Making "Pork Chop Night" - (Part 1: Production)

Let’s have a little discussion about Production; is there a standard way to make a film? The answer is an overwhelming NO.

On May 1^st and 2^nd I shot my short film “Pork Chop Night”. I wrote and directed it (I haven’t shot anything of my own in almost 4 years) and through Kickstarter I was able to raise $1,000 to fund it. The script was 18 pages. We shot it in just two days- two 8 hour days (not full days by traditional industry timelines). In those two days I was able to get all the shots I wanted and then some, I was able to get the performances I wanted from my actors and then some, I got some gorgeous lighting and sound…

18 pages… 2 days…

The more common belief is 4 to 5 pages a day when making a film. And sometimes, depending on the production, that is the case. Location moves can take up to whole hours away from your day; depending on the amount of gear, you’re looking at an average of maybe half an hour to break down the gear and pack it, up to half an hour to move, and another ten to fifteen minutes to load into the new location and another half hour to set up (again, depending on your gear). I had one location for Pork Chop Night. My crew was incredible; all people I’ve worked with before. They’re very professional, very experienced and were more committed to getting me the shots I wanted than I was expecting. I was worried about aggravating them to move a set up because of our tight time constraints (our lead actor, Phil Berry, was in a play an hour away), but they were more than willing to take the time to get the shots I wanted and to make them look good, and thanks to my incredible Gaffer, Brandon Meadows, they look great. The boy can light a set like I’ve never seen and he’s not willing to settle for “good enough”. The last thing I wanted was even the slightest shred of anger, frustration or aggravation on set, because that spreads like a virus- faster than a virus, and you’ll never really get the top quality you’re looking for, so I tried to make the set as lax (yet professional) as possible, I think we achieved that and also had some fun. Long story short; I like working with these guys, they like working each other, I want to do it for every production, and most importantly, we actually have fun together.

All funding went to paying crew and data storage, that’s it.

I had a very small crew:

1 x DP – Mikel Wisler (also my editor)

1 x 2^nd Camera/1^st AC – Bryant Naro (not part of my original plan, but a great bonus)

1 x Gaffer – Brando Meadows (If you don’t hire this man, you’re a fool)

1 x G&E Swing – Brian O’Connor

2 x Sound Crew (Boom and recordist) Mike Lamantia, Jr. & Frank Raposo

1 x Part Time Still Photographer – Diane St. Laurent (who also provided the food)

So that’s a crew of 7 people.

What I didn’t have:

An AD

A 2^nd AD

A Production Manager

A Script Supervisor

Production Assistants

A Production Designer (although Robert Jachim gave his opinion on my art direction, as well as some amazing Storyboards done by Tara Howe)

Did I need these missing crew members? Not really. It would have been great to have them, but the Production suffered no loss in their absence.

As for my actors:

Phil Berry

Jen Arvay-Kefalas

Tyler Scotti

James McCoy

Charles Lafond

THE ACTORS

The actors gave me the performances I needed. My method for directing actors has changed over the years and definitely varies project to project. For this short, I gave them the background they needed to understand their actions, but allowed them to develop their own personalities. I’m a minimalist in that regard; I will rarely tell them what I want, but I will definitely, always tell them what I DON’T want. I believe that’s the best way to allow them to develop themselves for this project. If what they gave me didn’t work or didn’t fit, we did another take and by telling them what I thought didn’t work, they were able to portray what I was looking for; even going beyond.

Tyler and James, the child actors, were much more intuitive than I was expecting. I had only one problem; James (who was also a backup for another child actor) would often look at the camera, so we did the most takes with him more than any other actor, but I was able to get what I needed from him and then some. He had what I can only describe as “a reserved and thoughtful cuteness” that was inescapable. So much so that he couldn’t turn it off, and that only became an issue in one scene where I had originally hoped to have him be a bit “meaner” However, thanks to the quick wit of Jen, she was able to work his cuteness into the scene and it actually came off as more organic and natural than I had originally written.

Tyler had an incredible energy and was anything but camera shy. He hit every note right on and memorized his lines with incredible ease. He and James were the perfect “Good Cop, Bad Cop” pair of brothers and had wonderful chemistry together.

