First thing's first, watch the video above, then give this a read to learn how it was made (spoilers!)
BACKGROUND
In the summer of 2014, I was talking with a friend of mine (Tim Howell) from work about the idea of doing a short for Christmas (having already done one, and saying what I wanted to say about Halloween with 'The Visitor'). We talked about our love for Chaplin and the old 20/30's silent comedies, and he mentioned he wanted to make a silent movie with the same type of comedy and drama that Chaplin was able to do. We talked back and forth and decided to do a short film that mixed up the two ideas. I developed the script that mixed the two major holidays of December, Christmas and Hanukkah. In 2014, the last day of Hanukkah was December 24th, or Christmas eve, which worked perfectly in creating a short film that celebrated both holidays. In the script I wrote an INTENT (which I do for every script I write) to convey why I wanted to make this film, which included at the end:
The film is also meant to show that two people from different backgrounds can work together and be happy. The film is not meant to offend either religion or culture, but rather to show that on December 24th (Which is both Christmas Eve, and the last day of Haunakkuh this year) have similarities of their respective holidays. Although the may celebrate the different commemorations, they care about eachother and respect the traditions of one another. In our community, understanding of Jewish culture is limited, and the desire of this film is to help educate and accept those form a different background.
Tim broke down many of the jokes, and I came up with the outline of the story. With reshooting of 'The Visitor' done in October, my cameraman Will Patterson and I worked on ideas with Tim to set up preproduction. I created the main character of Jessica because of my short film 'In Memoriam', which unfortunately was never finished. One of the main actors in that movie, Jessika Bower, was fantastic and I felt I let her down by the film never being finished (which was due to scheduling and continuity errors). She did a great job on that film, and I owed her a role to make up for it, so I thought this would be perfect. For writing, we all settled on a very simple premise and locations, we didn't want to make this a big project, but something small and simple. The casting of Jessica's boyfriend was originally considered to be a couple other actors, however because of their schedules and the holiday season, ultimately I cast myself in the role. We decided to break the film down to two shooting days: One day shooting all interiors, and one day shooting all exteriors a week later. In between I could edit all the footage and show the cast and crew a proof of concept of what the film was starting to look like. It's nice to show everyone footage that has just been completed because it builds energy in everyone, and allows for feedback of what works, what doesn't work, what should we reshoot since we are still filming, etc. The goal was to have it out and online by the first day of Hanukkah (just in time for the holidays)
FILMING
The first day was all the indoor filming. Because we wanted to replicate the look of 20's and 30's silent comedies, the goal was that the film would have an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. In terms of setups, blocking, and composition, this leads into a interesting technical challenge. The film was shot in 1.78:1 on digital, and Will and I spent a lot of time working on shot lists and blocking to reflect the idea, and in editing crop it to 1.33:1. We researched a lot of silent comedies like 'City Lights', 'The General', and 'Modern Times' to get a better idea of how they composed shots. Tim was there filming as a technical consultant for silent comedies so we could accurately reflect the films that influenced the film. The moments where Jessica is looking through her phone was a trick that was thought up very early, and we did an early test (click HERE to see the early test) to see if it could work. We wanted to avoid using intertitles that silent films used as a way to modernized the silent comedy, and decided to have the text messages in the frame. By doing this, it was the simple trick of having the character on one side of the frame, and leaving enough room for the text on the other side of the frame. A lot of planning was involved to make sure the timing and blocking worked, and overall I think the trick worked well and kept the audience involved. Many of the jokes when she runs around were preplanned, and Jessica didn't quite understand what she was doing, she totally went for it, and a lot of the jokes were really funny and went well. The one joke that didn't work was that she uses her hair brush as a toothbrush because she was in a rush, however the joke didn't really work, I wish I had an extra shot to sell the joke better. Her running around the living room and the gag of her finding the change in her boot was Tim's idea, and it's one of my favorite jokes of the film.
The second half of the indoor filming was after she comes back from downtown and I show up. To sell that she couldn't afford much, I went to a dollar store and tried to see how much I could get for $15 of Christmas decorations, and we decorated the living room to show that even though Jessica doesn't have much money, a lot of thought was put into it, and it's a really touching moment (the gag of her kicking the dollar store bag so her boyfriend doesn't see it was a joke I came up with a couple days before filming because it was a great cherry on top for the scene in terms of comedy). The menorah box, as well as the large menorah at the very beginning of the film was donated by the Chabad Jewish Center of Barrie, who were extremely kind and supportive of the movie we were trying to make, and educated me on traditions of Hanukkah, what food is served, games played, etc. When filming the dinner scene with Jessica and her boyfriend, I tried to show a nice combination of Hanukkah and Christmas food serving Latkes, while also making chicken covered in oil (to keep with Hanukkah/Christmas traditions), and stuffing. The food was actually being made in filming, which allowed us to kill two birds with one stone by filming and having the food props for eating. The last shot of Jessica and her boyfriend on the couch watching 'Santa Claus Conquers the Martians' (which was never stated, however if you've seen the film you know what there watching) was something planned for a while as it was known as the WORST Christmas film of all time, so something funny would work for both holidays as something they could enjoy. The last scene shot that day was the first scene of the film, with Jessica's family, which was in this case her brothers and family. The actors playing her family was actually the crew (Tim and Will) as well as Jessika's boyfriend and child. It was nice as making this was really a group project, so it was important to me that everyone who helped had their moment.
