The Biggest Challenges in Making 'Prep' Were...
Ray Knudsen breaks down the blood, sweat, and tears that went into his bodybuilding fever dream.
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by Ray Knudsen
I wrote Prep coming out of a very specific period of my life: competing as a bodybuilder during the middle of COVID. I moved to New York in early 2020, left the city because of the pandemic, then moved back in with my parents in Florida and had this itch to compete again. Stepping on stage was a complicated experience, but I was a go-getter, wanting to see how in shape I could become. I accomplished a lot, but it was a big strain. And after my last competition, I was struggling with my relationship with food, binging a lot of food after my shows and feeling so much shame. I eventually sought out an eating psychologist who was also a former competitor. I wanted to get back into writing, and she challenged me to write one crappy page a day without judging myself.
In writing it, I wanted to delve deep into a bodybuilder’s psyche. I think a lot of people see them as these tough and rugged people. But from spending time in the world myself and talking to other bodybuilders, a lot of them are some of the most sensitive people you’ll meet,. Many of them come from broken places or have had bad breakups or they were a fat kid and were bullied. And this was their way of coping with that. But as we know, the self improvement world can become toxic. Something like bodybuilding can become a crutch for a lot of people. That's probably not the healthiest way to heal a trauma. I wanted to show who this character is in the present day, what he's struggling with, and see the origin at Chuck E. Cheese, being judged as a fat kid.
The few years leading up to my last show I became very open minded as a filmmaker and watched a lot of European stuff that I've come to really admire — like Gaspar Noe and Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg. Filmmakers that just go for it. I don't necessarily love all their work. But I think coming from this very emotional, sensitive place of needing to express what happened to me in this world, paired with my open minded-ness to the type of movies I consumed, led my brain to come up with ideas that were very unorthodox and weird.
How to safely put a crying baby on a mannequin’s lap
The baby on a mannequin, for instance, is kind of a representation of who this guy is internally. A baby in the arms of a mannequin is very helpless. It's just screaming for help. And I think a lot of men were taught to suppress and not express. That leads to a lot of crying babies internally. I don't think we're used to seeing a muscular man like that break down.
I knew that this was arguably the most delicate scene in the film, from a practical standpoint. We can't provoke a baby to cry for ethical reasons, obviously. We submitted for the part through a casting website, and surprisingly a lot of moms volunteered their babies. I talked to a few on the phone whose sons fit the physical description. One of them was crying in the background as I talked to the mom, I asked if her baby cries a lot. And she was like, "Yes, Michael cries a lot." And I was like, OK, I think that's all I can really hope for.
The baby was going to be alone on the lap of the mannequin, so we had to figure out a way to keep it secure and safe. Our key grip, Chris Violette, built a safety harness within the diaper that the baby was going to wear that would be strapped to the mannequin and the chair. And then we'd have people right outside the frame for safety in case the baby were to fall over. We felt like that was the best we could do to prep for that shot. It was just going to be one shot that zooms in and out.
We sat the baby down and the mom walked away, and she was smiling and taking pictures. And immediately, the baby started crying. We zoomed in and out for a few minutes and got our shot and then they left. It wound up being very simple. There was a lot of preparation that went into that, and I'm just glad I had a team that was very thorough.
Building rapport, and respecting boundaries, of our lead
Chibueze Anaysor, who stars as Zay, and I have always been very communicative. He's not a professional actor, though he's as talented as one. In the first short I did with him we built rapport just going to the gym together, hanging out and talking about our bodybuilding experiences.
Emotionally, we're pulling from similar emotions and thoughts. It’s not exactly what happens in the film, but when I need him to go back to a certain place we can go back to that. But it was important to get his sign off on everything we were doing. For the eating scenes, we did spit takes. But that sugar is still in his mouth. So when he said he was done, he was done, I'm not going past that. And we were always able to find what we needed in the footage we did get. That's the beauty of editing — that you're making a whole different movie than the one you shot.
Physically, Zay cut down to make his body look a certain way. He did a sort of mini prep so he could look like a bodybuilder who's ready to go onstage. I think if he had gotten any leaner, we're dipping into his well-being potentially suffering. We scheduled around the eating, too. We did that stuff last because it was going to affect how his body looked. As the shoot went on, he was eating more and more food. I think the last day was when he did the pizza scene.
Choreographing for screen is its own beast
I initially was going to just get a bunch of dancers in a room without a choreographer. I was going to a bunch of raves, I would see people who were really talented dancers and say to them, "Hey, I'm making this movie. I'd love you to be a part of it." A lot of people flaked. I realized that approach could be a disaster. So I hired a choreographer who was a friend of a friend. She had her group of dancers. They showed me some dances they made on their own. I would just give them the songs and the vibe and how we were going to shoot it.
I learned that choreography for live dance and for the camera are two completely different things. Some things that were great in person did not look good on camera. There was a whole other dance sequence that opened the movie that just didn't work. And while I was looking for individual dancers, back before I hired the choreographer, I posted on Backstage and I came across this guy named O who lived in Baltimore. He was kind of a street dancer. And he asked when he auditioned if he could use his Bo Staff, and I was like, "Totally." After I saw his first audition, I was like, "He has to be in the movie." It made sense with the aggressive, violent energy, but it was also eye candy and cool. And we've become good friends.
