On Set with the Local Production Company Making Thrillers in Rhode Island

The blue eyes belong to Chad Verdi Jr., son of film producer Chad A. Verdi and an emerging filmmaker in his own right, and the platter of clams casino is bestowed by a kindly neighbor who is so excited to have a film crew next door that she dropped off a hot appetizer to show her appreciation.

“People get really excited about a film production company being based here in Rhode Island, shooting in their backyard,” Verdi says. “We’re not in Atlanta or L.A. where that’s happening on a twenty-four-
seven basis.”

The house is a rental on Stillwater Drive in Smithfield. There’s a violent marital spat happening inside, but it’s all part of the script. Verdi, along with his business partner, Paul Luba, and roughly three dozen cast and crew, are camped out for a weekend of overnight shoots, the last sprint to the finish line of an eleven-day shooting schedule.

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 Agent Toby Barks, a children’s film not made under the Verdi Productions banner. They later teamed up again for another canine-centric family movie, Junkyard Dogs, which was produced by Hyperborea, their own newly formed imprint, and Paul’s company, LaSalle Productions. 

Their next gig took them out to New Mexico for Wander, a thriller starring Tommy Lee Jones, Aaron Eckhart and Heather Graham. By the standards of their still-fledgling careers, this was a major leveling up for two young producers. They came home fired up for more.

“Being able to come back to Rhode Island with that experience helped us be really motivated for what we had up next,” Verdi says. 

Unfortunately, “what’s next” turned out to be a pandemic-induced shutdown of the film industry. Not wanting to lose the momentum they had spent the past few years building, Verdi and Luba sought a way to keep themselves and some of their closest collaborators working. Then came the (pardon the pun) opportunity of a Lifetime.

A sales agent who had worked with Verdi Productions in the past had recently taken a new position with a company that was looking for a production partner to create Lifetime movies. Luba and Verdi pitched a bunch of ideas, and two generated interest. Those pitches became Sins of the Preacher’s Wife (not to be confused with Secret Life of the Pastor’s Wife, which is somehow an entirely separate movie from a different production company) and My Acting Coach Nightmare, the first two movies that Verdi and Luba successfully produced and sold to the cable network. They aired in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

The model proved to be a good fit for pandemic-era production restrictions.

“It needs to be only a few characters and locations because these TV films are so small and the money is so tight,” Luba explains. 

They understood the potential immediately. “After we saw those were successful, we were like, ‘We want to do more of this,’” Verdi says. “This provides us — and Rhode Island — with consistent filmmaking opportunities.”

The formula is fairly simple, as they explain in their back-and-forth, friends-who-complete-each-other’s-sentences kind of rhythm:

Chad: “Female-driven thrillers. Women-in-peril or whodunnit kind of mystery movies.”

Paul: “Age range of the main character anywhere in their twenties, thirties or forties.”

Chad: “Something very dramatic, soap opera-esque happens to her, whether it’s someone starts stalking her, a
relative dies, her husband cheats on her. Something dramatic happens to spur more mystery and more drama.”

Paul: “She has to be the central character. We can’t focus on the husband or the stalker. The target audience is female so that’s who they’re going to be able to connect with.”

Chad: “It has to be dark, but at the same time lighthearted, in the sense that we don’t want to dive too deeply into dark situations.”

Paul: “It needs to be able to air on TV during the day.”

Chad: “If somebody gets stabbed, you’re not going to see blood gushing everywhere.”

Paul: “We have a pretty good idea now of the box we need to stay in, but we also view it as a challenge.”

Chad: “How creative can you get within this defined box?”

Paul: “In this box we’re going to do the best job possible. We’re going to make this unique and not like anything else on the channel.”

They have no illusions about the work: They recognize that they’re not exactly making Oppenheimer, but they still want to stand out. 

“In the film world it’s not the most respected thing to make TV movies,” Verdi says. “However, we’re trying to make the best frickin’ TV movie, period, so that everyone else can’t compete with us. We try to make them look a lot better than what you’re normally getting with TV movies.”

While My Acting Coach Nightmare might not have the production value of an HBO movie, it looks better than a lot of its competitors, particularly the kind of straight-to-streaming movies where two actors in the same scene sometimes feel like they were never actually in the same room, or Winnipeg might stand in for Venice. This is one of the ways in which Rhode Island puts them at a competitive advantage. Because these productions are home games for Luba and Verdi, they’re able to use their surroundings and tap into the state’s one-degree-of-separation network.

“Rhode Island is such a small state. Everyone knows everyone,” Luba says. “Because of that we’re able to call in a lot of favors.”

