a) I miss being on set and making movies with my best friends.  b) Priscillia Vidal, Chris Modoono, Deniz Barisik and of course, Gabriel Frye-Behar have been absolutely indispensable in the editing process and keep me going on days when I just want to go on an extended holiday.  c) We should have a final cut by the end of summer and d) SUMMER!!  Time to get a haircut and make another movie.

Lots of love,

Bornila

Can You Measure Your Areola Tonight? (Pasties Are Expensive, Tiffy Will Just Make You A Pair.)

With one of Jules' many security blankets... her typewriter.

After two hot, summer days spent in the hip, little Bushwick Starr, my homemade (thanks, Tiffany!) silver pasties hang on the wall of my bedroom and I keep finding glitter where I least expect it…

Shooting Jules’ burlesque was one of my favorite moments of working on Oh, Sophia.

I’ve never danced burlesque.  I had actually never really SEEN burlesque before being cast in Oh, Sophia.  Originally, we planned to have a choreographer set Jules’ final piece – but that plan fell through before rehearsals started, so I arrived on the first day of ‘dance rehearsal’ thinking “alright Angela, don’t embarrass yourself TOO much”…

But with no choreographer, Bornila decided she wanted me to make up the routine myself.  She gave me a song, sunglasses and scarf and and that was that.  I was going to have to come up with a burlesque number.

Well, perhaps I shouldn’t even call it ‘burlesque’, perhaps I should call it, ‘angelawatchesalotofburlesqueonyoutubeanddoesherbestapproximationofajulesversionofburlesque’.  Regardless, it was great fun.  What I grew to love about burlesque is that the routine tells a story and is done with a sense of humor, often through parody and exaggeration – the woman takes the objectified, over-sexualized female body and exploits it.  Through embodying the very stereotypes that often degrade women in our culture, burlesque reclaims those stereotypes as sexy, empowering, informed, and, most importantly, fun.  It allows women of every shape and size to BE sexy, to ENJOY being sexy — beneath the costumes and the makeup and the gags there is a very true appreciation for feminine beauty and sexual power.

This burlesque was, of course, a Jules burlesque — so I took what I found exciting about the art and tried to explore it through Jules’ eyes.  Jules loves to push boundaries, to shock, to be the center of attention, and to be flashy.  The performance comes at the end of her ‘Oh, Sophia‘ journey, at a point where she is reclaiming her spirit (for better or for worse).  So for me-as-Jules, the burlesque was about her getting back in the game — about entertaining and ENJOYING entertaining again – with as many bells and whistles as I/she could muster.  Mocking the hipster culture she, and especially paddy, live in was a great way for her to laugh at herself and get back to being the vibrant my-way-or-the-highway kinda gal she is.

The whole experience for me was very freeing.  There is a lot of  Jules/Angela overlap, but she is much gutsier and bolder than I am — so it was a thrill to live in her skin for a while.  And it was exciting to have a taste of live theater again amidst all of the camera work.  I felt a hint of nerves before the first full costume run in front of the cast and crew (I get down to pasties and panties, after all)– but Bornila reminded me ‘this is Jules’ big moment’ – and there was no choice but to go for it.  And the cast and crew were sitting in the audience, hooting and hollering and sending me so much love- I couldn’t help but enjoy  Jules’ ride.  It was a really good lesson for me in bravery. and it was a hell of a lot of fun.

Yet some of the funniest and most memorable days on set were when we were shooting in Midtown – be it in a tiny, tiny, tiny office (opposite Macys) whose owner didn’t realize that “Quiet on set!” means quiet. On set.  Or at the wonderful Stonestreet Studios where the crew got a convoluted crash course in Viewpoints courtesy of the indefatigable Angela Gulner (“Where is my poniard? Here is thy PONIARD!”).  Or discovering that the best way to shoot on a busy Fifth Avenue at lunchtime was to let the actors shoot themselves and just run with it (pun intended).

But before I ramble on for too long, I’ll let the one and only Lipica Shah tell you all about it.

You Want Me To Do Wha…?

Pre "Action!" The quietest moment on set. Even quieter than room tone, yessir.

