Defying the Odds

A Mug Shot is Not a Head Shot

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 03:01:00 +0000

I have been remiss in keeping this blog updated. So here's the skinny. Our 11th film festival was the Beverly Hills High-Def Film Fest in December, again at the Fine Arts Theater.

FEB. 24, 2009 - BIG RELEASE DAY! Defying Gravity is now on netflix, amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com. Hopefully other outlets as well. Here's an interview with me in the local paper: http://www.myvalleynews.com/story/36322/. It's called 'Menifee math teacher’s film hits store shelves'. Yay! At this point it's virtual shelves, but that's good enough for me. Okay, making some of my money back too would be nice.

Switch gears ... I've now started my second movie project, called 'Dreams I Never Had' (http://DreamsINeverHad.com). I wrote the script in December after reading an incredible news story about human trafficking right here in the United States. My long-time friend Brian McGoldrick read the script and loved it and has decided to executive produce it. All within one month!

So here we are in one of my favorite phases ... looking over headshots/resumes and deciding whom to invite to audition. The challenge here is that our lead roles must be able to speak Arabic and English, as well as look Egyptian. We also have a teen Mexican boy as a lead, and finding a hispanic actor in that age range is no easier. I've been using three casting websites, free to producers and apparently one of them is also free to aspiring actors because it is filled with a proliferation of actors in all ages, colors, creeds, shapes, and sizes. Unfortunately, most of them have uploaded cell phone photos as their head shots. Which leads me to my updated ....

Producer's Tip for Aspiring Actors
1. Get head shots. Show that you're serious about becoming an actor.
2. If you're under 18, don't pose like a slut.
3. Don't make gang symbols. Unless you only want to be cast in rap videos.
4. If you're taking a photo of yourself with your cell phone, don't do it in front of a mirror. It shows that not only can you not figure out how to hold the camera at arm's length, but you don't know how to crop out the camera or the mirror.
5. Lie to me in the comment box. I'm a sucker for comments. Tell me you think my project is worthy. I want to hire someone who is as excited about my movie as I am.
6. If you're inquiring about a role, don't start emails with "Hey--"

Festival Reflections

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 06:15:00 +0000

Just got back from the Red Rock Film Festival in Springdale, Utah ("gateway to Zion National Park") and really enjoyed the long weekend. Part of my festival selection strategy is whether I want to visit the festival's location. This is probably the worst sort of promotional strategy - ranking location over prestige. But you know what, some of the best festivals I've been to have been smaller festivals in smaller towns. More on this in a minute.

Our 10th and last scheduled film festival is next weekend - the Paso Robles Digital Film Festival. As with Springdale, I am looking forward to visiting this beautiful location in Central California, near San Luis Obispo.

Now that my film festival run is almost over, here's a few observations.
1. The locals in small towns are generally more likely to attend film screenings, possibly because the nearest multiplex is at least 30 miles away. Or maybe it takes a true independent spirit to move to a remote location like Springdale, Utah. Even with local attendees, the most people I have ever had attend a screening, not related to me or a cast member, was about 20. This was at the Fallbrook Film Festival, and did not include the students I bribed with extra credit to attend. The smallest audience we ever had was at a film festival in Pasadena - zero. Probably because there are a million multiplexes within a 10 mile radius, and our screening time was something like 10:00 a.m. on a Thursday. We were also competing with three other festival films screening at the exact same time.
2. Some festivals will notify you well in advance (by email, possibly by phone) of your acceptance or rejection. Some are a little more belated than others. We did not find out til last week that we were accepted to Paso Robles. Some festivals do not notify you at all, such as the Temecula Valley Film Festival and the Malibu Film Festival. You just have to keep checking their website to see if they've posted their schedule. And when they don't get around to this until way after their official "notify" date (again, Temecula), you are clinging to hope for months and months. In my opinion, it is the epitome of rudeness to not take the time to notify a filmmaker whether they have been accepted or rejected. We have paid good money to enter their festival.
3. The festival that took the longest time to notify entrants was GirlFest in Hawaii. I believe they went 4 weeks past their official notify date. The West Hollywood Film Festival took a close second - 3 weeks.
4. Most rejection letters are polite and encouraging. "Thank you for your entry. We had so many wonderful entries this year that it was difficult to choose. Unfortunately, we did not choose yours. However, congratulations in the completion of your film, and good luck in the future." The tersest rejection came from the Mt. Shasta Film Festival: "Your film will not be screening at our festival this year." Maybe I read too much into this brief statement. But combined with the fact that this was the only festival to RETURN MY DVD, it seemed like they were so offended that they didn't even want the DVD to sully their trash can. Like an unwanted oijii board.
5. Festivals will charge filmmakers between $0-$150 to attend the award ceremony. Thank you Red Rock for not only providing a free award ceremony, but a free breakfast buffet.
6. Most festivals give participating filmmakers goodie bags, which are usually small gift bags with promotional items with the film festival logo (pens, pins, etc.) and small items donated by local merchants. I love goodie bags and even more, I love the FILMMAKER NAME BADGES. I have a whole collection of these. I would wear them every day if I could.
7. Some film festivals will only give out a few awards - Best Documentary Short, Best Documentary Feature, Best Narrative Short, Best Narrative Feature. When a festival screens over a hundred films over the course of a week (like the Riverside International Film Festival) , they should give out more awards than that . They're free to give out (we're perfectly happy with 8x10 certificates) and make the filmmakers very, very happy. The festivals that give out the most awards are the Digital Video & High Def Festival and the AOF Film Festival. Further, I enjoyed their awards ceremonies not only because I won an award, but because they showed clips of the nominated films, just like the Oscars. So fellow filmmakers - do a little research. Go to the festival's website and check out how many films they accepted the previous year (as well as the type), and how many awards they gave out. Also, if a festival only runs 2 days, chances are you won't even get accepted.
8. Don't limit yourself to the festival listings on WithoutaBox.com. There are several international film festivals with NO entry fee.
9. Don't get discouraged when you get rejected. Some people will love your movie, others will not. It's hard to second guess why you get rejected. Was the quality of the film production poor? Did the script suck? Was the content and/or dialogue offensive? Who knows, because 99% of the film festivals will not give you personalized feedback with your rejection letter. So don't try to second guess.
10. If you've been rejected by 100 festivals and accepted to none, then maybe you should try to second guess.
11. Do not shy away from 1st year festivals. Some of the best organized and executed festivals I attended were 1st or 2nd year festivals. You have a greater chance of getting in (because they will only get a few hundred entries, as opposed to a few thousand), and the enthusiasm level of the organizers is high.
12. Defying Gravity has screened in everything from small hotel conference rooms to large multiplex theaters. So don't expect a red carpet and searchlights. I am grateful for every opportunity I've had to share my movie, and I'm still amazed and grateful that people show up.
13. Every audience laughs at different lines. Sometimes they laugh at lines that I never intended to be funny, but more often than not they will not laugh at lines I do intend to be funny. However the three most consistent laugh-getters are (a) when Shore gets hit in the face with a water balloon, (b) when Jorge says, "That's an awful lot of energy. Do you need protective gear?" and (c) when Lola says, "Let's pick a font." Which is totally brilliant, because Willam ad-libbed that line.

Gravity picks up Momentum

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:49:00 +0000

A friend pointed out that I have been very lax about keeping this blog up-to-date. So, here's a pictorial overview of what's been going on the past few months, and let's see if I can edit the blogger html to get these photos in the right places:

BEST LGBT AWARD - AOF INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, PASADENA - July 31, 2008

Oh good, it worked. If you don't always want the photo glued to the top of the post, then take the style ="..." out of the img tag, then copy and paste the image to wherever you want it to occur within the text. Okay, enough html blogger hints. Back to the overview.

BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE AWARD - WILDWOOD BY THE SEA FILM FESTIVAL, NJ - Sept.28, 2008

This award was completely unexpected and totally cool, because we won over 'Romance and Cigarettes', which was written and directed by John Turturro, executive produced by the Coen Brothers, and starred Christopher Walken, Susan Sarandon, and James Gandolfino. Considering that I was profoundly inspired by 'Raising Arizona', just to play in the same festival with the Coen Brothers was an honor. Also playing at the festival was 'David and Fatima' starring Martin Landau and Tony Curtis. Oh, I am going to milk this award for every drop of prestige and then some.

