In 'Dad & Step-Dad,' Improv Led to Revelations
Director Tynan DeLong goes deep on spinning a goofy short into a cult classic feature that's heavy on heart.
Hello! Welcome to Nothing Bogus, an Indie Film Listings+ newsletter. The + is commentary, interviews, dispatches, tutorials, and other groovy stuff. This week, filmmaker/poet Courtney Bush is filling in. She interviewed Tynan DeLong, whose new film Dad & Step-Dad, released by NoBudge, arrives on digital platforms March 22. You’ll find the listings at the bottom of this email.
by Courtney Bush
In early March of 2023, I was lucky—and, frankly, smart—enough to get a ticket to the NoBudge Live premiere of Dad & Step-Dad, the debut feature from Tynan DeLong. It was a hot ticket. I laughed a lot, as I expected I would. And I also nearly cried, which I didn’t see coming. The film is surprisingly sweet. There was one moment in particular, though, that really got me: It’s when these two straight, fumbling father figures (Colin Burgess and Anthony Oberbeck) fight to be the one to slap the proper amount of sunscreen on this child (played brilliantly by adult man Brian Fiddyment) they both genuinely care about. Since that screening, I've watched the film several times huddled with a friend around my phone late at night—my go-to way to force people to watch films I find inspiring and special and also very, very funny.
I became an immediate fan of Tynan's work after seeing his short, batshit remake of the Matrix, thematrix061702_ROUGH.wmv, at Nitehawk Shorts Fest in 2017. After following his work for years, I was stoked to interview him about the making of his first feature.
Courtney: I want to start by saying congratulations on your film. I was really impressed by its capacity to hold really oppositional forces. The energy onscreen is at times frenetic, and at other times Zen-like. It's both unsettling and surprisingly sweet. It's jarring and loud, then nearly silent. How did the project evolve and change as you were making it?
Tynan: Thank you, that’s super kind of you to say! Yeah, Colin, Anthony and I made several shorts in 2018-2019, which allowed us to find a solid footing with the characters and the general tone. Those shorts all started with an email Anthony sent me about wanting to shoot a low-pressure short where he and Colin Burgess played two dads and Brian Fiddyment played their son. I actually went back and found the initial email he sent me that started it all. He wrote:
We were all into it and we basically just went off that. We met up on Saturday afternoon without a script or even an outline and just played around for a few hours. I shot it on a DSLR and I had one lav that we passed around for everyone's close-ups. Then Colin, Anthony, and I each edited a chunk. We enjoyed the process and how it came out, so we did a few more.
What was particularly appealing to me about this world was the dryness, the stillness, and seeing how much we could wring out of almost nothing happening by zeroing in on the tics and gestures of difficult social exchanges. When it came time to do a feature, however, we knew we needed a more conventional narrative arc. It was important for us to try and bring the viewers into the world and have them walk away from the film feeling something. That emotional backbone definitely wasn’t part of the shorts, but making it a longer piece allowed us to explore that. Although my chaotic side would want to try three hours of near silence and arguing, I know that would ultimately be grating for the average viewer.
Also, we came up with the idea to do a feature in April 2021, drafted an outline and secured funding, crew, and locations over the summer, and shot it in August 2021. Everything moved very quickly.
Courtney: As the film progressed, did it show you anything you didn't know was there?
Tynan: There’s always a lot of exploration and discovery with this team. Since all our dialogue is improvised, there are always new, fun revelations. All credit to Colin and Anthony, who do a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of finding new avenues and bits and building out their characters on the fly.
Our DP, Johnny Frohman, also finds new things when we get on set. Graham Mason, our executive producer, is also an insanely talented director and offered a lot of great ideas when we were stuck on something. LOTS of exploration in the edit and sound design process and ESPECIALLY the music. Celia Hollander, our composer, opened up so much in sculpting the environment of the film. With pretty much everything I do, I operate under the following principle: Come in with a strong plan and a firm vision, but allow yourself the space for discovery and stay open. Accidents are gifts, etc. etc. The surprises are part of the process and it’s fun to bring that out in the work.
Courtney: My favorite scene in Dad & Step-Dad is an improvised screaming fight between Jim and Dave about where the soul resides in relation to the personality, aura, and spirit. Can you talk about why you favor improvisation in your work?
