Nathan Daynes as "Tommy."

The Home Movies Partners during pre-production. (top) Todd Howard, Erika Stone, Jesse Moore, (bottom) Paul Westfall, Jesse P. Howard and Kate Howard.

In a time and place as blurry as the haunting memories of youth, THE TROUBLE WITH BOYS AND GIRLS explores both childhood's bliss and trauma. Embroiled in a feud of boys versus girls, Tommy withdraws to a deserted alley to play his harmonica... badly. Looking for answers, he retreats into his mind where he chases down a tune playing on an old phonograph. Liza, while still leading the charge against the boys, develops an interest in Tommy and a secret friendship begins to unfold. Their companionship goes deep beneath the surface until they are forced to come clean to their battling peers.

The Trouble with Boys and Girls (formerly THE LAST the end) is a strong mixture of Lord of the Flies, Stand By Me and The Twilight Zone. It is a clever, serious and exaggerated look at what it was really like to be a kid. With a beautiful original score by Hugh Sutton, you will be transported to a time that you can almost remember...

Greetings and welcome to the Home Movies independent film production of The Trouble with Boys and Girls, an original film written and directed by first-time feature director Jesse P. Howard and produced by brother Todd Howard. This Web Site chronicles the epic journey of making an indie film, and you as the reader, are invited to participate by reading updates and journal entries from cast and crew members, and checking out candid photos of the cast and crew in action.

The idea for the film first came to Jesse back in late 1992, while working an overnight shift at his job. He was listening to some jazzy music by Claude Bolling, and was struck with the idea for the characters of Tommy and Liza and saw them sitting in a rainy cafe talking about "something important." He grabbed his notebook and a pen a wrote a rough scene which became the sketch of what would end up being one of the climactic scenes in the film. The script was completed in 1997, and pre-production began almost immediately.

Principal photography took place from August 10th to November 7th, 1998, and after four long years we reached the end of a gruelling post-production cycle in late 2002 with the high-definition digital transfer of the completed film. We held a private screening for cast, crew, family and friends at the Elttaes Majestic Bay Theatre in Ballard, Seattle, WA, and the film was extremely well-received. In 2003, we have begun an intensive round of film festival submissions, and we expect to be premiering the film this summer at a major U. S. Independent Film Festival. More information will be posted soon!

Our superb crew and cast have all been a part of something entirely unique and refreshing. We feel this is a most-unexpected film. It is a black and white, 16mm picture, shot on Ilford stock. The black and white is crisp and lush, and the all-original score is jazzy/swing/piano big-band. And to top it off, it's a story about kids. Real kids.

The people involved in this production, the founding members of Home Movies Partners, are Jesse P. Howard (Director / Writer / Editor), Todd Howard (Producer / Editor), Kate Howard (Assistant Director), Jesse Moore (Director of Photography), Paul Westfall (Audio Designer), Erika Stone (Assistant Production Manager) who had a lot of help from others in the film community of Seattle, WA. The last film we produced was Strike My Key. We premiered the film at the Grand Illusion Cinema in Seattle - owned and operated by Wiggly World Studios. It also screened on September 4th, 1998 in the 1 Reel Film Festival at Bumbershoot - Seattle's big end-of-summer arts/music shindig.

If you are interested in distributing our film, please contact us, we would be very interested in speaking with you, and would be happy to arrange a screening or provide you with a VHS copy. Please write to Todd Howard, Producer.

Thanks for dropping by, and do come back soon!