Zaine Bray estimates he’s got enough money to last him and his family through the summer.

After that?

Well, he’s betting every penny he’s got on seeing his dream -- a movie called “Midwest Hu$tler” -- come to fruition. He plans to complete filming in May at U.S. 41 Dragstrip in Morocco, Ind.

“It’s always been a dream of mine to be in movies,” said the Carlock, Ill., resident.

He got a taste of the business about 15 years ago as an extra, mostly as a way to gain first-hand knowledge of how a movie set operates. His first role included a brief scene in “The Lake House” with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, “and I was kind of hooked after that.”

“Hu$tler” officially was born in 2014 with “a little teaser trailer,” Bray said. Most of the filming -- about 90 percent of the movie, he said -- was done in 2017. He spent much of 2018 fighting an illness that involved two surgeries, and that left him bedridden for the better part of four months. Last year was dedicated to building the car raced by the film’s hero, a character named Zane, who is portrayed by Zaine Bray.

The idea for “Midwest Hu$tler” came to Bray during a 10-year stint working in a Mitsubishi auto plant. He said he had “always been into cars, racing, 4-wheelers, dirt bikes,” and thoughts of the same occupied his mind day in and day out.

 

 

 

As he developed the story, he also settled on the idea that he would “quit everything I did in life and do something new.” He began developing the script, then rewriting it, and eventually settled on a version that he entered in multiple screenplay competitions. The script for “Midwest Hu$tler” was nominated for the Best Unproduced Screenplay at the International Filmmaker Festival of World Cinema in London. It was also a finalist for the top screenplay/drama in the 2016 Beverly Hills Screenplay Contest, and he said it fared well in a few other, smaller competitions.

“I was hoping I’d find an investor if I had a good screenplay,” he said. “But if you don’t have a big name attached to it, it’s hard to do, especially with me not having made a movie yet. I’m not proven.”

Still, he has “risked everything” to bring the script to the screen, including, he said, taking out a mortgage on his house, wiping out his savings and 401(k) accounts, and taking an advance on his inheritance.

“Wherever I could get stuff, I invested it,” he said.

Why does he believe the film is worth the heavy price he’s paying to give it life?

“There’s always a following for a good car movie,” he said.

“What I wanted to do differently with mine is make it as much real-life as possible. The racing we filmed is actual street racing -- all the racing’s real. There’s one set-up race, so we could get the shots we needed, but other than that, we’re full out. Whatever shots we get, we get. I want it to be real with everybody racing full extent.” 

The most-basic synopsis for “Hu$tler” is this: Bray’s character is a seasoned hustler who’s forced to teach a young racer how to survive and win street drag races. But mentoring the rebellious teen reignites a rivalry that threatens his chance at redemption with the only woman he’s ever loved. A car movie has to have a love story, after all.

“Zane” was a cocky high schooler when he bet his car, and his girlfriend, in a street showdown, and he lost both. Rather than learning his lesson, though, Zane began hustling loudmouths like the movie’s “villain” character and running afoul of local authorities in the process.

“The cops are getting sick of him, they can’t catch him in the act of it, but they end up making him do this program,” Bray explained. “My character’s mentoring this other kid who’s dangerous, doesn’t care, and his mother is Zane’s high school sweetheart. They get back together, the bad guy comes back into the picture, and chaos happens.”

Lest anyone get the impression that Bray is condoning street racing, he wants it to be known that he’s actually trying to deliver a message against that very activity.

“You’re not going to stop street racing,” he said, “but I want to kind of educate the people who do it to not be so stupid about it -- racing in town, stuff like that. If you’re going to do something stupid, go out in the country with no crossroads where it’s just you and one other guy. That way, you’re not killing anybody else.

“If you’re going to be stupid, at least be smart about it.”

 

 

 

Given his limited budget, Bray used Facebook to help recruit racers to take part in the movie. He used a similar tactic -- social media -- to find musicians to contribute to the film.

Laura Black-Wines was one who responded. She sent Bray the video of a tribute song she wrote about her late father called “Driver’s Seat” -- a song and video that were nominated for three indy music awards in 2018. Bray said that song will be a track as the movie’s credits roll. Black-Wines and a cousin, Bethany Davis, also penned a song -- sung by Davis -- called “Life’s Not About the Battles” that Bray will employ “at a turning point” in the movie.

“That’s when the kid’s mom comes to my character and is pissed off about him taking her son out racing when he’s supposed to be mentoring him,” Bray said. “Then they get into a conversation about the past where they hash everything out, they rekindle what they had, and they make up for all the time they lost.”

As for using U.S. 41 for the final showdown, he settled on the track because of its quarter-mile competition distance. Additionally, the track wouldn’t ruin shooting by playing music incessantly between runs down the track.

“I’m this little guy trying to do something big, I’m not Hollywood here,” Bray said. “Some of the tracks I talked to about filming were like, ‘What’s your budget?’ That’s the wrong question. These smaller tracks, they just want to help out, and their track can be in a movie forever. I appreciate that kind of stuff. I’m going to remember that stuff if somebody helps me out.”

Bray’s “hero car” is a Fox-bodied Mustang that he’s owned for more than 20 years. He stripped it down to the bare essentials, then reconstructed it with all-new everything. Its license plate is UL LUZE 2.

“I went a little overboard with it,” he said, “but I wanted to have a real awesome ‘hero car’ -- something that’s going to be raced to its fullest potential.”

Under the hood is a 410 cubic-inch “stroker” motor boosted by a Nitrous Express Maximizer system. Horsepower should top out at “950, 975 on the bottle,” Bray said.

“I was wanting to do this movie second, but I realized I have one shot to make a movie. I need to do the one I think will be best,” he added. “People watch movies for two reasons: Who’s in it or what’s it about. Well, I don’t have a ‘name’ actor in it. But I do have a passion for cars. I’ve been a gearhead all my life. So I said, let’s make a car movie and hope it turns into a cult movie like “Two-Lane Blacktop” or “American Graffiti.”

Bray said he is halfway finished with the rough cut of the filming done to date. He hopes to have it completely edited, colorized, and all the sound completed by the time the final scenes are shot in Indiana. He said he is very happy with what he’s seen so far.

“If the rest of the movie turns out like what I’ve already cut, I’ve got something,” he said.

Once the product is finished, Bray will submit it for consideration for inclusion in the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.

“You have about a zero-point-seven percent chance of getting it in there, but I think I’ll have a chance because it’s my first movie. Nobody’s ever done a movie like this for their first movie,” he said.

“If I can get into Sundance, I’ll probably have a distributor that will buy it and do all that stuff. But depending on what they offer me, I can also go under these other platforms like Amazon, Netflix, Family Video -- and self-distribute. There’s a certain order of stuff it goes into like Redbox, Netflix, cable TV, and pay-per-view.

“I’m going to hold off to get the best distribution deal I can. It’s been tough because I’m not getting paid for this, it’s all out of pocket. It’s been tough on the family, and I certainly didn’t think it would take this long.

“I’m not a crier, but this movie’s had me in tears more times than I can count. It’s been really hard.”