After the Wedding

Here’s a great how-it-was-made case study of “Beasts of the Southern Wild” one of my fave movies from this year. It’s kinda long but definitely worth checking out.

(Via IFP)

It’s been just a little over two weeks since we wrapped, and I still can’t believe we did it. We completed principal photography on “After the Wedding”. You have to understand, this movie had only existed in my head for two years. So to finally see it become something real, something rather tangible, is still a bit surreal to me.  And exhilarating.

I mean, what a journey it’s been so far. First, there was the Kickstarter fundraising campaign my sisters, Lisa Michelle and Karina, and I launched in May. While we received ahhhh-mazing support from our friends, family and strangers, we still were unable to reach our high goal.

But alas, out of pure stubbornness my sisters and I decided to try again. And crazy enough, the second time we succeeded.

Lisa, Karina, and I raising money on Kickstarter.com.

We actually almost didn’t make it the second time too, but at literally the 11.5th hour, a wonderful mystery man who I’ll call Mr. R, helped us get to the finish line. To be honest, I was feeling so defeated about the whole thing that just a week before, after a not-very-present romantic dinner with my sweet husband, Alex, in the West Village, I convinced him to let us have our palms read by a storefront psychic named Silvia. (That’s how desperate I was feeling!) In an effort to soothe his ball-of-nerves wife, Alex kindly submitted. (TMI: Just the day before I had ordered these.) So we had our palms read and can you believe she predicted that we wouldn’t reach our goal? Again! Now I was officially depressed.

Which is why on the last day of our Kickstarter, when it looked like we might reach our goal, I was confused. But Silvia, the storefront psychic, said we wouldn’t make it! What’s happening?! So all day friends kept saying to me, “Smile! You’re gonna make it!” But secretly I feared that a minute before the fundraising deadline, the numbers would go down, and Silvia would be right. But thank God. She was WRONG. We made our goal. And now we were going to Gulp – have to make a movie! I can’t really begin to express to you the full cocktail of emotions I was feeling, but it was something like this: 70% YES! We’re making a movie! 30% Holy shit! We have to actually make a movie now?!

But I got over the holy shit part pretty soon. When you’re busy hustling you have very little time left for worrying. So just like that a little over a month after our goal was reached, my sisters and I were in beautiful Miami Beach getting ready to make our FIRST FEATURE FILM.

Hello, Miami Beach!

Now I know that $30k sounds like a lot of money. And it is! But to make a feature length film it really isn’t. Especially for us, since our film wasn’t some guy-in-room-for-90-minutes type of film.  Last we counted we shot in 15 different locations in Miami Beach AND New York, with multiple club/bar scenes and various driving sequences – stuff is HAPPENING!

So my sisters and I decided that if we were seriously going to make THIS film on OUR budget two things would need to happen:

1) Every person would need to wear multiple hats (as in, at least 5!) during production and,

2) Every person would need to have not only great talent, but a great attitude. No room for squeaky wheels here!

Lisa hustling as Producer/2nd AD/Casting Director/Publicist

Karina as Producer, DIT Tech, Art, HMU, Wardrobe Dept and Colada Hunter.

This is when the true guerilla filmmaking began. We called our actors and explained to them that yes, the film was still happening. But that everything was being scaled back. By a lot. So for talent, this would mean doing their own hair and makeup. And wearing their own clothes. Lucky for us, each and every one of them said: HELL YES! Not only were they still interested in being a part of the film, but were excited by the challenge. So amazing and cool talent: Check!

Nick Puga getting into character as "Diego Diaz" - in his own clothes!

Edy Ganem and Kandis Erickson bringing it as "frenemies"

Next up, was finalizing the crew. It was going to be run-and-gun all the way. So our first addition to the family was Alex Martinez, executive producer/assistant director/on set film buff/Jameson provider. Oh, what would we have done without Alex?! Alex is amazing. I personally don’t think I have ever met anyone more passionate about films. Alex is an encyclopedia of knowledge when it comes to films. Wanna talk about the latest blockbuster? He’s seen it. Ask him about some obscure Danish film no one has seen. Well, he’s seen that too. His passion for film is so contagious that I vowed to myself to watch more good films upon my return to New York. (Working on it.) That’s the thing about hanging out with great people; they make you want to be great too.

Alex Martinez reviews the schedule.

Next up, we brought on Juan Barriga, our kid wunder. I shouldn’t really say kid because he isn’t. But his TALENT, accomplishments and demeanor far surpass his age. As a matter of fact, Juan is a pretty serious guy. That is until… he gets the giggles. See here.