Phil and Jen also had a great chemistry. Due to Jen not being local, this was the first time they had actually been in the same room; they really had no rehearsal and after the first scene they had together, you’d be hard pressed to tell. Phil has a natural temperance that I was extremely happy to see and lucky he possessed; it gave him a natural connection to his character; a husband and father with a secret he was ashamed of, but should really have been anything but. When he needed that temperance, he had it full on, when he needed to turn the energy on to be on the offense, he had that hidden under his welcoming smile. He gave me a performance I had hoped for and definitely one I was not expecting; I couldn’t be happier. Phil also gave us one of the most memorable bloopers I think I’ve ever seen, so I’ll try and put that up on YouTube and Facebook as soon as possible.

Jen, I had worked with before. I knew what to expect, I knew what I was getting and I also knew she could do things I wouldn’t expect. She was never once shy to express her opinions, which I always welcome (and prefer) and, like Phil, would always hit the note we were looking for. She had a naturalism that allowed for Phil to play off of very well. Both actors wanted to give me more than one style of delivery, whether to flex their own muscles or to test my limits, and I couldn’t be happier.

Also, a special mention to Chuck Lafond for just being Chuck, which is all he needed to be for the role he literally “phoned in”.

THE CREW & THE SHOTS

I can’t really talk about the crew and the shots without referencing the other. I have nothing more than praise for my crew. I had worked with all of them before and they get better all the time.

Lets start with the camera. Mikel Wisler had recently purchased a Canon t2i, which he shot one short film with before “Pork Chop Night”. He was initially supposed to be the only camera, but through Brandon Meadows, we also welcomed Bryant Naro to set with his Canon 7D. (Both the t2i and 7D are the new video DSLRs) Naro had been doing a lot of test shooting with his camera and was very, very eager to actually shoot a project on it so he was more than happy to drive down from New Hampshire and help us out.

Both Mikel and Naro knew those cameras in and out, and sweet lord, it showed. We moved from sticks to handheld so frequently that their setups were less than a minute, their focus pulls were possibly record breaking and their ideas were always taken and put into place, I don’t think I ever said “No” more than once, and that one instance was simply because of a matter of time. Their handheld work is really something else. Most of the shots were on sticks and handheld. We had 1 jib shot and 2 dolly shots, although I had originally planned three, my lack of any cohesive shot list made me forget about it, however, we actually filmed the same scene in a different and simpler, more straightforward way, and I actually like that better.

However, the beauty of these shots were not simply camera, but also lighting. [I’ll admit that I actually have a handicap as a filmmaker; I’m colorblind (although I’ve always felt it should be called Color Confused)- I do horrible with flesh tones & shades, and I’m absolutely blind when it comes to color temperature (unless its extreme).]

Brandon and Brian were a great team, and as I said before, Brandon can light a set like no one I’ve ever worked with and with time to spare. We were somewhat limited with our equipment, but honestly, you’d never be able to tell. Brandon is quite receptive and was able to interpret my sometimes inarticulate desires for shots. Well, actually, let’s not be that self deprecating, as the clock ticked closer to Phil’s departure time, I became less descriptive in what I wanted, but again, Brandon could easily tell what I wanted, which was really nothing complex. He could also communicate with Mikel and Naro very well. They merged into an unbeatable camera department, the T-1000 of camera departments.

For sound we used a boom. Originally I wanted to use lavs as well, but after talking with Mikel and Mike, we decided against it for mostly practical reasons. Rather than go on and on about how great a job Mike and Frank did, I’ll keep it simple, perhaps the most simple and descriptive compliment when it comes to Sound in a film; it didn’t suck. Audiences of all types can follow just about any kind of cinematography and camera work, but they really can’t forgive bad sound, and I don’t blame them; I’m with them 100 percent. Nothing says amateur more than bad sound. Nothing. My biggest fear on anything I work on is sound. Especially in New England. Outside of Boston, good sound is hard to find. The experienced crew pool is quite small, but there was no chance in Hell I’d risk bad sound, so I scoured the North East looking for good sound and found it in Mike and Frank. We have yet to edit the film, so I can’t speak to the final product, but the mix I heard on set was music to my ears and one could easily pick up ambient sounds that should be more than easy to fix. So again; the sound didn’t suck!

Also, a special thanks goes out to Diane St. Laurent and Steve Lisi for providing food and taking some stills. I would have done the food myself if they hadn’t volunteered, and that would have taken some time.

