Working With Police on Film Sets | Rolling Tape interview

I had the pleasure of being interviewed earlier this week by Forris Day Jr. for his podcast Rolling Tape. We had a terrific discussion about working with police on film sets, which I did for both of my features: Surviving Family and DETOURS. We discussed the differing experiences in Jersey City and Ocean County, NJ, shooting with a process trailer (check out some great shots of that), and the police officer who let us use his house as a location.

It was a fun interview to do, and hopefully it will take a little bit of the mystery out of something that many low-budget filmmakers find intimidating.

The Art of the Edit - Part 1

[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.

To be continued...

When Casting a Movie, Look to the Theater

Carlo Fiorletta and Debargo Sanyal

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.

Billy Magnussen was Tony nominated for originating the role of Spike in Christopher Durang's Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike and then starred in the off-Broadway play Sex With Strangers.  Sarah Wilson starred in the well-reviewed The Best of Everything. Tara Westwood was weird and wonderful as a woman who gives birth to a tree branch in Branched; and P.J. Sosko is a staple of the off-Broadway scene.

Richard Kind & Tara Westwood

Michael Cerveris received the Tony Award for Fun Home and 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." 

More Truth Within Fiction: An Alcoholic in the Family

Johnny Hopkins as Hank Malone in Surviving Family

I grew up hearing stories about my mother's alcoholic younger brother Hugh.  In a family where both parents were alcoholics, it was something of a foregone conclusion that it would hit at least some of the kids.  Hugh was next in line age-wise to my mom - 2nd and 3rd respectively out of 5 kids - so she was always trying to help him out.  He was a heavy drinker by high school, and was always in trouble - getting in fights, or landing in jail for whatever stupid idea he or his buddies dreamed up.

My mom gave him a place to stay more times than she could - or would - count.  Things would start out well, amid promises that it was "different this time."  Then the drinking would start.  Again.

Here's the scene from Surviving Family that's inspired by that; Sarah Wilson stars as Terry Malone, Billy Magnussen is her fiance, and the terrific Johnny Hopkins plays Hank (catch him next in Ed Burns' upcoming series Public Morals).

Inevitably, things would go wrong and the drinking would start again, usually in secret.  He sometimes stole from her.  He always disappointed her.  Sort of like this:

I spent more than a year showing Surviving Family at festivals around the US, as well as in Canada and Germany.  I was amazed - although although I probably shouldn't have been - how many people told me that they have a friend or family member just like that.  While I certainly wouldn't wish these problems on anyone, I'm damn glad that people can relate to the characters.

If you're wondering about the great restaurant location in the 2nd video - thanks once again to the great folks at Satis Bistro in Jersey City, NJ.

If you like the clips, watch the entire movie on Amazon Prime or iTunes.

Movies on Bi-Polar Disorder: It's Great to be On a List with "Silver Linings Playbook"

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.

Writing Truth Within Fiction

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.