This was also a great event because my good friends Jack and Diane Adams attended, and also Mac's parents Jim and Bonnie Rankin. When they introduced themselves to the audience as Mac's parents, the audience gave them a round of applause!

AAUW (American Association of University Women) BENEFIT SCREENING, SANTA CRUZ - Oct. 4, 2008

This was a great screening because we helped raise money for the scholarship program of the Santa Cruz chapter of the AAUW. About 150 tickets were sold. I flew up Mario, Michael, Lexie, and Mac to appear at the screening, and they received a lot of positive attention from the audience, especially after the screening. They got to sign autographs! Afterward we went to a seafront bar and observed the sociological behavior of single people.

This screening was organized by Craig's mother, Phyllis Edmundson, who labored for months to orchestrate and promote it.

UPCOMING FILM FESTIVALS

Other Venice Film Festival - Oct. 12, 2008 @ 3 PM
The Electric Lodge, 1416 Electric Avenue, Venice

La Femme Film Festival - Oct. 17, 2008 @ 6 PM
Fine Arts Theater, 8556 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills

Red Rock Film Festival, Springdale UT - Nov. 14 @ midnight & Nov. 15 @ 10:10 a.m.

Which Do You Want First - the Good News, or the Bad News?

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 06:54:00 +0000

I'm gonna give you the good news first. We've been accepted to the AOF (Action on Film) International Film Festival in Pasadena. We'll screen Monday July 28 in the afternoon. This actually qualifies as GREAT news, because it's been a while since our last acceptance, and I was beginning to feel like my 15 minutes of fame was over. (No retreat! No surrender!) So we're back in the saddle again.

We were also nominated for 4 awards - Best Dramatic Feature, Best Female Filmmaker, Outstanding LGBT Project, and Best Actress in a Feature - Alexandra Mathews. I am so proud of Lexie, and so glad that her awesome performance is finally being recognized. Spoiler Alert - Every time I watch the desert showdown scene in which she finally speaks, I get goosebumps. Which is crazy, because I know what happens. I wrote it. I've seen it dozens of times. But she gets me to suspend my disbelief every time.

And of course I'm thrilled with myself for that BFF nomination. Now, if only they select a winner by means of roller derby, I'm sure I can put on my kneepads and snag that award.

Funny thing about the LGBT nomination. One of the directors of the festival called me and asked if the part of Lola was played by a ... "transgender individual". Yes indeed, I replied. He then asked if I would be offended if I were to be nominated in that category. Not at all, I replied. In fact, it would be an honor. The character of Lola is supposed to show an LGBT character trying to get through life just like the rest of us disenfranchised individuals. And if they wanted to nominate me for Best Project Involving a Cemetery, or Best Car Rental Lady Project, I'd take that too.

Just call me Festival Troll.

Which reminds me, I think the Car Rental Lady was a fascinating yet underrated character, layered with nuance, who deserves a movie spin-off. Something like, Untitled Car Rental Lady/Owen Wilson Project. Or Brendan Fraser and the Car Rental Lady. But I digress.

Oh yeah, the bad news? Ironic. I was glancing through the recently posted list of all nominations on the AOF website, and I almost spit out my diet Dr. Pepper when I saw none other than Flyboys. Oh shit, I thought, there goes the Best Dramatic Feature prize. I did a quick mental check - was it made by a woman? Did they have a transgender individual? No and no. And the bad news is actually not so bad at all. We are not competing against Flyboys in any of the categories. (I think they're in some category like Best Overall Feature). So they won't have to peel my fingers off the coveted Best Dramatic Feature prize just yet ...

Fallbrook Film Festival, Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 06:37:00 +0000

Defying Gravity screened at the FFF on Sat. April 26, one week after the Riverside International Film Festival screening. Fallbrook is a wonderful small town in the northernmost part of San Diego County. This was their first film festival, but you'd never know it. Everything was a class act, from the Opening Night party up to the awards ceremony. We met some really cool fellow filmmakers, as well as the Festival Directors.

The local newspaper ran an article about the festival, with an emphasis on 'Defying Gravity', as I could almost be considered a local girl. (Escondido and Fallbrook are both North County.) We got a B+ review, and the reviewer wrote some very nice things like ""... a funny, poignant and always interesting little film, built on well-designed characters and a fine story." Here's a link to the full article: North County Times Article.

Fallbrook Film Festival invited us to participate on a filmmaker workshop panel, which we (Craig and I) gladly did because we are always happy to share our complete lack of knowledge with people less knowledgeable than ourselves, because it makes us feel more knowledgeable.

Our screening was held in the very quaint retro theatre on Main St., and this was the biggest audience we had yet. Okay yes, several of them were my Math Analysis students whom I bribed, I mean motivated, with extra credit. (They - the students, not the audience - also had to answer questions chosen from the following: (1) prime numbers (2) fibonacci numbers (3) perfect numbers (4) Riemann hypothesis. Coincidentally, just this week a mathematician claimed to have proven the Riemann hypothesis using some sort of Fourier analysis, but he was quickly proven wrong.) Actually, this would be a splendid addition to future screenings - a pop math quiz at the end of the movie.

But I digress. As I was saying, the audience was robust. A lot of locals showed up which was very gratifying. A wonderful Q&A session following the screening. It was also cool that Mac and Mario drove down, as did Shanna and Michael with his parents. I managed to get the actors and director on stage during the Q&A, but they kind of hung back behind me. I felt a little like I was taking the bullets. Which as producer, I am happy to do.

A few of the questions asked were (1) Were Mac and Mario already friends before the movie? and (2) Does Mario really talk like that? The answers were (1) no and (2) no.

Mac got to give out his first official autograph after the screening, to one of my students. She did NOT get bribed with extra credit to request that.

Craig and I made it a point to watch 'Flyboys' at its screening the night before. Recall that Flyboys won Best Feature at the Riverside International Film Festival the week before. I have to say, it is a damn good movie. It's about these adorable pre-teen boys who get into mischief on a stolen private plane, and it starred Stephen Baldwin (!!) and involved mobsters, car chases, a plane crashing into a mountain, and a breathtaking parachute rescue. Clearly out of our league, and out of the league of all the other movies in the festival as well. The actress who conducted the Q&A said that the budget was $2 million. Note, this is about 25 times the budget of ours. Do the math.

As soon as I saw the movie, I thought, We're going to lose again to Flyboys. If you look at their homepage, they have won something like 20 film festivals. Most of them small town film festivals. Meaning most of their competitors are little films like ours.

So I am going to go on the record here, even if it comes across as sour grapes, and say, It's not fair. We're not in the same league. It's like putting Napoleon Dynamite up against Titanic.

Craig and I went to the award ceremony anyway, because it would have been bad form not to. We surreptitiously commiserated with other narrative feature filmmakers who also knew we were all going to lose to Flyboys.

Which is exactly what happened. Flyboys won Best Feature Film.

But, the Fallbrook Film Festival also decided to give out a Director's Choice award. I didn't even want to hold my breath for that. But hope springs eternal. I held my breath...

And we won! You can see me in the photo above holding an almost-translucent laminate film strip, which was our prize. What an incredible, magical feeling!

Fallbrook Film Festival, Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 05:19:00 +0000

I first started submitting to film festivals in January. One of the first I entered was the 1st annual Fallbrook Film Festival because heck, it's the nearest geographically. I've always liked the quaint small town feeling of the avocado capital of the world.

Not long after I submitted - but significantly before the deadline for entries - I got a phone call from one of the festival directors. This was my first phone call from a festival director and I was excited beyond measure. She called to tell me that she loved the movie and how refreshing it was after watching endless submissions about middle-aged men having affairs with young women.

Tip for Filmmakers Making Movies about Middle-Aged Men Having Affairs with Young Women - Do NOT submit this film to film festivals in which the majority of the selection committee are women over the age of 40.

The director went on to say that while she could not officially confirm my acceptance into the festival, she felt that she could impress upon the selection committee how much she liked my movie. She wanted to know IF we were accepted, would we be available on April 25th to be the opening night film? And would we like to participate in any of the workshops? I promised her everything short of the moon.

Three months go by.

