“Invisible Man”

Mark Rogers, high school theatre director/teacher, earns his first narrative film credit with Invisible Man. Mr. Rogers first saw Invisible Man at the Virginia Theatre Association One Act Play competition in 1999. The play won Best Play that year and has gone on to win many awards since that time. Like all who saw the play, Mr. Rogers was impressed by the heartfelt story and made a point to speak with the playwright (John Wells). Much to his surprise, the playwright was another high school teacher from a neighboring county. After much talk between the two teachers, Mr. Rogers finally directed his own stage version of the show two years later.

In 2006 Mr. Rogers decided to pursue a lifelong dream and make his way into the world of film. However, he knew that the project had to be the right one. He wanted a film with a strong social message. After a lengthy search, Mr. Rogers realized that the film he wanted to make was the play he had seen on stage in 1999. “I had done many of John’s plays but I was so consumed with reading screenplays that I completely forgot about the wonderful writers of the stage’ said Rogers. “My background is in the theatre both as an actor and director. John had the same background as I, and we finally discussed the idea of turning his play into a film.”

As soon as Mr. Rogers got the green light from John Wells he began pre-production. The first place he would look for talent wo uld be his own group of student’s. After an extensive audition call in Washington, DC and New York. Mr. Rogers put together a group of actors (many of them SAG) to work with a talented production crew (recent college grads & young professionals) from New York.

Everything was going as planned when the day before shooting started the London Underground was hit by terrorists. Rogers was contacted by the Metro of DC and informed that he would have to find another 10 million dollars in insurance if he wanted to shoot the following day. The first day of shooting was spent finding additional insurance coverage for the shooting of the film. After an extensive search Rogers was able to negotiate a deal that would allow him to shoot in the Metro of DC.

Using the energy of his cast and crew the film was shot in two & a half days. “We allowed two hours for each scene in the film and would then move on regardless of what we had shot” said Rogers. “In many scenes we were only able to shoot a master and some close ups.“

Mr. Rogers puts it best when he says “Everyone believed in the project and we weren’t going to let anything stop us. I just wanted to tell a heartwarming story and I feel like I’ve accomplished that with Invisible Man. I was just lucky to be able to work with a fellow high school teacher, my students and some wonderfully talented people from New York.