South Philly Review

Thanksgiving is a time for memories, being grateful and family, but it also is a time for questions: What to cook? How early do I have to book my flight? And, perhaps most importantly, which family are we spending the holiday with anyway? Answering the latter is the premise behind Derrell Lawrence's newest film, "Happy Holidaze."

Two college sweethearts, preparing to return home for Thanksgiving dinner, suddenly find themselves in quite a bind about the bird: Each wants to see their respective families at the holidays and hilarity and drama ensues, complete with inappropriate relatives and secrets revealed.

Lawrence, born and raised on Fifth and Titan streets, entered the life of a writer/actor/director as an escape from the world of crime that surrounded his young life. With a past that includes dealing, gambling and living through the brutal slayings of his father and sister, Lawrence knew it was time for a change.

After a few less-than-stellar New York auditions, he decided to write a part for himself. His debut, "Life Isn't Fair," which Lawrence described at the time as "50 percent of my personal feelings, 50 percent fiction," follows a 20-year-old's return from reform school. It went on to win the 2007 People's Choice Award at the PhilaFilm Festival.

"I was sitting around with my family watching 'Life Isn't Fair' around the holidays ... and I thought, you know, I want to make my next movie about the holiday season," Lawrence said.

From there, work began on "Happy Holidaze" and the filmmaker was determined to make it as different from his first flick as possible.

"I don't want to be the type of writer where the audience can look at the movie and know who wrote it just by the style," he said. "I want every one of my movies to be at an extreme from the last."

Pooling his resources, Lawrence began pulling together a cast for his sophomore film. Despite an open audition, he said he was lucky to have found the actors and actresses that make up his latest effort, including Nashawn Kearse, legendary singer Sarah Dash and John Canada Terrell, whose resum� includes "The Five Heartbeats" and "Mo' Better Blues."

Lawrence first saw Kearse, known for his roles on "The Sopranos" and "Desperate Housewives," in the '06 movie "My Brother" and became an instant fan.

"Ironically, someone I knew had his contact information. I called him directly and asked him to read a script, and he fell in love with it" Lawrence said.

As with any independent film, the biggest problem usually winds up being cash. While "Life Isn't Fair" was made on a shoestring $50,000 budget obtained by maxed-out credit cards and a tapped out life savings, "Happy Holidaze" had a slightly bigger pile to draw from falling in just under $250,000, of which, Lawrence put up half himself.

"I was very lucky, when coming home from a film festival, to meet another director named Dr. O'Neil Culzer. We negotiated and split the funding half and half," he said.

Shot in six days with actors working from noon to 4 a.m., only to wake up at 11 a.m. and start the process all over again, the pace was fast and furious.

"We had to get as much work out of as small amount of time as possible" Lawrence said, adding his film, though set in Philadelphia, was shot in Delaware because of budgetary issues.

"If I had my way. I would only be acting and writing the script. We didn't have the money to hire an outside director, so I had to take on the extra work."

While some shots may have been missed, and time and budgets were tight, the director let his natural instincts take over.

"There are times I went with a unique camera angle, but our funds won't allow us, so we make it work," he said. "I think improvising will make me better every time I do a film. That way, when I do get my big break and a big budget, I'll be ready."