Locations: Where to find them and what to do when your cover is blown
We shot the film over a week. I've spent most of my life in Florida, but I was born in New Jersey, and I lived there until I was eight. My parents never sold the house, so when it came time to do this movie, filming in New York City, just from doing the commercial work I've done, seemed infeasible. There was no way we were going to shoot in these two studios and these live locations within our budget. So my house in New Jersey was where everyone was going to stay and we'd shoot as many scenes there as we could.
I went around New Jersey, trying to develop relationships with places that made sense for the movie. I found the pizza place while I was bodybuilding. During that time, I made a list of the places I wanted to eat at after my show when I moved to New York. And I found Brother Bruno's, and I was like, I can't believe this exists. It was like the definition of food porn. I ended up going to the place and eating there and talking to the owner. I didn't know it until later, but he was a former bodybuilder himself. So he was super on board with what we were trying to do. He let us shoot there for free as long as we bought food.
I kind of did the same thing with the gym. I hit up gyms, trying to meet in person. I was trying to find the look and aesthetic I wanted, but I was also just trying to get their sign off on what we were trying to do and get a friends & family discount. I found a gym called Iron Culture that wound up being run by another former competitor, and they were on board.
One of our bigger challenges was filming at a Chuck E Cheese. I figured that asking for permission from corporate would’ve been a no, so we told all the actors we were throwing a real birthday party. I figured, no lights, no boom stick. We could just put on lavs. It's just one line of dialogue and the rest could be recreated in post. And if Rob, our DP, is just shooting on mini DV it's almost like he's a parent at this real party. So on paper it seemed like we could get away with it. But when I showed up, one of the actors had accidentally told the manager he was there for the film shoot, so our cover was blown. And then my production designer, Jacqueline, was walking in with a bunch of clothes to outfit everybody, and I was like, "Dude, this does not look good." I tried to play it cool and just host this 'party,' but I noticed the manager was asking different people in our group if they were here with the film shoot. And eventually she was looking towards me. While this was happening I told one of my producers to call a pizza place and ask if we could shoot there. This location was falling apart in real time. But the manager ended up being cool with it. She was like, "Just don't film the other kids." So we shot the scene, and we were very happy with it. Everyone thinks that scene is real archival footage from Zay's childhood.
We shot a lot of stuff in two studios in New Jersey. The white void stuff was very easy. It was a small studio right by my house. We just had Zay on the bike, squeezing the orange. The studio that was the black void was a very crazy day. It was simple in that there's multiple scenes taking place on a black background, and we had to do some VFX to make it pitch black versus looking like a curtain. But there were a lot of moving pieces. We had bodybuilders who had to get tanned to do that scene. We had Zay throwing a trophy through a real mirror. We knew we only had one take to do that because we don't want to break all the mirrors.
There were a lot of risks that wound up paying off. When Zay indulges in the peanut butter, the plan was to not storyboard it; to just go in and shoot it. I called out potential directions to my DP, Rob, during the take — whip the camera, do this, do that. A lot of it wasn't usable, but some of it, you'd be surprised. The year I had been competing, I lived a very rigid lifestyle, and when I made this movie I just exploded.
Listings
Casting Double is looking for someone to play the lead role in a short film: Mikey Liu (18-26, Chinese American man, skateboarder, must speak Mandarin and be comfortable riding a skateboard). No acting experience necessary, paid, shoots upstate in August and in NYC in October. DM @castingdbl on IG or email casting@castingdouble.com.
From Bucky Illingworth: Have an affordable / sliding scale Super 16mm package available in NYC. It's an Arri SR2, PL Mount, HD tap, 2 mags Otar Illumina Lenses (9.5, 12, 16, 25). Insurance is required for rentals but also open to work as a DP / operator. Just looking to make shooting on film more accessible for people! Email: email@bucky.website.
The short thesis film, Safe In My Skin, is casting right now. It is shooting Upstate New York in late August and early October. This is a paid opportunity and it is open to actors and non-actors. If interested email casting director Manuela at safeinmyskin2024@gmail.com with a photo of you and any links to your previous work! Looking for:
Male Talent / Chinese-American (18 - 25 yrs old) *Must speak Mandarin *Ideally knows how to ride a skateboard
Male Talent / Caucasian (18-25 yrs old)
Female Talent / Caucasian (18-25 yrs old)
Anna Torzullo and Steph Ibarra are hosting a film screening of a collection of shorts at Kaleidoscope on June 21st, to raise money for the production of a short film shooting in Chile this winter. RSVP at this eventbrite (tickets are $17 at the door).
Edward Frumkin is looking for programming, copywriting (like press kits), and administrative/production assistant opportunities. He's an experienced writer who's written for places such as BOMB, IndieWire, The Daily Beast, and The Film Stage, screened for Camden and True/False Film Festivals, and programmed for 2024 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. He was also a driving PA on PJ Raval's upcoming nonfiction project In Plain Sight. He can be reached at edfrumact@gmail.com.
Dan Arnes is looking for full time or part time contract work. He’s an experienced editor, producer, and composer. Check out his work here. Email Arnes.daniel@gmail.com.
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