feature film The Dirties (The Kevin Smith Movie Club).

Lee Kim – Producer

Lee Kim's producing and film financing career began in 2006 with the feature film This Beautiful City, nominated for four Genies at the 29th Genie Awards in 2009. His second film Small Town Murder Songs, starring Peter Stormare, Martha Plimpton and Jill Hennessy, premiered at TIFF in 2010 and was a prize-winner at the Torino International Film Festival, Whistler Film Festival and Phoenix Film Festival. The film catapulted director Ed Gass-Donnelly into Hollywood's up-and- coming list, following his inclusion in Variety's Top 10 Directors-to-Watch list. Other credits include The Conspiracy, released by eOne Films Canada in July, 2013 and the TV rights optioned by NBC Universal, to be executive produced by Scott Z Burns (The Informant, The Bourne Ultimatum) and I'll Follow You Down, directed by Richie Mehta starring Haley Joel Osment, Gillian Anderson and Rufus Sewell, released in June 2014. His current slate of projects include award-winning filmmaker Matt Johnson's Operation Avalanche, currently in post-production, to be released by Lionsgate in 2016, as well as the a number of projects in the script development stage.

Nate Bolotin – Executive Producer

Nate Bolotin co-founded XYZ Films with partners Nick Spicer and Aram Tertzakian. Nate oversees and manages the domestic and international sales department at XYZ and specializes in packaging and film finance. Prior to starting

XYZ, Nate was a senior executive at Beverly Hills-based management company The Collective where he focused on structured film finance deals and sales. With 10 years+ experience in the independent film space, Nate has been involved in the financing and licensing of over 200 films. Nate received a B.A. in Economics and a B.A. in Film Studies from U.C. Santa Barbara as well as an MFA from UCLA Producer’s Program. Nate was born in Las Vegas, NV.

Aram Tertzakian – Executive Producer

Aram Tertzakian co-founded XYZ Films in 2008 alongside partners Nick Spicer and Nate Bolotin.

Before founding XYZ Films, Aram primarily focused on creative development, having held various positions for a diverse group of filmmakers such as director Alexander Payne, producers Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy, and producer Ted Field.

Aram received a Masters of Fine Arts from the UCLA Producers Program in June 2007. He completed his undergraduate study at Georgetown University, majoring in English with a focus on Film. He graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2004.

Nick Spicer – Executive Producer

Spicer started XYZ in 2008 with partners Nate Bolotin and Aram Tertzakian. From 2006 – 2008 he was a partner in Idiomatic Entertainment, an unscripted television company, where he developed series for Animal Planet, Comedy Central, and VH1. During that time he independently produced a Spanish-language feature film in Mexico with the involvement of both Bolotin and Tertzakian, an experience that helped shape the international nature of XYZ’s production business today.

Spicer received an MFA from the UCLA Producers Program in 2006. He majored in English, History and French at Rice University, where he was a National Merit Scholar. He graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2004. Spicer was born in Seattle, Washington.

Josh Boles – Co-Writer, Actor

Josh Boles is a filmmaker and musician. He conceived and wrote the story for The Dirties during a bout with the swine flu in 2009. As a singer and composer he records as Barry Lyndon and is a member of the band Singapore.

Owen Williams – Actor

Owen Williams is a high school English teacher from Toronto, Ontario. He likes to canoe, watch baseball, read novels and eat vegetables. He is grateful to his good friends for casting him in multiple lead roles and putting up with all of his complaints about needing to mark essays and "being in a bad mood," and to his girlfriend and family for not minding the long hours spent hanging out with his buddies under the guise of making films. He doesn't understand how cameras work and actually seems proud of his ignorance.

Andrew Appelle – Co-Director of Photography

Andrew Appelle was born and raised in Thunder Bay Ontario and is now a filmmaker based out of Toronto. Since finishing film school he has had the opportunity to travel the world as a DP on countless documentaries and episodes of national television. Operation Avalanche is Appelle’s first narrative feature as a cinematographer.

Chris Crane – Production Designer

Born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Chris Crane has been production designing films for almost a decade. Along with the 1960's set period thriller Operation: Avalanche, he production designed the 2015 TIFF selected feature film The Rainbow Kid, the 2013 Fantasia Film Festival opener I'll Follow You Down and the 2015 OMNI One detective television series Blood and Water.

Jay McCarrol – Composer

Jay is one of Matt's oldest friends. Together they created Nirvana the Band the Show. Since then, Jay has composed music for Matt's films, as well as many others, and has toured with several bands. His current project is called "Brave Shores".

Tristan Zerafa – VFX Supervisor

Tristan Zerafa is an elite visual effects artist of 10 years. His most notable contributions include Man Of Steel, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and X-Men: Apocalypse. Follow his progress at trizvfx.com.