Tynan: A reliance on improvisation came about through necessity. Working on slapdash shoots on the weekends with your friends for a few hours, it’s really hard to ask someone to commit a lot of time to learn lines and rehearse their character in advance. So the work around is to generate robust outlines where people know where they’re going, but not necessarily what they’re gonna say to get there. It’s best to set up tent poles that guide the actors, so they feel taken care of, but leave them the freedom to add something of their own. Improvised dialogue forces people to respond truthfully and typically guarantees honest moments, in addition to often finding brand new moments that didn’t exist in the outline. The best stuff happens when people disregard something in the outline in favor of a bit that gets them excited. People can tell when a cast is having fun and committed to their world. For me, improv is the best way to get there.
All that being said, the scene you referenced was one of a handful of scenes we rehearsed in advance. Still, I think it works better because it’s all improvised. They’re two grown men clearly out of their element, stumbling over their words a little, just like non-confrontational guys are when pushed out of their comfort zone. We shot it four times racing against daylight on the last day of the shoot and Colin and Anthony maintained that high energy every time. Insane.
Courtney: During the Q&A at your New York premiere, you talked about shooting it as a nature documentary about humans. That rang really true to me as a viewer, but in a way that I'm curious about, because your cast is so actively unrealistic, which is central to the whole conceit. The actors are all roughly the same age, and none are in the same age group as the characters they are portraying. I'd love to hear you talk more about how the idea of a nature documentary and the intentionally unnatural casting came together for you in shaping the film.
Tynan: My primary influences going into this project were observational cinema, the films of Allan King, Frederick Wiseman, and the Maysles Brothers, and Japanese environmental and ambient music, like the work of Hiroshi Yoshimura and Yoshio Ojima. I love the way observational cinema plays with silence and captures social behaviors at a natural pace. There’s so much drama and tension in scenes where relatively “nothing” happens.
And something we discovered when we made the shorts was that, because we had made the scenes quiet and meditative, and we tried to pull the viewer in as close to the conversations as we could, there was almost an ASMR effect. It became a sort of "ambient comedy." I thought that sonic effect in combination with the observational visuals was interesting, so when it came time to bring in music, I pushed that effect further with a kind of Hiroshi Yoshimura music mood board. I think combining those two elements helped shape the nature documentary vibe. Ironically, I did not watch any nature documentaries in preparation.
As far as unnatural casting, to be honest, I never thought about it. To remove that element would obliterate the chemistry and unravel the whole essence of the project. Should we have cast an actual 13 year old to play a 13 year old? No. The reason it all works is because we treat it as if it's real. No one is doing funny voices, no one is wearing wacky clothes, no one’s doing any meta jokes about their real age. People listen to each other and respond honestly. We believe in this world wholeheartedly, so the audience can believe it too.
Courtney: The movie definitely explores expressions of masculinity and the ways relationships between men can be so fraught. What do you think makes this particular male relationship triangle particularly difficult, and as a result, funny?
Tynan: I don’t think it’s any secret that the main thing I find funny is the fragility of the male ego. It’s my well! My friend put it really succinctly in his Letterboxd review: “Absolutely nails the male impulse to say whatever it takes to sound smarter, even if it’s the dumbest fucking thing you’ve said in your life.” Obviously that "male impulse" is baked into the narrative here with the relationships and given circumstances, so it’s fun to work all the angles. There was a really funny bit we had to cut that Anthony came up with where Dave points out a flat tire and Jim shoots back that you don’t actually need four tires, three will do. They are also alluding to their strange family dynamic, by doubling down on something so stupid and incorrect. Branson, played by Brian Fiddyment, is largely silent, mostly ignored. It’s not really about him. It’s about dads and their bullshit and their egos and the need to be right. So when Branson does pop in, it breathes new life into their dynamic. It’s a really hard balance to be there and also not be there, but Brian does it so well. He really keyed into the restraint of that role and I think that’s why everything coalesces.
Courtney: As a counterpoint to the very foregrounded male fragility, Clare O'Kane's performance as Suzie (or as she put it, "the woman") brought so much to the film. I wanted her to be my mom and/or wife and/or ex-wife. Every time she is on screen, she frees up the space, gracefully providing relief from the men's claustrophobic inability to say anything directly. How did the two of you develop that character?