There we stand: five twenty-somethings on a busy Manhattan street at lunchtime under a cloudless sky. In some circles we might be called “those meddling kids.” And with our loud clothes, even louder whooping, and complete disregard for the cityfolk around us, I can certainly see why one might think so. Well… all except for me. I’m the plain one, accustomed to being an unassuming presence as I walk down the street, not the epicenter of this spectacle.

Diya, how the hell did you get here?

“CUT!”

While the energy is still high, we five (no longer in character; we’re now just actors trying not to get hit by taxis, strollers, that lady’s enormous purse as we cross Fifth Avenue) rush back to our starting position. We giggle like maniacs as we review the footage – the screen is too small for all of us to see but we make it work somehow – I’m fairly certain Jabari carried Angela, piggy-back style.

Our goal for this next half hour or so is to film Scene 68, or what the cast and crew quickly came to call the “Post-Emancipation Scene.”  Without saying much, I can say that this is the scene where Jules, Walt, Chris, and Teeny are confronted with a Diya they have not yet met. This Diya is lost without her usual chains, and she’s grasping for something tangible to hang on to. When she turns to the people around her, these new “friends” – people who cannot see the enormity of their actions – she doesn’t know what to do.

And by the way… We are shooting this scene entirely on our own. Yes, Bornila waits for us at the starting point to review the footage, make sure we captured the necessary elements, and provide ever-insightful feedback and guidance for the next take. But in between “Action!” and “Cut!” it is just us five and the small handheld camera that serves as Jules’ security blanket throughout the film. *gulp*

It is Day Two of production for Oh, Sophia, and our introduction – “crash course” is more like it – to guerilla filmmaking.

I was terrified of the prospect beforehand (“what if…I forget my line/get stuck at the corner/that dog bites me?” I could go on), but it turned out to be one of my favorite days on set. I mean, it was FREEING. It’s one thing to let go of yourself for a role; it’s another thing entirely to let go of the people on set and trust that you, yourself, are enough. I’d been reading and re-reading versions of the Oh, Sophia script for two years, but it wasn’t until this moment that I realized Diya lived in me.

It sounds like cheesy actor-speak, but for me, the guerilla-style filming of Scene 68 forced me to let go of my inhibitions and inhabit Diya in a way I hadn’t before. There were no rules. It was OKAY if we messed up a word – we knew our characters enough to know what they would say instead. It was OKAY to interact with the environment around us – normal people don’t barrel through a crowd; we might say “excuse me.” It was OKAY if passersby gawked at the camera – wouldn’t you stare at five twenty-somethings causing a scene in the middle of a busy street?

Over the 21 days of filming Oh, Sophia, we turned often to our guerilla beginnings: on subway platforms, in subway cars, and on the streets of Bushwick, in the dark early morning hours or under fluorescent lights that cast a greenish hue. Sometimes the crew would watch from across the street and sometimes we would be let loose on our own. We trusted each other to do our work. Bornila trusted us to just be.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering – yes, there were dogs. Several dogs, in fact. Eli just has this way with animals! So we did what any other actor would do: We used it.

“OMG that was AMAZING!! PLEASE tell me we got the dog in the shot!!!!”

“We got the dog in the shot.”

Five meddling kids… and that dog, too.  Look for it when the movie’s out.

But let’s get to his blog post before I gush too much (and when Mr. Bridges is involved, that’s a real danger).  Spontaneous combustion personified, Eli makes ‘acting natural’ look easy.  Below, he blogs about a day on set when it was not so.  Enjoy!

Subterranea

Eli Bridges takes the stage

First and foremost, the cast and crew are all badass and plain ol’ fun to work with which made the whole process easier for someone like me.  I haven’t been in too many films and although I could go on and on about the experience of guerilla shooting there were many ‘traditional’ shooting days that were an equal, if not bigger, learning experience.

A portion of the shoot that really sticks out for me was shooting at the Bushwick Starr, a theater that’s pretty much hidden in plain sight (a trait that’s pretty indicative of Bushwick as I discovered over the course of the entire shoot).  We were shooting everyone’s final performances – Walt’s tap-dancing, Jules’ burlesque, my song – which I thought would be my easiest two days on set.  So far I’d been trying real hard to ‘pretend not to act’ in all my scenes but in this one it didn’t matter – I could just PERFORM and not worry about trying to hide it.  A fun time, especially since I could include my guitar. She’s shy and has a tough time with being still on set… but we made it work.

