Q & A: Nymphomercial - A Monk Jumped Over a Wall
Bob Brown interviews Director Felix E. Martinez |
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"Nymphomercial - A Monk Jumped Over a Wall" |
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Producer: Jay Nussbaum
Director: Felix E. Martinez
Camera: Daniel Branam
Music & Post Production - Felix Martinez
The Muse - Jolene Matthews
J.J. Spencer - Clint Hooper
The Receptionist - Natalia Trejos
Cates - Himself
Year: 2007 / Running time: 08:51 |
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| Still Photos Taken By: Michelle Salom |
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B.B.: How did this project idea come about? |
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F.E.M.: Over the summer, author Jay Nussbaum and I were discussing the publication of his new novel, "A Monk Jumped Over a Wall," and I made the offhand comment that he should use the Internet - and specifically, YouTube - as a way to create a buzz about his book and to also connect and communicate with a larger audience. I have a short film and some music videos on my channel at YouTube, and thought it would be interesting for a novelist to have his own channel and have a visual way to interact with an audience. A few weeks passed, and Jay finally called me with an ambitious idea: to dramatize and shoot a key scene from the novel, and wrap it in a satirical package poking fun at the "infomercial" concept (a joke that also exists in the novel). So our little idea suddenly became a full production. I went one better and told Jay that since we were embarking on this exciting, creative journey, we should go all out and shoot in high-definition video, do a full sound mix, the works. That way, we would have a broadcast-quality master we can use for other multimedia purposes: readings, talk shows, film festivals, etc. Our goal was to make a really funny and entertaining short film that would hopefully intrigue and inspire a whole lot of people to search out the book for more of Jay's brilliant and witty observations about life. And if it's controversial, all the better! |
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| B. B.: What was your budget? Was funding difficult? |
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| F.E.M.: Jay produced the project with his own funds, and now he can say he has lived the part of a movie producer along with all of his other amazing life experiences (he's also a martial artist and educator, along with being a novelist and lawyer)! I can tell you that he hired a publicist for his previous novel, and he's gotten more bang for the buck by doing this little project at a fraction of the cost. |
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B.B.: I really got a laugh during the interview process. I've been there, we've all been there. I'm referring to the shoveling of horse-shit, hoping that what we are saying is exactly what we think they want to hear. The longer the interview continues the deeper the horse-shit piles up.
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F.E.M.: The story behind "A Monk Jumped Over a Wall" comes from the fable that goes by the same name, in which a very wealthy man expecting an important dinner guest instructs his chef to create a soup using all the very best ingredients the world has to offer. In a nearby monastery, a monk smells it simmering, and is so overtaken with desire that he scales the monastery wall in search of the soup, never to return.
In the scene that we were dramatizing, our main character is at a crossroads, early on in his career. In fact, he's interviewing for a job. And he has to reconcile the fact that he's pursuing a career that he's not too crazy about, but hey, he's got to pay the bills. We've all been there. However, some of us don't have that kind of courage on our own to jump the wall and pursue our true path. Some of us need help - a friend, a fear, a muse - to make the jump. So that's how our sexy model became our Muse - she's a catalyst for change as well as a comic device and metaphor for our society's obsessiveness with sex: sex as a power play, sex as a sales tool, even sex-guilt as a result of an unhealthy diet of political correctness, etc. Actually, there's also an "anti-Muse" in our piece which is seducing our main character to follow another road: the American Dream, or at least a version of it that doesn't have a lot to do with his true path. We see him throughout the film in halves, never his full self, saying one thing and thinking another. He finally finds a cathartic release in a flight of fantasy, where his two mindsets are reconciled.
We've just completed shooting an intro for the extended "film fest" version that will better put into context the back story of the fable and how it relates to what follows. We will see our protagonist - J.J. Spencer - as a confident, complete being, several years down the road, introducing the viewers to his former self.
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B. B.: As the dialogue continues, I assume we begin to hear and visualize Spencer 's actual thoughts.
