Robert Alaniz on “D.I.N.K.S.”

What was your filmmaking background before making D.I.N.K.S?

ROBERT: I wrote, directed and produced four feature films prior to D.I.N.K.s (Double Income No Kids). One of these films, Barrymore's Dream, won Best Feature at the Springfield, Illinois Route 66 Film Festival in 2007. I studied film in Chicago in the late 70's and early 80's, producing short films and a few feature length indie films until, due to financial reasons, I was forced to abandon my filmmaking ambitions. I returned to making feature films in 2002.

Where did the idea come from and what was the writing process like?

ROBERT: My wife and I don't have children, never really wanted them and through the years have experienced a lot of discrimination from people with kids because of it. We live in a community that is dominated with parents and family values and we have never fit in. So, when it came time for me to write my next script, I decided to do a dark comedy on that subject. Being that most of the script is loosely based on personal experiences, it was a very enjoyable script to write.

What are the three key requirements -- in your mind -- for making a successful movie for a small budget?

ROBERT: First, know your audience. Make a film that will appeal to as many people as possible. Vanity projects are best left to successful Hollywood Directors with nothing to lose.

Second, never direct or write a film about a subject matter you know nothing about.

Third, keep your film within the limitations of your budget. Never include expensive elements that force you to go the cheap route to produce.

What's your advice for working with actors on a low-budget project?

ROBERT: Find actors that share your vision and understand the limitations of a low-budget and are willing to push those limits creatively to achieve big-budget results.

What kind of camera did you use and what are the pros -- and cons -- of using that system?

ROBERT: My more recent films were shot with the Canon XL2. I like the "vintage movie" feel of the picture. Not too sharp, not too dull. I don't mind shooting in HD as long as the picture doesn't resemble a live sports event. I think that takes away from the cinematic feel of a movie, which in itself depends on the subject matter and style of the film it's used in.

What was the smartest thing you did during production? The dumbest?

ROBERT: The smartest thing I have done, and try to do during a production, is always try to get spontaneous shots that aren't planned in the shoot but that I think might greatly benefit the film during the editing process. I learned this over the years and it has always proved to be rewarding. The dumbest thing: trusting the wrong people.

And, finally, what did you learn from making the film that you can take to other projects?

ROBERT: I learned that going with my gut feelings during a production usually pays off. Especially when it comes to comedy.

The (Dreaded) Silent Role

While greats like Charlie Chaplin reveled in the "Silent Role", it is a role most actors try to avoid.

However, sometimes a silent role can be more desirable than most people realize. Getting back to Chaplin... he could do a lot without speaking a single word. Even in his own talkies, like Limelight (1952). Yes, his character speaks. But there are some great moments when the best stuff is all in the body language.

Another great "silent" role comes from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939): The President of the Senate, played by actor Harry Carey.

Before Carey signed on to play the role, other famous character actors were first offered this role. However, they turned it down because of one thing: the lack of dialogue.

No one realized quite how Director Frank Capra would make this role into one of the more memorable characters in the entire film! Watch the movie and you'll notice the number of lines is decidedly on the low side. However, it was such a good role that Harry Carey actually received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor!

And then there's Dumbo (1941). Dumbo says nothing. Absolutely nothing. Everything comes through his facial expressions. Especially those eyes.

Ah, but you could say that that was seventy years ago... Things have changed. It worked for Chaplin. It worked for Dumbo (who's a cartoon, don't forget). But would it work for movies today? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it depends on the role. It's gotta still be believable and work within the movie world.

It's certainly a challenge we filmmakers can take up. To create some good "silent role" characters worth their weight in gold. A role that no actor should ever dread playing.

Ignatius Fischer on “Lisl and the Lorlok”

What was your filmmaking background before making Lisl and the Lorlok?

IGNATIUS: In 1995, I started working in the special effects industry, fabricating miniatures for movies like The Fifth Element, Dante's Peak, Titanic, HBO's From The Earth To The Moon, etc.

I was always a writer at heart, writing short stories, attempting a novel, etc. Once in the film industry, I began toying with screenplay format. I wrote and helped produce the indy sci-fi/horror feature The Men Who Fell in 2004. It was shot in Tucson utilizing miniatures, greenscreen and digital effects. It sold overseas and served as the best film school ever (I have no formal training in film production).

I got my first digital camera in 2004 as well and began taking pictures, which I liked, a LOT. So eventually it became a no-brainer that I'd want to write and direct my own film, which is what Lisl is, my directorial debut.

What was the inspiration for the script ... and what was the writing process like?

IGNATIUS: My grandmother-in-law passed away one year (Alzheimer's) and left her walled-in family estate empty. This location is twenty minutes from my house and we (my wife and daughter) used to sort of check up on the place, we'd use the pool in the summer, etc. I realized it was the perfect location to support a film, from both a logistical and creative point-of-view; the main house interior is completely wallpapered, which provided a ton of production design right up front. It has a unique layout, is two-story and has a guest house (which eventually housed cast and crew as well as served as an additional set piece). So with minimal decoration, the place could look great on-camera.

I have always read a lot, and I love suspense stories and fantasies and science fiction, etc. I used to read comic books (Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite authors in the graphic novel realm, at that time specifically Sandman was a huge title). I had written a hefty short story, almost a "novella", called Queen Of Heads (pub 1998 online in The Harrow) in which I explored this sort of twisted Alice-In-Wonderland nightmare space; one classic element was the monster that came out from under the bed and dragged people down to nightmare land. It was this particular scene - the monster under the bed - that intrigued me as far as making a small independent movie.

I knew it (the film) would have to be set almost entirely at this estate location and that the budget would be almost non-existent, so it had to be a "contained" story ... but the stories I'd like to tell on-screen are huge, always! Most of all, I wanted a unique story that hadn't necessarily been done to death before. So I went to my in-laws and asked if I could shoot a film on their property there in Hemet, CA.

I had recently met (on the set of his own short film) Brian Dillon, a local filmmaker that was primarily a writer. He was also assistant directing for other filmmakers I knew and he was extremely organized and driven. We worked on a couple of short films together and got to know each other a bit and when I'd read a couple of his screenplays, I asked him if he'd join me in writing a no-budget fantasy feature. I brought him to the estate and we walked around and began discussing what kind of a story I wanted to do and what kind of a story would fit in that location.

The classic "fairy tale" and the "monster under the bed" became the two themes powering the script ideas. We went through lots of ideas and eventually settled on a little girl stuck in a large house with a creature. We eventually went on to further stylize it as a fairy tale and created an allegory (addiction as seen through the eyes of a child).

Our writing process was interesting to develop because neither of us had collaborated as writers before (Brian is credited solely as screenwriter and we share story credit). So we drafted a treatment by hammering out rough points together and then Brian went off and wrote the first draft. I took that draft and wrote a new treatment that incorporated some of that first draft and a collage of ideas that came back from some of our previous notes.

Brian then wrote a second draft that was much closer to the final version, and from that point, we would literally email pages back and forth writing new stuff and re-writing each other until we had the script boiled down to what we felt was a tight, unique, not-seen-before story (which certainly has moments inspired by all kinds of literature and other films of course).

