The Lucky One

THE ART OF ADAPTATION

The Story
Zac Efron stars with Taylor Schilling and Blythe Danner in the romantic drama "The Lucky One," directed by Academy Award^®-nominated writer/director Scott Hicks ("Shine"), based on Nicholas Sparks' bestseller The Lucky One.
U.S. Marine Sergeant Logan Thibault (Efron) returns from his third tour of duty in Iraq, with the one thing he credits with keeping him alive--a photograph he found of a woman he doesn't even know.  Discovering her name is Beth (Schilling) and where she lives, he shows up at her door, and ends up taking a job at her family-run local kennel.  Despite her initial mistrust and the complications in her life, a romance develops between them, giving Logan hope that Beth could be much more than his good luck charm.
Hicks directed "The Lucky One" from a screenplay by Will Fetters, adapted from the Nicholas Sparks novel of the same name.   Website: www.theluckyonemovie.co.uk

Author
Nicholas Sparks is one of the world's most beloved storytellers.  All of his books have been New York Times bestsellers, with nearly 80 million copies in print worldwide, in over 45 languages, including over 50 million copies in the United States alone, and his popularity continues to soar.
Sparks wrote one of his best-known stories, The Notebook, over a period of six months at age 28.  It was published in 1996 by Warner Books.  He followed with the novels Message in a Bottle (1998), A Walk to Remember (1999), The Rescue (2000), A Bend in the Road (2001), Nights in Rodanthe (2002), The Guardian (2003), The Wedding (2003), True Believer (2005) and its sequel, At First Sight (2005), Dear John (2006) ,The Choice (2007), The Lucky One (2008), The Last Song (2009), Safe Haven (2010) and The Best of Me (2011), as well as the 2004 non-fiction memoir Three Weeks With My Brother, co-written with his brother Micah.
"The Lucky One" marks Sparks's seventh film adaptation, following "Message in a Bottle," "A Walk to Remember," "The Notebook," "Nights in Rodanthe," "Dear John" and "The Last Song," with "The Notebook,"  "Message in a Bottle" and "Dear John" each grossing well over $110 million worldwide. "Safe Haven," the eighth adaption of Sparks's work, directed by Lasse Hallström, is scheduled for release Feb. 14, 2013.
Sparks lives in North Carolina with his family.  He contributes to a variety of local and national charities, and is a major contributor to the Creative Writing Program (MFA) at the University of Notre Dame, where he provides scholarships, internships, and a fellowship annually.  Along with his wife, he founded The Epiphany School in New Bern, North Carolina, and he spent five years coaching track and field athletes at the local public high school.  In 2011, Nicholas and his wife launched the Nicholas Sparks Foundation to continue their charitable causes, which will kick off with the Nicholas Sparks Celebrity Golf Tournament in New Bern, North Carolina on April 19-22, 2012.

Screenwriter
Will Fetters previously wrote "Remember Me," starring Robert Pattinson.  He has several projects in development at various studios, including Clint Eastwood's "A Star is Born," and an adaptation of Norman Ollestad's survival memoir, "Crazy for the Storm."
Fetters graduated from the University of Delaware with a degree in political science and finance.

The Director
Scott Hicks received international acclaim for the 1997 sensation Shine, which earned seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Film, with Hicks receiving nominations for direction and screenplay. The film was awarded Best Film by the U.S. National Board of Review and won nine Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards, including Best Film and Best Director. Eight BAFTA and five Golden Globe nominations also followed, in addition to nominations for Hicks from both the Directors' and the Writers' Guilds of America.
Hicks had already made his mark as a documentary filmmaker.  In 1994, he received an Emmy Award for his direction of "Submarine: Sharks of Steel," a four-hour series which he also co-wrote. His earlier work "The Great Wall of Iron," an extensive portrait of the People's Liberation Army of China, won the prestigious Peabody Award for Best Documentary Series Broadcast in the U.S in 1989. His most recent documentary was "Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts," which he directed, produced and filmed. This cinema film, celebrating the iconic composer's 70^th year, won the AFI Award for Best Feature Length Documentary in 2009. It was also short-listed for Academy Award^® nomination.
Hicks' first studio film, "Snow Falling on Cedars," featured a powerful ensemble cast including Ethan Hawke, Youki Kudoh, Max von Sydow, Sam Shepard, James Cromwell and Reeve Carney.  Hicks co-wrote the screenplay with Ron Bass, adapted from the best-selling novel by David Guterson.  He also directed "Hearts in Atlantis," starring Anthony Hopkins and Anton Yelchin, based on stories by Stephen King as well as "No Reservations," starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, Aaron Eckhart and Abigail Breslin. His most recent feature was "The Boys Are Back," starring Clive Owen, which Hicks filmed in his homeland of South Australia.
Hicks has also enjoyed extensive success in American television commercials, one of which is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.  In addition he has held three exhibitions of his own still photography.
Born in Uganda and raised in Kenya, Hicks migrated with his family first to England and then Australia as a teenager, graduating with Honors from the Flinders University of South Australia in 1975.  He was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1997.
Hicks was honored as South Australian of the Year in 1999 and nominated as Australian of the Year for South Australia in 2008, both high accolades from his homeland. He is also Patron of the Helpmann Academy Foundation and the Tutti Choir, and an Ambassador for the Sight For All Foundation.

