Charles Dickens didn’t know he was talking about 2009, but he was right when he said it was the best and worst of times.”

With that statement, DonnaMarie Vaughan - an Orchard Park resident and writer, director and executive producer for local movie studio Challenge Films - began telling a tale of romance, sadness, trials and triumph, but it wasn’t from one of her screenplays.

It was her life during the past 12 months.
During a recent interview with Western New York Woman, Vaughan explained that her current triumph, the premiere of her feature length film “Henry’s Future,” slated for Jan. 30 and 31 at the Dipson Market-Arcade Theater in Buffalo, was made all the more rewarding because of professional and personal obstacles that she needed to overcome to see the film’s completion.
The genesis for the movie’s concept surfaced around almost 10 years ago, as a potential subject for a short film. The screenplay for the film followed a fellow named Henry through his attempts at pretending to be a psychic, in order to date more women. While the short film was never produced as written, Vaughan took over the project and expanded it into what she calls a “gentle comedy.” After nine rewrites, the original script’s superficial attitudes about love had been replaced with deeper emotion and a universal theme: the nature of love.

Instead of pretending to be psychic as the original concept suggested, Vaughan’s final version of Henry chooses to visit a psychic, out of a growing fear that he may never find true love. The psychic assures him that he will, but also cautions him that the road to love is filled with obstacles and confusion. Henry quickly comes to understand what the psychic meant, when he meets the woman he is destined to be with, and she is utterly uninterested in him.

“Henry’s journey is one of discovery,” Vaughan explained. “He seeks the same thing we all do. He learns that it isn’t possible to force another person to love you. But you’ll need to see the film to see how or if Henry finds true love.”
Vaughan’s company coordinated auditions, obtained project financing, secured locations for shooting film and handled the logistics of moving people and equipment to and from those locations.

According to Vaughan, the film took nearly a full year to shoot. In conjunction with Buffalo Nickel Productions, Vaughan’s team shot 130 scenes in 18 business locations and seven private residences in western New York, and coordinated the acting and production talents of 143 people, including four children.

“One of my favorite scenes was shot in a South Buffalo residence,” Vaughan remembered. “The scene portrayed a New Year’s Eve party, and we filled the house with actors and actresses. None of them knew each other, but you’d never guess that from watching the film.”

Even as Vaughan created Henry’s erratic journey to love and happiness, she traveled a similar journey herself.

In 2002, she was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis, a disease that causes the body’s immune system to attack its own tissues, resulting in swelling of the joints. In its most advanced stages, joints between bones can actually fuse together, limiting mobility or making movement impossible.

“During the first couple of years after diagnosis, I just wanted my old life back,” Vaughan remembered, citing that before arthritis, she was driven person who used to work tirelessly. “There were many times that I wanted to pull the plug on the project or get rid of my personal deadline date for finishing this film. But I also knew that something planned to be done whenever might take forever, and I wasn’t willing to accept that.”

So Vaughan continued, even though the arthritis caused constant pain. She even timed her pain-controlling Retoxin infusions to be given just before shooting began, so that she would have the maximum available time without pain to work on the project.

Another element of Vaughan’s living with arthritis is related to the possibility of having limited movement in her hands, through which she does nearly all of her writing.

“I don’t know what I’d do if the arthritis won,” she explained. “I’ve found that the trick is not to stop and look back.”

Another blow to the project came only four days before shooting was to begin for “Henry’s Future.” It was then that Vaughan, a mother of two grown children divorced after more than 20 years of marriage, learned that her new fiance, Jerry “Bear” Broderick, was diagnosed with lung cancer, and one of his lungs had to be surgically removed.

“I cried. I talked to my friends. I just didn’t know whether or not to move forward with the project,” Vaughan remembered. “Jerry and I talked about it, and we decided to continue in ways that wouldn’t neglect his medical care. Without being able to focus on a project like this movie, the ’what-ifs’ of his illness would have driven us crazy.”

At the time of this writing, Broderick is recovering well.

Another problem emerged midway through production, when Vaughan had to fire one of the actresses, a woman who had been a close friend of Vaughan for about 10 years. The details of the dismissal weren’t disclosed, but the consequences of the dismissal were: Vaughan had to take a break from shooting to rewrite several scenes, while still salvaging those scenes already shot.
"When we see films, most of us see a seamless final product, but sometimes there are controversies behind the scenes, and you have to deal with them and make things work," Vaughan laughed.

One might be given to ask, in light of the obstacles before her, what would make Vaughan decide to accept the added challenges of shooting a film during a Buffalo winter.

“People have this impression of Buffalo in winter,” Vaughan stated. “[Our region] is always getting kicked for it. The truth is that our community falls all over itself when some out-of-state studio comes to town, but they ignore our abundant local talent. This film showcases what we have to offer.”

In the future, Vaughan’s company plans to develop more movie projects, and to refine an idea for a television show already in-house. Challenge Films is always seeking actors, crew, locations and sponsors for upcoming projects; for more information, visit www.challengefilms.com.

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