Long-time partners Fran Rzeznik and Zinka Benton have once again joined forces on "Equinox Knocks" the comical tale of a girl who has it all until she wishes to become a boy and the chaos that erupts when the wish comes true.

Fran and Zinka met at NYU grad film school and immediately sparked to each other's whacked out comedic sensibility. At NYU they did a number of shorts together, but the one that stood out was the one they'd done in Texas. It had been great on every level -- people, locations, cast, crew. They wanted to go back.

When they started writing "Equinox Knocks" they decided to use a tried and true indie filmmaking approach - take the locations you know you can get for free and write 'em into the script. Fran says "We got some of our coolest scenes that way -- the skating rink, the motel, the locker room... " Meanwhile, Zinka, who was producing, was getting the money in place. So Equinox Pictures joined with the investment group FOLI Productions and got down to business.

They set the start date for the end of August and assembled the rest of the team. The cast came entirely from Austin and were found by ace Casting Director Debbie Haber. The crew was also largely Austin based -- the exceptions were DP Gina de Girolamo and the Producer in charge of production John Midby.

Zinka and Fran found the locale for the film -- Weimar, Texas, a town of 2000 people located between Houston and San Antonio -- and laid the groundwork for shooting in a town that had no prior experience with production. Weimar had all the flavor of small town Texas -- no supermarkets, no ATM's, and a lot of hospitality. The production offices were in a former car showroom in the center of town -- literally a fishbowl. The local resources were amazing. People from Weimar baked cookies for the crew, made set decorations, acted as extras and opened their homes as locations. The high school football team was featured in the movie and, not unlike the movie team, started winning when the production came to town -- strangely, once the movie left, the team didn't win another game all season. Some of the high school boys even took a cue from the movie football team and started sporting red nail polish. The police chief in the film is the real police chief. The diner owner is the real diner owner -- and he's also the Mayor.

In the third week of production tropical storm Francis dumped gallons of rain for days and rained out a scene that had 500 extras. Miraculously, the production stayed on schedule.

The film wrapped on the night of the autumnal equinox after shooting the scene where the character of Allie makes her wish to become a boy. Kat James, who played Allie, stayed up all night because there was a little worry in the back of her mind that somehow the magic might just come true and she'd wake up a he. She didn't. But hey, ya' never know...

PS -- And the name of the lead character Allie Black? Allie is named for the writers' dog Allie, a black lab mix...

The Cast | The Filmmakers.| Synopsis.| Production Notes.| Photos