The Action-Drama Indie Film Rescue Me Gets Released

St Petersburg, Fl, November 20, 2015 (Newswire.com) - In the summer of 2012 Digital Domain had begun its expansion into a state of the art $40 million dollar building in the Treasure Coast are of Port Saint Lucie Florida; as it begin to grow its roots in this small city Digital Domain had a dark secret that none of its newly hired employees were made aware of until it was too late. After hiring talented individuals from across the United States, with most of them packing their families and relocating to the Treasure Coast, without any warning or care for these individuals Digital Domain filed Bankruptcy leaving lots of people unemployed.

At the same time Digital Domain was expanding in to South Florida; Gerard Lima a resident of Port Saint Lucie was working on promoting and pitching one of his screenplays to Hollywood producers without much luck. Given his determination to move forward with the beginning of his career as a writer and filmmaker he made the decision to produce one of his films on his own. He began by launching Lima Films a film company that would grant him the ability to green-light his first featured film “Rescue Me”  

“Rescue Me” came to exist and was moved in to pre-production on December 2012 when Gerard Lima and one of his best friends and Co-Producer Jon Aguiar began scouting location, searching for cast and crew members as well as ways to fund this featured film.

As the “Rescue Me” team began to come together both Gerard and Jon recruited Andrea Lima who signed on to be the set decorator, wardrobe designer and Co-Producer of this film ensuring that everything looked the way it needed to each day of filming one of her major tasks during filming came each time the cast and crew needed to eat since as she stated “Knowing what to feed a group of 20 people every day can get very stressful.”

While everything was coming together as planned the one thing this film was still missing was a Director, someone who would be able to take the script and the vision Gerard had on paper and with his or her skills as a film maker bring all of it to life.

On January 2013 after relocating to Port Saint Lucie from Wisconsin in to work for Digital Domain before it went bankrupt, Jonathan Schwark reached out to both Gerard and Jon wanting to learn more about this film as well as expressing his interested in becoming the director of this film.

The three had previously met the week before thanksgiving in 2012 where different topics where discussed as well as what the film-making future of the Treasure Coast would be like in the future with Digital Domain failing to accomplish what it was intended to do, which was to bring film projects to South Florida.

A few more meetings took place after the initial meeting in January, but eventually the job of film Director did end up going to Jonathan Schwark along with his team from Phoenix Digital.

With a Writer, Producer, and a Director in place “Rescue Me” was getting closer and closer to becoming a reality; now it was only missing a few the actors and a few crew members.

Since the cinematographers, photographers, sound operator and other crew members would be working directly with the film’s director, Jonathan took it upon himself to find the best crew members he could find to join this film.

By mid to late March of 2013 “Rescue Me” was now weeks away from the first day of filming. Several local business joined the production of this film, Harbor Town Marina, the Saint Lucie Draft House, Rolling Oaks Cemetery, Carmike Cinemas as well as the City of Port Saint Lucie all provided locations making it possible to film this movie entirely on the Treasure Coast.

The cast of this film was composed of several first time actors as well as a few seasoned actors all whom really connected with their characters they were chosen to play.

The actors for “Rescue Me” are  Will Burns as Alex Campbell; Joe Leon as Matt Walsh; Gerard Lima Kyle O'Brien; Jon Aguiar as #2; Tori Yurillo as Robyn Campbell; Maria Migliori as Tess Campbell; Angela Di Pasquo as Chloe; Victoria Yurillo; Valarie Burns as Rachael; Jim Yurillo as Jeff; Martin Fitzpatrick as #3 and George Catalano as Tyler.

Each of these cast members showed up each and every weekend of filming for a period of 3 ½ months learning from each other to help ensure the quality of the acting delivered in the film would demonstrate the work that was also being put in to it by the crew members.

A team of ten crew members were also involved in the production every weekend from cinematographers, photographers and a special effects makeup artist. While not all of them were present on set everyday they all brought something important to the film when they were there do their jobs, this team was made with Director and Cinematographer Jonathan Schwark; First Assistant Director Jim Yurillo; First Assistant Director Second Unit LeAnn Cheri’ Cinematographer & Camera Operator Josh McDarris and J.J. Farías Set Photographer and Sound Operator Joseph Faraci; behind the scenes photographer Rebecca Negron; Make-up Artist Renee Minichino; Writer Gerard Lima; Set Decorator Andrea Lima and stunt Coordinator George Catalano.

What started out as a project that was supposed to fail from the beginning with the lack of funding it had, the short amount of time it was put together in, and the film industry set for failure after Digital Domain left the Treasure Coast; “Rescue Me” is now weeks away from being released to all of the fans and followers it’s made over the past 2 ½ years while in production and post-production.

The Writer and Producer of it once said, “Rescue Me is like my baby, I created it from nothing when I first wrote it, than I slowly watched it grow up as we filmed and worked on it each week. I am looking forward to the day my baby is full grown and I can set it free sharing it with as many people as possible.” – Gerard Lima.

“We all came together for the simple reason of doing what we each love, acting, writing, producing, makeup and operating a camera. From the day I started putting this film together my goal was to showcase the hidden and amazing talent the Treasure coast has to offer. I knew that the purpose of this film was to help give each other more credibility in the different crafts we each brought to the film. And we all knew that making money or becoming rich and famous was also never going to come from this film alone, but with it gives all of us the opportunity to lead us to where we all want to be. Regardless of why we each signed up to be a part of this film, we all believe in this film and we all wanted to be a part of this film and I am truly grateful for everyone who helped with making this movie and also for all who were a part of “Rescue Me” – Gerard Lima

 After the release of “Rescue Me” Gerard Lima is debating whether to produce and film “Rescue Me 2 Retribution” or a war film in which Jon Aguiar co-wrote with him called “Brothers in Arms”.

“Rescue Me” is now available on http://www.reelhouse.org/limafilms/rescue-me