Meeting my own expectations for the scene was far more difficult than I’d imagined (which was a simple in and out – do the scene, play the song, get some lo-mein and coffee back stage and start over). I often play down in the subway stations where music seems easier to come by moment to moment.  I just jot down the songs I want to sing, hit up my usual spot(s) and just let loose.

But on set?  As soon as I hit my lighting mark I froze. The song had to be performed in the moment for the camera and the sound recorder. When I record a song I am close to satisfied with it is because I can make myself unaware of how it’s being recorded.  But here I stand in a single spotlight on a pitch-black stage. There’s Eric hunched over his audio mixer.  Total silence except the occasional shuffle as the script supervisor flips through pages in her binder. There’s Bornila, her glasses glinting at the very edge of my vision.  And here’s Gabe and his camera right in my face.  All of a sudden it just seemed way to manufactured and despite weeks of rehearsal the song just wouldn’t come out.  Needless to say, this totally threw me off.

It all leads to concepts of acting – a discussion that came up over and over again on set.  How do  you erase the sight of the camera and crew right there in front of you and just ‘be’?  On our guerilla expeditions it was easy – they were just not there.  But in the theater, without the support of fellow actors to play of and react to I just could not do it.

I went outside.  Smoked a cigarette in the sunshine and played my guitar.  Slowly, I was able to identify the organic place that music comes from for me and apply it to the scene.  I had to bring myself back to the subway station.  People might stop to listen and they might not, but it doesn’t matter and I keep playing anyway.  Because music can and does magnify human emotions and I guess at the end of the day, that’s what movies try to do too.  As an actor, my job is to live up on that level as well.

Self-induced break over I returned inside.  ”Action!” was called and as far as I was concerned, that goddamned camera just melted away.

Nonetheless I was extremely excited when Jabari responded to our casting call for Walt – a dedicated performer whose uncomplicated solidness balances out the more mercurial personalities in Oh, Sophia. “Lipica, Jabari just submitted his headshot on Breakdown!” to which she replied: “Cast him, cast him, cast him.” And we did.

Some of my favorite days on set are the ones with Jabari in them because you could always count on him (or him as his character Walt, which he’d often stay in between takes) to do or say something wildly inappropriate and hence wickedly funny.  So without further ado, I present our guest-blogger this week: Jabari Brisport.  WORRRK IT, YOU FIERCE BETCH.

Finding The Inner Queen

Jabari Brisport, Gabriel Frye-Behar, Angela Gulner, Lipica Shah and Margaret Ying Drake on our first guerrilla shoot. (For us that usually meant letting the actors film themselves while crew sat back and relaxed... or tried to.)

I’m a humble, introverted guy with hopes of making it big.  So of course I leapt at the opportunity to play Walt: a flamboyant, “tap-dancer extraordinare” who also has hopes of making it big.  Same dream, different personality.  I felt that I started off the process with one foot in his shoes already, and it was a wonderful challenge to find out what rusty, unused corner of Jabari housed the rest of Walt’s character.

I wanted to make him a snappy diva, which Bornila made extremely easy.  I remember sweating buckets on one of the hottest days of the summer, in an apartment that we turned into an oven by shutting off the AC for sound.  And I remember shivering on a barren street in Bushwick, around midnight, grabbing my sweatshirt in between takes, and pretending I couldn’t see my breath.  In both circumstances, the attitude was easily accessible.

But Walt also needed a certain “don’t give a f***” quality, which I attained by repeatedly smoking hookah and drinking shots of “gingeralecokesprite” at 7am.  Or chasing Diya (Lipica) through midtown traffic during rush hour.  Multiple times, until we got the biggest crowd of unsuspecting people to weave in and out of and capture on Jules’ camera.  Then a repeat performance i.e. tearing down a sidewalk, yelling at the top of my lungs at 3 in the morning until an angry/tired East Village tenant threaten to call the cops on us if we didn’t shut up (Lucky for us, he never did call the cops.  Unlucky for Bornila: he poured water on her….too bad we didn’t get footage of that).