You wore a lot of hats on this project -- writer, producer, director, editor, etc. -- what's the upside and the downside to doing that?

IGNATIUS: There are three upsides to wearing all those hats:
1) You learn what it takes to do each different job on-set, so that in the future you can have conversations with the heads of all major departments in a real-world fashion.
2) Your aesthetic is guaranteed to get on-screen (for better or worse).
3) You are absolutely responsible for the life of the film (again, for better or worse).

The largest downside to wearing all the hats is the fractionation of your time and attention - none of the "hat" roles are actually performed at 100% potential when you have to do them simultaneously. I have a strong desire to be able to direct my next feature without having to line produce at the same time.

What type of camera did you use to shoot the film and what did you like about it .... and hate about it?

IGNATIUS: We shot on the Panasonic HPX500, shooting in DVCPROHD 720/24p. My camera operator had just purchased that camera, otherwise, we'd have been shooting on an HVX200 or something similar.

The 500 is a very nice camera; I was not (and still may not be) skilled enough to actually get out of the camera all it could do. We had very limited lighting resources and time, which continuously worked against us in creating our images. Currently I shoot with a Canon 7D and have some experience with the Red, both of which I really like and plan to shoot my next feature with - the only thing I didn't like about the 500 compared to the cams I was used to using (prosumer models like the DVX100) was the physical size of the thing. It's a broadcast form-factor camera, and I like to put cameras where human eyes don't comfortably fit, and that could be a tiny bit frustrating when you don't have fly-away walls to accommodate such particular camera angles.

What was the biggest obstacle you had to overcome to make this movie ... and how did you overcome it?

IGNATIUS: The largest obstacle was having hired a professional creature effects fabricator - whom I'd worked with on other professional productions - paying him to create a 1:1 scale puppet of the Lorlok (the titular creature) and then 10 days prior to our shoot date, having him vanish. He stopped returning phone calls and literally disappeared. So we were out the sum we'd paid (which was almost 20% of our budget) and we had no monster.

My plan, coming from a practical miniatures and fx background, was to shoot the creature in-camera with actors in real time because I specifically wanted to have the film "in-the-can" when we were done. At this point, I had already asked Brian if he'd co-produce with me, and now we had to make a pretty scary decision - do we scrap the shoot, all of our prep work, everything, to go find another creature fabricator and find the money to pay him, or do we smash ahead and shoot the movie with the hopes that we could somehow create a CG creature in post. We did the latter, of course, and it took a year to find an animator with chops that could afford to do the creature for points and experience.

A friend of mine, Sohail Wasif, designed and sculpted the Lorlok in a 3D software that I eventually discovered could be ported to Blender, an open-source (free) downloadable 3D animation package. So 18 months after filming, I was resolved to sit down and animate the creature myself in Blender. I went to the official Blender site and posted one question on there, something like "Hey, I need to animate a creature for my feature, I have the 3D model but no idea how to use Blender, could someone help me out with some pointers?" Immediately Roger Wickes responded, asking for the script and could he see other materials, etc. I sent him the script and he came back with, essentially, "I like this story! I'll do it for you." Holy cow, that was a pinnacle moment for sure! Turns out Roger does the tutorials on how to use Blender!

What was the smartest thing you did during production? The dumbest?

IGNATIUS: The smartest thing we did during production was give ourselves ample pre-production time - and use it, which we did. Brian and I dressed the location, walked through all the scenes with lighting tests, etc. for weeks before shooting. That is by far the most important part of any production - no prep, no flick.

I suppose the dumbest thing I did was pay that fx guy his budget entirely up front. Other than that, I think we were very responsible in making the film. I hit every one of our shooting days, we never went over budget or production time and I'm very proud of that.

And, finally, what did you learn from making the film that you can take to other projects?

IGNATIUS: I learned pretty much everything - it was an "all-hats" film school for sure. I will take the experience of making this film forever with me into larger budget productions.

I think the biggest, most important thing to realize is an actual philosophy, one that I tried to ingrain in my cast and crew: you have to be water, you have to flow around all obstacles. Because making a film is nothing more than solving a sequential stack of problems.

We just won Best Feature and Best Actor (Ivan Borntrager, Harrison) at the Idyllwild Independent Festival of Cinema! This was our first fest, and these awards are really incredible to have.

Chaplin's World of Sound

Charlie Chaplin became world famous in the era of pantomime. When movies were silent. (Even now, most people would probably be able to recognize his "Little Tramp".)

But, Chaplin had trouble when the reality of sound came to the movies. (Here's one of our old blog posts about how he didn't like all the sound gear needed to make a talkie.)

Once the Jazz Singer (1927) came out, all the studios were scrambling to come out with their own talkies. But not Charlie... His next two films -- The Circus (1928) and City Lights (1931) -- remained as silent films. The King of Pantomime couldn't make the switch. At least, not yet...

Then Chaplin released a film called Modern Times in 1936. When he began filming, Chaplin experimented with recording dialogue. But, ultimately he was unhappy with the results. So he abandoned -- yet again -- the idea of making a talkie. However, he did concede in a couple ways.

Modern Times is a movie about machines... And how machines are controlling our lives. The only "dialogue" in the movie comes from machines. The factory-owner barks out commands on a Star-Trek-like console (before Star Trek was even invented!). And there's the pre-recorded demonstration of the machine designed to feed the factory workers in an efficient manner.

By the end of the movie, Chaplin does something interesting. His Tramp "speaks" -- or rather sings -- for the first time on camera.

Yet it's not quite as straight forward as all that. Chaplin has another trick up his sleeve.

We've come to the part of the plot where the Tramp has finally obtained a job as a singing waiter. He's not very good at the waiter part and his boss tells him (via intertitle) that he better be a good singer. Then, while the Tramp prepares to go on stage for his turn, we get to watch and hear a snippet of the other singing waiters. The anticipation is building up to the Tramp's turn on stage. And here's where Chaplin thumbs his nose at us. (SPOILER!) The song is in gibberish. The Tramp has forgotten the words to the song he's supposed to sing. So... he makes up nonsense words.

And it works. For his audience in the movie world. And for us, the audience watching the movie. Even if we don't exactly understand what he's singing, we get the gist of the song. And the song is a delight to watch. (If you haven't seen it, watch the movie.)

This movie was the first time people heard the Little Tramp's voice. It was also the last time. Chaplin never made another movie featuring his well-beloved character.

[Photo by /pitzyper!]

Christopher Olness on "Satin"

What was your filmmaking background before making Satin?

CHRIS: When I was in 7th grade I had the choice of either sitting silently in study hall or taking a super-8 filmmaking class. I took the class and made a film about a punk rocker with a Mohawk who’s eyeball falls out of his head, bounces down the street and eventually lands in a martini glass.

Later, I studied communications at UC Berkeley, filmmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute and directing at the American Film Institute (AFI). My first cinematic job was working for George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) in the editorial department. I actually got to suit up as a Stormtrooper.

