AV filmmaker offers 'Kisses and Caroms'

THE BOSS - Director Vince Rocca on the set of his outragous threesome comedy "Kisses and Caroms."

By Lavender Vroman
Showcase Assistant Editor

After three long years, Vince Rocca has finally finished making a movie, but he won't be breathing a sigh of relief or resting on his laurels any time soon.

"The horror really begins when the movie is done," the 33-year-old Palmdale resident and first-time filmmaker said.

"The hardest thing about filmmaking has really come in after post-production ... when it's time to sell the movie and dealing with distributors and film festivals and trying to get it out there and find its home."

Rocca's movie is "Kisses and Caroms," a raunchy sex comedy set at the filmmaker's Granada Hills billiards shop. It stars up-and-coming actors Drew Wicks ("Scrubs," "Angel"), Nicole Rayburn ("The Terminal," "Boo," "Playboy") and Nikki Stanzione ("All My Children," "Young and the Restless"), as well as adult film star Ginger Lynn Allen.

With ribald humor in the vein of "American Pie" or "The Forty-Year-Old Virgin," it's also more then a little reminiscent of Kevin Smith's low-budget "slacker" classic "Clerks."

Smith, who Rocca recently befriended, has even graced "Kisses and Caroms" with a quote of recommendation, calling it "as assured a first film as I've ever seen."

Rocca said he wrote "Kisses and Caroms" with such practical concerns as commercial appeal and budget limitations in mind, but he also wanted to create what he says is a rarity in Hollywood ­ a "guy's romantic comedy."

"I think too many movies, particularly romantic comedies, are way skewed to this unrealistic female power idea, like guys are the underdogs," he said. "They're the ones who did something wrong. They're the ones who need to come back and beg."

"In real life, especially from a guy's perspective, most problems in relationships are not that way. There's two sides to it and whatever's occurring is occurring because it's a difference of people not understanding each other."

A self-proclaimed "movie nut" since childhood, Rocca remembers wondering what it would be like to work behind the scenes on his favorite films.

"I remember being a kid and seeing 'ET' and thinking how cool it would have been to be the editor on the movie because the editor got to see all the cool stuff that we didn't get to see," he said.

After dropping out of high school in the ninth grade to pursue a career in sales, he assumed that any Hollywood dreams he might have would never be realized.

"I figured that was just going to be my life, as a salesperson," he said. "You know, to make films you have to go to film school. At least, that's what I was told."

In 1994, Rocca opened his retail store, Breaktime Billiards. Combining profits from the business and his fledgling computer-editing skills, he enlisted a few friends in forging a video production company specializing in "Girls Gone Wild"-style footage filmed at Lake Havasu.

This endeavor eventually yielded the funds for "Kisses and Caroms." In 2002, inspired by a two-day filmmaking seminar and armed with a copy of Final Draft screenwriting software, Rocca pounded out a script, He submitted the finished draft to "Project Greenlight," but didn't make it past the first round.

"Six out of seven (judges) compared me to Kevin Smith in some way," he said. "So, I figured I was doing something right Ścause his movies are pretty successful and I like the guy. So I finally just decided, the hell with it. I'm gonna make this."

After auditioning hundreds of actors and spending three months in careful preproduction, Rocca and a small crew shot "Kisses and Caroms" on digital video in just five days at Breaktime Billiards and his Palmdale home.

After wrapping in August 2003, Rocca began post-production work on the film, editing on his laptop computer. Determined to present a completed product to potential distributors, he hired a slew of professionals ­ including a sound technician, a composer and a Hollywood poster artist ­ to perfect the film and its promotional materials.

Rocca then began the process of submitting "Kisses and Caroms" to nearly 30 film festivals including Sundance, Slamdance, Telluride and Toronto.

"The movie is not a festival movie," he said. "The movie is a commercial movie and I knew going in that it was a long-shot."

Then why spend thousands of dollars on entry fees, postage and press kits?

"I thought, I'll put 100 dollars into a slot machine in Vegas and see if it works," Rocca said. "So, it's the same gamble to me. I figured it was worth a try to see what happens."

The budget for "Kisses and Caroms," which Rocca said began at less than $10,000, skyrocketed to just under $100,000, as the director invested in test screenings, purchased insurance for the film and applied for an official rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.

Because of the graphic language in "Kisses and Caroms," Rocca worried the dreaded NC-17 rating, which would ensure that no "respectable" video outlet would carry the film.

His fears were in vain. "Kisses and Caroms" earned an R, Although Rocca is still wrangling with the association over the film's promotional art.

The director is currently prepping the movie for November's American Film Market in Santa Monica, where he hopes to secure a foreign distribution deal.

Meanwhile, Rocca is busy trying to secure a domestic distribution deal with a Hollywood studio. While he'd love to see "Kisses and Caroms" in theatrical release, he suspects the film will go direct to video.

"I would love more then anything to be able to see it on the screen at Cinemark (22) up here," he said. "I mean, my home theater, to sit in an audience and watch people react to it ... would be great, but it's a slim to none chance. I mean, I'm realistic about it."

Whatever happens, Rocca won't be satisfied until "Kisses and Caroms" reaches a wider audience.

"To me, it's completely useless to make a movie nobody sees," he said. "If no one's gonna see it, then it might as well be a blank canvas, a painting sittin' in the closet. It's not good."

THE STARS - Nikki Stanzione and Nicole Rayburn star in Vince Rocca's outragous threesome comedy "Kisses and Caroms."