Sitting on a couch in her Silverlake home surrounded by her two dogs, stacks of paper and a laptop, Jennifer Clary is busy at work setting up casting sessions; or dealing with solidifying a location; or figuring out budgetary logistics; or doing one of a hundred things that are involved in pre-production for an independent film.
With two award winning short films under her belt, Jennifer is preparing to direct her first feature called The Silent Thief this summer. Over the course of four articles I’ll be tracking the making of The Silent Thief through four stages: pre-production, production, post production, and the festival circuit and distribution. My hope is that this interview with Jennifer and my other upcoming three articles about the process will be helpful and interesting for other independent filmmakers.
Thanks for sitting down with me.
Of course!
First off, can you tell us a little about the story of The Silent Thief?
Sure. It’s the story of an unsuccessful identity thief named Brennan. He is an endearing miscreant who desperately wants to grow up and be accepted. He feels unable to find genuine human connection as himself, so he attempts to do so by adopting the identity of another young man, Mike Henderson.
This isn't your first time working on a low budget film. Talk a little about what brought you to this point.
Well, this isn’t my first time working on a low budget film, but it is my first time to direct a feature. The first short film I directed was a mixed media piece called Dirty Girlwhich combined 35mm live action clips with stop motion animation to chronicle a woman’s surgical experience. It cost about $4,000 to make and, in hindsight, I probably could have completed the project for less than that had I known what I was doing with the animation. It was my first time to work with clay and stop motion, so I ended up blowing more money on the animation end of things than I should have. I was lucky because Dirty Girlhad a pretty successful festival run and so it picked up distribution and a sales agent. I was able to recoup the production budget and then some, which is always a good thing and not something which I expected to do with a short film.
About a year after Dirty Girl, I shot a second stop motion animation short film called The Christmas Conspiracyfor a whopping $300. Basically, I was interested in making a holiday film for children that would be a throw-back to the TV specials which I always loved watching when I was little, like the classic Nagashima/Roemer animation of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I found my clay figures from Dirty Girlstashed in a closet, pulled them apart, and re-used the clay to make my characters for The Christmas Conspiracy. I was also able to convince Dick van Patten and Christian Kane to provide narration and character voices, so that was fortunate. Directing The Silent Thiefis going to be a real challenge and I anticipate that the process is going to be more stressful than directing Dirty Girlor The Christmas Conspiracy.
But it must be exciting to try your hand at a feature length.
Oh, definitely. I’m so thrilled to be going into production on my first feature...finally. The film has been in development for four years, so it hasn’t been an easy road.
What were some of the bumps in the road you came across?
Initially, we had an investor with two million dollars set aside in our account for the pre-production and production phases of The Silent Thief. When his ethanol business went bust, he pulled funding out from under the production. At that point, I decided that I’d just raise the funds that I felt were necessary for the project. I wanted to be self-reliant so that I could make sure that the project got made and so that I retained creative say on my first feature. When the outside investor was on board, he had a lot of push when it came to casting, locations, etc… and I wasn’t sure that that was going to be the best thing for this project necessarily. The Silent Thiefis a unique piece and the performances are so important to me. I really wanted heavy input regarding the actors selected for this project and, now that the film is largely self-funded, I’m able to have a lot of control over casting. So I’m working with about a tenth of the project’s initial budget--around $200,000 instead of $2,000,000—but ironically I’m actually getting more of what is important to me on my first feature even though I have less money to work with now.
How did you manage to come up with the necessary funding?
I worked really, really hard for it. I wish that I had a better answer to this, but the reality is that I just worked my tail off. After I lost my first investor, I went on this whole self-reliant kick in regards to my film career and my life in general. I became an entrepreneur. I now own three companies with my husband and producing partner, Kevin Haberer. The two of us worked around the clock for two and a half years to establish ourselves in the business world. By the time 2011 came around, we were in a financial position to fund the majority of The Silent Thiefon our own. We have amazingly supportive family and friends contributing $15,000 to the production and are providing the rest of the financing on our own. Having said this, I’m certainly not planning to independently finance all of my projects from here on out. I’ll probably invest in most of my films in some capacity, but even now I’m starting to meet with outside investors about other projects which I have in development because I know that those films will require more than half a million each in funding to be properly executed. But, for The Silent Thief, I really feel like I can do the project justice with a $200,000 budget. There are so few locations involved and I have such a committed team on board…I’m not overly worried about the production from a financial standpoint.
