9DCU1306HD Michael Smith Transcript

- The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.
[upbeat music]

- Take it!  Take it!  Take it all, Wyatt!  Take your whole ####### wardrobe with you!

- Okay, thank you. 
[haunting music]

- You know what else I want you to take with you? I want you to take this ####### Blu-ray player with you!

- No!
[hard items crashing on ground]

- Woman: This is the year 2018, Wyatt. Who uses physical media anymore? You need to keep up with the times, mother######!
[haunting music]

- Welcome to Director's Cut. I'm Pete Schwaba and that was a clip from the film Rendezvous in Chicago, a feature film comprised of three comedic short stories that explore the beginning, middle, and end of a relationship. I'm joined tonight by the film's director, Michael Smith. Michael, welcome to Director's Cut.

- Thanks for having me.

- That clip brought back some really bad memories. I'm not gonna lie to you. Can you tell us a little bit about what's going on there? I assume that was one of the clips from an end of a relationship I hope.

- That's from the end of the film. And actually, that was the first idea that I had for the movie was to show a couple breaking up. And so the process of writing it was just figuring out sort of how to end there.

- Yeah, that's a pretty humiliating moment. You have cupcake on your face, your Blu-ray player's in shambles, and your clothes-- you're half-naked on the streets. So is any of this, have you experienced any of these? I mean, we'll see more clips as the show goes on, but how much of this is from your own personal experiences of relationships?

- I always say, "It's not autobiographical, but it is personal."

- Pete: Yeah, okay.

- I only write about what I know.
[clears throat revealingly]

- Right. Where did you get the idea? Where did this, like, there must've been some inspiration in your own personal life that made you wanna write this or where did you come up with the idea to do this film?

- Well, as a filmmaker, I've always been far more interested in character than plot. And I'm really interested in relationships, you know, human relationships. And I think a relationship is a very good subject for a narrative film because a relationship is a narrative. You know, every relationship has a beginning, middle, and end. So the concept for this film was really, you know, to tell us the story of the arc of a single relationship, but to do that by examining three different couples.

- Pete Schwaba: Wow, that is pretty elaborate. Do you-- How guerilla were you or was that scene? Did people in the neighborhood know what was going on or were they like, oh, they're making a movie. Was it one of those?

- For the third story, yes. Some of the neighbors were not happy that we were there and actually they started playing music really loud in order to try and disrupt the shoot at a certain point. So yeah. You know, it's guerrilla filmmaking. This is micro budget filmmaking. So you have to--

- Pete: Sometimes you get some really real stuff when that happens too, which is nice, but we're gonna take a look at another clip from Rendezvous in Chicago.

- I think you are an artist and a wannabe ladies man, but the sensitive liberal kind. The kind who likes to call himself a feminist 'cause he thinks it will help him get laid. I think that the minute you came over to this table, you were gonna tell me whatever you thought I wanted to hear. Like, if I said I was a veterinarian, for instance, I bet you would've become the world's biggest animal lover right here on the spot. Am I right?

- I am the world's biggest animal lover.

- You would've told me whatever you thought I wanted to hear so that you could get my phone number before we parted ways tonight. Am-I-right?

- You're not right. In fact, you're wrong.

- Hmm.

- Hmm.

- Okay.  Then I propose we play a little game.  It's called strip literary trivia.

-[stutters] Strip,  strip literary trivia?

- Woman: Yeah. You ever play strip poker?

- Oh yeah. I mean, once, like it was a long time ago.  With my babysitter.

- Woman: Your babysitter?

- It was totally innocent.  I was nine, she was 16. And we both put on like a ton of extra clothes before, you know? Like scarves and hats and two extra pair of socks each.  So even though we played poker for like two hours, neither one of us even got close to getting naked.  It was totally innocent.

- Wow. She sounds like the world's worst babysitter.  Anyway, the game I'm proposing you play is kind of like strip poker, except instead of playing cards,  I want you to try to name all the brothers
[indistinct]

.  For everybody you name correctly, I will remove one article of clothing.  For every brother you name incorrectly, you will remove an article of clothing.

