Though Pitstop is a debut feature, Dennis Lanson has directed dramatic shorts and documentary films for nearly two decades.  He has worked as a screenwriter, director, producer and editor in the film industry; premiered independent documentaries Booming and Phans of Jersey City (co-director) at Park City and New Directors/New Films respectively; and had his work broadcast on PBS stations.

A screenplay project, Transit, a thriller set in the New York subways, is currently under option, as is The 36, the story of a detective in search of a group of avatars. Other screenplays include Baggage, a black comedy set in an airport ("Pitstop with celebrities"), Uranium Fever, based on the true story of uranium prospector Charles Steen; and the adaptation of Manlio Argueta's One Day of Life, a story of courage and community set in El Salvador.

Lanson has taught film at Cal Arts, NYU, Brooks Institute, Boston University, the Museum School, and Emerson College. Current and ex-students were involved in every phase of the making of Pitstop. He lives in Gloucester with his wife, Pitstop's Production Designer, Erica Daborn.

Production Notes

Pitstop began with the discovery of 60,000 feet of stale 35mm stock in the basement of Boston University's School of Communications. When the snip tests panned out positive, a free camera from Panavision (with an immutable shoot date), cast and crew working for deferment, and a chunk of LLC angel investment got the project off the ground.

Two weeks into shooting we ran out of money, as we knew we would. A softcore producer stepped in, and we ran another week before he came to the set with some guys in ponytails and stole the negative - pending our actresses' agreement to do certain scenes (which shall remain unspecified). Shooting stopped. Tears were shed. Lawyers sorted out the hostage film, and it took nearly eighteen months to raise the money to shoot out the last eight days.

CHARACTER BREAKDOWNS 

Floyd Bach
An escaped con and accused murderer looking for love in all the wrong places. An innocent man who gets lucky after a lifetime of bad breaks.

Rulvac
Floyd’s spitting image, a high school history teacher, married with children, running hard from midlife with a sexy student. Headed for Brazil or oblivion, whichever comes first. He does time for the other man’s crime.

Julie Rohr
She’s beautiful, a bombshell, and only seems brainless. There’s heart behind this honey, she’s just young. Big error in judgement: actually loving the horny prof who’s whisking her away. If only he’d love her back.

Amanda Mann
Worn-out, hard-edged bored waitress, wiping up a lifetime’s worth of spilled road food from the same counter in the same squalid town where she grew up. Going nowhere and knows it. Wants to settle, with a "decent" man.

Rhonda Rulvac
Dick’s pretty, smart and extremely angry wife, in hot pursuit of her husband and his bimbo. One wonders why he let her go. And why she’s hangin’ on.

Grif Morgan
A bullshit-for-brains trucker, equal parts bible-thumper and womanizer, landing in town for his monthly squeeze only to find she wants what he can’t give: commitment.

Danny Fox
A short blunt local cop. Like high school chum Amanda, spent a lifetime in this dump. Hits on her daily. She’s spurned him for years. Partners in the search for a missing perp, they discover they’ve been soulmates all along.

Esther
A suicidal, kinky, and ethereal beauty, lost in a world of her own, whose heart and life are saved in the nick of time by Floyd.

Max
A Balkan poet and wannabe filmmaker enroute to LA, stranded in town until his jalopy is repaired, pursuing/ recording/romancing his dreams (his camcorder always in hand). The Lucky Innocent and Witness of our story, he winds up with The Prize.