Synopsis
Peter Bundle (Don Cummings)
has a past he is trying to hide. For the last year and a half he has
been residing in Los Angeles selling home alarm systems. Late one night,
Bundle has a sales appointment with an attractive, mysterious woman
(Colleen Corrigan). Going against his better judgment, he accepts her
invitation to dinner the following evening. Charmed and seduced by the
woman, he considers helping her leave her ruthless and controlling husband.
On the way home from his dinner date he is abducted by two thugs (Paul
DeLesDernier & Gary Agostino) who take him against his will to yet another
late night appointment, this time with a very well connected man who
blackmails Bundle into supplying him with access codes to the security
systems of some very wealthy houses. He is paid well for his services,
but burdened by a new girlfriend with an expensive lifestyle and past
mistakes that continue to catch up with him, Bundle foolishly steals
from the very people who have blackmailed him and is finally forced
to face the consequences of his actions.
Production History
"The Appointment started out as a short film to add to my director's reel. I wanted something very intense and disturbing, something that would grab the viewer's attention and haunt them for several days afterwards. I wrote an eight page scene about an interrogation and cast a few of my acting friends. We shot this scene in one day. A few months later, when I finished editing the scene, I began showing it around to friends and acquaintances. I was very surprised by their reactions and enthusiasm. Since I had left the object of the interrogation unnamed, the two questions most people asked were "who are these people and what are they after?" The truth is I did not know. I was more interested in how these characters were reacting to their situations. But the questions kept getting asked and I think this interest is what helped transform this film from a ten minute short into a full length motion picture. Soon after, I sat down and wrote seventy five pages to go in front of the scene we had filmed, using the interrogation as the climactic ending.We began filming again in June of 1994. We kept to a very simple production format. Since we only filmed every third weekend or so, I had ample opportunity between production days to rehearse with my cast. I used these rehearsals to my utmost advantage. These rehearsal periods were vital to the success of shooting the film in fourteen days and on $8,000. I couldn't afford to 'fix things in post,' so it became vital that we record the best sound possible on the set. I shot the film on a 3½ to 1 shooting ratio with the final cut having over eight hundred edits. We finished production in late October of 1994, five months and 12,000 feet of film later, having spent only $8,000 to date."