I also got to tap-dance!  I don’t consider myself the best tapper, and I was terrified to perform something like that, let alone choreograph it.  But Bornila’s support and unwavering faith in her actors gave me the confidence I needed to put a little something-something together.  And without even seeing the final cut, I’ll bet that it looks damn sexy.

Without a doubt, this has been the best experience I’ve had while working on a film.  The cast/crew gets A-plusses across the board for creating a safe, fun and funny environment.  K.C.  would take keywords from two people every day and make a poem out of it and read it to us after lunch.  Who does that? Amazing!  Moreover, we were treated to lots of delicious food.  And lots of delicious lager.  The icing on the cake was seeing the teaser trailer, and having all the good old memories dredged up again.  Have you seen it yet?  You should.  It’ll make your soul smile.

And if you’re secular, it’ll make your face smile as well.

On American film sets, an A.D schedules the shoot and makes sure that everyone sticks to that schedule.  It’s a pretty monumental task, as is.  Throw in boom-opping,  stunt driving, directing B-roll/extras/animals/dancers, fixing a typewriter, providing lunch-time entertainment, providing anytime entertainment and making it rain and you almost get an idea of what K.C. did on our set.

Pretty much everything.  Enjoy his blog post!

“On the Nature of Underwater Cameras (and their Relation to the Filmmaking Process (Particularly that of Micro and/or No-Budget Films) as a Whole)”

by K.C. McLeod

As an Assistant Director, or AD, one’s role in a film production is that of “facilitator;” that is to say, an AD has no one specific job, but rather, a job composed of various tasks that allow other crew members, each with more specific roles, to perform their required duties in order to get the film, proverbially, in the can.  Historically, this position was the final stepping stone towards becoming a director because, historically, a director served the same utilitarian purpose: coordinate the actions of the “talent,” don’t get in the way of the stars, and let the producers take the credit.

Of course, directors are no longer thought of as glorified production coordinators.  Following my time as an AD on Oh, Sophia, I am tempted to say the time of ADs as “facilitators” is also over.  To borrow, with apologies, from the phrasing auteur theory, this is caméra sous-marine theory: underwater camera theory.

I recently had the opportunity, as an Assistant to the Director, to be on the set of a marginally big budget (~$35 million) feature during the shooting of a sequence involving underwater photography.  Excluding the actor, the stand-in, the wetsuits, the coast guard boat, the pilot of the boat, the EMT on the boat, the hot tub for warming between takes, the hot tub technician, and the driver of the truck that towed the hot tub to set, the scene was remarkably personnel and equipment heavy: two camera operators, an underwater rig resembling the helmet of late 19^th-century diving suit, a special 35mm camera that could fit inside this rig, the camera operator’s scuba equipment, a surfboard to rest the rig on when the camera operators surfaced, and a surfboard wrangler to ensure it remained out of frame during a take.

Oh, Sophia also features underwater photography.  The effect was achieved approximately so: the DP purchased a ~$200 underwater video camera, the DP changed into a bathing suit, and the DP waded into the water with the actors and shot the scene.

This is not to craft an oversimplified argument as to how mainstream productions are hampered by unnecessary rules, regulations, union representatives, etc., while indie productions flourish in the unregulated utopic rule of a creative invisible hand.  Union rules and safety regulations exist for very real reasons; it was less than a year ago that a crewmember died on an NYU student film shoot, perhaps the most free-form sets of all.

What the disparity in the shooting of these two scenes does illuminate is that the AD’s role is changing, and that it is changing because films are changing.  In the first situation, our big budget film, with a few dozen individuals needed to capture the simplest of scenes, constant rehearsal was the AD’s modus operandi.  Any unpredictable element was – out of necessity – rehearsed out of existence.  In the case of Oh, Sophia, the camera just rolled, the actors leapt into the water, and that was our first take.

Did it work?  Of course not.

We needed multiple takes.  Actors and wardrobe had to dry out.  Our DP came close to freezing to death in the water when a late summer chill took over the night.