Where did the idea come from and what was the writing process like?

CHRIS: Satin began when actor/musician Hamilton von Watts approached me to develop a script about a down on his luck Vegas lounge singer. Hamilton was inspired by his friendship with west coast jazzman Teddy Edwards. I was drawn to the opportunity to tell the story of a struggling entertainer on the verge of slipping into obscurity - a cocky, smooth talking showman who had lost the joy of singing.

I was interested in exploring Satin’s world, the seedy side of Sin City most tourists to Vegas don’t see. But I also wanted to set up visual contrast by taking a hustler like Satin out of the bright lights and dropping him in the middle of the desert where plenty of “fish out of water” comedy could happen.

There’s just something about the desert that resonates with me. It could be from all those John Ford westerns or my own personal road trips through Nevada and Baja, Mexico. It could be the delight of departing from the cities many of us live in and entering a magical world where the sun sets a little slower and the drinks taste a little sweeter. What ever it was, the desert was calling.

Hamilton and I wrote the script together. Started with a strong outline and a binder full of notes, ideas and images. We’d meet in the morning for a few hours 4-5 days a week and bang out pages. I remember Hamilton pacing in character, full of energy. It was rewarding having an actor with his skills close by to improvise. We’d act out scenes and test dialogue. When the first draft was completed we took a breath and then jumped right in on another pass and then got the script in front of close advisors for feedback. With notes, we went back again, and again… until we felt we were there with it.

What are the three key requirements -- in your mind -- for making a successful movie for a small budget?

CHRIS: It depends on your definition of success. Because Satin was recently released, my mind right now is all about marketing and distribution. There’s success in reaching the audience and success in accomplishing what I set out to create. It is a goal of mine to make movies that are artistic and commercially successful - high quality movies that are both entertaining and thought provoking, for audiences around the world.

With that in mind, three key requirements are: 1) a solid script with a strong hook and universal themes that audiences can emotionally connect with; 2) casting talented and marketable actors; and 3) surrounding yourself with experienced and inspiring collaborators.

What's your advice for attracting well-respected, "name" actors to a low-budget project?

CHRIS: Unless you’re a big name director that actors are dying to work with, the script is what attracts talent. If you have a strong script the talent will come. Write characters that actors are dreaming to play - roles that test their chops, stretch their boundaries, win them awards… Write those roles and the actors will come.

You’re going to have to pay them, unless they’re in your family. But they might lower their fee for great material. The trick is getting to them, because they are busy, and some employ bouncers to deter offers that don’t pay for Bentleys. On Satin we worked with a highly-regarded casting director who agreed to help because of who we were and the material. I also had producers that were actors and they reached out to their friends.

I have this vision of a lonely actor sitting up in the Hollywood Hills looking out over the vast city. They have 4 weeks off between big studio pictures and they are growing restless. They want to come down and play. Make it easy for them to say, yes.

What kind of camera did you use and what are the pros -- and cons -- of using that system?

CHRIS: Satin was shot by D.P. Harris Charalambous on a Panavision camera, Super 35mm, 3 perf., Primo lenses.

The pros are it looks amazing - captures the fine details, rich color and handles shadows and highlights extremely well. The cost of film forces you to be well planned and very conscious about your coverage. On average, I did 3-4 takes only. Panavision Hollywood has always taken care of me - great customer service and support. Shooting 3 perf. was a way to burn a little less film and save some money.

Cons – In a low-budget situation the film costs don’t allow for much improvisation. The vibe on set is a little more serious, but that can be a good thing, makes people bring their A-game.

There are a lot of considerations that go into choosing camera package - the material, budget, mobility, desired feeling… Choose the best camera to serve the look of the story that fits within the budget. I generally rely on a strong D.P. like Charalambous, who is highly accomplished with both film and the latest digital cameras, to guide me. It is also important to think where will the life of the movie be -- Mann’s Chinese Theater - the Internet - or somewhere in between?

What was the smartest thing you did during production? The dumbest?

CHRIS: Besides getting a strong cast with recognizable faces that help sell the movie, one of the smartest things was taking a short break before heading to Vegas to shoot. We had shot for sixteen long days with only one day off and we were scheduled to drive from Los Angeles to the Mojave Desert and then to Las Vegas to finish. It was getting late, the crew was exhausted, and looking ahead not all the shooting logistics were nailed down.

But foremost, as Director, the crew’s well being is my responsibility, and I felt under the circumstances it was too dangerous to ask them to drive several hours in the dark. If someone fell asleep at the wheel it would be devastating... So I, with the backing of the other producers, decided to call it off. We regrouped fresh a couple weeks later, with a solid plan, skeleton crew, shot what we needed and it went smoothly. Can’t underestimate good moral and momentum.

The dumbest thing was not hiring a location scout. Inevitably on low budget movies everyone wears a lot of hats to save money, but finding and locking locations was harder and more time consuming than expected. In retrospect we should have hired a location scout. The money we saved was lost in valuable preproduction time.

And, finally, what did you learn from making the film that you can take to other projects?

CHRIS: I had previously directed shorts and commercials that only took a few days to shoot - you power through. A feature is a marathon. You have to pace yourself and keep the whole movie in sight while focusing on the moment-to-moment work. Here’s a thought, if I could get one more setup every day, at the end of an 18 day shoot I’d have 18 more looks -- 18 more pieces of gold.

http://www.satinmovie.com/

Never Too Much B-roll

What exactly is b-roll?

Let's begin with what b-roll is not. In documentaries, you usually film interviews with various people. B-roll is not the interview.

But if a documentary was just one interview subject after another, things might get boring. Do we (the audience) really want to watch a bunch of talking heads? That's where b-roll comes in. B-roll is the footage that you use to cutaway from the talking head.

B-roll is the footage of the professor writing on a white board in the lecture hall. It's the man and woman strolling down the garden path with their dog. It's the author sitting in the library, reading a book. It's the baker pulling bread out of the oven. It's the kid looking for seashells at the beach.

Get the picture?

And that's pretty much it. Picture. (Sound often doesn't really matter.)

One reason for b-roll is because people don't usually speak in nice sound bytes. Interviews can be long and unwieldy. A question is asked, and the answer sometimes needs a little bit of editing. Not because anyone has any intention to change the meaning of the interviewee's words, but to clarify their response. That means there'll be a cut. And because continuity won't match, you may wish to cut away to something else. That's where b-roll come in! This kind of footage can be used to cover up those edit points.

B-roll can also be used to clarify what the speaker is talking about. If an interviewee is talking about how the dog saved their life, you could show footage of the person interacting with the dog. Sometimes, it can also be used for symbolic meaning -- like rain on a windowpane to represent a feeling of sadness or depression.

No one wants to watch a documentary of one talking head talking right after another talking head. You need b-roll. And lots of it. There probably isn't an editor alive that ever claimed to have "too much" b-roll.

[Photo by tallpomlin]

April Showers Bring...

...A new look for the blog!