- You've written two other films, Michael, both about relationships. And I like how you compared relationships to the narrative of a film, but what is it that makes you keep wanting to make films about that genre of humankind, if you will?

- Well, I think that, you know, when I think about my own life you know, this is what I think about, you know? My life is not a story, but I know people. And so when it comes time for me to write, I always start with character.

- All right. That leads me to my next question. You say you write very character-driven things, it's obvious in this film.  Is it easier to write when you start with a character or if you have like a high concept plot? Would that make it easier for you to write and then fill in the characters later? Have you ever tried it the other way? And what way do you find easier?

- Rendezvous actually did start, I don't know, I don't think I've ever written anything that's high concept, but it did start more that way than my previous films. Because the first idea that I had was not only for the final story, it was for that fourth wall-breaking moment where the character Julie, you know, starts talking to the camera and to the viewer. That's what I wanted to do was to explore the idea of a character in a movie, falling in love with the viewer. And that's a little bit of an abstract idea, but I just kind of became obsessed with it. Like what would that look like if that were to happen?

- Okay, I have a question. We'll come back to that. 'Cause I want you to elaborate on that too.  That is very interesting. You also teach film and you make films. Is one of those two professions more rewarding, which one is more rewarding? Which one is more frustrating if you will?

- Well, I enjoy them both enormously. I mean, teaching cinema is really a way to pay the bills, but I do have passion for it  because I was a cinephile long before I was ever long before I ever became a filmmaker. So being able to share my knowledge of film history with my students, I'd rather pay the bills doing that than you know, anything else.

- Right. I imagine when you get done making a film though, that's a sense of accomplishment. At least it was for me. I mean, what you've just accomplished is incredible. Even if you're not doing high concept or crazy stunts or whatever, it is like giving birth, right?

- You know, it is. And just like giving birth, it's extraordinarily painful.
[laughing]

 So whenever--

- Pete: You get in a lot of trouble acting like you know what that's about.
[laughter]

- Or so I hear.

- Pete: Yeah, right.

- But when I'm done, I always say, you know, I don't know if I can ever do this again. You know? And then a year later I get the bug and you know, I wanna do it again.

- When you're making a film, even an indie that's character driven. Is it hard to find financing? How do you, I don't wanna ask you about your budget, but how do you, who do you go to? You use Kickstarter, private investors? How do you handle that?

- You know, each of the three features that I've made has been financed in a radically different way. The first one was all crowdfunded just through small donations. And that was a very low budget film, Cool Apocalypse. And then I was able to use that film to raise the money to make my second film, Mercury in Retrograde, which had a much higher budget and was primarily one investor.  Who's someone that I just met in a bar.

- Right, it's a great business model. If I could speak to that, just because you have one location in the first sequence and the second one they're pretty much just walking, and one location in the third one, that's gotta cut down, I would imagine on the money you have to raise.

- Yes, in fact, you know, the script for Rendezvous in Chicago was written in order to be made quickly and cheaply. And that's basically what I told everyone. We're making three short films here. So let's just, you know, let's attack each one, you know, in a couple of days. And you know, we'll have a feature that's comprised of three different stores.

- That's interesting. I love indie filmmaker innovation. It's fascinating to me. Let's see a clip, another clip from Rendezvous in Chicago.   Oh my God, look at that.

- What?

- It's a kitty.   

- I don't know. Must have like cat radar or something.  Let's go pay him a visit. Come on, come on.  Isn't he adorable?  Don't you think so?

- Yeah, he's all right.

- Hey, I said that I was willing to have a dog. Are you willing to have a cat?

- I guess I would.

- Really?

- Yeah, I don't see why we couldn't have one of each.

- You know what I love about city cats?

- What?