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| F.E.M.: Exactly. In the script, the voiceovers continued into the farm scene, but I felt very strongly that once we're in J.J.'s fantasy, the two warring factions of his psyche are essentially duking it out on a level field. Clint Hooper did such an amazing, layered job portraying J.J. He starts out as this humble, almost apologetic kid and transforms into a vessel for barely contained frustration and anger. Outstanding work. |
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| B. B.: I assume neither Cates nor Spencer really wanted to be there, working in that Type-A environment. Many of us have jobs we would simply like to run away from. Did I get that right? Or was it left up to our own interpretations? |
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| F.E.M.: That's a valid interpretation. Cates was once where J.J. was. In my opinion, there's hope even for Cates. I'm only speaking for the short film, of course. Jay's novel stands on its own. |
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| B. B.: Where did you shoot the interiors and exteriors? |
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| F.E.M.: The interiors were done in a private home and a law office in Miami, Florida, and the exteriors took place at Westland Ranches, a horse farm in West Hialeah, Florida. It was actually quite a challenge finding a suitable location in South Florida that had the open, rural look we wanted. There were many large spaces, but most had an agricultural look that wasn't what we were looking for. Our Director of Photography, Daniel Branam, takes the credit for taking this thing out in the open. In the book, the entire job interview scene takes place in the office, and Jay and I were knocking our heads against the wall trying to find an office-like location where we could let the shit fly, so to speak. But Dan either mis-read it, or imagined it differently and told me, "you know, I thought this was out in a field somewhere," and immediately I had a vision of a Pink Floyd-style album cover: the incongruous image of a desk, chair, and job interview taking place on a farm in the middle of nowhere. |
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| B. B.: The shots in the bathroom really caught my eye. I really liked the warm tones. Was that tough to light? |
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F.E.M.: Dan did an amazing job with the lighting. He is extremely methodical, and has an amazing eye for detail. He lit the bathroom scene so that J.J.'s face looked like a mask. And I believe J.J.'s line is: "Feels like Halloween." Perfect! We also had a challenge getting J.J.'s full face reflected in the mirror, and it was at that point that I felt the use of profile composition and showing only halves of his face was an interesting way of showing he's only giving you one side of himself. Of course, for the intro to the extended version, J.J. is seen straight-on, lit handsomely, underscoring the idea that he is talking to us from a good place in his life. Another impressive lighting situation was the office scene. Dan spent quite a bit of time making Cates' half of the room feel a certain way, while J.J.'s half has another vibe going on. I also spent some time color correcting as well, so that the reception area has about 60% of the color of the farm sequence or the intro to the receptionist. So when those things show up onscreen, they're almost hyper-real. Rather than boosting the color in one area, I took away from another to create dynamic range, visually. Dan also shot 30 frames per second, rather than 60 (standard for video) or 24 (for film). The look of movement at 30 frames per second has an interesting signature that's fresh and not overused. It's not quite film and not quite video.
I also spent a significant amount of time on the sound mix. During the interview scene in the office, there's an oscillating room tone that's a little ominous and oppressive, comprised of mostly low-frequency information. When J.J. rises and we cut to the farm locale, it should feel like a release, or like a weight has been taken from your shoulders because all the low-frequency energy melts away. Of course, on YouTube, you can barely hear this (and it's in mono), but it's all there in stereo and 24-bit resolution on the HD master and DVD version! |
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| B. B.: Speaking of the sound mix, I really liked the music. It worked nicely with the visuals. How do you generally cue music ideas for the mood and visuals? Do you somehow get a musical vibe while waching the dailies? |
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F.E.M.: Thank you! Interestingly enough, the music came first. I had the notion that the Muse's dialogue - which is rather conversational, self referential, and a little campy - should be delivered completely 180 degrees from the tone on paper. Many auditioning actresses read the dialogue as written and it was clear it did not work in that manner. Things really got interesting when the dialogue was delivered in a sly, sexy tone. And Jolene Matthews delivered in spades. She was just totally on, uninhibited, full-tilt, and wonderful. A joy to work with. During the pre-production phase, I composed a few of minutes of moody, driving dance music to give Jolene an idea of where the Muse might be coming from. And the minute we began to roll tape, Jolene just owned the screen. I have a collection of outtakes that makes for a pretty damn sexy music video! But Jolene added a sly intelligence that I think was crucial. It was important to us that the women in this story are shown in control - they are in on the joke, pulling the strings. It's the men that are exploited!
I also want to mention that Natalia Trejos, who played the receptionist, was the catalyst for one of the most memorable walks down a hallway on screen, ever. She's just amazing! The law offices we were shooting in had this rather bizarre, large American flag at the end of a hallway, and I just could not allow that to go unphotographed! So Natalia and I improvised her walk down that hall, where she would turn, continue on, etc. Totally unscripted. And Clint's reactions on the reverse shots are just hilarious. I just knew that when those visuals were married to music it would be such a cool moment. However, while this was all unscripted, it was absolutely true to the idea of what we were doing. That was crucial. Everything has to work together to serve the original idea. |
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| B. B.: What was the total turn-around time, concept to completion? |
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F.E.M.: Jay and I talked about the idea in May 2007, we auditioned our actors over two weekends in August and September, shot over a weekend in mid-October, and finished the edit and sound mix before our November 1 deadline.
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| B. B.: On a side thought, what exactly did Cates chew and ultimately spit up in the farm scene. Can I assume it wasn't actually dung? Even method actors have their limits. |
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F.E.M.:All I can say is that Cates is a method actor. But seriously, the hilarious bloopers and outtakes that we will eventually post online kind of give away the secret, so stay tuned. |
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| B. B.: I really didn't plan on getting into the technical end of things. I'm gonna go there anyway. The HD image quality was outstanding. What format did you use? Why were those choices made? I'm referring to 1080I /1080p /camera make and model. |
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F.E.M.:We used the Sony HVR-Z1U. It's an HDV 1080/60i 3-chip CMOS camera. At lower light levels, it really retains a fantastic picture with very little noise. The bathroom scene you mentioned was lit quite minimally by Dan, but in a very sculpted manner.
