The Getaway
The Getaway is the second in what I hope will be a series of short
films based on short stories by American women. My first, Psychoanalysis
Changed My Life, was a contemporary film based on a story Amy Bloom.
The Getaway was written and takes place in 1934. The author is
Dorothy Thomas, and, although she lived and wrote in the West,
her work was known all over the country. This story was published
in the New Yorker, and founding editor Harold Ross called it "the
best damn story ever in The New Yorker."
I first heard the story on NPR's Selected Shorts and fell in love
with its tone. which is both funny and sad, and its characters,
who are people revealed to us to be very complex in a very few
pages. My goal for the film was to retain the tone of the story,
use the performances to deepen the characters even more, be true
to the period, and tell a complete and satisfying story in a short
space of time.
We shot for four days in August, 2008, in Fort Totten, Queens,
NY. The weather goddesses were with us, and we had four beautiful,
warm days, allowing us to eat our meals on the lawn of the house
where we shot our interiors. The two big challenges were working
in period on a small budget and working with a nine year old boy.
We managed the former because we were lucky enough to find talented
and resourceful production and costume designers and a skilled
and knowledgeable hair and makeup person. Instead of going to the
expensive movie car rental companies, we tracked down two private
car collectors and were able to afford two beautiful Model A Fords.
The car owners generously allowed us to do anything we wanted with
the cars except mount cameras on them, which we managed to do without.
I have a background as a casting director and have cast child actors
as well as adults. (I gave Hayden Panettiere her first job when
she was four.) We didn't have time for a long search, but I auditioned
about 30 boys, and chose Dante Bruzzese for his straightforward
acting and his strong little face which the camera loves. I
was lucky enough to have brought a fellow professor from the Yale
School of Drama, where I teach film acting, to stage the fall from
the car, and she, a movement teacher, stayed on set and kept Dante's
energy up by playing games with him and worked on parts of his
scenes. The four days went smoothly, and several of our very experienced
crew declared it one of their favorite shoots.
|
My daughter was our editor,
and the collaboration was very satisfying and successful. Our sound
editor was brilliant and solved the one problem we had in Fort Totten,
which was that it was on the LaGuardia Airport flight path. He managed
to get rid of all the airplane noises without our having to do any
looping, which helped us artistically as well as financially. There
were a few glitches in the rest of the post production process, but
the results were positive, and the film was finished in January 2010.
As happened the last time, it left me wanting to begin work on another
film as quickly as possible.
 |