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"A
movement that recognizes and explores independent moviemaking
in Tracy, CA"
In October of 1999, producer- editor and
founder of Napolitan Productions Steven Napolitan met with
writer-director Michael Picarella to plan a movie to take
place and to be shot in Tracy, California; a growing suburb
in Northern California. Napolitan, who founded his production
company in the city of Tracy a year earlier, told Picarella
that Tracy would open its doors to moviemaking.
Napolitan, Picarella and actors Jared Adams and Brian Napolitan
(Napolitan’s brother) met about three times a week during
the fall of ’99 at a diner in San Francisco to discuss
what would become their first full length movie, “1
2 3.”
“I had written a script called ‘Boys From Dodge
City’ and sent it to Steve to see if this was the story
we should shoot,” Picarella said. “But he said
he had a better story. Jared Adams had just survived a relationship
breakup between three girls he was dating at the same time
and Steve wanted me to hear the tale.” 
Picarella loved the idea and put “Dodge City”
aside until another time.
“Mike and I thought Jared’s story was so entertaining
that we knew we had to make it into a movie,” Napolitan
said.
Each discussion of the “1 2 3” storyline at the
San Francisco diner where the four moviemakers met would last
four to six hours, according to Picarella.
“I kept a diary of ideas and important facts the first
couple of meetings,” Picarella said. “We’d
be bouncing ideas off each other, building off the previous
idea and we’d gradually get louder and louder. I always
wondered if someone would ever come by and tell us to keep
it down, but they didn’t.”
The four moviemakers outlined the story on a big piece of
butcher paper. Picarella later took that storyline and crafted
the script.
 “Mike
would go home and work on a draft and then mail it to me and
I’d read it with Brian and Jared,” Napolitan said.
“We’d make some changes, add some suggestions
and send it back. Mike would fix it and we did that a few
different times and then we were ready to shoot.
“I remember one specific incident where I was reading,
I was eating my breakfast and reading the script and choking
on my food because I was laughing so hard,” Napolitan
recalled.
In December of 1999, Picarella drove from his home in Sonoma
County out to Tracy for the “1 2 3” shoot. After
a two and a half-hour drive, he jumped out of his car and
onto the “1 2 3” movie set.
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