The following are a series of collected notes on the making of the short film Saturday. Before every shoot, I like to keep a kind of chronicle of my thoughts, feelings and delusions before making a film. In my mind, it’s half the reason for making them.
Entry 1:
Why make any film? This is always the question. By the time you write the script, picture the characters, fall in love with your locations, gain inspiration from the input of your actors, in my mind, it’s almost like the answer to this question comes though this process alone. But the truth is that you cannot make a film based on a love of a process, you’ve got to have an idea that carries you through to the end: a concept that keeps you interested all the way through shooting, and editing and final mixing.
It’s a marathon, even in the short format and you have to have an idea that will carry you through. In other words: you’ve got to love it. My first inspiration for writing Saturday came from a somewhat selfish premise. I wanted to make a film about the Paris that I know. The city that I walk through every day and gives me so much life to draw from. I really feel that Paris is the kind of city that if you took away all the people, the noise and the motion, you would still end up with a city that communicates with you. Walking alone in a city at night, coming across the Place Des Vosges at three in the morning, or walking down a Boulevard, you get the feeling that the architecture, the buildings, the statues are talking to you. Having a splendid dialogue. This is a wonderful feeling and it’s something that really inspires you to write.
There’s a reason why so many American artists came here to write and in some cases to die, because it is a kind of living monument to all the things that matter in this life. I wanted to make a film that captures this spirit. I couldn’t go through life in Paris without making some kind of film testament to it and Saturday was as good excuse as any to make this happen. So this is the genesis. Whether I actually did this is another matter – but a man’s got to have goals! I needed a concept that was simple.
Short films often work because they take a single moment in the lives of their characters and they get to the bottom of it. Small ambitions explored effectively. It’s no good taking a great big canvas when you only have time to explore only superficial details. I thought that telling the story of the end of a relationship would be perfect for this. Saturday would be the story of an American man (which in many ways reflects the position that I am coming from as a director) and a French woman trying to reconcile some opposing views. It would allow me to explore some cultural differences, perhaps some language differences and to put a real stamp on it.
Many films of Paris are great: LAST TANGO IN PARIS, AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, PARIS BLUES but they scratch the surface and don’t really tell my story. On the flip side, there is also the many French films that explore the city from a local point of view: the films of Eric Rohmer, Francois Truffaut, Louis Malle. The “talky” productions that epitomize what in the film Tom says are “blah,blah.blah” pictures. I love them both: but I wanted a synthesis: a way of telling my story by comparing polar opposite visions.
Entry 2:
I wrote the script quickly, it’s never hard for me to crank out a first draft. It’s the polishing after that’s much more laborious. What is a script anyway apart from a firm blueprint for discussion? The problem with the process of script writing is that after you finish, it’s an in between document: every one knows it’s not finished. It’s a road map of where to go: and it’s up to the director to make it into a finished “product”, although I hate that word.
The important thing about this movie in my mind was to get a couple of dynamite actors to carry this thing and we could really make something interesting. Some films are more about looks (although not many) some films are about casting. This was about casting and rehearsal. I needed a surrogate. I needed someone to reflect a kind of alternate version of myself in the film. This choice was easy for me. I have known Xander Maksik for many years and he and I often share views that are very similar on living in Paris as an American. I know that he had acted before because I wanted to work with him on another project that never materialized.
This was going to be the big return on a promise he and I had made to make a movie together. Now when I say surrogate, I do not mean that the character of Tom is an exact duplicate of myself, I only mean that it’s a jumping off point. I’d like to think I’m a little more sensitive than the character in the film! This is a personal story, of course but it in no way echoes exactly my real life, only amalgamations of various elements. Xander and I have had many a drink at the ROSEBUD bar in Montparnasse, dreaming up projects for ourselves and cooking up delusions of grandeur. The Rosebud, by the way, is a hidden secret, it’s an ex pat staple of Paris, and one of the only places you can enjoy a real martini in Paris.
After laughing and carrying on at the Rosebud, it was time to actually go to work. With choosing a male lead out of the way, I would need my lead actress. And this decision, I knew was going to be the most crucial part of the whole process. Saturday would not work without a feminine lead that would carry us through the whole journey. I met Hania Zerouai for the first time on the Champs Elysees. People often meet here when they can’t think of anywhere else to go. This was the case with me as I often get brain fried at the very moment when someone is asking me for a good place to meet.
I’m lame. We met at a pastry chain shop near George 5. She read in front of me. It was dynamite. Right away. She had the right intonations. Now I’m not recommending casting every actress in a bakery, but I am broke and this is a low budget movie so what are you going to do? I bought the danishes. She asked the right questions: you can always tell a great actor by the questions they ask. She had great ideas about wardrobe, everything. I was thrilled. It was great to have someone who was so curious, so responsive to a character who was just cementing in my head.