I am at school, it is 5 minutes before the final bell will ring, and I have forgotten to turn off my cell phone. It usually doesn't get a signal in the classroom anyway. For some reason, today, I not only get a signal but I get a call. I immediately fish it out, intending to turn it off (I have to set an example for my students), but I notice on the caller ID the name of the Fallbrook Film Festival Director. I have never answered ANY call in my classroom. But there was no way I was going to miss this one. I stepped just outside the doorway, and the festival director informed me that Defying Gravity was indeed an official selection. After ending the call, I was so excited that I yelled to my students, "Guess what! My movie is going to be in the Fallbrook Film Festival!!" And the students, thrilled at any opportunity to cheer loudly, cheered loudly. YAY!

Riverside International Film Festival

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 02:16:00 +0000

The Riverside International Film Festival was fun but uneventful. Craig and I attended both the opening and closing night parties, and I realized that champagne makes conversation with strangers a whole lot easier. Including Michael York, who was there to receive a lifetime achievement award. He definitely deserved it. He was truly a classy gentleman who gave an eloquent and heartfelt acceptance speech. He also seemed truly interested in each person who approached him and asked for a photo. (Who would do something like that?) The other gentleman in the photo is Dr. Dhillon, who is the director of the festival. Another very nice gentleman.

Defying Gravity was shown on a Friday night at 9:30 because they figured we were well suited for the 'late night' crowd. Unfortunately, there was not a big late night crowd. About a dozen people at most. But, the cool thing was that we played in a multiplex. This was our first appearance in a multiplex!

We did not win any awards. They only gave out one award in each category (feature narrative, documentary, short, etc.) and these were determined by audience votes. The winner for narrative feature was a movie called 'Flyboys'.

Stay tuned for more about the Flyboys ...

Hell Yeah

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 04:51:00 +0000

Digital Video & High Def Festival 2008

We were nominated for 3 awards - Best Score, Best Drama, and Best Story/Writing. I would have been happy with any one of those. The first category we lost was for Best Score. Okay, I thought, there's still two more. We sat through endless awards - almost as many as the real Academy Awards. (However the organizers did an excellent job of emulating the Oscar ceremony - complete with film clips of nominated movies, and an attractive hostess ripping open the envelope with the award winner).

About two-thirds of the way through, we finally got to Best Dramatic Feature. Since there were only two movies nominated in this category - us and someone else - I figured this was our strongest chance. A 50% chance. If we lost this one, we would be the ONLY LOSER. (Conversely, if we won, that would mean we were only better than one other movie. But who cares, I would have taken that. I wanted the gold statue.)

The clip they showed for 'Defying Gravity' was the one in which Shore is in the cemetery teasing Cassandra with the sketchpad and beanie baby. This was possibly the least dramatic scene in the entire movie. I watched it and thought, Even I wouldn't select this as Best Dramatic Feature. So no surprise when we lost to the other drama.

At this point I was extremely discouraged and wanted to go home. But that would have been bad form. There was still one other category we were nominated in. I gave up mentally rehearsing my acceptance speech.

Finally - I think it was the second to last of at least 30 categories and a 3 hour ceremony - we got to Best Story/Writing. There were 5 or 6 nominated movies in this category. Our clip was shown last. It was the one with Jorge and Shore driving in the hearse, and Shore is ranting about Mormons and Muslims and Jehovah's Witnesses. I was pleased with that clip.

The attractive hostess ripped open the envelope and handed the slip of paper to Tony, the Festival Director/co-host. He glanced at it, looked up, and said, "I just want to remind you folks, this award is for Best Writing. As in a story." I realized he was making a disclaimer. The kind of thing you would say so that your festival wasn't sued for religious defamation. That's when my heart started to flutter. That was my potentially offensive movie he was talking about. So I wasn't surprised when he said DEFYING GRAVITY.

I threw down my glasses and handbag and headed for the stage. I can't remember if Craig was following me or if I was pulling him up with me. I blathered some thanks to those who were there with us that night ... Bea Bernstein, Abbie Bernstein, Craig, and Wendy. I told everyone that Abbie was my first writing partner, and we'd come a long way since our first collaboration: "The Six Million Dollar Man Goes to the Planet of the Apes." Which I still think is a viable concept.

Craig took the microphone and thanked his father for dying last year so that we could spend his inheritance on the movie. I swear, that's what he said. I looked at him like he was crazy. So did the hostess, festival directors, and the entire audience. But he somehow managed to back pedal and say something about spending money on something that both our fathers would have been proud of. Without exaggeration, I think ours was the most memorable acceptance speech of the evening.

I carried my gold statuette around with me all night and the next day. I took it to school and shared it with all my students and fellow math teachers. Now it is on my desk, staring at me. This is even better than the trophy I won in 12th grade for 'Best Expository Speech'.

Next up: Riverside Film Festival this Friday.

Winning isn't Everything

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 05:42:00 +0000

Well yeah it is. Whoever said that was obviously a loser.

I am currently suffering a dangerous addiction. It's called Entering Film Festivals. I've entered a lot of them so far. I'm not going to tell you how many, because if I don't get accepted into 21 of them - oops, I mean 10 of them - it will be obvious how many rejection emails I received.

This is not new to me. I used to enter a lot of screenwriting competitions. At one point I was writing out a check to something like 'Dubious Distinction Screenwriting Competition' when suddenly it occurred to me, "Who are these people? How do I know if they know anything about good screenwriting?" At which point I decided to start my own screenwriting competition. I enlisted some judges peripherally connected to the "industry", started a website, and was on my way. Pretty soon those checks were coming to ME.

Note - it was a lot of work, I read a lot of painfully bad scripts, and I did not get rich. So don't try this at home.

So now here I am, nearly 10 years later, in the position of entering contests again. However this time I am smart enough not to think, "Who are these people? How do I know if they know anything about good filmmaking?" Actually I do think that, but only when I am rejected, and I do not follow it with, "I'm going to start my own damn film festival."

Here is where the addictive behavior comes in. 'Defying Gravity' has already been accepted to two of them. (One of them is the Digital Video & High Def Festival in Beverly Hills, screening next Sat. 3/29, and the other is the Fallbrook Film Festival, screening 4/26.) It's like getting high. It is so EXCITING to get accepted, it's such a RUSH, that you want to keep doing it again and again. So kerplink, I keep hitting that 'submit' button on withoutabox.com.

However, I have become a little more discriminating. I've learned not to submit to any contests which are 3 days length or shorter. This really cuts down your chances of being accepted. I've learned not to submit to competitions which have traditions of favoring movies involving B-list actors whom they want to entice into attending.

This is my new strategy. Apply to festivals with niche interests:

LGBF themes (there are a lot of them!)
containing the word "Women" in the title
listing any kind of mission statement like this:

a movie that inspires us, lifts our spirit or transforms our lives. .. makes us feel more hopeful, more thankful, more connected, more passionate and better about life in general. We identify with the Film's characters on a deep, emotional level, and are motivated by their stories to pursue positive change in our own lives ... honors the belief that simple choices can change the world and inspires us to make a difference.
films that make a positive contribution to our world
The overall festival mission is to prevent violence against women and girls through education and art.

When I realize, in a few months, that my movie addresses none of these issues, and I am resoundingly rejected from all festivals promoting positive deep insights, then I will have to rethink my strategy.

Or start my own festival.

No Such Thing as Normal - The Making of 'Defying Gravity'

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 06:47:00 +0000

Click to Play

Behind the scenes with the cast and crew of 'Defying Gravity'.

The Trailer

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 06:14:00 +0000

DEFYING GRAVITY - THE TRAILER

The Premiere!

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 06:00:00 +0000

The premiere fell on a rainy Sunday evening, however everything went beautifully. We almost filled the 150-seat theatre to capacity with friends and family of the cast and crew. It meant so much to me to have both old and new friends show up.

I cannot describe how surreal it is to watch your own movie on the big screen. And people genuinely seemed to enjoy it! I heard laughter at the right spots, and even laughter at some spots I never imagined were funny. Like when Shore told Jorge, "We have to find her. I don't think she's playing with a full deck." I guess they realized this was like the pot calling the kettle black.

The Chaplin Theatre at Raleigh Studios was beautiful, and they were great to work with.

