Head Space

Directed by Marc Erlbaum, 2005
Cast: John Lumia, Janice Rowland, Teddy Goldstein

By Alyce Wilson

Head Space, which was screened at the 2006 Philadelphia Film Festival, is an independent mockumentary by Philadelphia director Marc Erlbaum and produced by 9.14 Pictures. The movie features John Lumia as Hampton Shnellenger, the smarmy president of Get A-HeAD Inc., a company that sells tattoo advertising on people's foreheads.

The film was low budget, by Hollywood standards. During the Q&A afterwards, Erlbaum said their budget was $100,000, which was probably barely enough to pay the excellent cast, pay for locations, equipment rentals, costuming, props and any incidentals. The resulting film has a similar feel to NBC's The Office, with much of the humor coming from the juxtaposition between on-camera interviews and candid scenes.

Unfortunately, the showing suffered from some technical glitches, including a lot of sound drop-out near the beginning and some video stuttering. This was probably due to a formatting problem when the finished film was burned onto a DVD for the screening.

Lumia is the uncontested star of the movie, using body language and personal quirks to humanize an otherwise loathsome character. Little touches, such as Snellenger's love for puppetry, make him seem halfway between pitiful and dangerously deluded. And yet, he's craftier than he seems, acting as a sort of puppet master of those around him.

In the Q&A afterwards, I asked how much of the film was tightly scripted and how much leeway the actors had to improvise. Erlbaum said that it varied from scene to scene: some scenes were scripted and for others they simply knew the framework of what was supposed to happen. Lumia, for example, did a lot of improvising, including some of the funnier lines in the movie.

The filmmakers said that they don't have any further showings planned of the movie, but they're submitting it to festivals. Hopefully, they'll have some success. If this film were available on DVD, I would definitely buy it and share it with my friends. Head Space is to the marketing world what Spinal Tap was to the music world.