Where other production companies might need to make a set look like a college campus, Verdi and Luba can simply make a few phone calls and be shooting at Rhode Island College, as they did with A Friend’s Obsession, a recently completed movie that has not yet aired as of this writing. The main character is a college basketball player, and they were even able to use the RIC women’s basketball team’s uniforms. It gives their movies a sense of place — not only are the actors actually in the same room, but it’s a real locker room in a real college. Their hometown pride comes through in every establishing shot that lingers lovingly on a real Rhode Island landmark.

The Lifetime model has become an integral part of Verdi and Luba’s business. It’s not just an opportunity to make and sell films — it’s also a way to develop talent and, perhaps more importantly, keep aspiring filmmakers in Rhode Island working.

They credit the Rhode Island Film & Television Office, under the leadership of Steven Feinberg, for bringing big Hollywood productions like last year’s star-studded James L. Brooks dramedy Ella McCay to Rhode Island with surprising regularity. But those aren’t enough to make filmmaking a viable career option in the Ocean State. 

“A lot of times they bring in out-of-state people, they’re here for like six months and then they don’t come back until they need to film again,” Verdi says. He and Luba aim to fill those considerable gaps in the schedule with a steady stream of small but professional productions.

“We’re trying to give jobs to people in Rhode Island so they’re able to turn this into a career,” Luba adds. 

Through both Verdi Productions and their own company, Verdi and Luba continue to work on feature films like The Roaring Game, an attempt to bring back sports comedies like Dodgeball and Happy Gilmore, this time centered around that perennial Winter Olympics’ punchline, curling. Starring beloved former New England Patriots’ player Rob “Gronk” Gronkowski and his best friend Rob Goon, production on that movie also features Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler), Vanessa Angel (Kingpin) and William Forsythe (Raising Arizona). The filming took over Cranston Veteran’s Memorial Ice Rink for a week in October. 

However, the Lifetime movie is their bread and butter. Because of the steady demand for this basic cable staple, they work consistently, cranking out a total of six to eight features each year — including both Lifetime and other productions — and nine in 2024 alone. This creates a virtuous cycle: These productions develop talent and give them incentive to stay in Rhode Island instead of heading off to New York or L.A. The resulting talent pool (and filmmaking infrastructure that develops around it) enables Feinberg to attract more big Hollywood productions to Rhode Island. And when the next Ella McCay rolls into town, the folks who cut their teeth on Lifetime productions will have the skills and experiences to compete for those jobs. Everybody wins.

Verdi and Luba are creating the kind of opportunities they wish they had when they were getting started.

“I was always told there was not a career path here on the East Coast,” Luba says. “To have a shot at succeeding you would need to go to L.A. These films keep everyone paid — they keep the lights on.”

It’s allowing them to grow, too. While an active production might involve anywhere from forty to 200 people, most of those are temporary gigs. But as a direct result of the regular stream of Lifetime movies, Verdi and Luba have been able to graduate two occasional collaborators into permanent, full-time roles. 

Kat Meinert, their production coordinator, commuted ninety minutes each way from her home in Connecticut until they were finally able to put her on the payroll for good and help her relocate. Alexis Taylor came up from Virginia to join the team after some initial experiences working with Verdi and Luba.

“They told me, ‘If you can find your way up here, we’ll take care of the rest,’” Taylor says with a laugh. She made it to Rhode Island and now has a full-time position as a post-production supervisor and assistant director. “This is the only thing I ever wanted to do, since I was a little kid.” 

Meinert, whose job includes recruiting interns, sees the difference these opportunities make for young filmmakers. “Everyone has been like, ‘We didn’t even know this existed until you reached out to our school. We’re so happy it’s an opportunity we have here at home,’” she says.

This is the way it’s always worked in the film industry. Small-scale, formula-driven genres that cineastes might turn up their noses at have long been crucial training grounds for the next generation of auteurs. Oscar-winning directors Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings) and Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water) got their starts in low-budget splatter flicks. David Fincher (The Social Network) and Spike Jonze (Her) both honed their craft directing music videos. In fact, Michael Mann’s first feature was a TV movie called The Jericho Mile, and his 1995 DeNiro/Pacino classic, Heat, started out as a TV movie called L.A. Takedown. And that’s even without mentioning Roger Corman, the grind house schlockmaster of exploitation flicks like Death Race 2000 and The Slumber Party Massacre, who launched the careers of an entire generation of Hollywood masters like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron and Ron Howard.

While it remains to be seen whether a future auteur will emerge from a Lifetime movie production operating out of a former church in East Greenwich (home to both Verdi Productions and the corporate offices of Gregg’s Restaurants — only in Rhode Island), Verdi and Luba are focused on growing their company, and the local film industry along with it. 

“We’re trying to turn Rhode Island into a hub of the film industry, especially on the East Coast,” Luba says.

“We’re creating this foundation where people can come to Rhode Island and make a living off of filmmaking,” adds Verdi. “That’s the ultimate goal. How do we bring more people to this wonderful state and help them sustain a living?”