Is there really such a thing as destiny?  Is Fate shadowing our movements, stacking the deck, or are all our moments--ordinary and extraordinary--random?  The age-old question of whether things happen by accident is at the core of Nicholas Sparks' The Lucky One.
Director Scott Hicks offers, "That premise immediately drew me in: the notion that a chance event--finding a photo in the middle of nowhere--could change not only one man's life, but the lives of everyone he comes into contact with, really hooked me at the outset.  The idea of destiny is quite central, and I liked that it's treated in a very realistic fashion."
Sparks reveals that a very real item was the basis for his story.  "This is the first book I've ever written that was inspired by a single image: that of a soldier finding a picture half-buried in the sand and pulling it out.  I became obsessed with what happens when he begins to view this photo as his lucky charm."
In "The Lucky One," the photo becomes more than a good luck charm; it serves as the catalyst for a journey of discovery and healing.
The Lucky One marks the fourth of Sparks' novels that producer Denise Di Novi has brought to the big screen.  She relates, "I've been in love with Nicholas' books since I first read The Notebook.  Every one of his stories renews your faith in love and in the power of love, and this one is no exception.  I think everybody wants to believe that love can conquer all, despite the odds."
In the film's central role, Zac Efron stars as Logan, a Marine who has seemingly defied the odds during three tours of duty in Iraq.  The actor responded to the story's interconnecting ideas of luck, love and destiny.  "That's what you hope love is, destiny," he remarks.  "You want it to be meant to be.  It often feels like it is.  Why can't it be?  And that's what's so intriguing about the story."
Producer Kevin McCormick agrees.  "Nick Sparks beautifully entwined the two themes of love and Fate, and Scott Hicks delivered that in a way that creates feelings of both surprise and inevitability."
Will Fetters, who was responsible for adapting Sparks' novel for the film, notes, "I can't say enough about how collaborative Scott was and how much his input helped me."  The screenwriter adds that the author had given him the best possible foundation.  "Before I even picked up the book, I was caught by the idea of this soldier trying to piece together why he's still here, which brings up the question of whether or not things happen for a reason.  The question remains unanswered, but it was woven through the subtext of the script."
Taylor Schilling plays the woman in the photograph, who becomes a talisman for a man she doesn't even know exists.  "I got a feel for the character right off the page.  They're both living with a duality of tremendous loss and potential joy.  Whether it's their destiny or not, it's incredibly romantic."
"I think most people have, at some point in their life, a lucky charm and, whether we truly believe in it or not, there's something hopeful about it," says Di Novi. 

Canine cast members  The canine cast members were also integral to the story, in particular, Zeus, Logan's dog and constant companion.  Played by Rowdy, a six-year-old-German Shepherd, Zeus is the only living thing Logan relates to when he returns home from the war.  Read more

