Local Color

Plot Summary

Latest from Local Color

Role as Painter Seroff ‘Un-retired' Mueller-Stahl

The Kitsap Sun has posted an article about the making of 'Local Color'. Director George Gallo talks about casting celebrities on such a small budget. He also mentions how he talked the great German actor Armin Mueller-Stahl out of retirement.

"Gallo called Mueller-Stahl's agent, but was told he had retired to Germany, and wasn't interested in acting any more. But the director got his number and gave him a call anyway."

Read the full article here.

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‘Local Color' premieres March 5

Redlands Cinema Classic series with the Redlands Art Association will be screening 'Local Colo' tonight, March 5th at 7pm at the Krikorian Cinema 14 in Redlands. Director George Gallo will be in attendence.

"After viewing the film I felt it would be so appropriate for us to host the first California screening since the story aligns beautifully to our mission; which is to encourage young aspiring artists."

The Yucaipa News Mirror has posted about the screening. Read about them here.

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He paints, he directs, he'll visit Redlands

'Local Colors' director George Gallo will visit Redlands in March reports the Inland Valley Daily Report.

"It gives you insight to his youthful experiences, but not only that, it echoes a lot of the issues that we artists encounter as to what is art and what is not," said Annette Weis of the Redlands Art Association.

Read the full article to find out more about the screening and painting demonstraition.

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Local Color - Media Quotes

"Powerful, Heartfelt and nostalgic, a very absorbing film." -Jeffrey Lyons, Reel Talk "A deeply felt movie about pursuing your passion in life. Armin Mueller-Stahl is magnificent and young Trevor Morgan matches him step for step." -Leonard Maltin, Entertainment Tonight "Filmmaker George Gallo has reached into his soul to make this deeply heartfelt story about life lessons and the slippery creative process. Trevor Morgan and Armin Mueller-Stahl are sensational as the kid who desperately needs a mentor and the crusty genius who tries just as hard to shake him. "Local Color" is funny, angry, and totally human -- with resonance for everyone who dares to dream." -Jami Bernard, New York Post
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Local Color - About the Art

All of the art portrayed in LOCAL COLOR were painted by the director/writer, George Gallo. As a plein aire artist, Gallo created over 400 pieces for the film. "Without a doubt, the strength of the insights in the film are due to the fact that George Gallo, besides writing and directing LOCAL COLOR, is an accomplished painter in his own right," says world-renowned painter and best selling author, Richard Schmid. Plein Aire Painting Painting "en plein aire" translates roughly to "painting in the open air". Plein aire painters work on location and paint from life to quickly capture a landscape or a scene, usually finishing a painting in a matter of hours. Developed in France in the 19th century, plein aire painting quickly developed into genres such as realism and impressionism, producing some of the most well known names in painting, including Monet, Degas, Manet and Renoir. George Gallo's art can also be seen on exhibition in the Legacy Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona.
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An Angel Named Dan Harkins

"Feeling is the enemy of the elite." -Nicholi Seroff From director/writer George Gallo: "I've done many big commercial Hollywood films. I am always surprised by distributors who tell me that audiences don't want to see uplifting films, that we live in too cynical a time for people to digest such entertainment. I think this is insane. I have yet to meet a ticket buyer who says, 'I can't wait to get depressed this weekend.' I am also personally tired of watching people kill each other on screen. I'm not saying that this isn't legitimate entertainment for some people, but I believe there is a whole audience out there who are being ignored. I believe there is a place in cinema for stories that have some sense of hope. Film really is the most powerful medium we have. It combines theatre, imagery, storytelling and music. I think it's tragic to not use it for good. When the film closed the Sedona Film Festival, my wife Julie and I were saying these very words to the audience that was in complete agreement after having seen the film. Many audience members couldn't believe that this film was not playing nationally, because they had been so moved by it. Dan Harkins got up and announced to the entire audience that he not only agreed with their assessment of the film, but that he was going to get behind it the same way he got behind WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW? and make LOCAL COLOR a hit. In general, Hollywood is still skeptical of upbeat films. If LOCAL COLOR performs well in the Scottsdale area, it would clearly send a message that there's a real audience for the film and it would be expanded nationally. Dan Harkins is the reason LOCAL COLOR has this chance and I, along with everyone involved in the film, will forever be indebted to him.
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Local Color - On Location & Hurricane Katrina