What is your approach to casting?
First of all, I have a great casting director named Emily Schweber. Because the film is so Brennan-centric, I felt strongly that I had to find the right actor for Brennan before casting the other roles. I was set up on meetings with a series of wonderful actors to discuss the role over a period of two to three months in early 2011. For me, it’s my preference to sit down and talk with someone rather than to just bring them in for a quick read in an audition setting. I don’t know if this is traditionally how most directors operate, but it’s what I did for the lead in this project and I’m glad that I took the time for these one-on-one meetings. One of the actors Emily arranged for me to meet up with was Toby Hemingway. I knew within about a half hour of our meeting that he was a fit for the role. Then I got lucky because Toby’s manager also represents Scout Taylor Compton and recommended her for the role of Elise, who is Brennan’s pseudo-incestuous love interest in the film. Emily called Scout in to read opposite Toby and they were great together. So, in a matter of a few weeks, I was able to attach talent to two of the main roles. As of May, I’m in casting for the remaining roles and I’m confident that we’ll find the right talent for all of the parts. In fact, I’m sure we will because Emily is the best!
What is your prep process like with your cast and crew?
Because I’m working with a limited budget, it’s important to me that everyone feels confident going into production. We don’t have the luxury of extending production because the actors aren’t properly informed or because the crew is unfamiliar with the shooting plan. To avoid unnecessary production set-backs, I’ve been meeting with my DP and art director regularly for several months. Actually, my DP has been attached to the project for a few years—so, he’s really in the loop! Plus, I’ve locked down the primary shooting location and equipment for a couple of weeks prior to the first day of shooting so that we can limit technical surprises and gain familiarity with our set.
As far as the cast goes, I couldn’t ask for more committed talent. Toby is amazing; I usually meet up with him every other week or so to discuss the role. I’ve had the opportunity to sit down with Scout a few times as well. She is actually going to be on set in Russia for the rest of May on another project, so I’ll get to catch up with her in June while Toby is off shooting The Lowenfish Party in Michigan…or Canada. I can’t remember. Once I get the other roles cast, I plan to meet with those actors as well before production commences. I feel like preparation can only be helpful, so I’ll take as much of it as I can get with the cast and crew!
Will you be shooting the film on 35mm like you did for Dirty Girl?
No, we’ll be shooting on the RED.
Why the change?
It wasn’t an easy decision for me because I love the aesthetic of film and I don’t want The Silent Thiefto have that uber-digital crispness. But, because I’m shooting on a low budget, the workflow with the RED is more appealing to me than shooting on film. I think that there’s something to be said on a low budget set for not taking your actors out of the moment to load film. I mean, they are obviously aware of budget restrictions and are fearlessly putting themselves out there, trying to inhabit these very complex roles on a tight schedule. Then, you are stopping their process intermittently to load expensive film right in front of them. There has to be a moment during all of this when the actors are feeling pressure to just get it done so that everyone can move on and stop using up film. And I don’t want my actors to feel like that. I don’t want to even take a chance that they would feel like that. I want them to be able to completely concentrate on acting because, ultimately, their performances are of paramount importance to me and to the story. On future projects I will, hopefully, have larger budgets to work with and the luxury of more time on set. When that happens, I will definitely consider shooting on 35mm again. On The Silent Thief, though, I don’t want my shooting medium to dictate my ability to capture the best possible performances.
I also have a great DP, Andrew Wheeler, who I trust implicitly to capture the right feel and look for The Silent Thiefeven though we are shooting digitally. He is aware of my specific concerns regarding the RED (the squeaky clean image quality, the tendency to shoot super blue nights, etc…) and we are working together in pre-production to find solutions to these potential visual issues.
How did you find your location and how did you know it was right?
The location scouting for the outdoor scenes was fairly straightforward. I dragged poor Kevin all over California with me to see various piers and beach communities. We found the quietest little beach spots, called up the park department and reserved them for our production. Finding our primary shooting location, the Henderson house, was much more difficult. We looked at a whole bunch of properties over a period of about sixteen weeks. I finally found the perfect property in Calabasas just last Friday. It felt like the right spot for the Henderson family as soon as I walked in. The home is owned by a talent agent who is familiar with low budget productions, which is also an advantage. After all, the last thing you want to deal with on a tight schedule is an unwitting homeowner who walks in to find cardboard flats strewn out all over the floor and electrical tape plastered everywhere.