- I love that city cats like sitting in the window and staring out at the world. It's like, everything that's happening out here is their favorite TV show. And they can just tune in whenever they want.

- Yeah, I suppose it's like a reality show that runs for 24 hours a day, except nothing exciting ever happens.

- No, I disagree with that. I mean, they can see squirrels and birds and that's like porn for a cat. The weather's always changing and the lighting's always changing and there's cars going by and people going by, like special guest stars like you and me.

- Well, at least I'm a special guest star in somebody's life.  Have you ever thought about the fact that to cats we humans must seem like giants?

- No, Rob, not just giants,  but gods.

- So Michael, a lot of that, that clip and the whole time those two actors are on camera. They're talking about dogs and cats. It's a very in-depth dog person, cat person. What's the significant of that as it pertains to their relationship, if any?

- Well, that was basically inspired by the, you know, the saying that, you know, people fighting like cats and dogs. Cats and dogs are supposed to be mortal enemies. So I thought that would be sort of a good metaphor for you know, a tense scene between two characters where you're not sure if they're gonna make it or not.

- They're both such mellow guys though. Like even when they're arguing, they're not, it was just interesting to me because, and maybe that's, I did actually think at one point sometimes dogs and cats do get along, and they seem to be getting along. He has the wedding ring in his pocket, you know?

- Exactly.

- That was interesting.

- Well, you know, there's three different stories and there's a lot of conflict in the first story and there's a lot of conflict in the third story. So I thought it would be kinda nice. You know, the second story, that's sort of the good, that's the middle of the relationship. That's the best time. You know, where you're absolutely comfortable with someone.

- You're still in the, my wife calls it the gaga stage where everything is perfect, and--

- Exactly. And the first stage is also very exciting, but there's a kind of, you know, anxiety because you're not sure whether it's gonna work out.

- Uncertainty, yeah. So you're filming in Rogers Park. That scene was in Rogers Park. When you're shooting on a low budget in a big city like Chicago, there's noise, there are people, and there are people that are hip to the filmmaking thing where they know if they make your life difficult, you'll either pay them to go away or they'll just do it for their own enjoyment. Talk about the challenges if you would of shooting in a city the size of Chicago and in a neighborhood like Rogers Park?

- Well, shooting on location is always very difficult because you can't control, you know, the environment.  Luckily for us, we actually shot on a day where it was freezing cold. And that's not something that's apparent when you watch the film because we shot it in May. But this is Chicago where the weather is very unpredictable. So, you know, the actors are wearing shorts and a short-sleeve shirts. But during the shoot they wearing coats.

- Pete: No kidding?

- Yeah, we would have a production assistant, you know, take their coats off right before we did a take. And so they were actually freezing. That's how good those actors are.

- That is fascinating.

- They are pretending that it's warm. And to your point, the final shot of that sequence, they're on the beach. The camera pans 180 degrees, and you see people playing lacrosse, you see people sitting, you know, on the sand right in front of the lake. We had to place every single extra there.

- Wow, and you had the lake. A shot of the lake and it wasn't that blue Lake Michigan, it was sorta, it did, now that I think of it anyway, I didn't think of it while I was watching it, but that even looks cold. Did you colorize that in post to make it look warmer? Did you do any tricks?

- We warmed it up a little bit, yeah, a little bit.

- Pete: How cold was it?

- It was in the forties.

- Pete: Really?

- Yeah.

- Let's take another look at a clip from Rendezvous in Chicago.

- Anyway, I actually hate dramatic people. And the people I hate most of all are the ones who say they hate drama because I think that they secretly love it. And if you truly hated drama, you'd be better at avoiding it. You know what I mean?  Anyway.  If you were to ask anyone who knows me well, they'd tell you that my behavior just now was extremely atypical.  Besides, I think my reaction was fitting given the dramatic nature of the scene that I just walked in on.  My boyfriend in bed with another woman.  That's the first time that anything like that  has ever happened to me.  I left work early.
[scoffs]

 Early. Call him, let him know.  This time, I thought I'd surprise him with cupcakes.  Whoa.
[lips smack on frosting]

- Where is the willingness to write about relationship? Like you've written three films about relationships. Will your next film be about relationships or are you looking to do something different as a director? Do you ever have to step outside of your comfort zone? How does that work for you?