From director/writer George Gallo: "I was shocked that Louisiana could double for upstate New York and Pennsylvania. It is an absolutely gorgeous state, with some of the most breathtaking skies I have ever seen. Some scenes in the movie are so beautiful, they look like paintings. People who have seen the movie have thought we achieved the effects with CGI. The truth is, it's just the natural beauty of the state with wonderful locations and Michael Negrin, our cinematographer, made each image look like an Andrew Wyeth painting. While we were shooting, we noticed Katrina forming on the news. Since we were not insured, we became increasingly petrified when we saw the storm coming our way. I had no idea New Orleans would get decimated the way it did. We wrapped shooting about a week before the storm slammed into the gulf. Many of the locations in the film are now gone. People who lost their homes have asked to see the film just to remember how they looked. It's hard for me to imagine that these places don't exist anymore. It's even harder for me to imagine that so little has been done to rebuild these places. The images in the film are a reminder of how glorious a place it was, and can be again."
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Local Color - The Movie That Almost Didn't Happen

"You have so much intellect that you have become so stupid." -Nicholi Seroff From director/writer George Gallo: "After I had talked every last one of my friends into going along with this film, the financing for the project fell through just days before shooting was to begin. Everyone was in their hotel rooms in New Orleans and it was pretty clear that I would never get this chance again. Julie, Jimmy Evangelatos, and I had a meeting and decided to mortgage our homes to make the film. I never felt more frightened or motivated to get something right. I started shooting knowing that, not only was I paying for this, but friends who believed in me and the project were as well. I pushed myself very hard to make sure everything went right."
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Local Color - Casting the Story

"You're young and life has not kicked the shit out of you yet." -Nicholi Seroff From director/writer George Gallo: "I was less interested in casting someone who looked or sounded like me and more interested in finding an actor who could capture the wide eyed innocent youth that I believe I was. Trevor Morgan fit the bill perfectly because, not only is he one of the best young actors around, he has both an openness and toughness all at the same time. He also does something that I find many young actors don't do, and that is, appear to be listening to the other actors in the scene. Since the character of John is in the learning stages of life, I thought it essential that the character listened to the older and wiser Seroff, played by Armin Mueller-Stahl. Originally, another actor was being considered for the role of Seroff, but he fell out. I was completely dismayed until late one night my wife pointed at the TV set. The movie SHINE was on, and Julie said, "How about Armin Mueller-Stahl?" I didn't think it would be possible because I didn't know Armin, and I assumed he lived in Germany. Also, I did not know how I was going to call a complete and total stranger whose work I admired so much and ask him to fly several thousand miles and work on my film for scale. I took a shot, but Armin replied that he was not interested in acting anymore. He told me he 'just wanted to paint.' When I told him the movie was about a painter, he paused, and said, 'Send it to me.' A few days later Armin called me from Germany. My heart was in my throat when I asked him what he thought of the script. He grumbled, 'You son of a bitch. When do we start?' Ray Liotta was cast in the role of John Sr., who was based on my father. I cast Ray, not only because he is a consummate actor, he knew my father for 20 years. Diane Scarwood, who plays the role of Edith, was based on my mother. I think she is a fantastic actress and she captured both my mom's strength and sensitivity."
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Local Color - Inspired by a True Story

