In 'Invention,' a Moving Investigation of Grief
Courtney Stephens and Callie Hernandez discuss their excellent new microbudget feature, which recently played at New Directors / New Films.
Towards the end of 2022, Callie Hernandez rented a house in Great Barrington, a small town in western Massachusetts, with the intention of bringing in different collaborators and making as many movies as she could over the course of that year. It was a fruitful period, resulting in three features and a short. Despite minimal budgets and crews, all of the films have premiered at notable festivals — or, in the case of the short, found a home as a museum installation. But the last of the bunch, Invention, directed by Courtney Stephens, was especially significant to Hernandez. “Invention was the most personal, but also the one I felt was the closest to the films that I myself want to be making,” Hernandez says.
The film was both a product and study of grief. Hernandez’s father died in September of 2021, and she connected with Stephens, who had lost her father more than a decade earlier, over the experience. The film, shot in October of 2023, draws heavily from Hernandez’s life in particular, incorporating old television footage of her actual father, a Texas doctor who was a proponent of alternative medicine. In navigating her father’s messy estate, Hernandez’s character, Carrie, becomes interested in his inventions and conspiracies. She meets with various acquaintances around town and tries to get a fuller picture of the man and the legitimacy of his ideas. It’s a beautiful, funny, and poignant portrait of the way loss can inspire a mundane, hazy searching.
And it’s especially impressive given how it was made. Stephens and Hernandez filmed Invention without a fully formed script and with only one other crew member, cinematographer Rafael Palacio Illingworth. After catching the film at New Directors / New Films a couple weeks ago, I was eager to hear how they pulled it off, if this model of filmmaking feels replicable, and whether the process of making it was clarifying. Catch Invention at Metrograph beginning April 18.
I'm curious about your first formal conversations once you knew you wanted to make what you've called a "dead dads" movie together.
Courtney Stephens: I think the first pedal-hits-the-metal experience was that I went up upstate to visit the house. This was maybe three or four months before we filmed. We'd been tossing a lot of ideas around but I think that trip gave us the sense that this town was going to be the site for the film and be a character in the film. We didn't find all our locations then, but there was an imaginary world that came out of the trip and I think it helped us understand that there was going to be this poking-around energy to the film. Poking around a small place and having small encounters with people that you might only meet once. It gave us a sense of the world, but we were still shooting back a lot of details up until the time we filmed — autobiographical tidbits that came to inform the dialogue that was largely written on set.
Callie Hernandez: I'd been living in this town all winter by myself. So I guess I was constantly poking around, and that's why I became a fan of Dick [who runs the town dump] unbeknownst to Dick. And I got to know my neighbors. I always find really special connections living in small towns and getting to know neighbors. But when Courtney came that was definitely a really formative pedal-hits-the-metal moment, yes.
CS: We had a lot of ideas that were much more abstract than the movie we ended up making. The film as it is has a lot of straightforward encounters but we were talking about things like "Maybe she’s a character who is in another film but the death of her father causes her to fall out of that film into this film, and she can't find her way back..." We were exploring lots of trapdoor, meta-reality forms during the brainstorming process.
CH: There were dance sequences in the third act of the film at one point. I think, in the beginning, I was really wanting to make something about a grief-related symptom of hypersexuality, but, ultimately, it wasn’t right for this particular film.
CS: There were all sorts of ideas. Like the way that death propels you into modes of healing through your body. All these permutations on what a grief film could be. And in a funny way, we made almost the most straightforward film you could make about death’s aftermath, about running errands! But I think that because we had been willing to think in those kinds of terms, once we were filming we were loosened up enough to allow the film to hold abstractions, invite them to come through, even though there was a crisp language to the scenes, due in part to the fact that we were shooting on film and had other limits.
The film has a real structure to it. Was there an "Aha!" moment when you figured out the sort of film you wanted to make?
CS: I think once the machine came into the film, it allowed every scene to be tied to this investigation.