WHAT I WANTED TO ACHIEVE

My initial motivation for shooting this short was simple; its been almost 4 years since I shot something of my own, I’ve been a work-for-hire on everyone else’s projects for so long now and I was going absolutely nuts. I needed to recharge my batteries and shoot something, and soon, or I might have started to slide and get complacent, and we can’t have that, no sir.

The plot is relatively simple; a husband is hiding something from his wife, and while she tries to get it out of him, the kids are left unsupervised with the house to themselves. The kids and adults go through a role reversal. I missed working with actors, so I wanted to shoot something with some dialogue. This short isn’t anything experimental (don’t worry, I’ll do some crazy experimental stuff soon, believe me) and I wasn’t pushing any boundaries. I wanted to give audiences something they can relate to, something simple with simple humor and some beautifully composed shot. I wasn’t trying to say anything more than wanting people to think about how they talk to each other and how much time they put into what other people might think about what they think about. There’s nothing dark in this Short, nothing demanding, I’m not asking much from my audience other than their attention and appreciation for our work. We want to take this to festivals and get it to the right audiences, not EVERY audience, but the right ones; the ones who, again, appreciate the little things and would like a good chuckle at the antics kids can go through when unsupervised.

I couldn’t be happier with the shots we got, the work we did and the team we had. I look forward to having all of you see it.

Kickstarting 2010: "...all the way to the end" - A Personal Note

This will be the first personal entry for me on this Blog; a break from the tradition of news and analysis. I have spent a great deal of time in the past few years (8) working for other people and not enough time working with other people, or for myself. 2010 has reared its head and has already shown me that it represents a paradigm shift for me on a great level. Despite all the travel over the more recent years, I have felt trapped. Overall, 2007 was horrible, it took me away from my Home under the illusion that it was on my terms, but the reality was anything but and it left me isolated and alone. 2008 wasn't much better, but I laid the foundation for something great. 2009 was an improvement, but not until the final quarter, when all the pieces I've been playing started falling into place. The first two weeks of 2010 have shown me that my greatest attribute is not a talent or a honed skill or even my strange ability tell you how long you've been cooking something on the stove for, rather, it is my patience and my ability to put my faith in the right people.

At the end of 2009 I spent some time at an amazing writer's lab where I began work on a second screenplay and put the finishing touches on another (Our Last Days As Children). And even though my partners and I have been working hard to continue to raise funds for Our Last Days As Children and it has seen many drafts, I have never ended a draft with a sense of finality, until now. I believe I have the writer's lab to thank for that as well as invaluable input and support from others. Its there now. Its ready. So confident am I in that, that I have written it down for the record. And we're ready. We have the plan, we have the knowledge, we have the right people and the right places, all that's left to tie up is just this one loose end; the rest of the financing, which we are confident about.

So why the paradigm shift? What is so different? Well, its simple really: The cycle has been broken. The cycle of hope and disappointment, more hope and more disappointment, of goals and constant defeats; it is ending. The short that I wrote that got me into the writer's lab (Pork Chop Night) is no longer just a script. I have decided to shoot it. I'm using Kickstarter, a resource which allows people from anywhere in the world to contribute to a project, whether its a game, a website, a service, a studio recording or a film. And although the project is new to the site, it has already garnered enough to support to happen. For lack of a better term, I'm fucking humbled by the support of the people I have connected with over the years. When I finally decided to do something for myself, they supported it in a very real, very tangible and fundamental way. Again, I'm fucking humbled. Previously, whenever I had even the slightest thought or the mumbled even the faintest whisper about doing something for myself, the Universe made it very clear to me that it was not going to happen through the various ways the Universe does that. This is the first time it has happened in more years than I care to mention.

And even more is the fact that because they contributed, it is OUR project, not just mine, and it feels so much better knowing that. Where I once felt tired, I now feel committed, and convinced that I've been doing the right thing all along and will continue to do the right thing all the way to the end.

10 Questions with Writer Raz Cunningham

Part 2 of our Q & A with the team behind "Our Last Days As Children"


Q: Where did this story come from?

