Making Movies in the Woods
They're shooting a new indie in the woods this summer. So they called up 'Good One' Producer Diana Irvine for advice.
by Ethan Fuirst, Stephanie Ibarra, and Anna Torzullo
Over the past few months, we’ve been gearing up to shoot a microbudget indie currently titled Can’t Go Over It, Can’t Go Under. Our film follows two friends (affectionately referred to as gay guy and bi girl) as they confront the reality of their friendship while on their yearly backpacking trip in the Adirondack Mountains. The film is set entirely on the hike with most scene headings simply stating “EXT. TRAIL - DAY.” Faced with the daunting task of shooting countless exterior scenes in the mountains, we keep asking ourselves: “What would Good One do?”
India Donaldson's 2024 feature Good One is a key reference point for us, both in storytelling and production. Donaldson’s film is also set on a backing trip, it was also shot in New York State with a city-based crew, and it is also telling an intimate story (rather than some man vs. nature narrative with avalanches, wolves, etc).
That said, the productions aren’t identical. Good One was made on a tight budget but our budget is even smaller. Good One’s team slept in AirBnbs while we’re attempting some guerrilla filmmaking with our cast and crew sleeping in tents in the backcountry. Most importantly, the bear canisters featured in Good One for the Catskill Mountains are different from the bear canisters we’re required to use in the Adirondack Mountains.
Still, we — director Ethan Fuirst and producers Stephanie Ibarra and Anna Torzullo — thought it would be helpful to chat with a member of the Good One team to learn about their experience making a movie in the literal wilderness. So we called up Good One producer (and actor) Diana Irvine. She discussed the unique challenges and thrills of shooting an indie in the woods, the logistical process, and how to get a small film seen.
Can’t Go Over It: We're so excited for you to share any of your experiences of working on Good One! Can you start us off by telling us how you landed on the Catskills as a shooting location?
Diana Irvine: India Donaldson, who wrote and directed Good One, initially wrote the script with the Sierras of California in mind. But for a million reasons, California seemed to be a little more challenging for a film of our size that had no chance of getting the tax credit and would be asking people to step away from high paying union jobs in Los Angeles. We were like, “Oh, actually maybe an East coast backpacking trip makes the most sense.”
We pretty quickly honed in on Upstate New York and the Catskills. We went and location scouted many times. One of the first places we fell in love with was Lake Minnewaska at Minnewaska State Park Preserve.
Was it the lake scene that you guys filmed at Lake Minnewaska?
Yeah, where they're at the top, that's Minnewaska. We were like, “Minnewaska has everything we need in terms of the outdoors. We can go get a waterfall, the lake, the cliffs, the height.” We were never going to really hike it because of the challenges of that, so we wanted to find places where we could really cheat the progression of a trail. But Minnewaska is really expensive.
When you talk about the cost, you mean literally permits with the state to film?
Yeah. I'm butchering this, but let’s say a crew of fifteen people or less was maybe $1,200 for the day. But if you were doing complicated things and you needed an extra park ranger, their rate could be $40 an hour. But you won't know until the day before. And we’d also have to get food in and there weren't always bathrooms. We were like, “Do we need port-o-potties?”
The ranger there, Jorge, was really nice. We owe him everything. I was like, “Is there anything you can do?” He's like, “It's the state, so there's no deals to be had.” But he told us about this woman who lived nearby who had a huge piece of property that used to be this funky 1970s hippie ranch and tavern that she and her partner bought.
We went to check it out. The owner, Karen, toured us around in her UTV with her German Shepherd running behind. Her property had a lot of different topography and two homes, both Airbnbs. We were like, “Oh my God, we could stay in these Airbnbs and have that be our home base.” Once that all clicked into place with her location, we were like, “We're in business. We can do this for our budget.”
The majority of what we filmed of the hiking was on Karen's property. Except for a few days in Minnewaska where we got the Trailhead parking lot and we got the height of that lake and sort of cheated it for the top of their ascent.
Because of our budget and because we're a much smaller team, we're trying to do our film fully guerilla. We're thinking about how busy these trails can get with other hikers. How did you wrestle with the American Public?
There were other people at the lookout and we would be like, “Hey, would you mind just pausing your conversation for a second? We're filming something.” But some people don't listen or they're like, “yeah, yeah” and then they're at full volume two seconds later. We would have to hold for sound and grab shots in-between.
But we didn't have to do too much interference. We picked an area that was slightly removed from the main lookout. The good thing about hiking is that the general public is on their way. They're not hanging out to picnic, necessarily.
The actors really had to stay in their zone. That's probably the hardest thing. Maybe we’d only have two takes for a scene before a big group came by and we’d have to keep moving on.
Additionally, somehow we didn't find out until the day before that one of the days we were at Minnewaska was also earmarked as the Summer Solstice marathon through the park. Not only did we not have private access, but a race was running through the literal area where we're filming. We couldn't do anything about that.
Did you say that the permit came with a ranger?
The permit came with a ranger checking in, but he wasn't with us all day helping navigate the public. Maybe if we were paying a lot more, we could have shut down parts of the park, but you just have to ask people and hope that they're nice.