At the end of the screening, Craig got up and thanked everyone involved (he's good at that), and then I answered questions from the audience. I was a little nervous at first, but then I got into it. I think the best question was when Wendy's friend Zane (with Aspergers Syndrome) asked, "You filmed at a lot of different locations. How hard was it to get all those permits?" This got a big laugh from the audience too, which was enough of an answer in itself. I told Zane, "I don't want to bore everyone with the details. Next time you come over to the house, I'll tell you all about it."

Some other questions were about the meaning of the title, and how I got the idea for the story.

It was nice to answer questions about something other than math problems.

We received so many compliments afterward. I don't know how to say this without bragging, so I'll just say it. It was a hit. Maybe, just maybe, this movie will be the little engine that could.

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 06:34:00 +0000

Exciting news this week. Received the finished soundtrack from Cosmo, and Craig is now laying down the music tracks. We'll have a finished product in a few days! I've rented the Chaplin Screening Room in Raleigh Studios for the premiere, which will be Sun. Jan. 6th.

I wrote a "Making of ... " article (a 4-page condensation of this blog) and submitted it to Indie Slate magazine along with some photos. It was accepted two days later! My first magazine article! It will be printed in the March/April 2008 issue. I am now officially on three weeks Winter Break, and plan to spend most of it working on the press kit and entering film festivals. And bolstering myself for inevitable rejection ... if only it will be tempered by some acceptance and adulation.

You must remember this ....

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 06:33:00 +0000

Not longer after this escapade of hearse pick-up shots, Justin had the opportunity to view an early edit of the movie in its entirety. He called me and to make a few suggestions, because he felt it was worthwhile to put in a little extra to make a big difference. He said that he thought this movie really had a chance - and I hope he was being truthful rather than trying to wrangle an extra few hundred bucks for a few more days of shooting.

Justin explained that the current ending - which jumped from the highway showdown scene to Shore back at college - was too abrupt. There needed to be something in between, to help transition from an intensely emotional climax to the perky everybody-lives-happily-ever-after resolution. (my paraphrasing). I had never thought about this before, because when you work on something one page at a time and out of sequence, you lose sight of the organic whole. But I realized Justin was right. He suggested two scenes which I now feel are amongst the best in the movie.

The first scene he suggested was something to help bridge the previously mentioned awkward transition. This ended up being the police station scene. One thing Justin was emphatic about - "Give the audience their kiss. They sat through this whole movie waiting for that kiss." I was ambivalent about that. Technically, that kiss constituted statutory rape. But hell, the characters already had grand theft auto and kidnapping on their hands. And the kiss was really little more than your first experience playing spin the bottle. I also recall the first thing Lexie's mother said after reading the script. "What, no kiss?" And this is from the 16-year-old actress's mother. If she had no problem with it, neither did I.

The second scene Justin suggested was some sort of montage of Shore and Cass at the very end. He felt it wasn't clear enough that they were together at the end. Now, this suggestion was coming from a non-sentimental 25-year-old guy (redundant?) Not some prepubescent girl. If he wanted it clear that Shore and Cass ended up together at the end, I was going to give it to him.

Now I was thrown back into production mode. Michael and I agreed that both scenes could be done in one day. The end montage would be easy - we would take them back to the beach in which we first met Shore at the beginning of the movie. But a police station? Where the hell would we find a police station? An internet search produced a sound stage already dressed as a police station. Perfect - if it wasn't ridiculously expensive. To hell with them. I was going to make my own police station. All I needed was a very big nondescript room.

Craigslist again to the rescue. An acting troupe in Hollywood was renting out their practice room by the hour, dirt cheap. I booked the room and rounded up all the props shown in the photo of the ridiculously expensive police station set. Let's see - a flag. A computer. A phone. Wanted posters. Misc. office clutter. The only thing I needed was a counter for the policeman to stand behind. I called several prop houses and they had nothing. As Craig and I were driving to the set on the appointed day, we passed a used office furniture warehouse off the 5. "Stop! Go back!" I yelled.

They had exactly what we needed. A metal bookshelf turned on its side ($15), with a formica table top ($25) perched on top of it. Instant counter. I felt like the Martha Stewart of budget set design.

The last thing we needed - a policeman. Gavin Moore, who had rented us our police cars, was more than happy to fill that role wearing his own uniform. (and thus killing two birds with one stone). Somehow, like always, everything came together at the last minute.

And the kiss in the back room of the police station - I proudly rank it as one of filmdom's top ten kisses.

Oh Don't You Laugh When a Hearse Drives By ....

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 02:38:00 +0000

Filming wrapped in early May, and post-production was underway in early summer. The editors were doing their thing, and the composers were doing their thing.

I was thrilled with the early cuts of the movie. It was absolutely amazing to see it play out from beginning to end. I submitted a list of editing changes that were mostly minor - cut a line or two from various scenes, choose a different shot for another scene, etc. (The editors may claim differently, but my point is that both editors did a fantastic job.) However ... something was nagging at me. I realized we were missing something absolutely essential for a road movie (or partial road movie) - scenes of the hearse on the road. We had no long shots of the hearse cruising through the beautiful Southern California landscape toward Mexico.

So, I called the director, DP, and hearse owner, and set up a shoot day for the outdoor hearse shots. It would be worth it to pay for a half day rental of the hearse, and gas reimbursement, to get some key "picture shots". However, I did not want to haul out to Yermo or even Palmdale. So once again, I pored over satellite photos of regions in Orange County, which would be a happy medium between L.A. and San Diego Counties. I found one lengthy strip of road that looked like it was mostly remote. The question was, would it look enough like a desert? Craig and I drove out there on the Sunday prior to shooting day. We were in luck. Santiago Canyon Road in east Orange County was nestled in some gorgeous dry hills. (Sadly, this would later be the site of the outbreak of the Santiago Fire that ripped through Irvine in the October '07 wild fires.)

Serendipitously, while scouting we found an old-fashioned storefront that would serve perfectly for the exterior of the Car Rental Agency. That was something else I felt was missing - a shot of the hearse pulling into the parking lot of the Car Rental Agency. We needed an exterior that would match the 'mom-and-pop' look of the interior Car Rental Agency, which we had already filmed at the Four Aces in Palmdale. We also needed the exterior to look solitary (not part of a strip mall), and set against a desert landscape. This was a tall order in a county heavily populated with slick car rental franchises, and I'd pretty much given up getting this shot, until we came across this storefront. Moreover, it looked like the store had been out of business many years, making it an even more convenient choice.

The crew assembled two days later. We chose some key picturesque spots along the highway and filmed the hearse cruising along. We found a cool biker bar, and I impulsively lined up the DP and director for a fun sight gag. I told them to stand in front of the bar chewing the fat, and when the hearse drove by, to cross themselves, as many people do when a real hearse drives by. Note, this is the only scene of the movie that I myself filmed ... all 5 seconds of it. I also think it is one of the most funny.

What remained was the shot of the hearse pulling into the "Car Rental Agency" parking lot. I'd brought the same 'Deliverance Car Rental - We get you to Hell and Back' banner that we had used in the interior shots, so that we could hang it from the eaves. There was just one small problem. When we pulled the hearse into the gravel parking lot alongside the storefront, we found it was not an abandoned storefront at all. Someone was living in back of it. Being the producer, I was elected to go knock on the door and ask for permission to shoot the front of their home. A young mother with an infant on her hip opened the door, and I explained what we were up to, and how quick we would be. However, she was extremely reluctant. Her husband and his work crew were expected home in an hour with several work trucks, and they would need access to the back of the house. I tried to explain that we would be done in less than ten minutes, and we only had one vehicle, which would surely not get in the way of the work trucks even if they got back early. I offered her a fifty dollar bill (all I had on me) for her troubles. She remained reluctant, but agreed to call her husband to ask permission. He was not willing to allow it for only fifty dollars, the insinuation being that he wanted more. Apparently, their storefront had been used in other movies, and the large crews and vehicles had blocked access to their back area for hours. They wanted nothing more to do with film crews. I gave up and walked back to Michael, Justin, and Jeff to give them the bad news.