Some of it stems from the power of words and how they sometimes try to define the indefinable, some of it comes from the constrictions of law, but most of it comes the intimate nature of why people make specific choices. A majority of this country’s laws are Tax & Trade related but there are some laws that affect every aspect of someone’s life, that fundamentally shape them whether they know it or not. There are invisible walls all around us; things we can and can’t do, places we can and can’t go; rarely do we ever try to do a little remodeling, and when we make those changes, IF we make those changes, is when we grow up. It’s like an electric fence; the dog knows he can’t cross that invisible line, so he lives his life inside of those unseen borders.

I’ve always felt that part of growing up has a lot to do with doing things on your own, having your own views and values, but most importantly, having not just the knowledge of who you are but why you are the person you are; what made you that way. Just because you’re legally an adult doesn’t mean that you’ve grown up. I also think that how we define things is a big part of who we are. We define them in relation to ourselves. If you think about it, it’s really kind of strange how we let intangible things that aren’t really there shape us.

Q: Why and how did you come to bring it to Two Sisters' Productions, Inc.?

I met Toni Ann Baker and Diane St. Laurent in 2007 while working on another feature. They mentioned they were looking for a feature to produce, so I went through the few stories I had, chose what I thought to be the most viable one at the time and brought it to them. Toni Ann had read it first and called me late at night, woke me up, actually, after she had just read it. “I want to make this script, whatever it takes” was probably the only phrase I remember from the conversation. She handed it off to Diane and she said the same thing. I was so excited that the one script I thought would be the worst received was received so well.

They’ve been nothing but great. They’re sisters; they act like sisters and, as odd as the implications might sound, they show their complete honesty in those moments and it makes me feel safe and comfortable. Diane’s been a great partner to collaborate on the script with and Toni Ann brings incredible insight into the things that Diane and I sometimes miss, which can occasionally be a lot. Together we’ve created a fantastic team of cast and crew, it’s really something special.

Q: What have been the highs and lows during the development stages?

The low was searching for funding. We’ve been searching for a long, long time. The energy and time it takes is a nothing short of a testament to hope. Luckily our efforts have paid off and we’ve raised the majority of our budget, just going back to look for that final chunk. The high has been Revision, plain and simple. I’ve created real people and developed them. I feel responsible for them. It’s a good feeling.

Q: How similar is our world to the world you created.

With the exception of one scientific “fact” it’s exactly the same. In order to make the story work I had to take creative liberty and make the declaration that in this new Universe our biology works a certain way. People always want fiction to conform to their ideals rather than its own internal logic and easily confuse the two.

Q: What audience reactions are you hoping to achieve with this story?

There’s absolutely no question that this film will be seen by two completely different types of people. The most common reaction I’m expecting is for people to discuss the law itself. It’s a controversial issue so naturally there are going to be two diametrically opposed views on it; in favor of and against. That’s what the mainstream will take away from it for sure, which is perfectly fine. I want people to engage in discussions about the nature of identity and humanity as well as civil liberties. People do it every day in very small ways, they just don’t realize it.
I’m really hoping to see how people react to it as a piece of art, beyond the political, and how they connect with these characters. This is a film, and film is art. We’re going to show you things that you’re most likely going to miss the first time around and that’s okay, because you don’t always see art the same way twice. We don’t want to spoon feed the audience and we sure as hell want to make sure they feel that we respect their intelligence. This film is going to be a lot of different things to a lot of different people. There are going to be many, many different interpretations of a lot in this film, and that’s great because that’s kind of the point, to show that reality itself is subjective.

Q: How would you articulate the themes of this story?

I’m happy you asked “themes” and not “theme” because this film isn’t about just one thing, there isn’t just one theme. The days of the Script Girl from “Sunset Boulevard” saying movies “should say a little something” are over. But I’ll be as blunt as possible, our themes are: Truth in Intimacy, Sacrifice, Identity, Responsibility, Growing up, Interpretation, Language, Choices & Control, and most of all, how both being Loved and Loving can affect us. We’re asking some very tough questions, and we’re not really doing it through dialogue, but rather visuals and subtext. My hope is that the audience will see that even though words themselves are carefully constructed to articulate complicated ideas, the basic and most important aspects of humanity are so much simpler and often don’t need to be spoken at all, that words really do just get in the way sometimes.

Q: What’s the connotation behind the title “Our Last Days As Children”?