Yes, we decided it was time that the blog got some re-arranging. Hopefully it's a little less cluttered. And the white background is supposed to be easier on the eyes when it comes to reading the actual blog posts.

Leave a comment and tell us what you think! Like it? (Good. We like to hear that.) Hate it? (Is there any feature you miss? It's not too late to bring it back.) It doesn't look good in your browser? (Let us know so we can tweak it. We've tested the look in Firefox, Explorer, and Safari.)

By the way, if you're reading this in your email, please come on over and have a look at the "New Look" for 2011. http://amoonbrothersfilm.blogspot.com

[Photo by: bigcityal]

Dan Futterman on "Capote"

Where did the idea to write Capote come from?



DAN FUTTERMAN: I got interested in Truman Capote in sort of an oblique way, and it was almost incidental that it ended up being specifically about Truman Capote.



There was a book that my Mom, who's a shrink, gave me called The Journalist and The Murderer, by Janet Malcolm. It's about a case in California where a doctor named Jeffrey MacDonald was eventually convicted of killing his wife and children. Joe McGinniss was writing a book about him and eventually, when the book came out -- it was called Fatal Vision -- Jeffrey MacDonald sued Joe McGinniss for fraud and breach of contract.



Malcolm’s book is sort of a meditation on how could this happen. How could a convicted triple murderer sue the writer who's writing about his life? How could he convince himself that the writer was going to write something good about him? It dealt with the fact that the journalist is posing as a friend to get the subject to talk, and that the subject has hopes that he's going to be portrayed in a good light, and that the journalist is always playing off of that desire. The relationship is premised on a basic lie that's it's a natural relationship, and it's not, it's a transactional relationship.



That seemed interesting to me, and had there not been a TV movie made about that incident, I might have written about that.



Some years later I picked it up again and read it -- it's a pretty short book and I recommend it -- and just on the heals of reading that I read Gerald Clarke's biography of Capote, called Capote, and there are two or three chapters that deal with the period in his life where he was writing In Cold Blood and his relationship with Perry Smith.



I wanted to write about that kind of relationship and deal with those kinds of questions. The fact that it was Truman Capote was an extremely lucky accident, because he's fascinating in so many ways and he's so verbal and also was a man who was struggling with some real demons, I think, and that made the work I was doing that much more interesting and deeper.



You had the distinct advantage, as a beginning writer, of being married to a working writer. How did she help you in this process?



DAN FUTTERMAN: Although it doesn't seem like there's a lot of plot in the movie -- it's about a guy writing a book about an event that already happened -- but it is quite plotty when you get down to it. And she was clear and strict with me, saying "If there are any scenes where people are just talking about something that you think is going to be interesting, cut it, because if it's not moving the plot forward it doesn't belong in the script." And that was important to learn. And it was something that I had never considered.



I did an outline, somewhere between twenty and twenty-five pages with a paragraph for each scene, with dialogue suggestions. And the script came out probably 80% tied to that outline.



Did you take any classes or read any books on screenwriting before you sat down and wrote the outline?



DAN FUTTERMAN: No, I didn't take any classes. I read the Robert McKee book (Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting) that I guess everybody reads, and I found that pretty helpful --- his clarity about story. I think that was an important lesson for me to learn over and over again, that story is primary. Clever dialogue is not what it's about. It's got to ride on the story, and then you can hang stuff off of that.



And then it was just a matter of trial and error. And the lucky fact of having a subject who has been quoted as having said a lot of funny things, of which I put as many as possible into the screenplay.


The Other 39 Minutes

"When a documentary filmmaker... suggests that there has been a shooting ratio of 40 hours to every one hour of finished film, that doesn't mean that the other 39 are bad."

So says documentarian Ken Burns.

Anyone who's made a documentary will tell you that you tend to accumulate a lot of footage. You need to! Interviews and b-roll take up space. And when most of what you're shooting is NOT scripted, you're never quite sure what you're going to get.

Okay, so you usually have some sort of idea of where you want to go with your documentary before you begin filming. However, things can change. People can say or do things that take you in a slightly different direction.

One of the hardest things in editing a documentary is to figure out what NOT to put into the movie.

Ken Burns is right. It's not that it's bad footage. It's just that the documentary can be only so long. And you really should only use footage that helps move your story along.

So, what does happen to the other 39 minutes?

Unfortunately, onto the cutting room floor they go. (Although, in the age of DVDs, there's a little thing called Outtakes. So, some of those lucky minutes just might find new life there.)

Chris Brown on "Fanny, Annie & Danny"

What was your filmmaking background before making Fanny, Annie and Danny?

CHRIS: I started making movies at 9 or 10, pretty much as soon as my parents would let me take the old Super 8 camera out on my own. Filmmaking is really the only thing I've ever wanted to do. Throughout grade school into high school, I made dozens of typical kiddie Super 8 and camcorder flicks, 6th rate knockoffs of Hollywood stuff, bad horror spoofs, sci-fi epics, that kind of thing.

Although we didn't have anything like a film program in my high school (Amador High, Pleasanton, CA. Go Dons!) I had a few exceptionally cool teachers who let me turn in movies instead of essays in several of my classes. Man, I miss Super 8. There was something so magical about it. The darkened room, the chattering sound of the projector. Even the smell of the movie screen. Those old home movie screens, you know? They had this certain smell. Final Cut Pro just doesn't have that same smell.

Anyway, after high school, I enrolled in the film production program at SF State and have been doing it ever since - and by whatever means necessary. After school I worked as a DP for a few years, then gradually shifted to editing, which is my current day gig. I cut commercials, docs, dramatic stuff, corporate stuff by day so that I can satisfy my filmmaking habit by night. Fanny, Annie and Danny is my third feature.

Where did the idea come from and what was the writing process like?

CHRIS: The idea for Fanny, Annie and Danny unfolded around the idea of this developmentally disabled adult, Fanny. Daily life can be hard for all of us, even for those of us who have some resources. For those of us without resources, whether financial, emotional, intellectual or physical, the challenges of living from day to day are just exponentially more difficult.

I've met and known so many people in my life with certain kinds of slightly offbeat, highly original personalities, some have developmental disabilities, some not. And I've always wondered how they make it through the day, how they navigate through life, you know? This culture doesn't make it easy for people with disabilities. This film was largely my attempt to find out what it's like to be Fanny, to live in her world. But I didn't want to depict this person in the usual Hollywood way, where she would be portrayed as either wonderfully heroic or hideously pathetic. I hate that crap. I just wanted to show her as a person like any other.

What are the three key requirements -- in your mind -- for making a successful movie for a ridiculously small budget?

CHRIS: 1) Great Actors - Hire the best actors you possibly can find. Don't skimp on the time or effort it takes to cast your movie. Although I wrote the film for three of my friends, I held auditions for weeks and weeks until I was able to find the perfect, most amazing cast to fill out all the other roles. Let's face it, when you're watching a movie, the shot can go a little blurry for a second, the color can be off, the sound momentarily imperfect, but if the performance is riveting and true, the audience will be with you 100 percent. The opposite isn't true. If you cast one weak actor in the film, feature one bad performance, one false note, you can lose your audience fatally and permanently.