I have a rule about casting someone for a lead: you have to need to spend time with them on screen. They’ve got to hold you. They can be crazy, passionate, warped, obsessive, whatever, but when it comes down to it, we have to want to watch. Hania Zeraoui is a one of a kind actress. She is level headed when breaking down a part, professional and a joy to work with. She was “Agnes” for the few weeks that we rehearsed and shot this short film. It’s too bad we didn’t continue to shoot. I could have watched Hania forever.
She is beautiful and talented. Everything a director could hope for and I know she will go far. The more I rehearsed with Hania, the more I liked her. We were open, cutting disalogue that didn’t sound right and really making both of my actors comfortable in the role. This was the process. It felt good.
Entry 3:
Shooting Saturday was a kind of series of film “dates”, meaning we shot it in parts, often shooting scenes weeks or even months apart. I was also in the situation of shooting around scenes, grabbing shots that would match together in the cutting room weeks later. This is a kind of continuity test and I think for the most part I succeeded, although people who see the short can really be the judge.
The reality of low budget production, especially when you are reliant on a lot of things for free is that you have to work in everybody’s schedule. Xander and Hania had their jobs, which I had to accommodate. I had my teaching gig at the film school. Dejan, my DP and a full time student was also working within the bounds of making the movie over time. In retrospect, I think this was an interesting way to go about shooting the movie. Note: the key word here is interesting. On the one hand, it allowed me to improve on things that I might have missed and craft up story points and character points, but on the other hand, I also needed to keep my head on straight and work as a craftsman. It was three hours here, four hours there. We can shoot at this apartment on the 15th but on the 19th, we have got to finish by seven because I got another appointment. That kind of thing. It was three months before we got the whole thing shot.
Some particular memories I enjoyed were shooting on the Rue Mouffetard with Xander just walking behind Dejan. It gave me a real sense of the place. The Christmas lights were out and at the end of the uninterrupted shot, which I later cut into smaller jump cut fragments, Xander just walked on and caught a metro home. It was real run and gun. In the scene where they are outside in front of the fashion store we had all kinds of late night jokers trying to ruin the scene by shouting things on camera. When you go no budget you can’t afford to have crowd control, so this was interesting to say the least.
It’s amazing how the camera often brings out everyone’s inner asshole. Don’t these people know we’re trying t concentrate here. I guess not. They see a camera and they think they’re being funny but all I’m left with is a bunch of ruined dialogue that I can’t use in the editing room. Whatever, it’s part of the joy of guerrilla filmmaking and I don’t want to complain too much.
The scene under the Bir Hakeim aqueduct was also something I was keen on shooting if only as a kind of nod back to LAST TANGO. And while I knew that a lot of people have shot there before me, its part of the fabric of the film that characters are commenting on the beauty and cliché of their locations as they talk about “real” incidents from their lives. So it worked for me. Plus we had a fantastic winter day, and the light was pretty great so I was very pleased.
Entry 4:
Once all the film was shot, I could not wait for my favourite part of the filmmaking journey, which is the editing. Editing for me is exactly like writing. It’s writing all over again. It’s shaping the story and making moments exactly how you want the audience to receive them. It’s a magical process and I find that it never gets old.
The cliché is that it is like playing God, and I think this is exactly right. I edited it over a couple of weeks and then I showed it to some people for some feedback. This was really useful as it really confirmed what was working and what wasn’t. Some key feedback I got was from a friend, Lindsay Eberts who really laid it out loud and clear. I knew what I needed to change. And I did it. The movie was shorter, cleaner, tighter and ready to mix.
The sound on Saturday was handled by Elsa Robichez Quay. Elsa was recommended by a friend of mine, Michelange Quay, a director here in Paris. Elsa was a key player in the process because not only would she add the sounds that were missing from my very rough production tracks but she would also lend a kind of “French” touch to the film. Again, the trick is about balance, I needed to represent both America and France equally in this story.
It was great to have a Parisian look at the film and say things like “this is how a garbage truck sounds outside a window”. Trust me, I know. Elsa had recorded many of the sound effects in the movie from previous jobs, so we had a kind of personal library to choose from. It was wonderful. I mixed the film over a week with a professional mixer here in Paris by the name of Vincent Pateau. Vincent’s ear was fantastic. It’s about levels of experiencing something emotionally. It’s about vibe, rhythm, timber, experience. Once again, through the mix, you are storytelling once more.
Again, it all comes back to the story. You better like it because you’re going to tell it three or four times through the journey of making it. Mixing at a small Studio in Strasbourg Saint Denis, I had a beer on the terrasse with Vincent and Elsa and celebrated the end of a journey. Filmmaking is a chance to meet so many people. It’s a pleasure to drink a demi on a summer day and celebrate an act of creation. It’s one of the many answers to the question: why make a film?
