'Human Theories' Production Diary: Chunk 2
On her new film, Jess Zeidman wanted to shake up the filmmaking process. Here's how it's going.
by Jess Zeidman
Hello Nothing Bogus Readers (Nothing Bogusers? NoBos? NogBogs?)!
So much has happened since we last spoke. The biggest change? People!
One of our producers is now producing from London (oyyy bruv! It’s all peace & love though)
Changing shoot dates on all sides sent our locations person Paula González-Nasser to Florida to work on another indie (go Big Game, go!), so she handed some of her responsibilities off to Ryan Martin Brown, who is also editing this movie.
Adrienne Caminer has joined us as our full-time 1st AD. The fact that I thought we could rotate that position… I need my film school degree revoked…
Day 7: Double Intimacy
For this shoot, I was lucky to reunite with Summer Solstice Intimacy Coordinator Joey Massa. We had a great rehearsal day the week before at JACK NYC ($10 an hour for rehearsal space, Hot Tip for all NYC artists…). Because we were shooting both scenes on the same day, rehearsal made us move faster; it made the actors more comfortable; and overall communication was easier. It also helped that we were staying in one indoor location (shout out to Kelly & Jared for their gorgeous Crown Heights home!).
First we filmed in the bedroom, which was both a small space and a closed set, so there was a lot of communicating through the door and courtesy turning around. It went smoothly and the scene turned out great. There was one take when the clock, which in the context of the scene was set to literally 3:59 AM, turned to 4:00 AM at the exact right moment and I was hit with a huge wave of filmmaking magic.
For the next scene, there was some complicated blocking that involved sitting and standing and kissing and moving around a big couch. Thankfully, the actors crushed it. It took us all a minute to figure out the best way for me to give feedback. Initially, it felt like the best thing to do would be for me, the actors, and the IC, to step into the hallway so the actors wouldn’t feel too exposed as we tweaked performance things. But then we all agreed that sequestering ourselves felt very “Principal’s Office” and so I decided to switch up the process and have us all talk through what was and wasn’t working as a big team, which worked and felt better.
Day 8: Google Maps/Snowstorm
There had been a lot of discussion around the weather for this day since we were going to be filming a small but complicated scene where someone hears REALLY LOUD MUSIC as they leave their apartment and then GOOGLE MAPS interrupts the LOUD MUSIC.
Not a full stunt, but a car in motion on an active street, and oh? It was also cold and began to storm. Yeesh! Ok! We thought it was going to rain, which would suck, but freezing rain? Really sucks and doesn’t even show up that well on camera! We wanted full throttle snow, but that’s not what we got. We took the wintry mix in stride, though, and after a few test runs and a few good takes, we called it before we froze.
Then me, Trevor, our sound person, and Arielle, who was our driver and owner of the beautiful picture car, took a few turns around the neighborhood to fill in the soundscape. And that was a wrap on Day 8.
Camille Casmier (Art Director), Leo Gallagher (DP), and I hung back at my house after and watched footage from CHUNK 1 together, which was a thrill since I had only watched with RMB. Watching footage is painful, but I have been training myself out of that, and this was kind of my Big Test. And I passed! We had fun! At one point, I joked that watching this movie was like “spending too much time with me,” which was funny because that’s exactly how it feels to make it. Art imitates life!
Day 9: Congee Village
Woke up to a snow filled Brooklyn on a very bleak inauguration day. What a combo! Leo (DP) came over to my house early and we got a bunch of frosty b-roll.Then we drove into Manhattan for our first location scene that wasn’t a friend’s house: Congee Village.
This scene required a special rig because I liked the idea of putting the camera on the lazy susan and having it move between characters. When we scouted the week before, I had thought we would do a full 360, and so we took a test video, discussed how much work it would be, and made a prelim plan. Then when I watched the test video back the next morning, I realized it made me motion sick and didn’t match the visual language of the film. Uh oh. So we switched to a half circle, which was far less complicated.
It also inspired me to draw up various diagrams and make a test video of my own using some paper dolls I had from my quarantine animating days. That way, on the day I would know the blocking in tandem with all the moving parts.
When it came time to shoot the scene, it took a lot of camera choreography, prop food finagling, and our actors being good sports, but we got there and had time to do both the rotating rig and shoot a backup set up on sticks in case we got to the edit and the motion still didn’t make sense.
Plus, my sister Becca handled Background Casting with a group of her college friends, so we had a fun, full table behind the main cast for texture. Amazing. There was also an unwanted critter extra who was harmed in the making of this film. Less amazing, but everyone was chill about it, and that rocked.
Day 10: Bar/Kaye’s
First scene of the day was a bad date in a Brooklyn bar, which took some finessing to find but Paula and Ryan locked down Filthy Diamond (amazing place! Would film there again!) and the owner let us get in there Sunday AM, black out the curtains, and get to work. My boyfriend Josh played the bartender and did such a good job that one time between takes EVERYONE was complimenting him and I had to tell them to knock it off because he’s MY boyfriend!
Then we had a company move to amazing musician/comedian/friend Kaye Loggins’ house around the block. It was such a nice day that many of us chose to walk there! What a treat! We broke for lunch, I texted our out-of-town producer how well it was going, and then the neighbor’s power went out. Not because we put a big light in the backyard, since that wouldn’t be electrically possible, but it sure did look that way. Big light had to come down.