- The next film will be about relationships, but it's about a family. So it's really not about romance as much as it is about, you know, siblings and also parent-child relationships. So I'm still, it's kind of similar, but I'm trying to stretch myself by writing about older characters and by writing about different kinds of relationships.

- So you have this movie set in Chicago. You said you shot a lot of the stuff around your neighborhood. You're on a small budget. So you use locations that you're familiar with hoping to get a break. Is it the same thing with casting? Do you try to find actors that will either work for free or we'll cut you a break on their rate? Do you have to pull out all stops when you're making a film like this?

- Well, this was a SAG film. So, you know, everybody's getting paid union wages, which is, you know, it's pretty good money. But the bottom line for me is just to try and hire the best actors that I can find. You know? And it's not that hard. You know, you can get, all of these actors have a lot of theater experience in Chicago and independent film experience, as well.

- Did I see-- The girl who plays Julie at the end, she's been-- she works a lot. Doesn't she? I swear I've seen her.

- She does. Have you ever seen the film Henry Gamble's Birthday Party by Steven Cohn? That's a really great Chicago indie film, and she plays a very substantial supporting role in that film.

- I have not seen it, but I actually was at that birthday party and I did not recognize her. I'm joking.

- Oh.

- You're like, wow.

- I was like, you were in the movie?

- I go to a lot of parties.  So talk about your biggest challenge. In a film like this, what is your biggest challenge and what is the sweet spot for you when you're through the whole process? You got pre-production, production, post-production, what's your favorite part of that process?

- Without a doubt it's the production.

- Pete: Okay, wow.

- The shooting is where the magic happens. I love working with actors and I love working with the crew. You know, communicating with the cinematographer, with the art director, costume designer and just, you know, I love it when the camera rolls, and feeling like we're getting something that was better than what we had planned.

- Okay, that leads me to my next question. What did these actors, you say they're all SAG actors. You had a really good cast. What did they do to the parts you wrote? How much did they bring them to life compared to what was on the page?

- Oh, I would say, you know,  that's a tricky question because there's no improvisation, but it doesn't come to life until you've cast the part. And you know, a good actor like Kevin Webby who plays Paul: in the opening scene, you know, he has a certain nervous energy. A certain kind of neurotic, comedic, you know, flare to the way he reads every line. And if you cast another actor in that part, it would be a completely different, you know?

- And that's something you can't write either. You can't put that on the page.

- Michael: Exactly.

- People wouldn't know how to interpret it if you're an actor.

- Right, and he'll kind of stutter and repeat words and that, you know, that's not written into the script, but that's just how he does it.

- Let's take another look at a clip from Rendezvous in Chicago.

- Mother######!

- Baby, this is not what it looks like. I can explain everything.

- Explain who the #### is this IN MY BED?!

- Jesus Christ, Wyatt. You didn't tell me you lived with her.

- You didn't tell her that you lived with me? Who the #### are you?

- Getting the #### out of here, that's who I am.

- Woman: Yeah you are!

- Honey, I'll call you, okay, I'm sorry. Okay, listen to me. She's a coworker of mine. She needed help with a special project. And so I invited her over here.

- Special project?! Oh, I bet you just gave her some help with that!

- Listen, we were not doing anything wrong, okay? I know it looks weird from your perspective, but I swear to God, it was totally innocent. Just let me explain everything.

- Explain? You're not gonna explain ####! You're gonna get the #### out of here, and never coming back!

- Okay, okay, I know you are upset. Okay, so I'm just gonna get dressed and then I'll leave. And then in a few hours, when you are calmed down and ready to talk about this rationally, you just give me a call and we'll talk about it, okay?

