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Home , Peter Jankowski, Robby Krieger, The Real Blonde, Tom DiCillo

When You’re Strange A Film About

(Source: Wikipedia)

MINI-MEDIA KIT Documentary Feature Film, U.S.A., 2008 90 Minutes, Color & B/W

For Additional Information Please Visit http://www.whenyourestrangemovie.com

Contact Information

Wendy Wanjen Leu [email protected] 650-303-4488

SYNOPSIS

Let’s go to theater and admire one of the most controversial bands in history! The Doors, formed in 1965 in with four members – vocalist , keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmor – was a rock band, as well as a representative symbol of the 1960s and 1970s times. Although the existence of The Doors was short, their sings and their performances have not only appealed a lot of people, but also had a long‐standing influence to former, current, and even future society. Simply speaking, The Doors has been a legend. Being a fan of The Doors, director Tom DiCillo clearly knew the importance of this documentary. Unlike other documentaries, When You’re Strange does not consist of tedious and boring “talking head” interviews. Instead, with the talent of telling story in a narrative way, DiCillo reorganized the never‐before‐seen film footage and the footage from Morrison’s student film, HWY, to present The Doors with different dimensions. All the footage was shot between the band’s formation in 1965 and the charismatic frontman Morrison’s untimely death in 1971. The footage is truly a rare treasure. For the causal fans and audience, this documentary offers a good chance to deeply understand everything about The Doors as well as the historical background in the 1960s and the early 1970s. For the loyal fans, however, this time capsule also provides a fresh feeling about The Doors with DiCillo’s rearrangement of footage and Johnny Depp’s skillful narration.

From this documentary, the exploration of The Doors begins. People can go through the whole story of The Doors, from the early days of the team members, how they met together, how the band was formed, their opening act, signing contract with Jac Holzman, their first album, their second album, the clubs, the interaction between the band members, to the unexpected death of Morrison. Every single thing detailed in the film was unique and important, as well as correlated with each other.

Compared to The Doors, a film directed by and acted by in 1991, what When You’re Strange gives to people will be much more authentic. Instead of the actors, people can see the “real” band members rehearsing together, performing on the concerts, having funny interviews, or interacting with fans.

By viewing this documentary, people can easily be touched with genuine feeling. The members of The Doors were alive, their images in the footage are alive, and the spirit of The Doors will be always alive.

It’s When You’re Strange. A film about The Doors. It is all about The Doors.

STATEMENT FROM THE DIRECTOR

Tom DiCillo, the director of When You’re Strange, is one of the fans of The Doors. “The Doors have been, subconsciously, my favorite band since I first heard them when I was 14.” For him, directing this film was not only a new career beginning of dealing with a documentary, but also a good chance to access to the never‐before‐ seen archival film footage.

After watching all the materials, DiCillo decided to make this documentary as a narrative film, as well as featured with the band lead singer, Jim Morrison. He explained, “I realized I needed to approach this as a narrative film and in that sense discover and develop particularly Morrison as the protagonist, as the lead character in it.” In order to understand Morrison as deeply as he could, DiCillo went through a series of developments of understanding, including reading No One Here Gets Out Alive (a biography of Jim Morrison which was written by journalist Jerry Hopkins), Ray Manzarek’s book, ’s book, and a lot of magazine pieces and interviews, as well as talking to the family of Morrison’s sister. DiCillo found Morrison was struggling with something during his short life, and that was probably because Marrison came from a military family. “My suspicion is,” DiCillo said, “that Morrison’s psychic and karmic persona was the exact opposite of being told and forced to do something without any reason.” Referring to the film production, DiCillo indicated the hardest part was to figure out how to organize all the stuff. “It’s been a long experience. But, it could have been longer.” DiCillo stated, “I mean, it was a tremendous amount to assimilate and to try to organize. The organization was the biggest challenge.” To tell the story from different dimensions, pulling out other stories from the footage was even a struggle. “Morrison’s character is the most dynamic. He went through the biggest changes and so he leads the story. But,” DiCillo emphasized, “the rest of the guys had very specific and just fascinating relationships. Each of them had a very specific musical function, as well as this function of supporting Morrison so that he could go crazy and always have someplace to come back to.” “I came to respect all of them,” DiCillo summed up, “That’s why the film ends when Morrison dies. All four of them were The Doors. When Morrison died, there were three members of The Doors, not The Doors.”