It’s two-fold. It applies to our culture within the film as well as the individual characters. Children are dependent; they’re not in control of their own lives. Within the film, society now has the ability to control its own nature and the characters spend a great deal of time growing as people. They’re all different ages. The truth of our society is that sometimes younger people are wiser than their elders. Does wisdom constitute adulthood? Does experience? I don’t know, but that question is woven throughout the film. I’m hoping that audience will asks themselves the same questions.

Q: How did you develop these characters?

I wanted to take a very intimate look at people in their most vulnerable moments, juxtapose those same people in their strongest moments and explore how in the hell they get from one moment to the other. The best way to do that is make them as human as possible, as flawed as possible. Some of these characters are broken people and some of them are rebuilding themselves without even knowing it.

Just the other day I read an article about a man in Florida who choked his girlfriend during an argument about how to load a dishwasher. I understand the draw of that headline, but the more interesting thing to me is what the hell happened to this man that he made this choice at this time in his life? Clearly that argument was about more than just the dishwasher’s penetration issues, there was some deep history these two had. The other question you have to ask is “does it matter how to load a dishwasher?” I remember having an argument when I was about 6 or 7 years old with another kid about which foot which sock goes on. To me, it didn’t matter, to her, it did, so it seems like we’ll always have those childish moments no matter our age; kind of makes you wonder adulthood is really just a sliding scale.

I’ll also be the first to admit that some scenes in this film are dialogue heavy, I wrote them that way for a reason, while other scenes are not, but they coincide with which character is or is not doing the speaking. I’m hoping that people pick up on the nuances of the certain choice of words a character makes, their movements, as well as their positioning in location to others and objects around them; body language says so much more than words do. We also have to acknowledge that words themselves speak volumes about people. Certain people speak certain ways. Certain people dress certain ways. You can usually tell who went to Harvard and who didn’t, but you never really get to see WHY. I wanted to explore that, to explore why people do and don’t make choices.

Q: Did you feel any pressure writing this script?

I did feel pressure, but only in terms of production. I knew where I was in my career, the connections and resources I had, what I could and could not do logistically speaking, so I wrote the script economically in that regard. Some might see that as a restriction, but I didn’t. It also played into setting. Luckily our intimate moments usually happen in our intimate places, so the Shooting Locations weren’t uncommon. This story has no need for special effects, explosions or CGI. Outside of that, I could say whatever needed to be said however I wanted to say it. We’re making this film outside of the studio system, so we can be as bold as we wanted to and make a lot of creative choices that studios would see as risky because they’re different from their usual formula, but its those very same differences that will set this film apart. Although it would be pretty cool to have a man flying around in a big high-tech mechanical suit.

Q: Why is it important for this film to be made?

I can’t really answer that question for a number of reasons, one of which includes a non-disclosure agreement. What I can say is that with this diffusion of culture that’s explored and these characters, that NOT telling it would be… well, I just couldn’t sleep at night. Seriously, if don’t write down what’s in my head my brain won’t let me sleep until I do.

(Insert Film Title): The Companion Material

In a world where content is divided up into 2 categories (Self-Indulgent and Insightful) it can be hard to learn from example of what to include as bonus content with your film. Does one simply make a 20 minute Behind The Scenes featurette? How important is commentary?

The best way to answer this question is think ask yourself another question; What is needed to enhance the viewing experience? In order to continually engage the audience we must keep asking questions. We must constantly keep them interested. As filmmakers, we love bonus content, we love to learn what the director was thinking or the writer, or the actor, very rarely do we get a chance to see anything beyond that outside of commentary of a BTS featurette.

In effort to make "Our Last Days As Children" as engaging and appealing as possible, both to our peers and our audience, myself and the rest of the production team (Toni Ann Baker & Diane St. Laurent of Two Sisters' Productions, Inc., as well as DP Seth Melnick and Composer Mauro Colangelo) have started to take inventory of all the bonus content from all the films we love. What we found is that there are not many projects that have more exploratory content. Recent studio films like WALL-E and The Dark Knight have done a great job of adding bonus DVD content, explaining the technology they used, or how stunts were orchestrated, and there is a great deal of those topics to explore in such films, but for those of us with an eye and ear towards the grand Mise en scène, its not always enough.

In order to best describe what we intend to do with the bonus content for "Our Last Days As Children" we'll point out a few features of other projects that we enjoyed and plan to follow.