2) A Great Script - It's by now become a cliché that the three most important components of a successful film are "Script, script, and script." And in this case, the cliché is true. If your map is bad, you won't reach your destination. If your blueprint is faulty, you won't make a functional machine. All the fancy camerawork in the world won't compensate for a crummy script. Take the time and do the work to get it right. My favorite draft is usually Draft #47.

3) Infinite Flexibility and Openness - Once you have that great script and those great actors, be open and flexible at every possible juncture to new, better, more truthful, more dramatic, more personal, less formulaic possibilities at every moment. Being flexible is the secret weapon that indie productions have over major studio movies. Having written Fanny, Annie and Danny myself, I was freely able to change, refine and improve the script every day we shot. If a line was clunky or false or just plain stupid, we could change it on the spot. If we thought of a better way of doing something, we did it.

This kind of spontaneity is a luxury not often afforded blockbuster productions. If a major film crew out on location suddenly wants to move the camera across the street to take advantage of an unexpected change in the light, the traffic has to stop, the lighting and grip trucks need to be relocated, video village needs to be dismantled, moved and rebuilt, and on and on. If I want to move the camera across the street, I nod to my tiny crew, grab the camera and go.

What was the biggest obstacle you had to overcome to make this movie ... and how did you overcome it?

CHRIS: Honestly, I think that just overcoming my own fear and inertia was my biggest obstacle. It had been four years since I'd made my last film. I'd written a few scripts since then, recorded a CD (I'm also a musician), and I was dying to make this film, but I didn't know exactly how or when to go about doing it. The key for me was simply to set a start date and immediately get other people involved. Once that train began to move down the track, there was nothing stopping it. The machine took over and everything fell miraculously into place when it had to.

People always say of parenting that "It's never the perfect time to have a child," that the trick is in not waiting for that perfect moment, but to just do it. Although I'm not a parent, I can say that this adage is absolutely true about filmmaking. Don't wait years and years for the stars to wonderfully align, for the perfect budget, the perfect camera or whatever. Write something simple, true and from your gut, then go out and shoot it. Technology has taken away all of our excuses. Filmmaking is now simple again. Go do it!

What kind of camera did you use and what are the pros -- and cons -- of using that system?

CHRIS: We used the HVX200. Geez, I've shot miles and miles of footage with this camera, and I love many things about it. The pros are that it's light, easy to use, and produces good, robust images that can be highly manipulated in post. The cons for me include 1) Its ergonomics, which make it awkward to handhold without using some kind of stabilizing system, 2) The lens, which is fixed and therefore limited, and 3) The P2 system, which can be a bit cumbersome. We were fortunate enough to have three large P2 cards, so we didn't have to download any data during the day, but the ultimate download/injest time at day's end was sometimes maddening.

What was the smartest thing you did during production? The dumbest?

CHRIS: The smartest thing I did was to ask my friend, Jessica Heidt, to help me with the casting. Currently the Artistic Director of San Francisco's Climate Theater, Jessica was also the Associate Director at the Magic Theater for several years. Jess knows all the best actors in Northern California and she introduced me to some AMAZING people - people I can't wait to work with again.

The dumbest thing I did was to underestimate the challenges of working with my wife! My wife, Jill Pixley, and I met over a decade ago when I cast her in my first feature, Daughters. Since then, we've worked together in many other capacities, but never again as director and actor. I've wanted to work with Jill ever since, so I wrote this part for her. The thing is, I write in a bit of a vacuum. I don't discuss what I'm writing with anyone, even Jill, so one day when I handed her the script and said "Read this. You're playing Fanny," she sort of freaked out. I mean, it's not an easy part, to say the least, and I'd never even hinted that I was writing something for her, so she was taken completely by surprise.

Anyway, while she was sort of terrified by the prospect of playing Fanny, I was insulted that she wasn't just giddily happy to play the part! Jill even suggested a bunch of other actresses for the role, tried to get out of it any way that she could, but I sort of persisted. I mean, I wrote it for her; I wasn't about to audition anyone else for this thing. So she sort of agreed to do it.

Then once we got on the set, we had to figure out a way to work together again, not as husband and wife, but as director and actor. It was tricky. I don't know that we ever did figure it out, to be honest. In the end, Fanny isn't an entirely comfortable person, so that basic discomfort that Jill felt in playing the role became a fundamental part of the character. And this is the character you see onscreen. People have been hailing her performance all over the country. In fact, some people have confessed that they thought the character was real. Jill's just amazing in the role. She won BEST ACTRESS a few months ago at the San Antonio Film Festival.

And, finally, what did you learn from making the film that you can take to other projects?

CHRIS: 1) Have a single AD and a single sound recordist onboard for the entire length of the shoot. Because of our limited budget, some of our crew had to augment their time on our shoot with higher paying gigs (which I totally understood and supported). But ultimately, the production aesthetic and process works much more smoothly when people can take full ownership of their role and oversee a project from beginning to end.

2) When in doubt, do it! Don't wait to make that movie. Set a date and make it happen!

Porky Pig was a Method Actor

There are all sorts of actors out there. One type is the method actor. That's the actor who becomes the character they are playing.

Believe it or not, Porky Pig was a method actor.

Or at least his voice was. That is Mel Blanc, the man who supplied the voices for Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny, and pretty much every other Warner Bros. cartoon character.

Mel Blanc tells the story of his "audition" for the role of Porky in his autobiography That's Not All Folks. In the book, he recalls asking for a few days to research the role... The reason? "You know, Leon, method acting," he said to Looney Tunes producer, Leon Schlesinger.

Then, Mel Blanc drove out to a pig farm and gained permission from the owner to spend time with his pigs. "Once satisfied that I could translate a stout-bodied omnivore's grunt into a comical voice, I headed back to the office, to demonstrate for my boss the fruits of my intensive probe."

He gave Schlesinger what would become standard Porky Pig fare: "Bye-b--, uh-bye-b--, so lo--, uh-so lo--, auf Wiede--, auf Wiede-- Toodle-loo! ... Th-- uh-th-- uh-th-- that's all, folks!"

All that time with the pigs paid off! Mel Blanc got the job.

But as he was leaving...

LEON SCHLESINGER
Just one more thing, Mel.

MEL BLANC
Yes, Leon?

LEON SCHLESINGER
Go home and take a bath, will you?

IndieFilmFinanceModelV2011.1 : The Ten Factors

This entry was originally published at Hope For Film

Yesterday I went into some of the factors determining how the Model for IndieFilmFinanceV2011.1 may be set.  If you were taking notes you probably recognized that these are the factors, but I thought it was worth jotting them down for our cheat sheets:

1. Price point / negative cost below $5M;
2. “Estimated” Foreign Value at 80% or higher  of negative costs;
3. Track record of collaborators in US Acquisition market to project 25% of negative costs;
4. Utilization of Soft Money/Tax Benefits as revenue — not enhancement;
5. Manufacture desire: inject freshness & an ability to cut through the noise;
6. Predetermined & Accessible Audience;
7. Aura Of Inevitability= Polished Script+Show Reel or Look Book + _________?
8. Urgency of the deal;
9. Something old (proven genre)
10. Something new (fresh scent).