BIOS OF THE CAST AND CREW

The Cast

• Jim Morrison (as himself) Jim Morrison was the lead singer and lyricist of The Doors, one of the most influential bands in rock music history. Being gifted, he also had some works of several books, poetry, as well as films.

Born in December 8, 1943, Morrison grew up in a military family and moved frequently during his childhood. He completed his undergraduate degree in the

film school of the University of , Los Angeles. He (Source: temp15.proto‐sites.com) also met Ray Manzarek there. After graduated, he formed The Doors with Manzarek in 1965. Morrison died in July 26, 1971 with the age of 27. His body was found in his rented apartment in Paris, but the absence of an official autopsy has left his cause of death mysterious.

• Ray Manzarek (as himself) Ray Manzarek was the keyboardist of The Doors. He is also known as a musician, singer, producer, film director, and writer. Born in February 12, 1939, Manzarek grew up in Chicago with his parents. He took piano lessons from Bruno Michelotti and others. During the period from 1962 to 1965, he studied in the Department of Cinematography at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he met Jim Morrison. (Source: temp15.proto‐sites.com) With the strong passion of music, Manzarek has also joined several groups such as Nite City, Echo & the Bunnymen, X, as well as cooperated with many people such as Philip Glass, lggy Pop, Michael McClure, and Michael C. Ford. In addition, he has also reached out from music field and become a producer, film director, as well as writer.

• Robby Krieger (as himself) Robby Krieger is a rock and roll guitarist and songwriter. During the time of The Doors, he played guitar and wrote some of the band’s most famous songs, including , , Touch Me, and . Born in January 8, 1946, Krieger early started his exposure to music. From the age of 10, he tried trumpet and played piano, and finally fell in love with guitar.

After The Doors disbanded, Krieger has continued his (Source: temp15.proto‐sites.com) music career and released a handful of albums by both forming other bands and solo performance.

• John Densmore (as himself) John Densmore is a musician and songwriter, and was the former drummer of The Doors. Born in December 1, 1944, Densmore joined The Doors in 1965 and remained a member. In the 1980’s, he left the world of rock and roll, and moved toward the area of dance to be a stage actor and producer. In 2006, Densmore returned to his roots as a jazz drummer, and released an album with his new brand, Tribaljazz. (Source: temp15.proto‐sites.com)

• Johnny Depp (narration) Johnny Depp is an American actor and musician. His most famous woks included acting in Edward Scissorhands, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

Born in June 9, 1963, Depp owns an adventure spirit and is always happy to try new things. Besides his film career, he also has performed in the area of music as a guitar player.

His latest works in 2010 includes acting in Alice in (Source: www.imdb.com) Wonderland, narrating in When You’re Strange, and acting in Rango.

The Crew

• Tom DiCillo (director and screenwriter) Tom DiCillo is an American film director, screenwriter, and cinematographer.

After studied creative writing at Old Dominion University and filmmaking at University’s Film School, he started to work as an actor and cinematographer, and then made his own films. DiCillo has written and directed seven films, including

Johnny Suede (1991), (1995), Box of (Source: www.imdb.com) Moon Light (1996), (1997), Double Whammy (2001), Delirious (2006), and When You’re Strange (2009). These movies helped him to win 13 awards and get another 7 nominations.

• John Beug (producer) John Beug is a producer. His has worked in a wide range of film, TV show, and music. In addition, he also has the experience of being the director and music supervisor in the early years of his career.

His works in 2009 included Michael Bublé Meets Madison Square Garden, When You’re Strange, Make ‘Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America, and and Steve Winwood: Live from Madison Square Garden.

He has won and got another 2 (Source: www.artistshousemusic.org) nominations.

• Jeff Jampol (producer) Jeff Jampol is an estate manager in entertainment industry, and now he works for The Gram Parsons Estate, The Janis Joplin Estate, and The Rick James Estate. Jampol is also an instructor at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has taught in the Department of the Arts for more than 13 years. The courses he has taught include The Music Industry, Personal Management of Recording Artists, and Artist development and Marketing.

(Source: www.imdb.com)

• Peter Jankowski (producer) Peter Jankowski is a TV series and film producer. Since graduated from the College of the Holy Cross, Jankowski has showed his talent of being a producer of TV series. Among a lot of his works, the most famous and most successful one is Law & Order franchise. Being the executive producer of this popular TV series, Jankowski was nominated by Emmy Awards in 2002. (Source: www.holycross.edu)

• (producer) Dick Wolf is an American producer, specializing in crime dramas such as Miami Vice and Law & Order franchise.

After graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1969, Wolf worked as an advertising copywriter at Benton & Bowles and tried to write some screenplays. He started his television career as a staff writer on Hill Street , and became supervising producer for Miami Vice.

With his outstanding performance, Wolf has won a lot (Source: www.imdb.com) of award, including 2 Primetime Emmy Awards, another 10 wins, as well as another 14 nominations.

PRODUCTION NOTES

Paul Ferrara and Frank Lisciandro, who were Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek’s friends and classmates in film school at the University of California, Los Angeles, were taken to shoot The Doors when The Doors went on the tour. They followed The Doors around for about five years and shot the footage – onstage, offstage, and in between.

Dick Wolf and other producers got the rights to this footage from Pam, Morrison’s long‐term companion, and Anne, Morrison’s sister. However, they had not been able to put it in a form. That was why they came to director Tom DiCillo. Wolf called DiCillo and asked him to direct this documentary. Even though DiCillo had not done a documentary before, he did not think that he should not accept this job. Instead, he clearly knew that he did not want to make just a traditional documentary with people talking about The Doors.

While the producers gave him the access to the footage, DiCillo started his work by looking at every inch of this material. It took him three weeks, eight to nine hours a day – just like a full time job – to watch the rehearsals, concerts, and vintage television appearances of The Doors. But for him, it was still hard to come up with something. DiCillo’s struggle ended up with an idea of adding the materials from HWY, a student film Morrison made and stars in. This student film consisted with all the 35mm footage of Morrison wandering through the desert. It gave DiCillo the thought of making the documentary much more dramatic like a narrative feature, by using this character as Morrison, wandering through the film. Before being played at Sundance Film Festival in 2009, the film production took about one year to finish. That version had DiCillo doing the voiceover. In order to further improve this film, the production team asked Johnny Depp to join as a narrator. Depp made an astounding change in the script – switching the voiceover of referring to all the band members from using their last names to using their first names. The minor change led to a magnificent shift, and made the film closer to be a true documentary.

PHOTOS

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REVIEWS AND THIRD PARTY ENDORSEMENTS

• The Wall Street Journal Review (by Steven Kurutz) If someone think he or she has seen Oliver Stone’s The Doors and read the Jim Morrison biography No One Here Gets Out Alive and watched four million VH1 classic rock specials, and therefore there is no reason to see the new film When You’re Strange, he or she would be wrong. With the unearthed footage and Johnny Depp’s narration, this documentary presents the real Jim Morrison, and pulls off the difficult feat of making The Doors story seem fresh. (http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/03/27/exclusive‐look‐when‐youre‐ strange‐new‐doors‐doc‐narrated‐by‐johnny‐depp/)

• SBCC Film Review (by Thomas Stier) Tom DiCillo brings the audience into the times of the 1960s and 1970s youth and hippy movement against establishment. The film is enjoyable. For the casual fans of The Doors, this documentary can open their eyes to the legend band; and for the die hard fans, even though this documentary might not have a lot of information that they do not know, it does have a lot of new footage that has never been seen before. (http://sbccfilmreviews.org/?p=8617)

• Sally Stevens’ Review (a friend of Jim Morrison) It is a great film for casual fans of The Doors and those who want to know more about the band and the times. The footage was very well utilized, and the editing was seamless. It takes the audience to the exploration of The Doors, from their origin, early days, launch of albums, and the clubs, to the concerts, interviews, and even the death of Jim Morrison. Without the effort of editors, Jim DiCillo, and Johnny Depp, or without Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, and John Densmore being The Doors, this film would not burn as brightly as it does. (http://www.examiner.com/x‐21763‐The‐Doors‐ Examiner~y2009m10d23‐When‐Youre‐Strange‐Sallys‐review)

• Audience Review (by rtcblc, a registered user on IMDb) By weaving the original footage, Tom DiCillo presents an intimate view of all The Doors in the context of the 1960s and the early 1970s, as well as an intimate look at the complex relationship between Jim Morrison and the other three band members. Overall, When You’re Strange is an outstanding film, and hugely entertaining. (http://www.imdb.com/user/ur20504227/comments)