After bombing their LA debut at the Troubadour, a band battles demons, exes and excesses at an afterparty in the Hollywood Hills on the eve of their first west coast tour.
ELSEWHERE is an independent feature film about alt-rock band Bangarang's afterparty after they bombed their LA debut at the famed Troubadour. The film unravels as a a series of vignettes as each member of the band and their friends struggle with facing the demons from their past, uncertainties of their future and unfortunate realities about the ones around them.
ELSEWHERE began as a night of theater in the East Village of NYC. Writer and lead actor, Nick Vergara, led an ensemble cast, all of which reprise their roles in the film, in the night of one acts and monologues. After selling out the Kraine Theater for the one night performance, Vergara and company decided ELSEWHERE should become a feature film.
With no established budget to film the adapted screenplay, Vergara began directing monthly performances of scenes from the screenplay. These Fundragers, as they were called, had donation-based entry with the money raised going to the films budget. Some scenes would start as live performances and would continue as short films shot prior to the performance or vice versa. The performances were held in art galleries in the Lower East Side of NYC, as well as one in downtown LA. Donations from friends, families and strangers who stumbled into the performances ranged from $1 to $500. After the Fundragers came to a close, an Indiegogo campaign was launched and nearly $7,000 of the film's microbudget was raised.
In January 2015, actor and original cast member, Patrick James Lynch, offered to direct the film and Vergara adapted the screenplay to be set in LA, where ELSEWHERE's production company, Believe Ltd is based. ELSEWHERE began principal photography in the fall of 2015 on a micro budget. Most of the cast took on multiple crew roles, as well. After filming was complete, Vergara wrote and composed an original score for the film. The score also contains six original songs he composed for Bangarang. They are performed by Vergara's band OLD SPORT, in which Brian Teague Williams plays keyboards.
