Track One
Hatching The Plan

Track Two
Recruiting The Team

Track Three
Pulling Off The Heist

Track Four
Rythm and Melody

Life Could Be a Dream
A Brief History of Doo Wop
 

TRACK THREE: PULLING OFF THE HEIST

"You mean f-o-o-l?"
--Danny DePasquale

       THE DUKES was shot on a typically fast-paced 25-day indie schedule on practical locations all around Los Angeles, including Venice Beach, Redondo Beach and Malibu – where The Dukes first meet Tulio the safecracker in a lavish estate home.  Robert Davi’s desire to use authentic, unadorned locations even went so far as to utilizing the real-life Da Vinci Veneers dental lab to shoot the rollicking heist sequence. 

       Davi worked closely with cinematographer Michael Goi – who most recently shot the new David E. Kelly show, “The Wedding Bells” – to create the film’s mix of musical fluidity and stark realism.  They made an early decision to shoot the film in Super 16.  “I wanted to shoot with Super 16 because I knew I wanted a film look, but not too slick of a film look, with some real graininess,” Davi comments.

       He continues:  “Michael and I sat in my house for days watching Italian films to give him a sense of the style I had in mind and I think he captured that kind of rawness in his work.  We also used a very musical camera style – the film opens with camera spinning in circles like an old record album.  I want to go back to a smoother camera style, without all these quick cuts people have become so used to right now.  People have said to me that the film feels fresh precisely because it’s not attempting to be edgy.  It echoes back to a grander era of cinema that a lot of young people have never really seen.”