Michael was astounded. "I'm going to talk to her," he said, and off he went. I trailed behind, wondering what he could possibly say to convince her that I had not already said. Michael purposefully knocked on the door, and out came the young mother again. "Look," he told her. "This is an extremely low-budget production. This woman (pointing to me) is a SCHOOL TEACHER!" Those were the magic words. The mother looked at me with a complete change in expression. "You're a school teacher? So am I!" Out came a flood of questions. How does one make a movie? Where do you find a film crew? etc. And yes, it was perfectly okay to hang the banner from the roof and film the hearse driving up alongside. I was happy to share what I had learned during my eight-month (thus far) filmmaking adventure. It turned out this young mother, currently on sabbatical from school to raise her infant, had a dream to make a documentary about teachers. I encouraged her to pursue this, because if I could make a film, anyone could. I gave her my email address and told her to contact me with any questions.

The day ended on that happy note. We got the shots and possibly motivated someone to pursue a dream.

Postscript - I have stayed in contact with April, and she is definitely moving forward with the documentary.Of course I volunteered to be one of her teacher subjects, because I am a ham, and so that all America can see what it's like "in the trenches". My principal even agreed to allow her to film in my classroom, predicated on school board approval. I hope to see her documentary someday, with or without me.

The World's Most Valuable Shirt

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 16:12:00 +0000

There are small and large hiccups in the production of a movie. The small ones include such things as forgetting an important prop. Driving up to Palmdale early in the shoot, I took a quick inventory of items in back of the RV and realized I had forgotten to bring the shotgun. Now, I don't normally have a shotgun lying around the house - I've seen Bowling for Columbine - but my ex-husband did, and he was happy to loan me one. But now said shotgun was lying forgotten in my garage in Escondido. And a shotgun was definitely needed for the scene in which Milo the Cook scares off bad guy Lubitch from doing permanent damage to Lola with a switchblade. Yelling "Hey!" is not enough in such a situation.

I got on my cell phone and called James Terry, the actor who was to play Milo. James had called earlier that morning to ask me my opinion on some wardrobe choices he had. Normally I would not expect actors to have immediate access to large firearms, but if anyone did, it would be Jim. He was a real go-to guy. "Hey Jim," I said, after getting him on the phone again. "We have a small problem. By any chance ... do you have a shotgun?"

He briefly pondered this. "No, but I bet I can borrow one," he said. He called me back five minutes later. "Got one." Now this is an actor worth his weight in gold - he showed up on time, knew his lines, came with his own chef apron and hat, and could satisfy bizarre prop requests on a moment's notice.

Shooting 'Defying Gravity' was filled with such fortuitous moments, in which I got by on the kindness of strangers over and over again. And I have appreciated each one of them.

Another big "oops" was Macauley's butterfly shirt. This was the shirt that he wore in roughly the last third of the movie - what comprised the extended "run for the border" sequence. Generally I called on call cast members the morning of each shooting day and reminded them about their wardrobe for the day. Key word "generally". One Friday evening I decided to go the email route instead. But when Macauley showed up the following afternoon, he did not have the butterfly shirt. He had not read his email, and who can blame him, he was probably as comatose from exhaustion as I was. He had a full-time job of his own, and had just driven 90+ miles to our location in Lake Elsinore.

Tip #5 for Producers: Do not rely on email for wardrobe reminders. Call your cast and get verbal confirmation.

We were planning to film several scenes both inside and outside the hearse. All four leads were there - Mac, Mario, Willam, and Lexie. The hearse was there. The hood mount for the camera was there. Everything and everybody was there except the butterfly shirt. Michael tried to reason that maybe one could assume that Shore removed the butterfly shirt while driving the hearse. I thought about this. No, several of these scenes, already shot, took place either (a) immediately after Shore jumped into the car wearing the butterfly shirt or (b) immediate before Shore got out of the car wearing the butterfly shirt. The audience would need to assume Shore performed inexplicable Houdini-like maneuvers to get into and out of the shirt while driving the vehicle. I just could not overlook this kind of glaring continuity problem.

I looked at Christian. "I need you to drive to L.A." Christian shrugged. He was being paid by the day, and driving with the radio turned up was probably easier than moving around large equipment. Michael generously agreed to loan Christian his car (I reimbursed him for gas), and Mac gave Christian his apartment key and instructions on where to find the butterfly shirt. Depending on traffic, this would be a minimum three-hour round trip. Fortunately, we had several scenes to film in the meantime that did not involve the butterfly shirt.

But believe you me, I kept my eye on the time for every minute of those three hours. Fate restored us to her good favor, and Christian made it back in time with the coveted butterfly shirt. I look forward to the day that this movie becomes a cult classic, and one of the cult members buys that butterfly shirt off ebay (from Mac) for tens of thousands of dollars. (Possibly me.)

Mac, don't wash it! The sweat stains will raise the value.

A Story About Back Story

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 05:20:00 +0000

A little more about the background of the script. When it was first written as a short, the character of Shore just sort of appeared. He was a very simple character - kind of hapless yet happy-go-lucky. He was a bright, young, good-looking kid who just happened to be homeless and had no back story to explain how he got that way. In the first draft of the feature length script, he acquired an element of delusional behavior. But still, no explanation of how he ended up homeless or delusional. This is the story of how he acquired his back story.

Let me back up a little more ... to when my older daughter Wendy was 13. She had a bad habit of getting up several times during the night, going downstairs to the kitchen, opening the refrigerator door, closing it again, and then returning to her bedroom. Over and over. She had other weird habits too. She would spend hours in the backyard running back and forth on the rocks that formed a border between the grass and flower beds.

She came to me one night and told me that she was very afraid, because she was hearing voices. She could not make them stop. One of the voices was the voice in the refrigerator. It kept asking for someone to help it get out. Another voice was in the iceplant in the backyard. Again, someone or something begging to be released. The same thing with coke bottles in the movie theatre. Cap on, cap off. A voice inside that only Wendy could hear, unrelenting.

This is one of the things that makes a mother's blood run cold. When your child hears voices, and can't make them stop, that is a very, very bad thing. Even someone who's never taken a psychology course knows that this is one of the signs of psychosis.

And so began a series of visits to psychiatrists. They prescribed medication, but I was afraid to give it to her because she was so young. By the time she was 16, she became so removed from reality that I had no choice. My brilliant girl who used to get "A's" and "B's" in elementary school was now getting all "F's."

But the medications we tried either made her gain weight, or fall asleep, or jittery, or just plain didn't work. We went through just about everything. We went through four psychiatrists until we found someone competent. Wendy is now on a combination of three drugs that keep her relatively stable emotionally and mentally. However, there is a trade-off. She sleeps well into the afternoon. And one of the medications, clozaril, carries the potential deadly side-effect of a lowered white blood count. In order to receive this medication, by federal law, she must go to weekly blood tests. At the time we were filming Defying Gravity, her blood count was erratic, so I was taking her twice a week. Furthermore, the pharmacy will only dispense enough of the drug to last until the next blood test. So, if she's getting weekly blood tests, she only gets a week's worth at a time. More often than not, the lab will forget to FAX the results to the pharmacy, so I'll drive all the way over there (there is only one pharmacy in Escondido that carries Clozaril), and they will refuse to give it to me until they get verification from the lab. For some reason they don't do this on their own until I drive over there and yell at them.

I began to understand that this is how so many mentally ill people become homeless. It is almost impossible to navigate the system whether you're competent or not. Even missing one or two days of meds can result in a meltdown for a schizophrenic person.

You might wonder just what is the big deal with the meds. If you listen to Tom Cruise, no one needs meds for anything - just a balanced diet and exercise.

From the clozaril website:

The risk of suicide in the general population is only about 1%. But people with schizophrenia are at a much greater risk of suicide. Approximately 30% to 40% of people with schizophrenia attempt suicide at some point in their lifetime. About 10% will actually die by suicide. In fact, suicide is the most common cause of premature death among people with schizophrenia. And the suicide rate may be even higher for people with schizoaffective disorder.

Wendy was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder in 2004. This means she is not only schizophrenic, but depressed. The first time she cut herself with a razor was in 2004. Fortunately, she had the sense to come to me and show me what she'd done. I took her to the hospital emergency room - not so much for the wounds (which were superficial) but for immediate psychiatric support. They asked her, "Were you trying to kill yourself?" She said "no". "Then you can go home," they told her.

The second time she cut herself, she again came to me and showed me her bloody arms. "Wendy, why did you do this?" I asked her. She replied, "Because the voices told me to."

This is why she takes medication. This is why I will not leave her alone for more than a few hours. And this is why I will never see another Tom Cruise movie.