CH: In real life, my dad's estate was in shambles and he only left all these different machines. My friend reminded me recently that I was really obsessed with one particular machine. It did become a thing of mystery because it really was a very questionable artifact, and it was all I had, really. I became really fascinated with it, and I shared it with Courtney, and I guess she was really fascinated by it as well. I also had my dad's VHS tapes. These things were in the back of my mind since he died. And I knew that I wanted to explore them more in some type of film, but it wasn't clear that this would be that project until I shared these things later on in the process. That seemed to be a big "Aha!" moment. It wasn't clear that we would use my dad's archive or the idea of any of his machines from the beginning.
I know the script you wrote wasn't a traditional script. It was more outline-ish. I'm curious at what point it felt like enough to go into production?
CS: We weren’t really ready! Going in, the outline had more thriller elements that paid off the plot more, which we ultimately gave up on. And what's so interesting is there's a sentiment to the film’s structure that really kind of opposes traditional narrative structure, because in a way we’re left with the same thing we started with, which is this grave disappointment. In a sense, the whole arc of the film is this attempt to take flight from or outrun disappointment, but you just can’t, that’s the thing. I don't think screenwriting logic would approve, but it felt so true, and was also something we wanted to say about what fiction and fantasy can and can't do.
CH: I’m a believer that you’re never really ready. I do like to prepare. I also like to dive in and just swim. We entered this with a plethora of ideas and very few resources, which is why I always compare it to a sculpture.
Did the lack of resources in any way remove some of the time pressures you might typically feel on a movie set? Or, if you were still feeling that, how was it impacting the performance and real-time writing?
CH: Of course a lack of resources presents a set of limitations; the limitations were why it was so sculptural. I think it lends itself to something like this. But I'm kind of a freak where I never am scared to jump, or if I am, I do it anyway. I don't know why that is. It's like my worst quality and sometimes the quality that saves my life. I remember having a conversation with Courtney where she was nervous and saying, "We're not ready.” But I never get the sense of “full preparation” before a narrative film. That's always the feeling I have going into any film, no matter the budget or role. Not quite knowing how it's going to come out, despite how much you've prepared.
Did it become easier as you went along?
CH: No. Ha.
Were there things you were learning about how to do it?
CH: For me, as a performer especially, I was running sound, so I'd mic up another actor, and then Courtney would say when to roll sound, and Rafa, our DP, would set up camera, and I would rush to run batteries, etc. The first day of shooting, I had to drive someone to the Albany airport. By the time I got back, I threw off my clothes, put my costume on, and we shot the first shot within ten minutes of my return. So it wasn't this process of “an actor prepares.” It was all in the body, from memory, from the writing process, from sifting through ideas. It was very experiential. I had to just be there fully once we were rolling and listen deeply. I didn't have a “plan” necessarily. Now watching it sometimes I wish I’d had more time and energy to concentrate on performance. I prefer the question of “why” to do something rather than “why not.” I do like a map, but I ultimately feel like what’s in the film is a pretty accurate portrayal of how I felt going through my own process of grief.
CS: Everything Callie is saying is a real reflection of what the collaboration process was like. I think I can tend to have an opposite lean. I will overthink and try to oversolve in my mind, maybe because I've made so many of my films primarily through editing. So to have to commit and foreclose possibilities on the day, especially with celluloid, was painful! But it gives the film a real energy. And I think it benefited the film that even though there are some big ideas in there, I think if there had been more time and more resources, we would've tried harder to push some lofty concepts across, and it was to the film's benefit not to. I admire Callie’s willingness to try things where I’m compelled to try and map it all out. Those two energies on the set yielded something that I hope is thoughtful but doesn’t dwell, and I'm grateful for that.
This process by which you made this film called to mind Pete Ohs, who's famously made his last few films as a sort of one man crew. Callie, I know you've worked with him a couple of times. And I'm curious if working with him influenced this at all and how this process was different.
