I'm the writer & producer of the feature movies "DETOURS," which is available exclusively on Amazon Prime, and "Surviving Family," which is available on iTunes & Amazon Prime.
I blog about indie filmmaking, writing, and occasionally something tangentially related.
Showing posts with label phyllis somerville. Show all posts
Showing posts with label phyllis somerville. Show all posts
It's been a joy to see the delightful reviews of DETOURS, both on Amazon Prime, where we're thrilled to release it, and on our IMDB page. It's now available in both the US and the UK, with additional locations expected soon.
I'm delighted that my new feature, DETOURS, is now available exclusively on Amazon Prime in the US and the UK!
Prime members can watch for free; rental for non-members starts at $2.99.
I hope you'll check it out, and if you like it, please give it a good rating and review - for indie movies like this one, that truly is our advertising.
I'm delighted to announce that my 2nd feature film, DETOURS, will be released on Amazon Prime on Friday November 25! Prime members will be able to watch for free, while rental will start at $2.99 for non-members.
I'll share the Amazon link, as soon as it's available, but it will also be accessible via the IMDB page, as they're owned by Amazon.
DETOURS is a road-trip dramedy about a newly-single New Yorker (played by Tara Westwood ) who re-locates to Florida for a new job. She travels south with her widowed dad (Carlo Fiorletta ) and her mom's ashes in a coffee can.
One of the challenges of indie filmmaking - like many other small businesses - is figuring out the best price point for your product.
My first feature, Surviving Family, is available on iTunes and Amazon Prime. Prime members can watch for free but for iTunes and regular Amazon, I set the price. The split is 70/30 for iTunes sales and 60/40 for their rentals; it's 50/50 with Amazon. I work with Distribber for the set up and to collect revenue; they do not take a percentage of sales or rentals.
I recently decided to reduce the rental price in both places to $0.99 - it took a bit of persistence (and help from the Distribber support staff) to make that happen, as it's what the companies consider a "promo" price rather than a "regular" price.
Why did I do it? For a small movie with some recognizable actors (Billy Magnussen, Tara Westwood, Katherine Hughes, Vincent Pastore, and the wonderful Phyllis Somerville) but that is not widely known to movie watchers, I need people to take a chance with their entertainment budget. I figure $0.99 is the cost of a cup of coffee at McDonald's and a reasonable amount to gamble on an unknown movie.
Was this a good move? I'll let you know in 6 months!
My new feature, Detours, is a road-trip comedy. A newly single New Yorker must re-locate to Florida for her dream job; she drives south with her widowed dad, her mom's ashes in a coffee can, and a GPS with a mind of its own.
We shot the interiors in New Jersey and NYC, then went on the road to shoot exteriors through Myrtle Beach, SC; Savannah, GA; and Tampa, Florida. It was, to say the least, a daunting undertaking but an exciting one.
When we got a rough cut done, I reached out to a guy for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect - I'll leave him unnamed but he has a great deal of experience in many areas of the indie film world, ranging from micro-budget movies to some that are extremely well known. He graciously agreed to watch the cut with a group of us from the production team and give feedback.
I watched him watch the movie with my heart in my throat - would he love it? Hate it?
When it was done, he gave his verdict: great cast, awesome acting job across the board (yay!).
But the movie went like this
<<<<
While it should go like this
<<<<
I hyperventilated momentarily, then somehow sputtered out that I couldn't re-shoot: there was no budget for that. He assured me that there was no need for that - it was all there. "Think of it like a puzzle, and re-arrange the pieces."
I started to breathe again, as I realized what he meant, and had a flash as to how to do it.
The next morning, we figured out a new approach: front-load the darker segments of the movie, and move the happier ones - pointing toward the eventual resolution - after the mid-point. Fortunately the segmented way that the movie was written - a series of scenes and interactions that CAN be moved around - allowed us to do this.
We chose this scene as the mid-point: it's where Jennifer Giraldi (played by Tara Westwood) begins to find her way to happier times as her dad (Carlo Fiorletta) still struggles to find his footing. And the scenery (Myrtle Beach, SC) is beautiful.
If there's a moral to this story, it's this: a fresh look at your movie can be invaluable. And always be open to a new approach. OK that's 2 morals - sue me :)
[Author's note: if you received this via email, you'll need to click the link and go to the website in order to see the video portion.]
As a screenwriter, I'd love to think that I have the most impact on a movie - after all, if I didn't write it, it wouldn't exist. Right?
The auteur theory presents the director as the creator of the movie.
In reality, the finished movie that you watch is made in the editing process. And the final product can be far from what was written and what was shot. In my first feature, Surviving Family, we split a major scene into 2 separate pieces to pick up the pace and bring a major character back on screen sooner. And in my 2nd, Detours, we re-arranged the order of many scenes to create a better story arc.
This post looks at the changes to Surviving Family; I'll look at the Detours changes next time.
The pivotal scene in Surviving Family comes roughly half way through the movie: the amazing Phyllis Somerville as Aunt Mary Giaccone explains to her niece Terry, played by the wonderful Sarah Wilson, why Terry's mother killed herself. It's an amazing and emotional scene, and many viewers have cited it as their favorite. But it's long, intense, and talky. Here's an excerpt:
In the original edit of the movie, that scene was followed by an equally good and intense scene between Terry and her ex-boyfriend, played by the terrific JD Williams, best known for his work in The Wire. Here's a brief clip from that scene:
But when we put the 2 scenes back-to-back, the sequence was (a) too long and talky and (b) left our wonderful leading man Billy Magnussen off screen for too long.
