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Weekly UpdatesByline: ROBERT NOTT
Stan Rodman was dodging bullets in a ditch in Iraq when he started thinking about it.
Justin Evans was 3 years old when he decided to do it.
For Lance Doty, it wasn't quite so dramatic; he just decided one day that it was time to go for it.
And now, whatever their initial motives, they're all doing what they want to do: making movies. All three consider themselves independent New Mexican filmmakers (though Doty has an office in New York City), and all three have a movie screening in this year's Santa Fe Film Festival. This is the ninth year of that event, and according to executive director Jon Bowman, some 500 New Mexican filmmakers have had their work showcased in the film festival over the years.
But why do these indie artists make these films, how do they earn a living, and what happens after the festival?
Big dreams, little movie
Stan Rodman's Ira isn't even 30 minutes long, but it manages to relate a taut tale of conflict between a Mexican immigrant who's willing to work in order to eat and an American laborer who feels displaced by the influx of immigrants threatening his job. During a truck ride from Santa Fe to Madrid, the two come to understand -- though not necessarily like or respect -- each other. It's clear that neither is responsible for the situation, but still, somebody's got to do something about it.
What Rodman decided to do was make this short. He shot Ira in seven days in November 2007 on a budget of $15,000, relying on his own savings and credit cards and the help of a couple of anonymous benefactors. "I don't pretend to have an answer," he explained. "But I wanted to do something, because this is a topic we deal with every day. I bet everyone in this city can connect to the story." Helping to make that connection are committed performers Angelo Jaramillo and Andrew Pollock. Rodman said he allowed the two to improvise and work out some of the scenes. The worth of a short film like this, he said, is that it proves that "without having $50 million of backing from a major studio, you can still go out, find good actors and a professional crew -- and hopefully pay them -- and make something that showcases their talent and tells a good story."
Despite the fact that New Mexico offers many incentives for filmmakers, Rodman said he didn't think to ask for help. "Those incentives are ideal for a Lionsgate or for a production company with credit, with distribution in place, and a guarantee of funds," he said. "That probably eliminates at least 90 percent of the filmmakers in town, but it does protect the taxpayers' money." He said he's not frustrated by that setup but would like to see the state help New Mexico film artists realize their projects. "We bring value to the state," he insisted.
Rodman, who is self-employed, was a Navy pilot for more than 20 years. He was stuck in that desert ditch on his 40th birthday during Desert Storm, and that's when he decided to change careers (he had flirted with Hollywood in the mid-1980s and wrote a couple of spec scripts). Since then, he's been producing, writing, and working in various capacities on independent and short films around the world. He was assistant director on filmmaker Jim McSherry's short documentary La Verite du Ciel (The Plane Truth), in which those who lost loved ones in a 1992 Air France crash share their memories of the victims. That film also plays in this year's festival.
Rodman runs Tendance Productions with Connie Kennedy. He's working on several projects to shoot here, including a short courtroom drama and a feature-length spy story he's calling "Modern Art." What does it mean to be an indie filmmaker? "It means we don't have financing at our beck and call," he explained. "It means I don't go to the studios to pitch a script. It means I put my best story together, find the best people, create a budget, and we go out and make a film. It means paying your own way."
The youth-conscious mind-set of Hollywood doesn't deter Rodman. "I'm not gonna win any young-filmmaker awards, but if there's an 'old new filmmaker' award ... "
And after the festival? "I want to make movies that engage
the audience," he said. "What happens afterward is up to the
gods -- the movie gods."
Celluloid mates
Justin Evans turned to his father after they saw Star Wars and said, "That's what I want to do." His father was dubious -- after all, Evans was only 3.
Evans studied film at New York University but then got sidetracked, first working in the video industry before opening Prodigi Rentals in Albuquerque, which rents motion-picture equipment. He just finished writing, directing, and producing his first feature-length film, the politically charged action drama A Lonely Place for Dying. He started shooting it on Sept. 7 and wrapped at the end of October, and he was in the editing room showing trailers to interested investors and distributors when Pasatiempo called.
In the film, Ross Marquand excels as Nikolai Dzerzhinsky, a Russian spy who wants to come in from the cold during the waning days of the Vietnam War. But someone in America's intelligence system doesn't trust him, so a CIA operative (played by Michael Scovotti) is sent to bring the Russian down. Complications -- and gunfire -- ensue.