"Common man spots bullshit a mile away." -Nicholi Seroff From director/writer George Gallo: "Since childhood I have painted pictures. I distinctly remember, much to my late mother's surprise, an incident where I showed her a rendering of a rescue helicopter pulling survivors from a plane crash at sea I had created when I was not much older than three. She didn't believe that I had done it, so she asked me to do another. She was amazed when I completed it and it seemed to make her happy. So, I kept on doing it. My elementary school art teacher, Francis Robinson, encouraged me to no end. I remember drawing a room with tables and chairs and how excited she got that I had a "perfect sense of perspective." I wasn't quite sure what she meant, but it seemed like a good thing. She awarded me with the Class Artist Award when I graduated elementary school. It was about the same time that I became enamored with landscape painting. My dad had a friend named, Steve. On his wall was a print of a painting entitled, 'Autumn Bronze' by Robert Wood. I thought that piece of cardboard was the most amazing 24x48 inches I had ever seen. Every artist has that incident that kicks him or her in motionâ€¦that was mine. I think in retrospect I was searching for some sort of harmony that was lacking in my childhood. The quietude of trees and gentle streams, a combination of what is and what could be seemed to be the perfect panacea. I know of no better way to cleanse a soul than painting plein aire landscapes. Whereas people can deceive charm and flirt, nature, as my departed Dad used to say, "Is what it is." It is my personal love, respect and awe of the sheer unyielding natural beauty of what lies around us that I am trying to bring forward in these works. It is impossible for me to stand before a mountain and not be completely aware of my mortality. It will be here long after I am gone, but at the moment in time that we meet I feel the need to not only recognize its beauty, but let others know that I tipped my hat to its glory. I was fortunate to have fate play a hand in my development as an artist at several key times. First off, and totally by chance, I discovered that an unimposing gray building next to my junior high school was the place where paintings by both old and modern masters were made into prints for the mass market. I can't tell you the impact this had on me. A man named, Sal Gottarolla, and a woman named, Pauline, let me spend countless afternoons there inside the Donald Art Company, studying paintings. It is there, seeing the actual oil paintings up close where I developed a love for the texture of paint. After receiving the Class Artist Award, this time after graduating high school, I looked into the abyss of adulthood. The things that made me the most happy were now becoming my Albatross. Painting, movies and music were my loves and frankly my reasons for being alive. It was with a great deal of self-examination that I knew I would be very unhappy if I couldn't somehow make this the stuff of my livelihood. I also had the internal nagging of about one million loose ends of information concerning painting in my head. I began taking trips into New York City from Westchester on a regular basis. I wandered into Grand Central Art Galleries and met a wonderful man named, John Evans. He was a salesman at the gallery and he introduced me to the work of the Pennsylvania impressionists. Edward Redfield's large, dynamic snow scenes filled with huge smacks of paint were the most amazing canvases I had ever seen. John Evans gave me stacks of 4x5 transparencies of Redfield's work which I studied endlessly. Around the same time I met landscape painter, George Cherepov. He and I became fast friends. I visited him at his house in Vermont, where, when he wasn't tricking me into doing wallpapering or taking down hornets' nests in his garage, we would visit places like Smuggler's Notch and Mount Mansfield, armed with our sketch boxes. It is there that I think some of the loose ends started to come together. He would scold me that my clouds looked like 'flying rocks,' that 'everything reflected the sky' and that I just wasn't 'looking hard enough.' After moving to Los Angles to pursue my screenwriting and directing career, I shied away from painting for nearly eight years. I picked up the brushes again after the success of my screenplay, MIDNIGHT RUN. I painted several canvases and called John Evans in New York, who was now the manager of Grand Central Art Galleries. He was pleased with my progress and gave me a one-man show. One of the paintings I entered into the 'Arts for the Parks' contest received the Top 100 Award. After directing 29TH STREET in 1991, I began to feel the change in the movie business. It got increasingly corporate. Studios seemed less and less interested in telling good stories and just making successful product. The edgy kind of comedy that I had become known for appeared to be too risky for studios because they would be rated 'R' for language and content. No studio would make films like BEVERLY HILLS COPS or 48 HOURS today. My view of writing and directing at the time changed and became a financial means to an end. The only way to express myself unhampered appeared to be painting. Two years ago, I found myself depressed because I had turned my back on something I loved, which was writing and directing. As I neared the age of fifty, I felt a need to go back to the notion that one could still make films that were both personal and at the same time universal. I remembered that when I made super 8mm films as a teenager I had to pay for everything, the film, the camera and sets. I also had to convince all of my friends to participate. That kind of carefree abandon had been lost making films in the studio system. I wanted desperately to feel that kind of excitement again. This time I was lucky enough to have friends like Ray Liotta, Ron Perlman, David Permut, Michael Negrin, Robert Ziembicki and Malcolm Campbell. They came aboard after reading the script and worked for nearly the same wages my friends earned in making my high school movies. My wife Julie, my life long friend James Evangelatos and various friends and family helped finance LOCAL COLOR. I felt like a kid again. I was making a film without any restrictions and I remembered why I wanted to make movies in the first place."
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