Schizophrenia is possibly the only condition in our society that carries a stigma and invites ridicule. When I explain to people what makes Wendy different, I tell them she has Asperger's Syndrome (her original diagnosis). It's much more socially acceptable - even quirky and winsome - to be slightly autistic. I'm working on my ability to give the honest truth about my daughter. She's schizophrenic.

Consider this movie my first awkward step toward that honesty. And maybe one small rip in the blanket of shame surrounding this condition.

Keeping the Community Safe

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 05:07:00 +0000

The fun was not yet over in Cabazon. We wrapped the desert showdown scenes at sundown, about eight o'clock, and broke for dinner. What remained were three scenes between Lola and Cass set in the diner's bathroom. Even though we shot at the Four Aces three different days, we were unable to do the bathroom scenes there because it didn't have a bathroom. Or running water. Or electricity. (We had to power up the lights using the generator in our RV.)

Earlier I'd found the perfect bathroom location a few miles east of Whitewater Rd. - a rest stop. I had the crew, Lexie, and Willam follow us there. We got there about ten p.m. Fortunately, there were two women's restrooms. Perfect. We'd film in one, and direct incontinent female travelers to the other.

The crew, however, did not feel it was perfect at all. In fact, they were horrified. One of them said, "Lisa, you can't be serious. How is it going to look with three guys, a transvestite, and an underage girl in a women's restroom in the middle of the night?"

"But I'm going to be standing right outside," I assured them. "Look, I'll put on the orange vest and yellow hat." (These two items had already demonstrated earlier their magical abilities in getting the general public to follow directions.) I found an orange cone and plopped it down in front of the entrance to one of the women's bathrooms. "Besides," I said, "How many people are going to stop here at ten o'clock on a Sunday night?"

Another crew member remained unconvinced. He pointed out that the inside of the rest stop bathroom did not look like the inside of a diner bathroom. I cannot imagine how they differ. They both have sinks, stalls, soap dispensers, wall-mounted hand dryers, etc. Plus, this was the last shooting day that both Willam and Lexie were scheduled together. It was now or never. And I told him this.

The same crew member insisted, "This is dangerous. All kinds of weird people stop here."

"No one stops here except old married couples in RV's," I lied. I was losing patience. What was the problem? I grew up in Gardena and taught gang members in Moreno Valley. I wasn't about to be scared off by a little rest stop ten miles outside of Palm Springs. "Just do it!!" I told them.

So they did. Reluctantly.

Things went fine. Christian and I stood guard just outside the restroom door. To the few female travelers who wandered up, I told them, "Sorry, bathroom closed. We're fixing a leak in the ceiling. You can use the one in the other building."

Apparently the location was beyond perfect, because Michael finished in record time.

Kismet in Cabazon

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 22:42:00 +0000

The desert showdown sequence was re-scheduled to April 22, which was coincidentally Craig's and my 7th wedding anniversary. While it wasn't exactly romantic, I can't think of a more unique way to celebrate one's anniversary. We were doing something we loved, and surrounded by wonderful people.

After the sand storm experience the previous weekend in Palmdale, I was reluctant to return there. I did not want to chance another fiasco like that. At least not in the same exact location.

I spent hours poring over the satellite maps of a popular online mapping tool. I zoomed in until I could see whether a particular road was surrounded by houses, businesses, etc. As I mentioned in the previous post, I wanted a road that was remote and had a desert terrain. I dragged the viewing window in increasingly larger circles around Los Angeles. It seemed our best bet, apart from Palmdale, was going to be off the 10, heading toward Palm Springs. One road in particular looked promising from the satellite photos: Whitewater Road. A bit of internet sleuthing revealed that this road dead-ended at a closed hiking trail. That meant the only traffic would be the few locals who lived off the road.

There was no time to explore this road in advance. I told everyone to meet at Casino Morongo (the closest major landmark) and hoped for the best.

I felt more prepared this time around, except for one little thing. The two extras I had lined up to play the FBI Agents both called that morning and backed out. So here we were in Cabazon with two FBI outfits and no FBI agents.

Since Craig and I arrived early, we decided to pick up a few extra items at the only market in the area, which was more of a glorified liquor store. I'm in the back getting bags of ice, when suddenly I hear Craig propositioning someone at the cash register. "Hey, how'd you like to be in a movie?" Before I know it, Craig has recruited one of the unemployed locals, Marty, to play the part of an FBI Agent. But Marty turned out to possess all the qualifications of a good background player ... he showed up on time, he fit the jacket, he was tall and imposing, and he brought a buddy to play the other FBI agent.

I next convinced Craig to take me a few miles farther east to Whitewater Rd. It was perfect! We made it back to the Casino Morongo meeting place in time to lead everyone, caravan fashion, back to Whitewater Rd. We drove a few miles into a picturesque valley and set up our police blockade.

Now, we didn't want our police blockade to alarm any of the other drivers who chanced down the road. We also didn't want cars scuttling around our set-up while the camera was rolling. So I put on an orange safety vest and yellow hard hat and planted myself a few hundred feet down the road. I even had one of those hand-held STOP signs. (All of these items can be purchased from your local safety supply store.)

Tip #4 for Producers: Always have a few orange safety vests on hand.

It's amazing how much authority you can summon with those three items. I could have directed cars through a ten-mile detour to the top of the nearest mountain if I wanted to. "Uh yeah, we've got a flash flood warning up ahead - you want to get to high ground using the dirt road over there. No hurry. You've got about ten minutes before the first wave hits us."

But that would be silly.

I also managed to overlook an entire vehicle that day. FBI Agents need a FBI car. No problem. With all the cast and crew in attendance, certainly there had to be one car we had not used yet. And yes ... our DP Justin had a mid-size, dark-colored SUV that would be perfect. Even more fortuitous ... the gentlemen who rented us the police car and police uniforms happened to have an extra flashing light bar that could be mounted on the SUV. Bingo. Instant FBI car.

By this time everyone on the crew realized that both they and their cars would be used as background players in the movie at least once.

When the day was over, I was glad the dust storm hit us in Palmdale the week before. The Whitewater location was ten times more beautiful. Good luck was back on our side.

When Palmdale Hands You Lemons ...

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 07:13:00 +0000

The abundance of good luck I mentioned in the previous post was about to come to an end.

Without a doubt, the most difficult location to line up was that of the desert showdown scene. In this scene, the hearse was supposed to be stopped by a police blockade just before it reached Mexico. We more or less needed a long strip of desert highway with little or no traffic.

As much as possible, I tried to find locations close to L.A. I didn't want to drag my cast and crew all over the place, plus I was reimbursing everyone for gas. The "real" desert would have been the Mojave or Sonoran Desert - a 2-4 hour drive from L.A.

Many of the desert locations you see in T.V. and movies are actually in Palmdale/Antelope Valley, which is only one hour away from L.A., even closer to the San Fernando Valley. Personally, I find the Palmdale landscape to be rather flat, scrubby, and dull, but it was our best choice. We decided to meet in front of the Four Aces set, because most of us had been there before and knew how to find it. Michael would arrive an hour early in order to pinpoint a remote and deserted stretch of road.

At the appointed hour, everyone showed up. We shot one quick scene involving Shore and Cass, and then we were ready for the big Desert Showdown. We had in attendance:

Cast: Shore, Cass, Jorge, Lola, Two Cops, Shore's Father, Lubitch, Two FBI Agents
Crew: Lisa, Craig, Michael, Justin, Jared, Shanna, Steven, Christian
Vehicles - hearse (and owner Jeff, paid by the hour), police car (and owner Gavin, paid by the hour), monster truck (towed up behind our RV)

This was our biggest scene yet, and we were excited. Michael found a suitable road with little traffic, and we were ready to head over there.

Then ... the sand storm started up. Justin became immediately concerned about his camera. As did Jeff with his hearse. The sand storm became so intense that we clearly could not film. We took an early lunch, hoping the sand storm would pass. But as I mentioned before, this was not my lucky day. In fact it was a terrible day.