But when we did get it, the scene was still alive for everyone.  And it wasn’t just the water we shot in this method.  We upended the maxim “Measure twice, cut once” in favor of “Rehearse half, shoot as much as you need.”  The sheer amount of unpreparedness on camera is Oh, Sophia’s strength; even more so, it is its core.  Film history is replete with stories of actors breaking character in a scene and the result being used in the final cut because that is some of the strongest material, and it’s true.  Real life is endlessly compelling in a way the most finely crafted films can only approximate.  When Picasso said, “Good artists copy, great artists steal,” he was not referring to works of other artists, but rather to real life.  With Oh, Sophia, we were able to create an environment exploding with those moments where the artifice of film drops away, where actors could just be, all with our insistence on just going, just yelling action, just announcing we were ready long before we were and before anyone could protest.

In the scope of the profession, I did a pretty lousy job as an AD on Oh, Sophia. I spent my time discussing shot composition, actor’s performances, and the emotional flow of a scene instead of making sure we made first shot on schedule, that we broke for lunch on time, and that our progression through setups minimized the number of times we needed to relight.  But maybe a task-master or a clock-watcher of an AD is not what best suits a production any more.

Directors used to be glorified technicians.  Actors used to vamp on screen with the intensity of a theatrical performance.  Dialogue used to not sound like the way people actually spoke.  Stories used to always end happily.  Now, with the completion of Oh, Sophia, the question is:

What is the next “used to?”

This week’s blogger, Ms. Margaret Ying Drake, plays Teeny – the stylish, moody and rather troubled belly dancer and Jules’ on-again-off-again girlfriend.  Now in real life, Margaret is a mesmerizing dancer with impeccable taste, but that’s where her similarities with Teeny end.  Margaret is one of the sunniest and smartest beings I’ve met on my journey through Oh, Sophia thus far.  And one of the toughest, she proved, when we shot our epic all-nighter – the Hookah Bar scene – my ode to the Bombay ‘item number’ and Teeny’s moment to shine.

But I’ll let Margaret tell you about it.  Enjoy!

Considering that I am a native New Yorker – born and raised – I felt a little silly that I was the only person escorted to set in the lower east side by my father at 2:00 a.m. the night we shot the belly dance sequence.  Living at home is an advantage when you’re a struggling actor, but it also allows your father to know that you’re ready to walk out the door at 1:00 a.m. to go filming. “St. Mark’s is no place to go by yourself at 2:00 a.m.,” he said. I don’t think he’s been to St. Mark’s Place in a very long time… or knows that the Lower East Side is often where I spend many late nights. But I let him accompany me right up to the front door of the hookah bar, just like he wanted to, and introduced him to the crew that was loading in. Then it was time to play!

After putting on an exorbitant amount of makeup, and probably the heaviest belly dance costume I own (of course, out of all the options, the one that weighed 15 pounds was Bornila’s favorite) I was ready to go, and we shot the outdoor scene with me and Lipica (who plays “Diya”). Moving inside the hookah bar, we planned out the master shot where Teeny dances through the bar. I don’t know how long we spent planning the shot, but it required that I dance over and over so that Gabe, Bornila and Eric knew the ins and outs of my movements. With 15 extra pounds, that gets to be quite the workout, and considering that my internal clock was totally off by starting my day at 1am, I was relieved that I had time to nap before the extras got there for the actual shoot.

And boy, what a nap that was! I sat on the edge of a bench and laid back.. and I was out like a light.  Bornila woke me up about an hour later. It was time.

Air conditioners and fans were off to prevent sound issues. The front door was closed, windows sealed off to prevent any early morning light seeping in.  Hookahs were lit up, glitter abounded (at Bornila’s demand for more and more sparkles, to which I, of course, happily complied) and the dance began. It didn’t take long for the sweat to start pouring. No ventilation, a 15 pound costume, and an unbreathable synthetic polyester skirt had me quickly exhausted and swearing to splurge on real silk for the rest of my belly dancing career. So many shots and angles, over and over again… I danced until I became somewhat loopy. I hadn’t eaten before I got to set because if I dance on a full stomach, I get sick. With only the hour-long nap, I was afraid I wouldn’t have enough time to digest, so I hadn’t eaten during rehearsal either. So now it was going on 9 hours since I had left for the shoot, and I was starting to wonder whether avoiding nausea was worth the starvation. Water alone wasn’t cutting it.

Still, I danced. It was the longest span of time I’d ever danced in my life, and it was glorious. Veil swooping, spinning, shimmying, undulating, back bending, fabulous belly dancing, over and over and over again! It was exhilarating and deliriously fun, and when we wrapped at noon, I stuffed myself with all the noodles my tired body could handle.  It was a much-needed and deliciously satisfying ending to a fantastic experience.