Tynan: Yeah, that’s a credit to Clare’s ineffable cool, which was a great counterpoint to the boys’ anxiety and anger. When I started work with Clare, we had informal conversations about what we thought the character could be. We wanted to avoid broad motherly cliches, and any big physical or vocal transformations. I tried to give Clare autonomy in building her character, because I was VERY SELF-AWARE that this was a movie about three men, directed by another… man. It felt important to inject a woman’s perspective and energy whenever possible. There was a lot of backstory material that’s not in the film. Clare wrote a diary entry about Suzie's relationship with Dave, and worked out sociological and psychological breakdowns to build Suzie’s inner world. Her scene with Branson is one we rehearsed beforehand as well. We did a two-hour rehearsal where we found the emotional core of the scene. We shot the scene at golden hour and only had a small window of that light, so I’m glad we worked it out before. I think it came together really nicely.
Courtney: That scene is beautiful. What are some of the other ways the actors prepared for their characters? Did you give other performers similar homework?
Tynan: Yeah, I pushed little assignments on folks. Anthony worked out his own backstory with Suzie, his profession, and place in life. Colin spent time working out the specificity of his costuming which helped dial in his character. Brian spent time playing Fortnite, listening to Playboi Carti, and studying Tik Toks and YouTube videos from teenagers to get in that headspace. And I had the "making of" featurettes from Dunkirk on repeat to get in character as a director.
Courtney: We've both expressed some of our frustrations about the way the film industry works, or doesn't work. I watched that movie Glass Onion and had a nervous breakdown because it seems the majority of people want really expensive shitty movies about celebrities. Do you think we are in the dark ages?
Tynan: Y’know, I don’t. Maybe I’m overly optimistic, but I feel like there’s a sea change afoot. I could be overly optimistic, but to see other films in our orbit—Free Time, Inspector Ike, Hannah Ha Ha, Cash Cow—making waves feels like a small, but indicative victory. I think it’s evidence people are open to new styles and different approaches to storytelling.
But even something like John Wick makes me feel good about things—a generally beloved franchise that's favoring real locations, choreography, and a limited use of CGI. I do see bright spots in both the indie and commercial worlds that point a way forward. We’re about due for another Blair Witch Project global phenomenon. There’s always gonna be a lot of bullshit for sure, but you can’t have the lotus without the mud, y’know?
Courtney: Fair enough. I think your movie is one of the bright spots in the Dark Ages too. Jake Goicoechea (my filmmaking collaborator) and I walked home from your screening feeling so excited to make more movies. How should we end our interview? Would you mind saying something huge and brilliant real quick? Any advice?
Tynan: Something huge…hmmm. Well, I love movies, but not like some film bros. I didn’t go to film school and I’ve only seen one Ozu. Truth be told, I fell asleep during Citizen Kane during my film studies class in college and I haven’t watched it since. Oooh, I’m such a bad film bro! I have this sort of resistance to the idea that being a film scholar makes you a better filmmaker. Like yes, watch movies, but don’t only watch movies and don’t just watch the ones that you “should” watch. I think it’s good to have a perspective that isn’t drawing solely on the same film canon. I think the more inspiration you can draw from non-filmic sources, the better. I love the medium, but get excited by new energies, new ways to operate within a very crowded field. I hope we’re doing that with our film. In short, my huge and brilliant advice to all aspiring filmmakers? Fall asleep during Citizen Kane.
Courtney Bush is a poet and filmmaker. She is the author of I Love Information (Milkweed Editions, 2023), Every Book Is About The Same Thing (Newest York Arts Press, 2022), and the chapbooks Isn’t This Nice? (blush lit, 2019) and Thirteen Morisettes (SPAM zine & press, 2024), written in collaboration with Jack Underwood.
Listings
Juan Pablo Rivera Garza’s new short film, The Daughter, is in search of an 18-22 year old woman for an undisclosed role. The film will be shot in Vermont and New York City in late July and early August. Apply here.
PBS is hiring for a Digital Studios Internship. Apply here.
Ryan Martin Brown is looking for a two-bedroom apartment in the $2k-range that two crew members could take over for a few weeks in May, dates somewhat flexible. Email ryanmartinbrown@gmail.com.
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