- To think I brought you cupcakes from Jelly Mays. I was gonna surprise you with your favorite dessert. I guess I'm the one who got the surprise. You know what you're gonna do? You're gonna eat these cupcakes right now you lying, cheating mother######!  Eat it! That's right, eat it!

- You done now? Make you feel better?

- No, I'm most certainly not done. 
[grunts]

- I wanna ask you about the song too, "Baby, Won't You Please Come Home." She puts that on an old record player, which is great, and then dances, and now I understand she's dancing for the viewer, but is that something you had to pay for, that music, or was it public domain and how did she handle just dancing around? She seems very comfortable doing it.

- You know that, first of all, is public domain. This is a micro budget film. So we didn't have a big music budget, but I do love, you know, blues and jazz songs from the 1920s. So it was very easy for me to find a song that fit perfectly with, you know, what I was trying to say with the film. And Nina Gannett, I had worked with her before. She was in my first film. That whole sequence we shot in one day. That was a 12 hour day. And, you know, we talked about this many times. She said I would have never been able to do that in one day if I hadn't worked with you before.  Because she trusted me and, you know, we rehearsed that scene one time on location. We met there. That's very far from where I live, and far from where she lives, but she and I met there because we needed to block the scene and we needed to see what it would look like with her dancing in that space. We needed to see what the lighting was gonna look like. So my cinematographer and I, the rehearsal wasn't even about, you know, her delivering her lines. It wasn't about choreographing her dance. It was about just seeing what she looked like in the space.

- Yeah, and it totally works. It looks like she's working through this failed relationship she just had and with the traumatic thing she just saw when she came home. It totally works. You, you're writer-director, I asked you about pre-production, production, and post-production, what is more difficult, writing or directing, to you?

- It's really like apples and oranges because the writing process is very solitary. You know, I do that alone. That's just me sitting at a desk for many, many hours. So there are challenges to that that are very different than the kind of challenges that result from, you know having to collaborate and compromise with other people. But I enjoy both of those. I enjoy writing and I enjoy directing, what I don't enjoy is post-production. I don't enjoy editing.  And so that's the stage where I just turn the footage over to my editor and say, you know, make me at rough cut. And I'm not even there when it happens.

- That is really interesting. And I love that directors are different that way. 'Cause I know directors that love that, they love having production done. What have I got here? How do I make this math equation work? What works, what doesn't? But that's interesting, and I get it. And obviously you're gonna look at the cut they put together, but.

- Right, and then I'll give feedback and then we'll refine it together. But I also don't shoot much coverage at all. And I know that I'm very unusual that way, because you know, actors and crew people tell, tell me that. You know, I know exactly what the shots are gonna be, and I have a very detailed shot list. So we only shoot what we know we're gonna use. So that's part of the reason why the editing is boring for me is because it's not like there are drastic decisions being made about, oh, we should use this angle or that angle? There's really only one way to do it.

- Yeah, well you did a great job. It's great having you here and good luck with the film and good luck with your next film, whether it's about relationships or not, I'm anxious to see it and I hope you come back sometime.

- Thanks a million.

- Yeah, you're welcome. Hey, and thank you for watching Director's Cut. For more information on Rendezvous in Chicago, please go to PBSwisconsin.org and click on Director's Cut. While you're there, send us an email or find out how to submit a film. Also don't forget the like PBS Wisconsin on Facebook or follow us on Twitter or just follow us... everywhere. I'm Pete Schwaba and let's face it, playing strip trivia in a bar is only cool if it's crowded. We'll see you next time on Director's Cut.
[dramatic music]

- Delaney? Hey, wait a second there. Hey, come on. We're just playing a game, man. Hey, this is just a game. Delaney will tell you, Delaney?  I almost guessed Dimitri, too, if you can believe it. So yeah, I guess I'm ready to close my tab.

- She didn't pay her tab. Are you gonna pick up her drinks as well?

- Yes.