The outdoor filming was done the next week, which created an interesting problem. We saved the outdoor stuff for the very end because we wanted to have as much snow as possible for the outdoor filming to sell that it was the holiday season, and in the shot where Jessica's boyfriend walks into her place, you can see there is snow in the background out of focus. However in the week between filming that and the outdoor footage, we had a warm spell, and all the snow melted, so because we were filming in the beginning of December and we needed to finish this by the first day of Hanukkah, we decided to film everything the way it was. We didn't have permission to film downtown or any of these stores, so a lot of this was footage we shot snippets of or went guerrilla style with Will shooting on an Iphone as Jessika wondered these shops. The actor who bumps into Jessica is actually Tim, and we set it up in a way that you couldn't see him, and in a way thematically it also worked because we were seeing the event through Jessica's perspective and feelings, so seeing the persons face isn't really needed.
Ironically the one place that we could film in, we couldn't shoot on the day. I talked to the manager of Manticore books in Orillia for a scene we had which would have taken place just before the scene where she gives back the money back. In the script it was written as:
CUT TO:
5. EXT. DOWNTOWN – MORNING
JESSICA is walking
downtown, looking through windows at gifts that JACK might like, and then seeing
they are too expensive. JESSICA walks by a lingerie shop, she stops, looks at
it for a moment, then shakes her head and keeps walking. JESSICA then sees JACK
walking towards her with his friends.
CUT TO:
6. INT. BOOKSTORE –
MORNING
In a panic, she hides into
a bookstore, grabbing a book and using it to cover her face as he walks by the
window of the front of the store. As he passes, she slowly lowers the book,
then JACK looks back through the window, and she hides her face in the book
again. After a moment, JACK realizes that it isn’t her, and walks away. JESSICA
puts the book away from her face, breathing a sign of relief. Behind her, the
manager of the bookstore taps her on the shoulder. JESSICA realizes she took a
book from the rare book section, and seeing the price of the book being $150.
She very cautiously puts the book back on the shelf, caressing and petting the
book as she does, and walks away.
This was going to be the very last scene to film, however when we got there, there was a sign at the door and due to a family emergency they had to close early. It's nothing that we could fault the store owner for, he did allow us to film there, however just sometimes random things happen when you are filming, and although it was a really funny joke and the audience is introduced to Jessica's boyfriend earlier, really you could cut that scene out and not lose anything story or character wise. So we decided not to film it later on.
POST PRODUCTION
As I mentioned, as soon as the first day of filming was done, I was editing already and trying to get everything done before the release date I had in mind (the first day of Hanukkah). Having all the shots planned out ahead of time, and thinking as an editor when planning the shots, the editing was a very easy process. Because of the short schedule to film everything, there was only a few takes. Once the raw footage was edited together as a rough cut, I cropped the frame to reflect a 1.33:1 image (the final film is actually more a 1.66:1 ratio. Editing knowing you will crop the image allows you to play with the image framing in post production, you can cut off more of one side, zoom and crop, and help allow you to get the perfect compositions for the final film. In the scene where Jack shows Jessica what he got her for the holidays, for whatever reason I didn't shoot a close up of the menorah box, so in editing I just zoomed in on the two shot where Jack opens his backpack, and recomposed it so it looks like a close up, before going back to the two shot. In the final film it looks seamless, while still fitting into the 20's/30's aesthetic.
Once the film was cut together in a rough form, I used Final Cut Pro 7's effects, specifically the color correction to drain the color out of the shots, and used the Stylize- > Bad Film option to create the scratches and film grain. The trick to doing this is for every shot it has to look different. To really achieve the look of old silent films, every shot needs to have different amounts of grain, scratches, hairs, and brightness levels. If you look at silent films that have not been restored (such as public domain films), they have a certain look that really makes the film feel older and worn out. Using this, you can have a freedom to enhance certain shots, or make certain shots more clear. For the outdoor shots, I blew up the brightness a little more than the indoor shots to reflect how the lighting would work for old film cameras, as well as using certain shots that were more emotional moments for Jessica, I added more grain or scratches to help visually display what's on her mind. The final trick was the music. As this film was silent, the music needed to enhance the drama or the comedy of the film to the audience. I researched a lot of Jewish composers, as well as Christmas themes from various composers to add another level to the film. I also used a lot of Tchaikovsky's 'The Nutcracker' for various parts (you can even notice a 'Home Alone' reference when Jessica is rushing around her house trying to get ready, using the same piece of music as when the family is quickly rushing to get ready).
The final product is one I am extremely proud of overall. It was an interesting experiment, something out of my element since I'm usually more of a writer and enjoy developing characters through dialogue. This was something that could develop my skill as a director, and this was a team project. Without Will Patterson, we wouldn't have come up with many of the shot compositions, or had the visual style we were going for work as well as it did; without Tim Howell, we wouldn't have had some of the best jokes in the film, or made sure we adhered to the aesthetic we were using; and without Jessika Bower, we wouldn't have had the great and very funny performance she gave that was the emotional grounding of the film. I hope you all enjoyed it.