After lunch, there was no sign of sand storm abatement. Everyone looked to me to make that executive decision ... wait a while longer, or give up and tell everyone to go home? If you count the above people in attendance, you get a grand total of 20. Twenty people wanting to know whether we were going to hang out (in our cars, because we had no other place), or call it a day. I knew what I had to do; I just didn't want to do it. The expense of reimbursing everyone for gas was one thing. Trying to reschedule 20 people on a pick-up day would be horrendous. And so I told everyone to go home. However, Michael, Justin, Jared, Jeff, Mac, and Mario volunteered to drive back to Michael's apartment in L.A. to shoot an interior hearse scene in his parking garage. (The miracle of movie magic) So all was not lost.

I learned later that this was one of the biggest dust storms to hit Palmdale in a long time.

They say all's well that ends well. I managed to reschedule the hearse scene by rearranging the pick-up day schedule. Amazingly, seventeen of the 20 people would be available on 4/22. Two of them were the FBI Agents - easily replaceable. The chief concern was the gentleman who was to play Shore's father. He had a previous out-of-state trip planned on 4/22, and could not be persuaded to change it. (There is only so much persuading I can do when I am not paying people.)

Finding a new actor to fill this role also meant we would have to re-shoot the scenes we had already shot with this actor. Remember when I said that being a producer involved hours on the phone? This experience alone should give you some idea of the hustling I did nightly.

None of these phone calls yielded a replacement actor for Shore's father, though. And time was running out. I had less than one week.

One night Craig said, "I could play Shore's father."

I looked at my husband. I had never thought of him as an actor. He was a computer programmer, musician, author ... but actor? Hmmm. Well, why not? He was a talented and brilliant man. He ought to be able to say the lines convincingly. Plus, what was I going to do ... tell my husband and executive producer that he couldn't have the part?

"Really? You would do that for me?" I asked him.

Craig can now add one more talent to his list of amazing qualities ... actor.

For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 05:24:00 +0000

Our third and final day of shooting at the cemetery was to be Sunday, 4/8/07. We didn't even realize when we put together the schedule that this happened to be Easter. The main scene to be shot that day was to be a graveside funeral. Try finding 12-20 extras willing to work on Easter Sunday in a Jewish cemetery.

This is where Bea Bernstein really proved herself to be worth a price above rubies. Bea plays the role of the Elderly Psychic Woman in the cemetery. Amongst the many activities in which she participates - including PFLAG and a Democratic Club - is a drama class for senior citizens. I asked her if they would like to participate as extras in a movie. Fortunately, several of them did. My eternal thanks go to Bea's classmates, and the several other extras from lacasting.com who showed up on a chilly Easter Sunday evening.

The biggest casting challenge was to find someone to portray the rabbi. We needed someone who looked distinguished, Jewish, preferably elderly, and able to do a convincing Hebrew accent. I searched on and off for weeks trying to line someone up. There were a few gentlemen on lacasting.com who fit the bill, but none of them were available the date we needed them. I was getting more and more frantic.

Bea Bernstein to the rescue again. A few days before the shoot, she called to tell me that her brother George would be visiting from Mexico that weekend, and he would be happy to play the part of the rabbi. And George could speak Hebrew fluently! George showed up on Sunday, looked at his lines for the first time, and gave a stellar performance. And did I mention George is 90 years old?

I really feel that most of this production has been driven by a large amount of good luck. (Wait a second while I go get my evil eye necklace because I don't want to invoke the jealousy of whatever spiritual entity changes good luck to bad luck.)

Because it was Easter, there would probably not be many dining establishments open for obtaining dinner. So I did the next best thing. I picked up a Honeybaked ham the day before, plus all the trimmings, and prepared and served this "gourmet" dinner to everyone on Sunday. I don't know whether serving ham in a Jewish cemetery is appropriate, but I was not about to call my cousin Ben and ask him.

After our early dinner, we were ready for the big outdoor funeral scene. Now, what does a graveside funeral need? It needs folding chairs, a canopy, and .... an open grave.

Earlier in the week, I contacted the owners of the cemetery and asked them what it would take to dig up enough ground to make it look like an open grave from an angled camera. We didn't need the whole 6 feet. We'd be happy with 2 or 3 feet. Nancy was reluctant ... the problem was not in digging the grave - they were pretty efficient at that - it was finding a plot to dig up. All of the unused plots were going to be used someday, and no one wanted a recycled plot. Totally understandable. I'd seen "Poltergeist" so I knew it was unwise to mess with people's past, present or future burial grounds.

I was stumped. We needed a grave. Wait a minute ...

"Hey Nancy," I said. "I have a grave. Remember the one I bought a few weeks ago?"

"Yeah ... "

"Can we use that one?"

She thought about this. "It's an unusual request, but I guess we can do that."

Hallelujah!

I am probably the only producer in history who has ever had to tell their P.A., after a scene wrapped, to grab a shovel and fill in their grave. When I told you earlier that Christian was game for anything, I wasn't kidding.

The Easiest Job in the World

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 05:58:00 +0000

or, Hint #1 for Everyone

The easiest job in the world is to be a site rep for a filming location. This is your job: to sit in a folding chair all day long and make sure that the incompetent people shooting a movie at your location do not break or steal anything. For this you get paid $20.00 per hour - by the production company - and this is on top of the location rental fee that goes directly to the owner.

Obviously, to sit in a folding chair requires no education or experience. However, the job is seasonal. You only get to work when the location is rented out. But hey, lots of jobs are seasonal. Like construction workers and Santa's elves.

If you like to B.S., terrific, because bored cast and crew might wander over to your folding chair and shoot the breeze awhile. However, if anyone should ask you what notable movies or TV shows were filmed at this location in the past, act vague. This is to compensate for your poor memory.

Another possible disadvantage is that you might be there for 12 hours or more. But 12 x $20 = $240, no taxes taken out. Not bad for a day's work.

Every production has to break at some point and eat. If your location is in the middle of B.F.E., then they are clearly not going to all jump in their cars and head off to Denny's. You can be sure that lunch and/or dinner will be catered. Be sure and ask the producer if there will be any for you. How can they say no, when at least 20 other people are eating? Plus, you work up quite an appetite sitting in a chair for 12 hours. They ought to understand this.

When it is after midnight and filming finally wraps, the crew will set about to the arduous task of striking the set. Disappear for about an hour, in case God forbid they ask you to lend a hand. Your $20/hour does not include manual labor.

Reappear when you have ascertained that everything is cleaned up, packed up, and/or put away. This is your big moment. You get to do an inspection to make sure everything is exactly as it should be. If you notice that the venetian blinds are open to a slightly different angle than they were before the production company arrived, find the producer and instruct him/her to have someone fix the blinds. Likewise if you notice that some salt (!!!!!) was spilled on the floor. Make sure the producer takes care of this, because after 12 hours of running around like a chicken without a head, and having reached a level of hunger and exhaustion previously unknown to her except perhaps the first week after each of her two daughters were born - she would love to deal with your incredibly important request. Never mind that you could have found a broom and dustbin and swept up the salt in the same amount of time it took to track the producer down and report the salt incident. Sweeping is not part of your job description. For that you would need, like, at least $25/hour.

I'm really not sure how one can get a job as site rep of a movie location. I think you have to know the right people.

Shameless Nepotism

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 05:26:00 +0000

In this movie, nepotism was not a matter of choice. It was more like a matter of desperation. I had almost a hundred roles to fill, most of them non-speaking or having just a few lines. Without further ado, let's take a look at Nepotism 'R' Us. First I'll give you a list of the roles that were filled, and then a list of family members who filled those roles (often under extreme coercion). You get to play the match game.

The Roles, in no particular order
1. A sarcastic fairy
2. A diner patron
3. The Biker Babes
4. A tarot card reader
5. Shore's father
6. The mourning couple consoled by Lola

The Family Members, in no particular order
My husband
My two daughters
My step-daughter and her roommate
My ex-husband and his wife
My step-son

My younger daughter was horrified when she showed up for filming and saw the costume I had brought for her to wear. "Mom, I'll look like a slut!" she cried.

"No, this is really cute," I tried to convince her. "This is not slutty at all."

She took the costume out of the bag and inspected it more closely. "There are no bottoms! What am I supposed to wear under this?"

Okay, she was right about that. Now I felt really guilty. But when you're the sole person obtaining costumes, props, food service, locations, etc., you sometimes miss a few details. Plus, she was supposed to be studying for a midterm on differential equations. I should have been tutoring her, not dressing her like a slut.

"Hey look," I said, "The shirt you're wearing is the right color of green. We can fold it down, attach a few safety pins, and convert it to shorts."

