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Carole Mikita ReportingA couple of years ago two Latter-day Saint film school graduates ventured into movie-making, wanting to appeal to people of their own faith with their style of comedy.
'Singles Ward' was followed by 'The R.M.' both having done well financially. KSL caught up with them filming movie number three 'The Home Teachers.”
Call them Abbott and Costello, the Odd Couple, but the idea of these two coming into anybody's house for a visit, well...
Jeff Birk, "The Home Teachers: "It's almost like Tommy Boy goes home teaching where anything that can go wrong, does go wrong in a four or five hour time frame of this movie. So, it's fun..."
Michael Birkeland, 'The Home Teachers: "I tell people it's kind of a cross between 'Rocky' and 'Jaws' without the fish and without the boxer."
The scenarios for this film came from real-life experiences greatly exaggerated. Ever have an acquaintance ask to use your bathroom?
John Moyer, Co-Writer "The Home Teachers: "I actually had come up with this idea. I thought, boy, it would be funny to have a scene in a movie, where Michael falls through a ceiling. And I came up with the scene. I thought, boy, now I gotta come up with a whole movie around it."
Ideas like that have worked before and worked well for the group called Halestorm Entertainment. The first film, 'Singles Ward,' made more than a million dollars and is also doing well in DVD.
Next came, 'The R.M.' It has done even better than the first in theatres. The filmmakers admit the appeal is to a target audience, Latter-day Saints, but they are looking to branch out.
"The Home Teachers" is scheduled to be released in Jan. of 2004. 'The R.M.' will be out in DVD in September.