On the post side, editing HDV natively in Apple's Final Cut Pro using their new Intel Mac Pro machines is very much like editing regular DV footage, without the file-size footprints of uncompressed HD (which can be enormous). An hour of HDV footage is about 13 GB, just like DV, so it was a breeze to capture the entire six reels of footage we shot in one fell swoop. But the resolution of HD, compared to DV, is simply jaw-dropping. Then in Final Cut, you can export your completed project to a variety of formats, including H.264 for the web/YouTube, and downconverted 16:9 MPEG-2 for standard resolution DVD. The downconversion from high-def to standard def for the anamorphic DVD came out simply gorgeous. So everything is in the box and the workflow supports creativity. |
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| B. B.: I know you touched on this already but why did Dan decide that 30fps was the way to go? In my experience, 30fps tends to lean towards a video look whereas 24fps tends to have a softer film-like appearance. What did he see with the 30fps that he didn't care for with the 24fps. Clearly, Dan was going for a specific look. |
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| F.E.M.: At first it was simply necessary, but like they say: "necessity is the Mother of Invention." The Sony HVR-Z1U is an interlaced camera that doesn't shoot 24p, so we had two options: shoot at 60i and convert the footage to 24p in post using the reknowned Nattress Film Effect filters, or shoot at 1/30. While the Nattress filters are simply amazing, Dan was pushing for 1/30 because our project has a hyper-real concept behind it, and he was absolutely right. When you see the final piece in HD, it has an immediate, eye-popping look about it, while having a bit of the elegant motion blur that we've all been used to seeing in movies shot on film at 24 frames per second. I still used the Nattress filters for the color correction in post. There's a great Bleach Bypass filter in the package that simulates that photochemical process, and I used it to suck out the color and adjust the contrast in the scenes in the reception area (until Natalia shows up) and Cates' office. In the wide shots in Cates' office, the left side is "bleach bypassed," and the right side is unaltered. |
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| B. B.: Where and how did you find your cast and was it difficult to find the right actor who could portray your vision?? |
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| F.E.M.: Clint Hooper and Natalia Trejos came from the Miami auditions. I have known Clint for some time and had recently seen him in the stage production of "Lincolnesque," at New Theatre in Coral Gables (where we held the auditions). His comic timing and dynamic range as an actor blew us away, and those were the qualities that were necessary to portray J.J. Some folks have asked me how I directed Clint, and the truth is: all I did was give him the freedom to go where he needed to go. We had done a few takes of J.J.'s final rant and they were all wonderful, and toward the end I just told Clint, "okay, for this next one, you can go as deep as you want to go." And my goodness, those next few takes were the ones we used. J.J.'s character transforms into something else there.
Natalia Trejos is an established model in Miami and came in and made such an impression that Jay and I were stumped: we had settled on the role of the Muse, but here we had someone that we could just not let go. So we created the role of the receptionist who is kind of leading J.J. down the wrong path, and as I already mentioned, the improvised hallway sequence is quite a moment.
Jolene Matthews came from our New York City auditions. She has been on "Law and Order," "Saturday Night Live," and many other TV and cable shows. She's also a stunning model with an impressive resume, and to her credit, she followed us down to Miami for our "little" project. She has a credo that is inscribed in a little leather wristband she wears, that says, "Stay on course, raise your sails and go for the gold," which is the legacy left behind by pirates! That attitude only fueled what we were doing. It was quite amazing to see her use her body like an instrument. The first cut of the opening was so provocative that I literally had to re-edit the sequence to modulate her sensual energy. And the amazing thing is that there should be absolutely nothing provocative about it: there's no nudity, no foul language, no obscene body movements. It can be quite startling when you marry a kick-ass performance with the right editing and music choices. It becomes more than the sum of the parts.
Cates is a practicing attorney who doesn't mind eating crow once in a while, so he jumped at the chance to work with us and played himself brilliantly. |
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| B. B.: How much preparation (rehearsal) time was allotted for the actors? |
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| F.E.M.: None, which is the biggest compliment I can give our actors. Jolene was in New York, so we only communicated by phone and email a few times, but I think the music I sent her gave some indication of the mood we were trying to establish. Clint, Natalia, and Cates just showed up and did their thing. One of the most valuable lessons I learned as a director during our project I've yet to read in any filmmaking book. All of the technical stuff is absolutely necessary; however, the crucial skill you have to have is the ability to communicate a unified vision - no matter how "small" the project is - to your creative team so everyone's on the same page. This is not always easy or possible. Everyone sees things differently, depending on their role: an actor may see his/her part one way, the director of photography sees the scene another way, the writer sees it a different way, and so on. As the director, you have to modulate and conduct these individual perspectives so that they are in line with your vision to support the original idea behind the project, while at the same time providing an avenue for each person's creative choices. |
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| B. B.: Lastly, I thought Natalia's character epitomized the male’s obsession and distraction with sex. There could have been one thousand dollar bills falling from the ceiling as she walked down the hall. I have to admit, I don't think I would have seen any of them. |
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| F.E.M.: Exactly! |
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Web Site: Felix E, Martinez
Web Site: Jay Nussbaum
Web Site: Jolene Matthews
Web Site: Natalia Trejos |
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| Amateur Home Theater © 2007 |
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