What does this all add up to?  Is there a formula we can use?  I think so.  Why don’t we just get to that tomorrow?

Co-Founders Kathleen Wilson & Rick Pagano on The Rikaroo Film Collective

What is the Rikaroo Film Collective?

Rikaroo is a way to connect people who are making independent films with the audiences who want to see them. And yes, we’re doing it for love, not money, though eventually we plan to make some, for ourselves and the independent filmmakers who join us. It’s the creation of industry professionals, operated by industry professionals. Most important, it’s curated. By industry professionals.

Why did you decide to start Rikaroo?

Two quick anecdotes:

1. Four weeks ago, we went to a packaging meeting at a top Hollywood talent agency. As the topic came around to the realities of today’s packaging/financing process, the agent, a well respected, veteran, said to us, “Most of us didn’t go into the business just to work on four-quadrant studio blockbusters.” This from a man whose agency is popularly depicted as the real-life spawn of the Evil Empire.

2. A friend from high school (not working in show business) recently asked us, “Why do you guys in Hollywood always make the same old thing?” We answered, “We do make other kinds of films. You just don’t get to see them very often.” We explained to him that the mandate of studios and large production companies is not art, but commerce. That independent films, as a rule, don’t make the kinds of profits that justify corporate operating costs, marketing costs, or release costs.

These are just two people, one an industry professional, the other a “civilian.” But we’ve mentioned these stories because we believe that their voices represent a swath of those who make movies, and those who watch them. There are people who went into this business to, as producer Joel Silver once said, “to buy art, not to make it.” But there are many more (including our agent acquaintance) who know that most of us in the movie industry want the opportunity to work on high-quality, smart films.

Our big studio movies are suffering from the “four-quadrant disease”—Spiderman 4, Iron Man 3, Xmen 6, crops of buddy movies and formula comedies. Don’t get us wrong: We’ve enjoyed working on some of them, as well as even watching them occasionally. But a steady diet of studio fare isn’t good for our brains. And we suspect it’s not doing wonders for the brains of our children, over the long haul.

The gorgeous secret of the film industry is that, with little fanfare, many of us continue to work on smaller, independent films, often at a fraction of our usual salaries. Not just actors and directors; cinematographers, costume designers, art directors; grips, gaffers, caterers. Sometimes, for nothing more than back-end profits that usually never materialize.

Some people think we do it because we’re nuts. Most of us, however, know that we’re doing it for love. We do it because we want to keep making interesting, intelligent, challenging films. And because we believe there’s an audience out there that wants to watch them.

What are your backgrounds?

Rick Pagano is President/CEO of Pagano/Manwiller Casting with over thirty years of experience casting theater, motion pictures and television. He has worked with directors such as Oliver Stone, James Cameron and Jerry Bruckheimer, cast over 70 studio and independent feature films, including Drugstore Cowboy, Hotel Rwanda and Gas Food Lodging, along with television projects, including 24, Chicago Hope, and Picket Fences and literally hundreds of theater productions across the United States.. He consulted for the Sundance Institute from 1994 through 2001, and also writes and directs plays. Richard has a B.A. from Middlebury College, MA from Columbia University and has completed coursework for a PhD from Columbia University.

Kathleen Wilson is a digital media consultant and member of the Adjunct Faculty in the ITP Program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts with over twenty years of experience in digital media. Previously, she was the co-founder, VP, Creative Director of Viacom Interactive, Executive Producer at Paramount’s Media Kitchen in Palo Alto, Design Director at MoMA for the Museum Ed Consortium, Multimedia Director at Bank Street’s Center for Children and Technology and co-designer, SimTown for Maxis/EA. Kathleen has a B.A. from Middlebury College, an MBA from TRIUM (LSE-London, HEC-Paris and NYU-Stern) and a PhD Human Development and Psychology from Harvard. She is the author of Rumer & Qix, a futuristic eco-fantasy for young adults.

Who's on your Board of Advisors?

Our board of advisors epitomizes the intersection of the entertainment, academic and technology sectors that are carving the future of filmmaking: award-winning producers, directors, writers, cinematographers, editors; film school faculty; and digital leaders.

They include twice-Oscar nominated director Sergei Bodrov (East/West, The Mongol); Executive Producer Larry Estes (Sex, Lies And Videotape, The Waterdance, Smoke Signals); director Jon Avnet (Fried Green Tomatoes, Red Corner, Up Close And Personal); DP John Bailey (The Big Chill, Silverado, Groundhog Day); editor Arthur Coburn (Spiderman, The Mask, The Cooler); Executive Producers A. Kitman Ho (JFK, Born On The 4th Of July, Platoon, Hotel Rwanda); Bonnie Curtis (AI, Saving Private Ryan); Stratton Leopold (Mission Impossible 2, Sum Of All Fears, The General’s Daughter); John Morrissey (American History X); John Tintori (Chair, NYU Grad Film); Clay Shirky (Social Networking expert); Ed Evans (Prod Manager, ATYPON digital content delivery), Marc Weiss (Exec Producer, P.O.V. and independent documentary distributor); directors/writesr/producers Randall Miller and Jody Savin (Bottle Shock, Nobel Son, Marilynn Hotchkiss); actress Rose Mc Gowan (Monkey Bone, Grindhouse, co-host of TMC’S The Essentials).

What do you see as the largest obstacles to your mission?

We need to show filmmakers that their power comes only from working with other professionals, in a mission-oriented endeavor, to help sustain a truly industry-curated site that doesn’t own the rights to the films, that allow filmmakers to retain autonomy over the fate of their creations. Rikaroo connects filmmakers and their audiences with one another by aggregating "the best films you've never seen" in an industry-curated site.

We’re living in the confluence of technological, creative and economic forces that are severely limiting the upside of independent film production, especially at the delivery end (distribution), where many of the smaller distribution houses have closed over the past five years.

Even as we emerge from the Great Recession, the marketing of large-budget studio fare, video games, TV and other streamed on-line content will inevitably drive eyeballs to the destinations that are supported with the most marketing dollars. Which will of course load the dice against independent films, which by their nature have limited marketing resources.

Of course, filmmakers (and their investors) want their films to make money. The casts and crews who have worked on these films at fractions of their usual rates (or sometimes even for free) will be eager to see their deferred payments (usually a percentage of profits). So naturally, these filmmakers and producers will tend to sign on with “distributors” who will own the content in exchange for dubious guarantees of exhibition in small, remote movie theaters or at on-line sites that have limited viewership. In hindsight, most filmmakers wish they’d chosen other strategies in their pursuit of at least a break-even position, let alone a profitable one.

So Mission Number One is: get good films seen. Connect them with audiences looking for interesting independent films. Which means making Rikaroo a destination-site for audiences, and for the filmmakers as well.

