By Sunday morning , it will be a wrap , but right now it ’ s 9 p . m . on Friday and they ’ ve got a shot list that will keep them busy straight through to “ lunchtime ,” which is midnight . ( At least they ’ ve got apps to hold them over until then .) They ’ ll work until dawn , then come back the next night and do it again .
The crew is used to marathon hours — an occupational hazard of the industry — but if anything is killing them , it ’ s the heat . It ’ s a balmy night in late June and each time they ’ re ready for a take , they have to turn off the air conditioning and shut the windows for the sake of audio recording .
What ’ s worse , the scene they ’ re working on , the climactic confrontation between the main character , her conniving husband and her best friend , happens in a low-ceilinged master bedroom on the top floor . Each time the director calls cut , the dozen or so cast and crew crammed into the suite scramble to open the windows and crank up the A / C , enjoying a brief respite of cool air before the next take .
They ’ re in good spirits , though . Crew members amuse each other with silly British accents . Actress Stacey Dash ( of Clueless fame ), who plays the best friend , catches up with a friend who stops by for a visit , a real-life priest whom everyone on set respectfully addresses as “ Father .” The director , Tom DeNucci , jots down ideas for shots and lines the outer edges of a video monitor with Post-its that say things like , “ POV of empty desk ” and “ Dirty : over Jonathan - > side of Carol ,” which can only be translated by the director himself .
The atmosphere is loose and playful , but as soon as DeNucci calls for the next shot , everyone snaps into formation and the room falls silent . “ Last looks !” is called out as the hair and makeup people quickly touch up leading lady Masiela Lusha , perhaps best known as the rebellious daughter Carmen on five seasons of comedian George Lopez ’ s eponymous early-aughts sitcom .
A house full of creatives suddenly demonstrates the military precision necessary for all these bodies and all this equipment to negotiate a cramped space that ’ s not designed for the task at hand . ( This is an actual house in an actual neighborhood that people live in , not a hermetically sealed soundstage .) Each command (“ Roll sound .”) is repeated back (“ Rolling sound !”) then echoed throughout the house (“ Rolling sound !”) so that everyone knows exactly what ’ s happening and what they should be doing ( or not doing ). People issue verbal warnings as they come around corners , particularly if they ’ re carrying equipment . Crew members display an economy of motion , intuitively anticipating each other ’ s movements in the same kind of instinctive choreography found in restaurant kitchens , except instead of generating constant motion , they ’ re trying to manufacture an artificial stillness .
The results of all this commotion will eventually be called ’ Til Death , a movie that will not play in theaters or pop up on your favorite streaming service . This is a tailor-made pitch for one particular platform and its very particular audience : the Lifetime cable network .
Anyone who came of movie-and-TV-watching age before the streaming era is probably familiar with the archetype “ Lifetime movie ” that could be considered a genre unto itself .
Savvy viewers will recognize the tropes : A woman in peril . A husband who shouldn ’ t be trusted . An awful secret revealed with melodramatic flair .
For Rhode Islanders , however , several of these movies might spark other flashes of recognition . Wait , was that the Park Theatre in Cranston ? Did I just spot the Jamestown Bridge in the background ? That street looks an awful lot like Main Street in East Greenwich .
Your eyes are not deceiving you , fair viewer . Those local landmarks really do pop up in recent Lifetime movies , along with others like the Norman Bird Sanctuary in Middletown and the Rhode Island College Recreation Center . Verdi and Luba are the reason why . They ’ ve developed something of a cottage industry making female-centered thrillers for a network with an insatiable appetite for them .
“ The first network for women ,” as it was billed at its 1984 launch , spent the first years of its existence as a basic cable backwater airing second-rate talk shows and medical programming . Lifetime ’ s fortunes changed in 1988 when former HBO executive Patricia Fili became the new head of programming . She revamped its talk show , acquired syndication rights to hits like “ L . A . Law ” and “ Moonlighting ,” and , perhaps most importantly , greenlit the first wave of original movies for the network .
These movies proved to be a big , if still niche , business . In 1998 , the mothership spun off the Lifetime Movie Network and there ’ s now a streaming platform called Lifetime Movie Club . A fan-generated list of Lifetime movies from 1990 – 2019 on the Internet Movie Database includes 841 titles . There are approximately 200 Wikipedia entries dedicated to individual Lifetime movies . There is a blog , podcast and Instagram account called “ Lifetime Uncorked ,” in which self-proclaimed “ TV Movie Expert ” Patrick Serrano reviews the network ’ s originals on a scale of one to five wine glasses .
Verdi and Luba first began exploring the possibilities of female-led thrillers and true crime films as an opportunity born out of necessity . They both had been working as producers , taking on increasing levels of responsibility in Chad ’ s father ’ s company , Verdi Productions .
Chad A . Verdi is perhaps the best-known local film producer . He got into the business about fifteen years ago to make his dream project , the true comeback story of Rhode Island boxer Vinny Pazienza , which was released in 2016 as the feature film Bleed for This starring Miles Teller ( Top Gun : Maverick ). Since then , he ’ s produced his own projects , like 2019 ’ s Vault , based on the true story of the infamous 1975 Bonded Vault heist in Providence ; collaborated with Martin Scorsese on films like The Irishman and Silence ; and brought productions like actress Heather Graham ’ s directorial debut , Chosen Family , to Rhode Island in 2023 .
The younger Verdi and Luba only met around 2018 or so , despite having the easy chemistry of two people who have been friends since childhood . Chad had recently returned from college in Colorado , and Paul was working full-time as Chad Sr .’ s assistant , after collaborating with Tom DeNucci on
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