CH: Massively different. When we made Jethica in 2021, the world was shut down, we had nothing to lose. There was more time to involve myself as the character. I think the experience of making Jethica in a vacuum during a global pandemic — I remember entering into that film and being like, "No one will ever see this." We were also shooting digital. But more than Pete Ohs and his process — which is very specific — influencing us, it was this idea of starting with a location, housing in the location, and shooting in the location. And I guess my experience on Jethica was seeing that it was possible. Also Hong Sang Soo, Mike Leigh in his own right, Albert Serra — they’ve been making films in the same sort of vein for much longer and much better. I'd made many films on my own, in a vacuum, before ever becoming a 'studio actress' if I can even claim that. But I wanted to experiment in my own way with like, "OK, what if I have this one location for one year and bring in many different filmmakers and teams with different films and narratives shot in different ways?" I was even like, "Are people going to see these films and be like, 'That's the same house'? or can a cinematic tone transform surroundings? Make them unrecognizable?” Films really are conspiracies, I suppose, in different modalities.
I haven't seen all of the films you made that year. But it seems like all of them are being well received and getting into big festivals. So there's some success there. But I'm curious about your reflections on that year of doing that emotionally, creatively, etc.
CH: We did The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick first in the house, and then within a few days Pete [Ohs] and I were in Baltimore, shooting Obex. I came back from Obex, then within a few days after that I shot Appliance by Olivia Erlanger in the same house. I think Courtney was there within two days of finishing that film. And on each film, I was wearing various hats, so to speak. I wouldn't do it like that again. It was too much at once. But at the same time, I learned more than I ever have about filmmaking. I don’t regret anything. I've been on myriad sets functioning on many different levels. Invention was the most personal, but also the one I felt was the closest to the films that I myself want to be making.
Courtney, were there any pieces of direction that you found yourself giving repeatedly?
CS: More than anything, I was asking people about their own lives as a way of informing the writing process, which was happening as we were figuring out the scenes. There was a need with this film to be responsive to both performance and the actual encounters, which I think documentary filmmaking had prepared me for to some extent. I was less secure working in fiction and was trying to channel what I knew about finding the coordinates within which there can be an encounter and letting them flow. I wasn't approaching this like someone with a screenplay who was just trying to get a performance. I think there were days where it felt like we were surfing, we’d caught the wave and there's a bit of chaos but you're on top of it and moving with it. We were working with some actors who had also lost dads, and most of the actors were dads themselves, so there were various energies coming through, so I was trying to sculpt those things as we went. I've seen a lot of improvised films that feel sloppy or don't feel like they're able to hold depth, they’re groping around and maybe the form is interesting but the content is not. And with this film I feel proud of its ability to do both things — to be loose and tight.
CH: When you were saying that people came with really strong ideas and you had to roll with the punches, I remember Caveh [Zahedi] showing up and he just did not want to shoot at the location we had. "Too cold, too cold." So he called his friend who lived in this magical, big house overlooking the pond, and thus that was our new location. And it probably worked much better than our initial location. Joe [Swanberg] was initially supposed to play a doctor but he had this mullet and he didn't want to cut it, so we had to go around that. He came up with the prayer scene kind of on his own. Having filmmakers come in with their own ideas of what they wanted to do was to the film's advantage.
There are all these big ideas within the movie, whether about grief, conspiracy, belief, etc. I'm wondering if there's anything you figured out for yourselves in making the film?
CH: I initially pushed for hypersexuality as a sort of side effect of grief in the beginning probably because that’s been something that’s of particular interest to me — it still is. A generalized awareness of conspiracy was something that was sort of built into my childhood, I suppose. But the moment when somebody was watching conspiracy videos and another person explained they were watching them, "Because I want one of them to be true" — that was a moment where I dropped into something broader. I understood the film we were making, but I also started to understand grief outside of my own experiences or even the experiences that Courtney and I had been talking about for so long. That was probably the biggest takeaway for me.