"Heights" - The DVD has wonderful commentary provided by Director Chris Terrio and actress Glenn Close, but also includes a Locations Journal. Chris gives wonderful insight into not only the story of how they acquired these locations, but also why he chose them. One mistake that amateur filmmakers stumble across is that of locations and production design. "JOE LIVES IN A HOUSE" so the location manager finds a house for Joe and the production designer will make it look tidy. However, in this case, very rarely do filmmakers look beyond Joe. "Is Joe messy? Does he like Art? Is he utilitarian? is he a packrat? Does he fit the space?" Naturally, if Joe is a real person, his environment would be an extension of his personality. I've been seeing more and more films where the characters and their environment don't match, most recently a film in which a character was a deadbeat drug addict with no money, yet her home was very well furnished, very clean, very modern and technologically on par with the average American middle class family. Nothing about the character reflected that, and after a conversation with the director, it was also apparent that the director didn't think about that either. With Heights, Terrio does a wonderful job examining a few of the key locations and how they not only reflect the character, but also how they help scope the character. The apartment that Isabelle and Jonathan (Elizabeth Banks and James Marsden) live in is small, confined, and cluttered. Terrio took time to make sure that his characters lived within that space, even setting up shots in the smaller rooms to reflect their world closing in on them.

"Children of Men" One of my favorite special features; a featurette featuring futurists and various humanities professionals discussing the plausibility and functionality of the not-so-distant and familiar future they story takes place in; in many ways, a video-essay.

"Serenity" The Companion Books; "Finding Serenity" & "Serenity Found"

-In "Finding Serenity" this eclectic anthology of essays, former cast member Jewel Staite, "Kaylee," philosopher Lyle Zynda, sex therapist Joy Davidson, and noted science fiction and fantasy authors Mercedes Lackey, David Gerrold, and Lawrence Watt-Evans contribute to a clever and insightful analysis of the short-lived cult hit "Firefly". From What went wrong with the pilot? to What's right about Reavers? and how the correspondence between the show's creator Joss Whedon and the network executives might have actually played out, the writers interrogate the show's complexity and speculate about what might have been if the show "Firefly" had not been cancelled.

-"Serenity Found" the follow-up to Finding Serenity, takes the examination of Joss Whedon's canceled cult favorite even further, addressing the events of the film Serenity as well as offering even more thought-provoking, fascinating, and far-thinking essays on the Firefly universe. Contributors include actor Nathan Fillion, who played Captain Mal Reynolds, as well as noted science fiction writer Orson Scott Card. Behind-the-scenes details are explored, including why Firefly makes such a good platform for the upcoming Multiverse online game (with an essay written by Multiverse executive producer Corey Bridges), while other essays examine recurring issues from both the series and the movie, such as the Alliance's hatred of science, the role of smart-mouthed women, and the real reason the Firefly universe has no aliens.

These are wonderful, wonderful books for the true fan, but more importantly, they give insight into the universe the story takes place in. They spark conversation among fans as well as ask questions that don't always give answers.

Battlestar Galactica: Bear McCreary's Battlestar Blog - On Bill McCreary's Blog, the Composer offers up amazing insight onto how and why he composes the music for each and every scene and what its intended purpose is. His music and blog have such a following that recent DVD release of the first half of season 4 includes an entire film on his process.

An excerpt from his blog on it: Battlestar Season 4.0 is finally released on DVD this week. "I’m thrilled to announce officially what many of you have suspected since early reviews of the DVD leaked out: This DVD set includes my original documentary “Inside The Secrets Of The Behind The Making Of The Music Of Battlestar Galactica: Revealed.” This is a film I produced with Matthew Gilna and Kristina Maniatis that premiered last April at our Los Angeles Battlestar concerts. If you missed our shows last spring, here’s your chance to catch up. And since you’re reading my blog, I’m assuming you’re already a fan and will be checking out the DVDs at some point anyway. :) Many people came together to help make this film a reality, but there are several without whom it would never have existed: Matthew Gilna and Kristina Maniatis… You both went above and beyond the call of duty here, and poured yourselves into this project. And congratulations on your recent engagement! For all this, I owe you guys a wedding march or something. (Taiko drums and bagpipes??)"

These are just a few examples that filmmakers can utilize with their own projects and add value to their films. We certainly are.