Honestly, if you folks were able to film Good One by politely shushing people, it gives me confidence that we can totally pull it off too. Now to the big question: How did you handle the rain?
There was rain and we knew there would be rain. The philosophy, which really came from India's father, who's a filmmaker, was: Just keep shooting. Just don't stop; find a way to keep shooting something.
We lost basically a whole day to rain and lightning. It's an outdoor movie. But we pitched a tent on the porch of one of the Airbnbs and shot inside the tent.
The lightning was the horrific part. We were able to shoot in light rain, but the lightning was too dangerous and you have to hold a certain amount of time for the lightning to be a certain amount of miles away.
When we were losing a lot of time, we would look at the pages we had left and just start cutting and reassembling stuff because we could not afford to add on any more days to our shoot. It was a team effort, but India and Wilson [Cameron, our cinematographer,] really rolled up their sleeves and were not precious. It is terrifying to have to be slashing through your own script and your shot list, but no one freaked out about it. It was just, this is what we have to do. So we kept filming.
Was there a guiding philosophy to choosing what to cut or what to change?
The guiding principle was: what's the necessary spinal story of this? The film hinges on this one major moment and this turn. Do we have all the shots to bring us to this moment? Not worrying about the comedy too much, not worrying about these precious moments that we just loved. It was more about when we’re in the edit, we can't be missing anything.
Is there any advice that you would give regarding prepping for safety?
Even if you're non-union, I do think that the union rules are just really good rules to live by.
I would say get a really good satellite weather app. There's an app that I ended up downloading that this really amazing seasoned local hair and makeup person told me about. She was taking a smoke break and was like, “Have you downloaded this app? This is going to save your life.” And I did. It tracked how far away the lightning was. And you could see the weather moving towards us on a map.
Then there was just basic stuff of making sure that we had first aid with us. We had to be worried about ticks and we were duct taping our pants into our socks. It was probably a little overkill. Oh my god! Tecnu for the poison oak, poison ivy situation. Our line producer, Olivia, was bulk-buying Tecnu from every local Walgreens just to have it on hand.
I can say confidently, I feel like I worried the most about safety in the woods, just because my dad has put the fear of God in me about safety. This is how I felt, maybe how you guys will too: When you're out there in the woods, there's no infrastructure, so if something were to happen, if someone were to fall, if someone were to eat something they're allergic to, it's just us.
How far were you from a place where you could get help? Did you guys ever hike in at any point?
We were always at maximum, probably a ten to fifteen minute UTV from something.
Was the outdoor element something you guys had in mind when you were casting? Were you like, we need a type of willingness here?
We knew it would be self-selecting. But you never really know until you're on set. Someone could have a fear of spiders they don’t tell you about until you’re out there. It's just about communication, over-communication even. “This is what we're going to do.” “This part is going to be hard.” I think lack of information can lead to people freaking out. Crew too.
We've been learning that already. In every meeting and interview we’ve held, we don’t play down the hiking element of our film. I joke that when the cast and crew eventually resent the hiking and turn on us, I want them to remember deep down that we did say it would be exactly like this.
Yeah.
We've been talking with our DP, Emily Walowski, about the uniqueness of continuity in the woods. Did you find that you were able to edit together random parts of the park to make it look continuous?
It was about the general logic of how in nature there's pockets of things, and if you're popping around too much, the same plants aren’t all necessarily right there together.
The continuity is tough, but the nature of weather up there and summer storms is that it rains, it stops, it rains, it stops. So there's a world in which you can have a spray bottle of water and you can just use that as truth that the weather changes and suddenly the sun's out and you dry really fast.
A spray bottle! That's something I hadn't thought of: playing dry for wet.
It was raining when we shot that campfire scene with the three backpackers. Then the rain stopped. In post, we really leaned into the sound of the rain hitting the tarp to remind you that it was still raining even though it was raining lighter than it had been when we were shooting an hour before.
Movie magic. Can we pivot to ask some questions about getting the film out into the world? Do you have any general advice for pathways to get a small film seen?
We kept really good track of everyone who had ever seen the script, seen the deck, heard us talk about it in person, like a Master Excel spreadsheet of friends and fans of the film. When the movie was done, it wasn't that the REI guy called up his friend at Sundance, or whatever, but I just feel like we were building a community the whole time around the movie. If we hadn't gotten into a major film festival like Sundance, which was life-changing for us, we were talking about doing screenings for this outdoor backpacking club in New York and reaching out to these brands and maybe doing a partnership event. There were a lot of grassroots-type conversations about the way that we're building with this community mindset.
Listings
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The book launch for “A Movie” by Courtney Bush is happening 5/29 at 7pm at 46 Canal Street. Performancesand readings by Courtney Bush, Dan Arnes, Payton NYC, Jameson Fitzpatrick, Ari Lisner, Richard Perez, and Nora Treatbaby.
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Opening day at new venue (562 Johnson Ave.) is May 30.
Philly Film Society is looking for a Programming Coordinator. More here.
Cory Cavin is raising money for a Brooklyn-based crime drama called Dream Baby Dream. More here.
The A train to Rockaway is back. And the Arverne Cinema will return on May 31 for Rockaway Film Festival programming.
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