CS: I think the ideas around grief I went in with, but the challenge was to find a complimentary form. In the year and a half since we shot the film a lot happened, of course. We were filming scenes that we wanted to be gentle and empathic with people taking some extreme positions, and they were also funny to us, but I think I have more sadness towards all that polarity right now. There’s a feeling that the country is really exhausted and we're seeing symptoms of that and a fatal breaking apart.
Did making this film — and really, this whole year of making films — help you work through your grief at all?
CH: I think a winter alone in the house before all these films started shooting was the first time I was just totally alone for a very long time. And feelings were marinating that I think I had been avoiding. So to go from that and propel into this continuum of filmmaking or alternate universes probably saved my life in a lot of ways. But I think you could also look at it and go, I was like a wild horse running out of fear in a big way, too. I don't know if it helped me through grief, but it certainly was part of it.
And perhaps making films is related to mortality in that it’s what you want to spend your time on this Earth doing.
CH: Somebody else asked, "If cinema's really dead, what are you going to do?" And Courtney very cleverly said, "The role of an undertaker is available." I really don't know what else to do. I genuinely don't feel capable of doing anything else, which really scares me now at thirty-six, especially with an industry that really does seem to be waning, now. I sat in front of Chat GPT the other day and tried to make some kind of new, non-film resume. I was going to try and see what type of alternative job I might be able to get. I realized very quickly that I’m one of those people that — I don't really have the option to do anything but this. It’s terrifying.
I'm sure all these movies you made were motivated by a pure creative impulse. But also it feels like maybe it's a response to where cinema is at right now, in terms of having to take it into your own hands.
CH: I do everything by intuition. Before the strikes happened, I did have this horrible sinking feeling that things were not going to keep going the way that they'd been going. And that was a big reason why I decided to rent the house. And then the strikes happened while I was in the house, and, coincidentally, the only things you could make during that time were microbudget films.
Do you think this is replicable? Would you want to — or be able to — keep making movies in this mode?
CH: I think having a film and a set centered around a singular location seems to work for the types of films I like making right now. But more resources would be helpful, definitely. Ha
CS: It was hard working with so little resources, but of course that forced us to be resourceful and forced me to be creative in the edit. But I do think there was a way in which being so responsive to what was happening as we filmed and to other people’s creativity was what made the final film what it is, whereas you do need more of a plan when you have a bigger footprint and crew. My sense is you only get to be this free if you’re totally scrappy or totally fancy. Having a sound person would've been amazing.
Listings
Atomic Honey Casting is holding an open casting call for the upcoming A24 feature film, Tony, about the early life of Anthony Bourdain. Filming will take place May through early July in Provincetown, MA. Seeking actors to fill kitchen staff roles. Male, all ages, open ethnicity. Experience working in a kitchen preferred. Email TONYcasting2025@gmail.com with your name, a recent photo, and a brief description of yourself.
Vimeo has a $30K film grant, including camera/equipment loans from Nikon and RED, and mentorship. Apply by April 18. More here.
Madeline Miller is a Music Supervisor in New York looking to build credits, happy to work with low to no budget. If you have room in your budget for licensed music, I'm happy for it to go there! Available for shorts, features, commercial work. Doesn't have to be NY based. Also available to assist other Supervisors with clearances. Check out daylightsupervision.com, or email me at madeline@daylightsupervision.com.
Rooftop Films is hiring a Print Traffic Coordinator to assist the production of its 29th Summer Series and special events, coordinating with film teams/external print traffic coordinators, securing on-time receipt of media, editing, and managing files. Seasonal position, April to early June. Apply at rooftopfilms.com/jobs.
Works and Process is accepting applications from NYC-based movement artists for week-long, fully-funded residencies to develop new or existing projects. For eligibility criteria and app details, visit worksandprocess.org/residencies. Deadline April 22.
No Film School recently published a massive list of spring film grants, labs, and fellowships. Check it out here.
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