River Road creatives

Richie Adams, one of 225’s 2007 People to Watch, officially became an auteur this summer when the movie titles designer (Babel, Mr. & Mrs. Smith) and owner of River Road Creative shot his passion project, a feature length semi-autobiographical comedy he wrote and directed, called Inventing Adam.

“I’ve never been more ready for anything in my life,” Adams told 225 on the eve of a breakneck 16-day shoot that covered ground from downtown Baton Rouge to False River and St. Francisville to New Orleans to tell the story of a man in quarter-life-crisis who leaves the big city for the town he grew up in and friends he left behind to celebrate his 30th birthday. ? “The film is about Adam deciding how he’s going to invent himself, who he’s going to be,” Adams says. “He’s a patent attorney in San Francisco, and what he’s doing there is settling. The girl he has isn’t quite right. His job there isn’t quite right. What will he choose? The country-club lifestyle or something simpler but more wonderful?”

Adam’s journey home in the narrative closely mirrors that of the filmmaker who spent time working for giant ad agencies in San Francisco and Los Angeles before moving back to Baton Rouge three years ago to launch River Road Creative. Despite steady, high-profile editing and credits work in film and television, Adams admits he returned specifically to become a director. “I thought, realistically, the only way for me to pursue directing was to get a company off the ground, and that became River Road Creative,” he says.

It’s been a tough road, he admits, seeking funding for what he expected to be a $1.5 million film. Eventually Adams decided he could make the movie for less than $200,000. He got some help with locations from Raising Cane’s and attorney Danny McGlynn, who let Adams shoot on his St. Francisville property and inside his downtown lofts, office space and Third Street bar Boudreaux & Thibodeaux’s. “I’m Danny’s biggest fan,” Adams says. “He’s been just a supporter of young entrepreneurs. He helped us tremendously.”

Even though Adams’ road to Inventing may have been long because of financial challenges and the personal nature of the film, the cast found the real-life details of the story to be a welcome relief.

“It’s actually easier to be part of a film that is based on things that happened in the director’s life,” says actress Alyshia Ochse. “There’s more realism attached to it. I think Inventing Adam ended up being more comfortable and relatable because of that.”

Ochse plays Katherine, Adam’s high-maintenance San Francisco fiancée who has a Planes, Trains & Automobiles-esque travel experience to get to Louisiana in time for his party. The challenging trek includes a biplane and a swamp boat, and it strips her snobbishness to the bone.

Make no mistake, Inventing Adam is a dyed-in-the-wool comedy. Mad TV star Josh Myers plays Adam, and fellow Mad man Ike Barinholtz is along for the ride as well. With the comedians keeping the cast laughing and Adams keeping cool under time pressure, the diverse cast bonded quickly. “It was like going away to summer camp and finding a family,” Ochse says. “I was so sad to leave it.”

So explicit is Baton Rouge’s presence in the script that changes to the city, particularly to downtown, made in Adams’ 12-year absence forced some rewrites.

“One scene was about him walking up on a grass-covered levee, and when I moved back, I said wait a minute, that’s not true anymore,” Adams says. “There’s brick and benches, lampposts, and the Shaw Center I wasn’t aware of. All these changes helped Adam to fall in love with Baton Rouge all over again.”

Through the entire process of making Inventing Adam, Richie Adams has fallen in love with the city again, too. “It’s been a rediscovery of all things Louisiana,” he says. And for proof, check the cast list on imdb.com and look no further than the character labeled Crawfish Eater #1. That’s authentic. This month Adams submitted Inventing Adam for consideration in the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. rrc.la