The entire film was shot in the old state penitentiary, which Evans got to use at no charge (though he had to post insurance on the building and pay for security guards). Despite the prison's dark history -- a 1980 riot there caused 33 deaths -- Evans said he felt like "a kid in a candy store, because I had this six-story set, and my budget would never have allowed for a set this big.
"I did not ask for any financial help from the state," Evans explained, adding that his budget was under $1 million. "We knew that, as first-time filmmakers, the loan program is not really set up for us to take advantage of. I understand why. It's not the state's job to speculate; it's their job to invest. They want to see that you have a project that you can sell. I didn't have those pieces in place when I started. Now I do."
Evans got the attention of actor James Cromwell (known for his roles in Babe and L.A. Confidential and also one of this year's film festival Luminaria Tributees), who agreed to play a cameo role as newspaper editor Howard Simons. "We got him the old-fashioned way," Evans said. "We submitted the screenplay to various agents, and we were turned down by a lot of actors -- or their agents -- due to our budget level. I don't know how we got so lucky, but James actually read the script while he was on the set of W., and he called his agent up and said, 'I want to do this.'"
The shoot went off without any real hitches. Evans laid it out so he only had to cover three pages of script per day. "We had 34 days, and because of that I could tell the actors, 'This moment is not coming to life. Let's do 16 takes and get it there.'" That approach paid off in terms of the performances of the two leads.
Evans' father worked as a carpenter, and Evans figures he was cut from the same cloth: "My job is the same as my father's. He was a craftsman.I am a craftsman, and I get along well with other craftsmen.ork well with people who want to shoot straight for fame and fortune and red carpets and limos. A lot of people are attracted to what they see as a glamour industry, but to me it's a blue-collar job."
A Lonely Place for Dying premieres at the Santa Fe Film Festival, and Evans said he already has about 40 distribution companies interested in the project. "We don't have the
elements, from a marketing standpoint, that justify a major theatrical release, but we have a couple of companies talking to us about a small theatrical release," he said. "If it ended up at 100 screens or art houses,
that would be considered a home run."
He's got another project lined up, "Dark Is the Night," a vampire Western. "It's about the true nature of evil, how evil is seductive, and how few people can recognize that," he explained. "It's set in Utah in the 1880s, but we hope to shoot it outside Santa Fe. I love New Mexico. I love making movies in New Mexico. I love making New Mexico the backdrop of this film. There are so many stories to tell here."
The magnificent $75
A man rides into a dusty, quiet Western town. He approaches the saloon, draws his pistol, and decides to make his move. Gunshots tell the rest of the story -- though a flashback or two helps.
Welcome to Lance Doty's Shoot First and Pray You Live, which sports the catchy subtitle Because Luck Has Nothing to Do With It. It's a revenge tale about a knight-errant named Red Pierre, who aims to catch up with a no-goodnik called Bob McGurk, the man who killed his mother and father. Shot mostly on the Bonanza Creek Ranch movie set and in Los Golondrinas, this movie (made for less than $1 million) seems to have roots firmly embedded in the Italian Westerns of the 1960s.
Doty explained by phone from New York, where he was still editing the film, "I wanted to make a samurai movie, but I couldn't for a number of reasons. I don't know Japanese. But I found an interesting parallel between samurai films and Westerns. Sergio Leone saw Kurosawa's Yojimbo and turned it into A Fistful of Dollars. So there was a connection there. The Western is a big myth, a fairy tale for grown-ups."
As an independent filmmaker directing his first film, Doty acknowledges he could have chosen a genre that's a little more marketable. "When I told my wife I wanted to make a Western,
she said, 'You've got to be out of your mind.'"
He filmed Shoot First and Pray You Live in August 2007 on a 20-day shooting schedule. "It was a quick one, very quick," Doty said. "We couldn't afford more. As with any film, you want as much prep time as you can get, but with independents, you can't always afford it." He took advantage of the state's offer of a rebate. "No way we would have been able to do this if the governor did not have the 25-percent rebate," Doty said. "The rebate brought us here -- as well as the fact that the woman who runs Bonanza Creek, Imogene [Hughes], said, 'Sure. Knock yourself out.'"
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