The First Shoot Weekend

Yes that's right! We started principal photography this weekend and the filming of With Her is well under way! We visited four locations playing as William, Sofia, and Matthew's apartments, as well as the Book Store scene for William and Sofia's first 'date'. Our talented cast radiated their characters and dazzled through the lens, and we own an enormous thanks to all of you who came out to be background actors at the Book Store, you were all incredible too! (thank you, thank you, thank you!).

In case you're just starting to follow along with the production and filming of With Her, here's a little recap of what's going on and how it's going. There's a cast of incredible actors; Joseph Murray (William), Rebecca Liddiard (Sofia), and Taylor Davis (Matthew) make up the principal characters. The film also has Robert Segarini (Sherman Lesse), Raymi Lauren White (Woman #1), Zuly Torres (Woman #2), Alex Payne (Book Store Worker), and Joan Wilson (Photographer) as supporting characters / special bg. There's also a crew of hard working, dedicated film makers behind the lens capturing it all in cinematic brilliance, there's; Gerson Peña (Story/Writer), Emer Schlosser (Producer/Writer/Story Editor), Giuliana Lacerenza (Producer/Choreography/Wardrobe), Julia Carter (Makeup), Vladimir Novotni (Grip/Electric), Victor Mifsud (Camera), Aaron Forma (Sound), Kanishka Gulati (Producers Assistant), Donovan Tremblay (Slate/Stills/PA) along with myself Kristopher Finnigan (Producer/Director/Writer). Together we are With Her and the dynamic is magical!

The entire entire budget for the film has been raised by donations, this is being called 'crowd funding' these days and much of our funding came from the proceeds from an event at Cherry Cola's in Toronto. A cabaret of entertainment including Dave Borins, Lady Hayes, The Sweet Mack, Dj eLman and Dj Linterna, Simmer Down, Erez Sussman, and Dj Class!ck accompanied an art auction and delectable food cooked by my own talented Mom (Monica Quinn). We were able to raise just over $1600 dollars and it got the ball rolling on filming! We are still accepting donations to help us in completing the film as well as submitting it to film festivals upon completion. For every donation over $30 we are thanking people for their support by offering a free 'I'm With Her' tshirt custom printed by TKO Tee's (click here to get more info ondonations and tees!).

After our first weekend of shooting, we only have a few scenes left to film! The crew worked at a furious pace, and climbed mountains together in order to get the best possible performances captured beautifully on camera. It IS working! Check the photo-stream page on this site for great photo's from the weekend as well as Raymi's blog about her big performance and Saturday! The camera continues to roll over the next few weeks, stay tuned for more updates With Her!

FUN with With Her FUNdraiser

Thanks for everyone who came out to Cherry Cola's to support With Her! We had a great night and hope you did too. Here're some photos for those who were there to reminisce over and for the rest of you to see what you missed out on.

The Sweet Mack : Featured Artist

The inception of The Sweet Mack was not a rushed process. Bassist Mattie Leon began performing as a solo acoustic act at his high school in 2004. The same high school that guitar player Adam Montgomery attended. However, it was not until 2007 that the two got together and started writing music. The creativity together was immediate and they began rehearsing along with Mattie's older brother Mike on drums. They found their sound almost immediately fusing melodic influences from bands such as The Beatles, Sloan and Oasis but with a more aggressive attitude from bands such as The Who, The Raconteurs and early Kings of Leon. It was only a mere two weeks before their first performance together and on April 26th 2007 The Sweet Mack was born.

Now, due to the fact that Mattie attended Penn State University the band was limited to only playing in the summers of 2007 and 2008. Once Mattie moved back to their hometown of Brampton, Ontario in June of 2009. This marks the true beginning for the band as they were able to consistently play throughout the rest of the year having some great opportunities to open for some fantastic bands such as The Spill Canvas, Pilot Speed (formerly Pilate), Mistress Barbara, Sandman Viper Command and The Junction. In the winter of 2009 the band began recordings for their debut release "First Cut".  
 

After the initial recording sessions for their upcoming album it was apparent that performing it live with only three members was not going to be enough. So, in early 2010 Adam asked Burlington native Andrew Slomka; a friend of his from university, if he wanted to jam with the band. After the first jam the guys new Andrew was the perfect fit and in May of 2010 Andrew became the official 4th member of The Sweet Mack. Things continued to pick up for the band in 2010 as they finished their recordings, were hooked up with Adam Faux (of The Lost Dakotas and Pig Farm) to mix their record and Nick Blagona (who has engineered, produced and mastered for the likes of Deep Purple, Tom Jones, Alexisonfire and The Tea Party to name a few) to master their record. Now on the eve of their first release the band is very enthusiastic about their future as they continue to play more and more to growing crowds. The Sweet Mack look forward to coming to Cherry Cola's on Sunday June 5th for the With Her Film Fundraiser! Hope to see you all there!!