Team Engagement
Pro Hollywood Boot Camp Recap: Day 3, Shooting on set at Universal Studios - Pro Hollywood picked up speed today with participants moving to the “War of the World’s” and “Spartacus” sets to begin shooting their film shorts. Filming began at 7:30 am sharp, and despite the fact that many players had been up until 1 am the night before fine-tuning their scripts with Roger Bobb and Robert Townsend, all were enthused to jump into the action. After an hour of pre-meetings, shot planning and tweaking set props, the group of 22 current and former NFL players hit the ground running on production.
Team 1 – “Lights Out Productions” (LOP) led by Roger Bobb elected to use the airplane wreckage and ravaged town littered with debris and smoldering cars to frame their post-apocalyptic tale (“H2O”) of a couple who survived and now needed to rebuild their lives. The male lead (and victor of the previous night’s audition) was played by none other than Tampa Bay Buccaneer star defensive tackle, Gerald McCoy. Gerald dazzled producers and his teammates alike with his intensity, focus and grit, demonstrating that he had the right stuff and was up to the challenge of carrying the picture. Zoltan Mesko of the New England Patriots, ever the character, found time to joke around in between takes, sitting inside of a still-spinning jet engine with new friends at the PHBC.
Team 2 – “The Untouchables” led by Robert Townsend, piloted a truly hilarious comedy (“Et Tu Brute”) by tapping into the talents of apparent method actor, comedian and New York Giant, Ramses Barden (Julius Caesar). His co-star, former player Corey Mays plotted against him using cunning, bravado and charisma to disarm the emperor. Jared Odrick of the Miami Dolphins also received highest honors and praise for a truly believable gladiator, demonstrating impressive dance moves in one surprising scene.
The day concluded with over six hours (per team) of intense film editing and music scoring in state-of-the-art Universal editing suites. Players gladly threw themselves into this daunting task, wanting to make good use of their hard-earned footage for their short films premiering at Thursday evening’s film screening at Universal Studios. In true LA tradition, PHBC attendees used golf carts to run in between sets, carving their way through the legendary Bates Motel from “Psycho”, Wysteria Lane of ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” and even Dr. Seuss’ kid-friendly Whoville.
Day three gave these football greats and would-be actors, directors, screenwriters and producers hands on experience in the film world and taught them what it takes to create the magic. And yes - the crew always eats first.
View more photos on NFL.com here.