If you’re looking for some industry-related fun this weekend, bring your friends and sign up to be an extra to fill a church on Saturday and a bar on Sunday, for George Zwierz, Jr.’s Purple Stuff Productions’ web show, “Guys Book Club”.
This weekend wraps the show’s principal photography for the second series of 12 episodes that that will debut in late summer. Writer/director Zwierz needs 50 to 100 extras to fill the Second Unitarian Church, 656 W. Barry, starting at 10 a.m., and 25 to 30 at the Levee Bar, 4035 W. Fullerton, starting a noon.
This would be a labor of love and fun, as there’s no pay attached, although every extra will have a credit on the show and a gig to add to one’s resume.
A freelance editor of TV docs for Towers Productions and Bill Kurtis Productions, Zwierz, who is not married but claims “I’m a good listener,” came up with the idea of a group of married men who form a book club as an excuse to get away from their wives.
“‘Guys’ Book Club’ gets into situations and antics we like. This humor definitely is geared towards men, but we found women think it’s funny, too,” he says.
“Book Club’s” Season 2 is “going through the roof,” he Zwierz says. For one, “There’s a through line, a story arc that’s more like a TV sitcom, more episodes that were shot on locations instead of my apartment, and better known Chicago name actors.”
Featured actors Christian Stolte and Francis Guinan who have recurring roles in “Boss,” Tim Baltz from Second City Main Stage and Clay Guida, the popular mixed martial arts fighter
The actors are working under a SAG low-budget agreement that helps stretch the show’s “minuscule budget.”
On Purple Stuff’s production team are producers Lindsay Marano, an account executive at Element 79 and actor Dan Houle; associate producers Scott Holoubek, a freelance editor, Lou Amadeo and Douglas Stephens, who work outside the film business and DP Jamin Townsley, a freelance cinematographer.
After Zwierz graduated from Columbia College in 2002, he interned at Swell and then headed to L.A. where he attended Columbia’s “A Semester in L.A.”
“I had a great time in L.A.,” he says, “but after four years I basically had learned what I needed and felt I would rather back here working.” He formed Purple Stuff Productions when he returned in 2006.
To sign up for either or both of the two days (after all, the Loop will be in lockdown for NATO) Email Zwierz at gbcwebseries@gmail.com