They say necessity is the mother of invention.

And I like to think she is secretly pleased that her mom "forced" her to be in a movie. In the adolescent female one-upmanship game of "You can't believe what my mom made me do ... ", my daughter will win hands down every time.

God is a comic playing to an audience that's afraid to laugh. (Voltaire)

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 19:55:00 +0000

Or, Soapbox Part 2

This is not so much a soapbox as a backstory. The character of Shore spews out a lot of strange ideas. Some of them are innocuous, such as speculations about bending space and time. I think we'd all like to bend space and time on occasion. However, Shore also pontificates extensively about the inconsistencies of religion. Because Shore is a slightly crazed character, he can get away with saying some pretty outrageous things. They're not intended as MESSAGES. (that's my disclaimer, in case anyone gets really pissed at me for offending their religion. Let me just say I hope I have offended no one, or at least everyone equally.) Rather, they are intended as invitations for further reflection.

Shore's religious ruminations express the bulk of my life's religious experience thus far. It's been kind of a long, strange trip. Here's the chronology, as brief as I can make it:

1. I was brought up Jewish - in particular Sephardim, which are the descendants of Spanish Jews who were kicked out of Spain during the Spanish Inquisition. ("Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!") Many of them were given refuge, amazingly, by Islamic Turkey. It was near Constantinople (later known as Istanbul) that the Sephardic Jews built a large homogeneous community. All four of my grandparents left Turkey in the early 1900's and settled in Massachusetts and Brooklyn. There my parents were born, raised, and married.

We were not members of any Jewish synagogue, so my exposure to Jewish custom was limited to occasional temple visits, usually involving funerals and mourning. However, I was raised in the culture of Jewish food, Hannukah, and language smatterings of Yiddish, Ladino Spanish, and Turkish. And oh yes - guilt and foreboding. I remember being in the early stages of my first pregnancy, and wanting to start furnishing the nursery ... And my mother explaining to me that it was bad luck to start counting your chickens before they hatched (in this case literally and figuratively), because it invited the jealousy of the "evil eye". Even though I was a college graduate with a B.S. in math-computer science from UCLA, I took this admonition to heart. We did not furnish the nursery until one week before my due date, and even then, I felt like I was tempting fate.

2. When I was 19, I fell in love with a young man who had been a rather wild teenager, but was conspicuously tempered when he converted to Mormonism. He introduced me to the LDS missionaries, and I really enjoyed the attention of the weekly lessons. I liked the color illustrations they used to show families in the "before life" and "after life". They looked like the illustrations from the Dick & Jane books I learned to read from. Joseph Smith's search for the "one true religion" seemed entirely reasonable. And the fact that my LDS boyfriend REALLY wanted me to convert to Mormonism - and I REALLY wanted to get married - added to the allure. Before you know it, I was "Sister Savy". And soon thereafter, I got my engagement ring.

But!! Mormon Fiance' changed his mind. He decided he wanted to go on a two year mission to parts of the world unknown. I was heartbroken. The wedding was off - for two years, anyway. At that time I had just completed two years of community college and it was time to transfer somewhere. There was only one place I could go lick my wounds and immerse myself in the culture that would daily reassure me of my fiance's wisdom, selflessness, and commitment - Brigham Young University, Utah.

Part of B.Y.U.'s graduation requirement is a lot of religion classes - religious history, religious philosophy, etc.. One each semester. It was there that I learned a lot about both the Book of Mormon and the Old Testament. However, I got a little weirded out when my "Mormonism and Modern Science" instructor mentioned the part about becoming a god and creating your own world someday. I didn't remember this from any of the missionary's lessons. I couldn't even decide on a major - how was I going to create my own world someday?

Meanwhile, fiance' promptly decided, the second he dropped me off in Utah and drove home to California, that he didn't want to go on a mission. Nor did he want to get married. I didn't like the cold weather in Utah - or the crazed virgins in my dorm - so I came home after one semester and transferred to UCLA. I eventually married Noncommital Fiance', but that's another story about Complete Lack of Self-Esteem, and this is supposed to be a story about Religion.

3. When I was at UCLA, I took as part of my breadth requirements a class called 'Philosophy of Science'. It was excrutiatingly boring. Unlike math and computer science classes, this was a class in which students were encouraged to discuss and give opinions. I hate listening to other people discuss subjective things. However there was another student who sat next to me every day. He was always eating M&M's, and one day he noticed how I was eyeing those M&M's the way E.T. eyed Reese's Pieces. He offered me some of those M&M's, and a lifetime friendship was born. (yeah, I'm easy.) We started to chat informally during class, walking out after class, and soon, we were having lunches together. Brian was fascinated with the fact that I was a Mormon. He was a Catholic who had just spent time living in a friary - he's been a friar more times than I can count - and he was the first person to really ask me thought-provoking questions about my religion. His questions caused me to dig deeper into my own knowledge of Mormonism - and I was often confused and doubtful about the answers.

4. Fast forward through the next two or three years. I am now married to the Reluctant Fiance' (also named Brian), our daughter is born and baptized in the Mormon church, and I become a Sunday School teacher to 6-year-olds. One day someone gives us a copy of "The God Makers: A Shocking Expose of What the Mormon Church Really Believes." I read it, realized what a doofus I'd been, and stopped going to church. I reverted to the religion most familiar to me, Judaism.

Brian's retreat from Mormonism was longer - he sort of eventually fizzled out. Like our marriage.

5. My first job out of college was as a computer programmer. One day my Catholic friend Brian called to tell me that he was going to be teaching Biology at the Catholic high school. I was immediately jealous. I wanted to be a teacher too, but I didn't have a credential! No problem, Brian said. You don't need a credential to teach in private school. And a few weeks later, I was teaching Trigonometry and Basic Programming to Catholic High School students. That year I learned quite a bit more about the Catholic religion - including the fact that it was better to put on the job application that I was Mormon and not Jewish.

I also learned just a few years earlier that my birth father was French-Irish Catholic, and my birth mother was Russian-Jewish. So technically, I was sort of Catholic. Maybe I should have put that on the job application, or brought it up when they decided to 'let me go' at the end of the year.

However, I relate far more to the religion I was brought up in - Sephardic Judaism. Even though I'm whiter than white, I felt my roots lie in Turkey and Spain. And I still do.

6. I married Craig in 2000. Craig is an avid Atheist. I don't even know if that should be capitalized. I didn't care what he was, the important thing was that he didn't care what I was. Craig was a rare 45-year-old in that he had no preconceived notions of (or biases against) Jews. I had to patiently explain that if a name ends in "stein" or "berg", it's probably Jewish. That we're cheap. That we generally have wavy hair, olive skin, and big noses. So he can thank me for all his new stereotypes.

Craig has been writing a book over the last year called 'The Religion Virus'. I think you can tell from the title what the book is about. It's an extremely intelligent, enlightening book, and you should read it. So, you can imagine what many of our conversations have been about the last year ... how religious ideas have evolved over human history according to Darwin's 'survival of the fittest' schema. Most religious beliefs about God have gained prominence not necessarily because they are true, but because they overpower and eliminate competing beliefs.

I believe most of what Craig has written, but not all of it. I do believe in God. Why? As Lola says in my screenplay, "Because the thought of never seeing someone again is unbearable." I'm sure there are other reasons for God's existence, but that's the most important one to me ... I need God to be real.

Soapbox, Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Savy) — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 19:28:00 +0000

I like to think that Defying Gravity addresses various issues without hitting people over the head with a MESSAGE. For example, in the scene when Jorge takes Shore and Cass to a group of undocumented Mexican Immigrants for temporary refuge, it would be easy to have him deliver a stern lecture: "These are illegal aliens. They risked life and limb crossing the border to make a better life for themselves and their families in this country of opportunity. They can't get legitimate jobs or housing, so they live in a canyon. This is an epidemic problem in Southern California." That's hitting people over the head. No one wants to be lectured to. Instead, I chose to have Jorge dump Shore and Cass with no explanation, so the audience is possibly as perplexed as they are. Shore finally makes a conclusion that is logical according to his own life experience: "So, I used to go camping too when I was a kid."

Since this is my blog, and not a movie, I'm gonna hit you over the head with it. Watch this trailer for the documentary "The Invisible Mexicans of Deer Canyon".