So for now, I’m turning over the blogging to others in the Oh, Sophia family, starting off with the one and only Angela Gulner, who plays Jules, the reckless and passionate playwright/instigator/leader of the bohemian pack that accepts Diya into its fold and snaps her out of her funk.

Most of our actors had prior film experience but Oh, Sophia was the first time Angela had ever acted in or even been on a film set and quite frankly, you never would have guessed it.  Now back at school (she’s getting her MFA in Acting at Harvard) Angela sums it up in her post below.  Enjoy!

AugustNewYorkOhSophia – FINALLY

I had been looking forward to shooting my first film for months, and as I boarded the plane from Minneapolis to New York, I was suddenly terrified. Bornila has trusted me with her story, her character, her dream – and I had no idea what I was doing. Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!

But I was surprised at how quickly I felt at home. Never have my anxieties about my work been calmed so quickly – and I attribute that to such a warm, welcoming, supportive, and professional group of crew and cast members. It’s really a gift when a director can make an actor (especially an exceptionally hard-on-oneself actor like me) feel so safe and so free so immediately. It was a really rare experience, I think.

As I’ve re-entered the world of ‘Acting School’ this fall, I’ve tried to process and hold onto all I learned from the shoot. It was surprise after surprise – “Film is so weird!” felt like my mantra. I had always heard that films shoot out of order, but I had no idea how this would shape my understanding of my character, Jules. You can read a script and think about a character as much as you want on your own, but you only really discover who that person is by playing with the other actors, exploring the world, the relationships, and the story in the moment. With a play, you have weeks to do this, but with film, it’s all jumbled. I came to set on Day One with my idea of Jules and her arc — but Bornila (thankfully) never let me hold onto this. She would shake things up, have us try a scene five different ways, and so suddenly I had no idea what the story was anymore – I had to let go of trying to control or plan (the biggest no-no for an actor) anything, and just play around in Jules’ dirty shoes.

It was great. Though at times odd – learning things about Jules out-of-order. I’d discover something one day and think to myself – “Argh! If only I had known this about Jules yesterday when we shot that scene from the end of the film!” The puzzle was put together in a really strange way — but I think the disorder was a blessing – forcing me to just ‘exist’.

There was also a bizarre freedom in doing so many takes. I started to feel like everything I did both mattered and didn’t matter at all. The fact that everything we tried was shot meant that I could try new things all the time and not worry about if they were better or worse than the time before, because they were all documented and ultimately Bornila would choose what was best. If the beginning of one take was great, and then end of another was great, well, great! She’d use them both. The knowledge that I really had no control over how Jules would “seem” in the film allowed me to let go of trying to make her “seem” anything. I think it freed me up to play more recklessly as the shoot went on.

Focus was another interesting thing. Stage acting takes an extraordinary amount of physical, mental, and emotional focus, and oddly so does screen acting, but in a different way. Shoots are long, at weird hours, in weird places – it takes a lot of energy to hold onto a character for that long. Also, film uses strange conventions like sometimes playing to nobody during a close up, or mouthing scenes, or shooting in really small fragments — it’s all very strange and requires great focus if you’re still trying to exist truthfully despite the weirdness.

Another odd thing about film… the camera. It’s like, right in your face. When you’re crying, when you’re laughing, when you’re kissing your girlfriend. I mean, obviously, yes, the camera is there – but it’s REALLY there. It was another lesson in focus, to not play to the camera, or look at the camera, or to elbow Gabe in the face. I’m not sure if this is something you ever get used to…?

I really grew to love the whole experience and owe a lot to the rest of the cast, the crew and to Jules. Acting for film is a completely different kind of craft, and yet as I reflect, not so different. An actor should let go of control, take risks, play, be messy — oddly enough, “Oh, Sophia” ended up reinforcing the heart of everything we study in grad school. On top of that, there’s something really special about having physical evidence of your work. At the wrap party last weekend, we saw a trailer and a few other segments of the footage, and I felt such a sense of joy, excitement, and pride. It’s a special sense of accomplishment, to be able to see everyone’s work come together and I can’t wait to see the film!