How can filmmakers get involved with Rikaroo?

We’re in the early stages of our endeavor. But we need your help, right now. We want to find the 50 best feature films that have never been seen by audiences, other than a few possible festival screenings. That feature film that you’re so proud of, the one that is still sitting on your shelf. That’s the film we want to see. And maybe we’ll want to put it on Rikaroo.com when it’s up and running, within the next few months.

If you already have a site for your film, great. Keep operating it. Our goal isn’t to take away potential income from what you can do yourselves. Our goal is: to aggregate eyeballs. To bring an industry-curated independent film viewing site to the digital world. Our only rule is: we want films that don’t have theatrical or video distribution. We want to give exposure to filmmakers, not corporations.

The filmmaker keeps the rights to his film; we don’t want to own them. There’s not enough money to cover the sweat equity that’s been put into your films. But we can help you get seen, and as our site grows, we’ll split the profits from the viewings of your film online.

Our mission, simply put, is this: to bring an industry-curated independent film viewing site to the digital world.

How can filmmakers get in touch with you?

You can get in touch with us at rikaroo@rocketmail.com. Then, after we’ve had a chance to view your film, let’s meet, or talk on the phone.

Just Facts and Drama

Exactly what is a documentary film?

Filmmaker Pare Lorentz defines a documentary film as "a factual film which is dramatic."

When most people think of documentaries, they probably think of the following: The kind of films made by Ken Burns (you know, the guy behind The Civil War (1990) and Baseball (1994); the kind you'd watch on PBS or Biography.) Or maybe Leni Riefenstahl (of Nazi propaganda films like Triumph of the Will). And most likely, they'd add Michael Moore to the list (his documentaries are basically political commentary -- Roger and Me (1989), Bowling for Columbine (2002), and a whole lot more!). Or perhaps Morgan Spurlock (of Supersize Me (2004) fame).

If you take Lorentz's definition -- that all a documentary needs is facts and drama -- then some of these don't quite match up. Maybe they have lots of drama, but aren't so factual. Or some might argue that the facts line up neatly, but... well... they find the film not dramatic enough for their tastes.

Yet, perhaps it's not really a bad thing to have different approaches to documentaries. A fan of Michael Moore may not necessarily get into a Ken Burns documentary, but there are plenty of Ken Burns fans out there, awaiting his next epic. Some people can't stomach Michael Moore's tactics, but may really like... well, you get the picture.

But wait! These are not the only documentary filmmakers out there!

There are a lot of other documentaries... On a whole slough of topics, in a variety of different styles. With plenty of facts and drama.

Just not necessarily always together in the same film.

James Kerwin on "Yesterday Was a Lie"

What was your filmmaking background before making Yesterday Was a Lie?

JAMES: I got my degree in Film from T.C.U., but I actually hadn't directed film in a while. I had done a student feature, a short, and some things like that.

I'd primarily focused on directing theatre for several years before Yesterday Was a Lie. But I missed film; and, as a director, I missed the palette that you have when you're working in a medium that "records" the art, as opposed to the ephemerality of theatre. In theatre, you're at the mercy of your actors once the curtain goes up. So it's a powerful medium for the actor, definitely.

But film was my first love, so I was glad to be able to get back into it and direct my first commercial feature, which is Yesterday Was a Lie.

Where did the idea come from and what was the writing process like?

JAMES: The idea really came from an image... a shot that suddenly came to me one day. It was of Bacall playing Bogart's role; a female noir detective, lonely, wandering the streets. That grew into the concept of using noir tropes -- as well as metaphysical, science-fiction motifs -- as metaphors for the way our minds and hearts experience reality, time, memory, love, and loss.

The writing process was isolated but also collaborative, if you'll excuse the oxymoron. Film is strange that way. I think it is an auteur's medium, certainly, but also one in which you have to strike a balance, because you're ultimately collaborating with a crew, actors, producers, etc.

So I worked on an early draft of the script for about a year, I'd say; and during that time, I bounced a lot of ideas off the film's co-producers, and especially Andrew Deutsch, one of the co-executive producers and occasional writing partner of mine. I didn't do a treatment for this particular script -- for whatever reason, that tends not to work well for me. But I didn't rush into the script at all. A lot of long walks were involved. I think I let my subconscious take over for a while, and just let the words flow.

The script was revised many times before production. MANY times. After Kipleigh was cast as Hoyle, that affected some of the dialog as well... working with her, I altered lines or beats within scenes.

Ultimately, I wanted the film's dialog and performances to have a rather blunted affectation... to suggest a world that is not quite real; familiar but somehow a little "off." Once we got on set, it was pretty much locked. There was only one line of dialog changed during production, I believe, at the request of an actor.

And in post, a couple lines were cut. In fact, after screening an early cut on the festival circuit, I was able to monitor audience reaction and see what was playing well, and where there were lulls in the pace. So I made some further, relatively minor changes to dialog before the commercial theatrical release.

What are the three key requirements -- in your mind -- for making a successful movie for a small budget?

JAMES: Time, efficient planning, and commitment.

If you have a small budget, you don't want that to show in the "look" of the film. We didn't let that happen. We wanted the mise-en-scene, the music, the sound to be of high production value, and I think we achieved that. But you have to have a lot of time in advance to prepare for such things.

We spent years developing this project, several months of full-on pre-production, and over a year of post. That made up for the fact that we only had four weeks to shoot a film that was extremely visually ambitious and involved over 50 different story locations.

I storyboarded every shot in the film, so we didn't waste time on set figuring out details. I knew them all going in. We shot little or no coverage, because we just didn't have time. That's the same thing Shane Carruth did with Primer. And when you do that, you better have the entire film already finished in your mind, so you know precisely what you have to shoot, and what you don't.

I also spent a lot of time with the actors in the months leading up to production, fleshing out their characters and adjusting the script accordingly.

How did you achieve your film noir/black and white look?

JAMES: Our DP, Jason Cochard, is incredibly talented. We shot with a Panavised Sony CineAlta camera, and desaturated the color in post. I worked with our designers to ensure that the colors of objects were such that Jason could manipulate the individual color channels digitally in post-production, prior to removing the color completely. That allowed us to adjust the gamma, brightness, and contrast of individual objects or faces within each shot. So basically, we used tones on-set that would look good in black-and-white, but looked awful in color! Some of the color production stills are rather funny to look at.

We also did subtle things, to mimic the way that lenses and film stocks from the 30s and 40s picked up light. Vignetteing... soft halos around the whites... things like this.

What was the biggest obstacle you had to overcome to make this movie ... and how did you overcome it?

JAMES: The biggest obstacle in making the film was the budget, and we overcame that with planning and perseverance.

The biggest obstacle in releasing and marketing the film is probably the fact that it's designed for a niche audience. That was a conscious choice on my part. This is not a film for everyone; although the critical response has been 80% positive, we've found that audiences either love it or hate it. Which is exactly what I'd anticipated.

