WHAT IS AN ALLEYCAT?

An alleycat race is an unsanctioned street race, where cyclists complete a series of checkpoints in order to finish the race.  Performed on traffic filled streets, alleycats are fraught with excitement, danger and adrenaline.

PROJECT

ALLEYCAT is a 90 minute live-action film that takes place in San Francisco and California's Central Valley.  In addition to centering around a bicycle race, the housing fallout of the mid 2000's acts as a backdrop as well as creating additional drama for our protagonist Lucas and his wife.

Production will commence in October of 2013, with a 28 day shoot.  Our goal is to raise $25,000, which will cover costs of pre-production and production.  We will continue to raise additional funds for music and post-production.

 We will be crewing up entirely out of the San Francisco Bay Area, with cast coming from the Bay Area and Los Angeles.

SYNOPSIS 

It is a warm San Francisco night, and Lucas and Petra are enjoying their last night as urbanites, with a raucous going away party put on by their friends.  The next morning all is well as they head east in their U-Haul toward the Central Valley to take advantage of affordable real estate, as they are moving into their first home.  The are getting their piece of the American Dream.

One year later, and their future has not met their lofty expectations.  Lucas's father has passed away, his record label is a failure, Petra has not gotten pregnant as hoped, and their beautiful house is only worth half of what they paid for it.  Petra has continued to commute to the Bay Area for work, but the out of work Lucas has been living in a constant state of depression, his only joy coming from cycling and 'alleycat' races, unsanctioned events where fixed gear cyclists race with wild abandon in what can only be described as a no holds barred scavenger hunt.  As Lucas heads off to a race, his wife encourages him to grow up and behave like the forty year old man he is, but her words fall on deaf ears.

During the grueling, eighty mile race, Lucas has both dark and humorous confrontations with other riders, motorists, gangbangers and even the police, all of whom seem to personify the cultural and economic struggles of the hard hit region.  

Ultimately, Lucas loses a close race, but appears to have been transformed by the day's wild experiences.  His fighting spirit seems to have returned to him as he rises out of his seat to try and outrace a red light, leaving the audience to wonder if he will survive to see the fruits of his new outlook on life.

 THE RUNNELS BROTHERS

The Runnels Brothers have been working together creatively since the early 1990's, when together they moved to Hollywood.  While living in L.A., the East Bay Area natives wrote, directed and produced several plays, short films, commercials and music videos and have since moved back to the Bay Area.

In 2007 their feature film YOUTHANASIA was acquired by York Entertainment and is available through Netflix.

Their animated short BREAKFAST WITH BUKOWSKI, with music by Tom Waits, had its world premiere at the Sonoma International Film Festival in 2011, and in 2012 won the Slamdance Social Shorties Award, which included a $3,500 cash prize.  After screening their short at the Long Day Short Film Festival in Alameda, they were asked to sit on the panel as jurors for 2012 and 2013.

In 2012 they received two grants from PlayGround to direct the short film REUNION and THE SECRET LIFE OF A HOTEL ROOM.  The same year they also received a grant from ArtSpace to direct the short documentary MECCA.

SCHEDULE  

Casting and location scouting have already begun.  Pre-production starts in August, with shooting in October through December.  Post-production will continue from October through April 1, 2014 with a finished film completed by May 1, 2014. 

TEAM 

GREG RUNNELS (Director/Producer/Editor):  Back in 1995, disillusioned film student Greg Runnels left Long Beach State to produce a series of one act plays in Hollywood entitled HIGH CITY MILES.  From there he went on to study acting for a year at the Bennet Theater Lab in San Francisco, then moved on to his first paying film gig:  Location Scout for Finn Taylor's DREAM WITH THE FISHES, a 1997 Sundance Film Festival Selection.  Greg then built an impressive art department resume' which funded his passion as a filmmaker.  As a director he has helmed several film projects, sometimes with his brother Mark, other times as a solo leader.  Most notably he wrote, directed and edited the award winning short film BREAKFAST WITH BUKOWSKI.  An accomplished editor, he has cut over twenty features, short films, documentaries, music videos and sizzles.  

MARK RUNNELS (Director/Producer/Writer):  Mark got his start in 1989 playing a drug addict in the drug awareness film A NIGHT'S JOURNEY TO CRACK, and cut his teeth as a writer on the Los Angeles indie theater scene.  In 1997 Dramalogue remarked that "Playwright Runnels sees with unblurred vision through the eyes of his time and speaks with its voice".  While researching the script for ALLEYCAT, Mark, who was briefly a bike messenger in San Francisco in 1989, engaged in fifteen fixed gear alleycat and out and back races in the Central Valley.  He scored 5 first place finishes, 10 top three finishes, and received over a thousand dollars in cash and prizes.  Mark has written over thirty screenplays, teleplays and plays.

YVONNE PRINZ (Music Supervisor)

Yvonne co-founded Amoeba Records in 1990 with her husband Dave.  Amoeba Records is the largest independently owned record store in North America.  She is also a critically acclaimed novelist whose works include STILL THERE, CLARE (first installment of the CLARE SERIES and nominated for an IPPY and RED CEDAR AWARD), THE VINYL PRINCESS, about a sixteen-year-old-record-collector, published in 2010 by Harper Collins and ALL YOU GET IS ME, also published by Harper Collins in 2011.

CAST

We have cast our lead and are still in the process of casting.  Meet some of our talented players!

DAVID AGRANOV (Lucas)

David is an actor, singer, and songwriter who works in Theatre, Film, Television, and Voiceover.  His feature film credits include X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, JUST MARRIED, CRAZY, ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE and SALT.  He recurred as "Jim Ballard" on David Mamet's THE UNIT for 20th Century Fox Television.  His theater credits include "Rodolpho" in A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE on Broadway, "Tommy Boy"  in the West Coast premiere of TRAINSPOTTING in Los Angeles, and is the creator of the one man show, THE CHET BAKER PROJECT, where he portrays the trumpeter/singer, and has performed this one act play in New York, Beverly Hills, and Rome. As the recording artist Divvy, his debut LP, Don't Judge a Crook By His Lover was picked up by Interscope Digital Distribution.

KATIE PARKER (Petra)

JUSTIN ZACHARY (Jeremy)

Justin was the star of the Runnels Brothers first feature film YOUTHANASIA.  Other film credits include HARRY + MAX (2004 Sundance Film Festival), LITTLE ATHENS, RACE YOU TO THE BOTTOM and 2 DUDES AND A DREAM.  He was in the North American Stage Production of TRAINSPOTTING, earning him a Best Actor Nomination from the Los Angeles Drama Critic's Circle, as well as a New Discovery Award from Entertainment Today Magazine.

JACK SOUZA (Officer Hogan)

 Jack has worked with the Runnels Brothers on two occasions and is now considered part of their reperatory of actors.  He starred in REUNION, a short film made possible by a grant from PlayGround, and a promotional video for the State Theater in Modesto.  He has performed in over sixty plays in Northern California and receieved the Stanislaus Arts Council's 2011 Award for Excellence in the Arts.

KALENA RANOA (Naomi)

Making her feature film debut with ALLEYCAT, model and actress Kalena Ranoa's television credits include RULES OF ENGAGEMENT and WHERE WOULD WE BE.

TONY SERRANO (Zach)