5Q: Zach Weintraub / BUMMER SUMMER
Posted by CQ Central
Zach Weintraub
1Q: Tell us a little about the origins of BUMMER SUMMER, from writing to financing.
My writing process spanned a couple of years, and saw the film take on various incarnations. I started writing it as a very traditional screenplay about halfway through film school in New York because I had been warned that graduating without a feature script was the worst error that an aspiring director could commit. Just before my senior year I was getting exposed to a lot of the great new no-budget work that was coming out and was inspired to try my hand at it. So the screenplay changed a lot as I started writing it realistically according to my means. But I never even finished a complete draft. The dialogue was all so long-winded and mouthpiece-y, and all of the characters just sounded like me, so I scrapped it and wrote a detailed outline instead. That was what we shot from. I recruited friend/classmate Nandan Rao to move to Olympia, WA (my hometown) with me to shoot/co-produce the film. Because we were first-timers, we gave ourselves about six months to feel everything out before shooting anything. This time was also spent fundraising, which was a dismal failure. We threw events like a roller-disco, a garden pizza party, and an art show/raucous dance party (a bad combo for fragile ceramic pieces). Altogether, we milked less than a grand out of it all. Because the film coincided with my college graduation, I was able to finance it using gift money and some excess student loan money that I sneakily neglected to return to the loan company. It was an absurdly cheap movie, but I don’t think that’s apparent at all.
Tags: 5Q, Bummer Summer, CQ20, DRAMA, Nandan Rao, world premiere, Zach Weintraub.
Interview: Rhett & Burke Lewis / BILLY WAS A DEAF KID
Posted by Jarrod Whaley
And now (drumroll, please) for the second–and, sadly, final–of my CQ audio interviews; this time you’re in for an easygoing chat with The Brothers Lewis, also on the top floor of the Rep, minus the alarm but plus a noticeably loud “walla walla” track provided by the downstairs-queued attendees of some other film. Listen toward the end for the moment at which Rhett spills water on my shoe. Was he in character? Perhaps. I’m just glad he didn’t spit on me.
The third and final CQ screening of Billy Was a Deaf Kid is scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday (i.e. March 5): 2:15 @ the Camera 12.
Listen:
Download:
CQC Interview: Rhett & Burke Lewis (MP3 – 15.4 MB)
(Special thanks are due to Marya Murphy, who digitized and FTP’ed to me my CQ interviews after I left my MD recorder in San Jose by mistake. Thanks [specially], Marya.)
Tags: audio, BILLY WAS A DEAF KID, CQ19, DRAMEDY, Rhett & Burke Lewis.
Interview: Mark Tran / ALL ABOUT DAD
Posted by Jarrod Whaley
Here’s the first of two (the second will be posted in a very short while) audio interviews I managed to squeeze in during my unfortunately limited time at Cinequest; Mark Tran and I discuss his film, All About Dad, on the upper floor of the Rep while some kind of fire alarm or something sounds in the distance. Listen to it right from this page with the handy audio player (batteries included), or download the file and listen at your leisure.
Note that if you prefer reading to listening, this interview will be published textually on my blog sometime very soon.
You can catch All About Dad this Friday night (i.e. March 6): 9:30 @ the Rep.
Listen:
Download:
CQC Interview: Mark Tran (MP3 – 8.54MB)
(Special thanks are due to Marya Murphy, who digitized and FTP’ed to me my CQ interviews after I left my MD recorder in San Jose by mistake. Thanks [specially], Marya.)
Tags: ALL ABOUT DAD, audio, CQ19, DRAMEDY, Mark Tran.