So when you have a film that you know is going to play well to specific demographics, it's a challenge for the distributor to market it. One way we're doing that is by creating a spin-off web series, focusing on some of the smaller characters in the story, which premiered in January. And we're still looking for an overseas distributor -- as of now, the film's only been released in North America.

Despite the challenging material, I wanted to make this film as my first movie, because I knew I'd probably never have the chance to do it again. And if you don't come out of the starting gate with something new and different -- if you start off by making yet another 90s-style twenty- or thirty-somethings indie character drama -- you'll get lost in the pool.

What was the smartest thing you did during production? The dumbest?

JAMES: The smartest thing was, again, careful preparation. Creative use of space. When you have a film with over 50 locations in the script, and you have 26 days to shoot, you have to be extremely clever with your design and shot composition, because there's no way you'll actually be able to go to 50 different places.

The noir style worked in our favor, actually, because film noir was sort of the original "indie" film. When John Alton immigrated to the U.S., he had a difficult time getting funding for his movies. So he shot them in a style in which sets drop off into darkness; where camera angles and stripes of light set the mood, rather than huge locations.

I can't think of anything particularly "dumb" that we did, although there's something that caused us a major headache. It was planned, and done with the full knowledge of the difficulty it would later entail, because I felt it was a critical creative choice. Specifically, I'm talking about the fact that Chase Masterson's character sings actual, licensed jazz songs in the film.

It's an understatement to say that music licensing is very, very difficult. But I didn't want to have these gorgeous shots and actresses, and then have the music be "fake," sound-alike music. If the film didn't have the genuine articles, it would be lacking. So we licensed classic songs like "Where Do You Start," and I think that makes a huge difference.

Fortunately, we've gotten a fair amount of press in the jazz community, and now a soundtrack deal with La-La Land Records. So that's the plus side to using pre-existing songs. The downside is that it costs a lot of money and time, and is a logistical nightmare.

And, finally, what did you learn from making the film that you can take to other projects?

JAMES: Never to do another film on this budget!

Seriously, though... making a film for this little money is so exhausting -- it takes so much out of you -- I couldn't imagine doing it again. But I did learn to maximize my resources, be efficient, and plan plan plan.

If you continue to do those things, then even with a slightly higher budget than we had on Yesterday Was a Lie, you can create material that looks a lot more expensive than it really is.

Quit Throwing the Good Stuff Away

As legend has it, Walt Disney wander his studio long after everyone else had gone home. The reason? To take a look at the work of his animators... even to the point of going through their waste paper baskets.

There is a story where an animator came to work in the morning to find a crumbled sheet that had been rescued from the trash with this message from the boss scrawled on it: "Quit throwing the good stuff away!"

Sometimes, we too take heed of Disney's advice.

Some of our current film projects are documentaries. Editing documentaries are a little different than doing feature films. With a documentary, you're usually not working with a hard and fast script. And when you're filming, you never know exactly quite what you're going to get.

So, in the editing room, that means there's a lot of footage to wade through. Some of it is great. Some is good. And then there's the footage doesn't seem to be very useful to the project at hand. The trick is to figure which footage is gold, and which is not.

Sometimes, you go back and discover the good stuff has been "thrown away"...

Luckily, since all the editing these days takes place on computer, it's not like the trash gets emptied out until the project is completed.

Sometimes you know the footage exists; but the key is to find it again!

Eric Mendelsohn on “3 Backyards”

When we spoke about the writing of Judy Berlin, you said that the script came about from collecting ideas and characters that come together during an eclipse. Was there a similar collection process for 3 Backyards and how did the script grow and change as you prepared it for production?

ERIC: When I was writing 3 Backyards, I was always thinking of glittering light, prisms and sun flares. I encourage myself not to fully understand why I am obsessed with things like that, and trust that my subconscious knows better. I was also thinking about hidden areas- behind tool sheds, beneath rotting leaves, in the dark corners of rooms. Don't ask me why. The finished film is replete with these spaces.

The characters came concurrently. They are all very internal people. Hidden types. John, the male lead played by Elias Koteas, is shut down, cold, inexpressive. Edie Falco plays Peggy, an outwardly sunny yet somewhat cloaked suburban housewife. And then there is Christina, the 7-year-old girl in the film. Though too young to be actively involved in a masquerade in any adult sense, by the end of the day she has taken the leap into worldliness that is the beginning of that journey.

You mentioned during the Judy Berlin interview that writing about people in the suburbs -- with cars and homes and all that -- made it hard to produce the film on a small budget. And yet, here you are doing it again with 3 Backyards. What did you learn from Judy Berlin that made it easier to shoot in the suburbs on a small budget?

ERIC: Everything- literally every thing- in the film is borrowed.

At one point in the film we see Edie Falco sitting at an easel in her backyard painting. The backyard and the house are loaned by total strangers to the film, the easel was mine, the painting Edie is painting was done by a local artist, the paints were donated by Grumbacher and the potted plants that surround the yard were lent for the day by a Northport florist.

I want my next film to be about a poor person who renounces, maybe for religious reasons, owning objects of any kind.

What are the advantages -- and disadvantages -- of creating a story that all takes place on one day?

ERIC: Everything about shooting a feature that supposedly takes place in one day sucks. The fact that a group of 40 grownups (crew members) spends the good part of every day praying for good weather like something out of Dances With Wolves is horrible. Footage doesn't match, hair and clothing is a misery to match. Then again- one outfit per person is a godsend!

One piece of advice that you said in our last interview -- to shoot fewer takes of the same shot, but instead to do more camera set-ups -- is advice that I often lead with when talking to film students. (That and the idea of putting your keys in the refrigerator when you unplug it while shooting, to ensure that you remember to plug it back in before leaving the location, are two of the best film tips I know.) What advice do you give your film students before they launch into shooting their first feature?

ERIC: Know the story. In the end, audiences don't care about the bleach bypass process, they don't care about the crane shots, they don't care about the funny anecdotes about how you sold your liver to get money to make the film. That is all bullshit. They crave characters and story and surprise and satisfaction.

What was the smartest thing you did while making 3 Backyards? The dumbest?

ERIC: The smartest thing I did on 3 backyards was offering the parts to the finest actors working today- Edie Falco, Elias Koteas, Embeth Davidtz, Danai Gurira, Randi Kaplan, etc. I knew what I had in the script was a study of human beings in odd, queer little situations. There is no such thing as a good movie with lousy acting.

The dumbest thing I did on the film...hmmm...I don't yet have the distance to comment on that. And maybe it's not a mode of thinking I want to entertain right now. I think the film got done because I was aware and awake and conscious during production. It would feel weird to call some good, honest part of the process "dumb" right now. I dressed poorly. I am a slob.

Finally, what did you learn making this film that will help you make the next one?

ERIC: What I learned making this film not only changed the experience for me- it changed my entire outlook on creativity. The ability to make artwork is a real privilege (as opposed to let's say, digging ditches or working outside in the cold on a telephone line). I was so inspired by all my students (I teach at the Columbia University Graduate Film Program) working for free or for peanuts and all the homeowners donating so much. Who would whine in the face of all that?