Shooting the film
"The Lucky One" was filmed entirely on location in Louisiana.  The filmmakers chose to change the setting of the story in Sparks' book from his familiar stomping ground of North Carolina to New Orleans, as well as to shoot on location there. 
"It was a big decision for us to shoot in New Orleans but I'm really glad we did," Di Novi says.  "There's something very magical there, a mystical quality to the people, the bayou, the whole Cajun influence is so unique.  It has given the film a different texture and flavor.  Scott really took advantage of the lushness and sensuality of the setting."
The first five weeks of shooting took place about thirteen miles from downtown New Orleans in St. Bernard Parish, which stood in for the fictitious town of Hamden, Louisiana.  A private thirty-acre property, which had been a sugar plantation in the 1800s, served as the location of the Green family home.
Hicks notes, "The most important location to find was the Green house and kennels.  The thing that attracted me to that house was the extraordinary sight lines through it.  Looking at behavior through windows or through doorways underlines the connections between people, or sometimes the distances between them."
Production designer Barbara Ling, who has worked with Hicks for a decade, relates, "We were looking for a rural farmhouse that was a little shabby chic, which had at one time been a great piece of architecture but through time had been pared down to a little bit less of its former self." 
The original house had survived Hurricane Katrina, but most of the porch had been torn away.  Ling and her team restored the porch, also connecting what was once an outside kitchen to the inside of the house.
"When Scott and I met and talked about the feeling of what this place was, we wanted to evoke that many generations of people had come through and left a piece of themselves…and I think we've achieved that," Ling adds. "The owners had saved from Hurricane Katrina an enormous amount of the original farmhouse furniture, huge vanities, beautiful old desks and we ended up using some of that, since it was actually built for the house."
To serve as the kennel, they built a barn from scratch, using pressure treated recycled wood, complete with tin roof, full electrical capability, real windows and a concrete slab with drainage.  Although Ling had never constructed a kennel before, hers got a thumbs up from the dog trainers, who wanted to replicate it in California. The dogs liked it too.
A real rose garden was also planted and tended to six weeks leading up to the start of filming and a dilapidated chicken coop was turned into the kennel office, complete with a bulletin board sporting a collage of dog photos, many belonging to the crew. 
The production also took advantage of other locations along the North Shore communities of Lake Pontchartrain, including the Iraq war sequences where we first meet Logan.  Hicks' vision for the opening scenes of the film stemmed from raw footage he had seen on YouTube taken by soldiers.  "It panics you just watching it," Hicks describes.  "I wanted to recreate that feeling and also embrace the imperfections of that style of shooting so the audience would, on a raw emotional level, understand what Logan has seen and what haunts him when he returns home."
Ling transformed the existing rubble at St. Bernard Port in Chalmette, Louisiana, into the bombed out section of an Iraqi city.  The night raid was shot with handheld cameras equipped with actual night-vision lenses. There was no movie lighting, so it was pitch black in the abandoned building in which they shot. 
"The pandemonium was very real," director of photography Alar Kivilo recounts. "The only people who could see anything at all were the camera operators with their night-vision lenses, who were intent on keeping up with the fast action."
Hicks agrees. "The sheer adrenalin felt on the set comes across on the screen."
Ling added two bombed out walls to a rubble heap in a harbor just outside of New Orleans to create the aftermath of the night raid, where Logan first finds the photograph of Beth, a discovery which saves his life.
The photograph is also with Logan when he survives a sudden Humvee explosion, the slow-motion filming of which Hicks based on a conversation with a Marine.  The extreme close-up of Logan as his face gets contorted and bent out of shape was achieved by shooting an air cannon at Efron and recording the result at 1000 frames per second with a Weisscam slow motion camera.  "That suspension of time while everything goes chaotic was more interesting to me than showing a series of fireball explosions," the director says.  "By getting right in there with Zac, the audience is propelled right into Logan's point of view, and becomes more than just an objective observer."
"This kind of thinking is what I love about Scott Hicks," Kivilo attests. "He thinks, feels and intuits like a storyteller.  Whether it was a night raid or a conversation in the kitchen, he has a wonderful way of using the camera to tell the story."
Hicks opted to use real Marines in uniform for the Iraq scenes, and Efron wasn't spared any of the demands.  The actor describes, "The gear is 100-plus pounds with the helmet.  That along with wielding a machine gun was harder to handle than it looks.  We spent weeks doing military drills and weapon practice.  One day I was shooting a romantic scene in a row boat on a pond with Taylor, the next day I was holding a machine gun and in full camouflage."
By contrast, Taylor Schilling's and Blythe Danner's clothes are lighter in color, though also casual and functional.  Pink notes, "After Beth begins to spend more time with Logan, she starts transforming and you can see a more romantic aspect to what she wears."
Other New Orleans area locations included Camp Salmen Nature Park, where a 19^th-century French-Creole trading post was used for Logan's fixer-upper; the Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in Abita Springs, where the actual Pastor, Dustin Bergene, and choir were featured in a scene; and the Houmas House Plantation and Gardens, once a flourishing sugar plantation on the Mississippi River, became the Clayton Family Estate, the site of an elaborate garden party. 
The film's stormy climax was shot in St. Tammany Parish, a North Shore community of Lake Pontchartrain.  The St. Joseph Abbey and Seminary College was the site of young Ben's tree house set and nearby bridge, suspended over a churning creek. 
A dam was built in order to make the water deeper.  The special effects team had to rig wires that would keep a number of Jet-skis stationary in the water with their engines gunning to create a raging torrent.  During the early December shoot, some of the camera crew had to wear wetsuits as they manned handheld cameras in the rumbling, freezing water.  Between takes crew and cast alike would warm up by spraying each other with the hot water hoses that were hidden just below the surface.
One of the film's most significant backdrops is the lighthouse seen in the photograph that leads Logan to Beth.  The site is the River Lighthouse, located in Port Eads, Louisiana, at the southern tip of the Mississippi River.  The white iron tower was one of the few structures still standing in the area after Hurricane Katrina.
Perhaps the photograph Logan found a half a world away in a place of destruction saved his life for a new beginning.  Perhaps it was just coincidence.  The filmmakers and cast agree they will leave it to the audience to decide.
"Whether or not it's destiny, it's very tender and very real and I think it's a beautiful love story," Efron states.
Schilling says, "I hope this film inspires someone, somewhere to trust a little more, or to find the courage to take a risk and follow their own heart, wherever that may lead."
Kevin McCormick remarks, "I think the audience will enjoy going on this journey with Logan and Beth because it's very emotionally told.  In the end, I think the idea of Fate that Nicholas Sparks hints at in his book adds a twist to the romance."
Di Novi agrees.  "Nick embraces the concept of love and has found a way to tell these stories that give people hope--even if you lose someone, or have pain or grief or loss in your life, love can still remain a constant and it can come up and surprise you in the most mysterious ways."
Hicks reflects, "There are some who believe we cross paths by chance, and others who are convinced that destiny brings people together.  But either way, if you find love, you're the lucky one."