Director Laura Thies was the editor as well. After feedback from test viewers, Laura watched the 2 sequences many times. "What happened?" is said in each scene. She inserted a short scene to split the 2 long ones, which also brought Billy back into the sequence.
Here's the piece that she used as a bridge:
It worked beautifully. But if you want to see exactly how, you'll have to rent the movie for yourself - it's on Amazon Prime (free for members, starts at $2.99 for non-members) and on iTunes.
One of the joys of casting an indie film in NYC is the opportunity to work with amazing actors who do much of their work on stage rather than on screen.
I was reminded of that this week when Carlo Fiorletta and I saw the terrific new play Love Sex and Death in the Amazon. Debargo Sanyal, who is awesome as the rapping motel clerk Rajiv in my just-completed feature film Detours, is one of the stars so we wanted to see it. He was terrific - no surprise - but it was a great reminder to me that the NYC stage is an amazing source of talent when you're looking to cast an indie movie. Even though there are hundreds of movies every that shoot at least some scenes in NY, that's dwarfed by the number of plays that are produced every year, ranging from Broadway to off-off-Broadway, plus an uncountable number of readings of new works.
While most directors and producers watch a lot of movies, it can be (very) helpful to see as much theater as possible. And while that's wonderful and easy in NY, there's a tremendous amount of very good regional theater all across the country. You'll see some amazing actors who might not otherwise be on your radar, and you may even be inspired to change what you're looking for.
I'll wrap this up with a shout out to a few of the amazing actors from my 2 features Surviving Family and Detours, and some of the great theater work that they've done.
Michael Cerveris received the Tony Award for Fun Homeand Assassins; he was nominated for Sweeney Todd, The Who's Tommy, and LoveMusik and has appeared in many (many) other plays both on and off Broadway.Richard Kind was Tony nominated for his role in The Big Knife, and has starred in (among others) The Producers, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Sly Fox. Phyllis Somerville most recently appeared in the experimental all-female production of I Remember Mama. Deirdre O'Connell is a staple of NY's Broadway and off-Broadway theater scene, and received a Drama Desk Award for both Circle Mirror Transformation and In The Wake. Betsy Aidem played Lady Bird Johnson and other roles in the Tony Award Winning All The Way. Marguerite Stimpson was in The Elephant Man. And Carlo Fiorletta recently originated the role of Assbiter (truly one of the best character names ever) in "Is That Danny DeVito?"
So to paraphrase the most famous playwright of all: "Get thee to the theater."
I'm just finishing post-production on my 2nd feature film (I wrote & produced), and I'm thrilled that we're releasing the first trailer today. Detours is a road-trip comedy about a newly single New Yorker (played by Tara Westwood) who has to re-locate to Florida for her dream job. She drives south with her widowed Dad (Carlo Fiorletta), her mom's ashes in a coffee can, and a GPS with a mind of its own.
Silver Linings Playbook - winner of 1 Oscar for Jennifer Lawrence as Best Lead Actress and nominated for 7 others - is the #1 rated movie about bi-polar disorder on IMDB.
With a movie like that as #1, it is absolutely awesome to see that Surviving Family is ranked #12 on that list! Take a look at the clip below, then check out Surviving Family on Amazon Prime or iTunes.
Surviving Family is fiction inspired by real life. So nothing is literally true but many of the stories in the movie come from things that happened to people I know.
My mother's family was populated by alcoholics: some were charming even (especially?) when drunk. Others were angry and belligerent. All were unreliable. There's a scene in the movie where Terry's dad doesn't show up for her wedding - yeah, that happened.
When I was a kid, my best friend's mom used to scream and throw dishes at her husband, for reasons that no one could quite understand. He would stand out of range and quietly ask her to stop because they couldn't afford to keep buying new dishes. This became the inspiration for much of the character Lucia Giaccone (played by Lorraine Farris).
Check out this clip from the movie - it features Phyllis Somerville as the wise and wonderful Aunt Mary, Sarah Wilson in the lead role of Terry Malone, Tara Westwood as her sister Jean, and Bill Sage as Lucia's husband Jerry. In the flashback portion of the clip, Stevie Steel and Carleigh Chirico can be seen cowering on the stairs as the child versions of Jean and Terry, as their mom Lucia literally clears the table onto their dad.
I'm a NJ-based writer & producer, with my 2nd feature - Detours - ALMOST done with post-production. I'm very excited to get it finished soon. But as any indie filmmaker will tell you - you're not done when it's done. You've just moved on to phase 35. Or is it 36?
I'll be writing more - much more - about Detours very soon. But first a little about my first feature - Surviving Family. It's a romantic drama - with a dose of comedy - about alcoholism, mental illness, suicide, and love. And garden gnomes. Not necessarily in that order.
The most amazing thing - for me - about writing & producing a movie that takes on subjects that are often taboo is learning just how many people are directly affected by these issues. A stunning number of people have told me that it's their story or their family's story or their friend's story. And that is damn cool.
Click HERE for the Surviving Family website, with links to watch the trailers & rent/buy on Amazon Prime or iTunes.
And here are a few of my favorite images - Billy Magnussen as Alex D'Amico + our poster, featuring photos of Sarah Wilson (left) and Tara Westwood as sisters, plus (left to right) Vinnie Pastore, Billy Magnussen, Bill Sage, Johnny Hopkins, and Phyllis Somerville.