DP Juan Barriga

And it was simply an added bonus that Juan insisted on bringing on Nelson Moncada, 1st Assistant Camera/Gaffer/Colada Hound. Nelson’s quiet confidence and easy going nature make him exactly the type of person you want to be working with when things get challenging, and challenging they did…

(L to R): Nelson Moncada, Nick Puga, Juan Barriga, Alex Martinez

Finally, we added Kyle Weber and Thor Trammell, the coolest sound team you could ask for. We worked some incredibly gruesome hours, in sometimes hot and uncomfortable conditions, and these guys always had the jokes. Always had great attitudes.

Nick Puga with Alex Martinez, Kyle Weber and Thor Trammell.

So we now had the perfect cast and crew. We were small (and slightly dysfunctional , but like any family we were strong together, and immediately cared for one another. And just like that Day 1 began. To be honest, the rest of filming is a bit of a blur. Everything happened so incredibly fast and EVERYTHING would come together at the 11.5th hour. We didn’t have a main location confirmed until 36 hours before. But we pressed on.

Special Thanks to The Dorchester Hotel for taking us in with open arms.

One of the cars we used in a driving sequence almost – hmm, how shall I put this without terrifying my parents? – blew up! But we pressed on. (Okay, it didn’t actually almost blow up. But it did catch on fire. While half of us were still in it.)

Us playing with fire, literally.

On the day we were supposed to film our big wedding scene, Hurricane Isaac decided it wanted to make a cameo in “After the Wedding”. We thought about shutting down, especially with Miami locals going into mild hysterics, but with our budget it really wasn’t an option. So again, we pressed on…

Filming right before Hurricane Isaac.

And that’s pretty much how the entire shoot would go. Hustle, hustle, shoot. Hustle, hustle, shoot. And in the end everything would somehow magically come together.

Filming a scene with Nick Puga and newcomer David Wichner

Carol Coronado makes her fantastic debut.

Well, I shouldn’t say magically. We all busted our behinds to make it happen. Every single person was overstretched. Every single person was tired. And the actors – incredible. For starters, there was Nick Puga.

I’ve known Nick since he was disrupting Ms. Villalba’s 11th grade Spanish AP class with his faux-orgasm sounds. I can’t say, that as a Daria-like 16 year old that I could completely appreciate his humor then, but I certainly can today. Nick is funny. Not just ha-ha funny. He is scary observant funny. He’s great at reading people, and within minutes he can usually have you laughing, wanting to hear more. See here.

And seeing his talent the first day I felt so lucky that he was taking on the role of “Diego Diaz”, that I worked so hard to create. He can do the funny, but can also do the more dramatic stuff too. It was really great to watch him work.

Nick Puga

Then there was Edy Ganem, who plays his wife in the film. I’ll cut right to the chase – Edy is gorgeous. She has the quality of a classic Hollywood starlet like Rita Hayworth, but she’s funny, smart and down to earth. (She could easily keep up with the guys and their dirty jokes.) She’s the perfect package. So seeing her go toe to toe with Nick was incredibly entertaining. He couldn’t have gotten a better match.

Edy Ganem with Nick Puga.

And of course, the talented and stunning, Kandis Erickson. Kandis plays “Vanessa” the sexy temptress, if you will. It can be a challenging role to play without falling into a cliche. But Kandis brought warmth to the role, and made her real. Seeing her passion and commitment towards the role was incredibly inspiring and only pushed everyone around her to up their game. All I have to say about Kandis is – Watch out, World.

Kandis Erickson

ATW Family Portrait

And that’s how we made the film. Every single one of us pushed through it, in the true spirit of independent filmmaking. At times it was a bit overwhelming, but even during the tough days everyone remained cool. That’s what happens when you like each other, and like each other we did.

The ATW Family taking a break.

So if there is anything I’ve learned from this experience (for any first-timers out there who might be reading this) it’s three things: 1) Take chances. It seems sometimes you have to take a step in a new direction almost blindly, without having everything figured out, before things can fall into place. It’s scary, but it seems to be how it works. 2) You can’t do it alone. This film happened because sooooo many wonderful people (donors, our family, our amazing cast & crew) all came together for one common goal — To make “After the Wedding” a reality. And for that I am truly grateful for. And 3) Don’t ever listen to storefront psychics named Silvia.

Me, directing "After the Wedding".

If you have the time, I highly recommend watching this acting workshop by Michael Caine. Incredibly informative to both newbie directors like myself, and actors.

(Via No Film School)

Film friends, if you haven’t already, watch this video with Ed Burns and producer Ted Hope as they talk about failure, and how you can use it to learn great filmmaking lessons. It’s an hour long but definitely set some time aside to watch, if you can. Highly recommend.

Claudia’s Update from Pink Forest Films on Vimeo.

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