Then we filmed our second scene, which was a bedroom scene where they were smoking fake joints that were burning a little too much, but we figured it out and didn’t start a fire. It was a little tight in the room and we ended up tweaking a shot so we had to do some redressing and re-lighting we hadn’t planned for, but we made it work. I did lose my mind a little from the herbal smoke and from crouching in a corner next to the heater. I wound up deciding to drive the Art Car around the block to get some air/be helpful, only to end up in a stupid traffic situation that made it look like I had run away, but I didn’t, I was just trapped behind an Uber and then a garbage truck and then a few poorly timed red lights. Overall, awesome day.
Day 11: Movie Theater → Deli
Cliche alert! There are two scenes in the film that are set in a movie theater. I was hopeful this would be easy. Movie people love movie people, right? Well, kind of. Turns out NYC cinemas are expensive to film in, a bit complicated to light, and require a ton of planning in regards to loading gear and maneuvering people. We landed on filming both scenes at Angelika, and even though their elevator was temporarily out of use, we managed to ask a few favors and hire a few extra hands to move EQ, drive the van, and handle our great group of extras.
A note on the van: When we thought the elevator would be available to us, we were going to try to squeeze the shoot into a slightly shorter time window and load everything using hampers and our fancy-amazing liftgate. We pivoted, though, which I think was for the best since it would’ve felt really rushed on the original lift-gate fueled timeline and this meant we got to eat lunch, then load out, which is safer and saner
As for the extras: The first scene of the day was about an older couple trying to sneakily eat a sandwich during a post-screening Q&A — something Josh & I witnessed at MoMI’s screening of Kumiko Treasure Hunter that I was desperate to recreate. Film Q&As are not, in my experience, always a packed house affair. So I knew I wanted some extras for this scene, but since getting extras is one of the hardest parts of indie filmmaking, I set expectations for myself and the team low. I could probably get 10 people. Maybe 15. And there wasn’t money in the budget to pay them, so I was feeling conflicted and worried that I did not have 10-15 close friends who would be available. And then it came to me… Labor Exchange. If people were willing to come act as extras for a couple hours, I would be willing to do some labor in return. I could offer script feedback, production advice/consultation, or helping them run an errand or do an airport pickup/drop off with my car. So I posted on Instagram and hoped for the best. And then around 40 people said they were interested! And around 25 of those people came!! That’s 10 + 15 put together!!! I felt extremely blessed and excited about this, it added so much to the scene. Also, to handle said 25ish extras, I brought on my filmmaker friend Ethan Fuirst to 2nd AD, which was crucial because having so many people on set is logistically and creatively overwhelming.
Filming the scene itself was a total joy. Emily May Jampel & Katie Way played caricatures of themselves during a ridiculously antagonistic Q&A while Orlando & Becky Dole (from Jo Firestone’s senior citizen comedy cohort) absolutely bodied eating the sandwich while our actors for the day watched on and threaded it all together. Leo cried from laughing behind the camera, which was beautiful.
Then, we said goodbye to our big beautiful Sneaky Sandwich cast and switched over to a purposefully much smaller scene in the theater. Though much easier on the cinema side, the trickiest part of this scene is that it starts in a bodega, and finding a bodega to film in was way harder than I anticipated! 0-for-2 re: Jess’ Assumed Easy Locations.
We ended up doing a company move back to Brooklyn, shooting out the scene, and having a little extra time to film the bodega cat Channel being a total angel. Amazing way to end Chunk 2.
As for my big, halfway mark takeaway: Trust Goes Both Ways.
Something I’ve struggled with in this process, and my life, is trusting that people are going to do what they are supposed to do. I tend to try to do everything by myself because I figure that’s easier for me and easier for other people. Guess what? No, it’s not! Picking up so much slack that I feel like I’m drowning when no one asked me to do all that? Girl, don’t!
If I don’t trust others, they can’t trust me, and then we all feel bad and stressed and anxious. That’s no way to work and it’s no way to live.
What has been helping me grow and shake this pattern is communication, patience, and practice. Communication means talking it out when things feel off, not just pushing through and hoping it will magically improve (it won’t!). Patience is acknowledging that people work in different ways, have different things going on in their lives, and that you can always slow down and find time to figure out how to make it all work. And, to my third point, practice is accepting that I will mess up what I just wrote out – I will miscommunicate, I will get antsy, and I will forget that I shouldn’t do everyone’s jobs because I’m anxious they won’t or don’t want to – and that I have to trust myself to try again.
Listings
Nyack International Film Festival is Sunday, March 30 - Saturday, April 4 at Hotel Nyack, High Ave. Click for Info & Tickets.
On Sunday March 30, check out Sunday Short Films with a screening of films that pair well with coffee. Bohemia Cafe, 7572 Sunset Blvd. 7:30pm.
No Film School recently published a massive list of spring film grants, labs, and fellowships. Check it out here.
Vimeo just launched its inaugural short film grant. More here.
Eli Barry is looking for work. Eli is a media production pro specializing in visual media and content, including work at Marvel Entertainment. He has produced award-winning short films, music videos, and commercial content. Email me@elijahbarry.com.
Aaron Schoonover is a Casting Director available for your short or indie feature. Able to cast remotely out of various hubs. Flex rate sliding scale for all budgets. Experience casting on studio projects and super indie projects! Email schoonovercasting@gmail.com.
Applications are open for the Jerome NYC Film Production Grant. Deadline is April 3. Supports NYC-based early career filmmakers working in short or long form, experimental, narrative, animation, doc, or any combination of genres. Up to $30K available.
If you would like to list in a future issue, either A) post in the Nothing Bogus chat thread, or B) email nothingbogus1@gmail.com with the subject “Listing.” (It’s FREE!) Include your email and all relevant details (price, dates, etc.).
 | A guest post by
|
I love reading these