SVFF 2013: SHORT FILMS—MAGPIE (2011): The Evening Class Interview With Joel Wayne

An eclectic assortment of short films and music videos have been selected for screening at the upcoming 2013 Sun Valley Film Festival (March 14-17). The 20 short films and 15 music videos were selected based on their focus on story, no matter the medium. These additional films and videos will complement the outstanding lineup of 33 feature films to be presented throughout the festival weekend.

Of the selected short films, five are world premieres and one is a North American premiere. Idaho is well represented in the film and music video selection as 8 of the shorts were filmed in Idaho, and 9 of the music videos were made by Idaho filmmakers. One that caught my eye was Magpie (2012) [IMDb], written and directed by Joel Wayne, and produced and shot by Troy Custer. Magpie boasts its World Premiere at Sun Valley. As synopsized at the festival's website: "Morris is a middle-aged, recently-divorced man recovering from pica, an addictive disorder characterized by an appetite for inorganic food, like chalk, metal, or detergent. When Morris' son, Peter, checks himself out of a sober living facility, Morris spends the day searching for him and finds himself relapsing in the process."

It ends up that pica is not only an eating disorder characterized by an abnormal appetite for earth and other non-foods; but, it's also a genus for the magpie, thus the wry title to this edgy narrative that daringly visualizes the stressors that trigger such an unusual and provocative disorder. By comparison, a son addicted to drugs seems normal and tame. My thanks to Troy Custer for putting me in touch with Joel Wayne for a conversation.

 
Magpie (Director's Cut) from Joel Wayne on Vimeo.

Michael Guillén: Joel, I take it you come from a writing background?

Joel Wayne: Yeah, I went to school for English and creative writing and I'm currently a part-time grad student in an MFA program for writing at Boise State.

Guillén: Your writing style is dark and edgy. Who are your influences?

Wayne: It depends on the medium. Influences in terms of screenwriting would probably be in the vein of the Coen Brothers or Woody Allen. I'm interested in relationships more than anything else. Those two influence my prose as well.

Guillén: Has any of your prose been published?

Wayne: Yeah, I've just had my first short story "Deliquescence" published last year in a small magazine called apt, based out of Boston.

Guillén: Congratulations on getting your first short film Magpie into the Sun Valley Film Festival. You've written, directed, and acted in this film, which is a strange, but effective story. I had never heard of pica before. How did the subject of this eating disorder come to your attention as a writer?

Wayne: Different reality shows have shown people with this eating disorder, who a lot of times eat the same thing over and over and over. They'll eat toilet paper or dryer sheets or something like that. It's a habitual, self-comforting activity. I've taken some liberty in Magpie because my character Morris (Chris Thometz) eats a few different things: detergent, paperclips, bullets (although there are people who eat metal in general). A number of years ago there was an artist who made collage work out of the stomach contents of people suffering from pica; nails and things like that.

Guillén: Oh, my God!

Wayne: I find addictive disorders like that interesting in general. In film, you tend to see the same disorders depicted over and over, usually OCD—people tend to write about OCD—but, there are so many other interesting disorders, whether they're dibilitating or not, like synesthesia (the mixing of senses). I find all of that interesting.

Guillén: As subject matter, these disorders are intriguing. Why your script worked for me, however, was because of the juxtaposition of the father's pica eating disorder triggered by and contrasted against his son's drug addiction. Usually an audience would feel sorry for a drug addict, but in this instance Peter—who you play—comes off quite normal by comparison to his father. I thought that tension was both unexpected and comic. I loved the exchange when Peter asks his dad, "What are you doing to yourself?" and Morris answers, "I'm working on it. What are you doing?" And Peter protests, "I'm working on it too!" A very funny, yet poignant, moment.

Wayne: I tried to look at the influences in Morris's life—his recent divorce, his son's problems—as stressors that might be leading to his eating disorder. As I said earlier, I'm interested in relationships, especially familial relationships where—in this instance, let's say—the father is obviously at a certain point influencing his son without having to take responsibility for his actions.

Guillén: With regard to writing for different kinds of short form mediums, how do you approach that? I understand you wrote the script for Troy Custer's I48 entry Closure and in that film there was no dialogue at all. How did you negotiate visualizing that story with Troy?

 
Closure from Bumblebird Films on Vimeo.
 
Wayne: Well, as you probably know, there are very strict parameters when you're making a film for I48. You basically draw a genre out of a hat (not literally). What we drew was a silent film. Years ago I remember Troy doing another silent film in more of a vaudevillian style about a guy getting ready for a date. When you go into a competition like I48, you already have a couple of ideas or stories in your head that you try to turn into whatever genre you get. For Closure, this was not a story that I had in my head; it was actually a play off a story Troy had; but, we switched it up: it wasn't a man killing his wife but two lovers killing this man who was cheating on both of them with each other. We tried to turn it into something of a dark comedy; to give this dark idea a little levity. I argued that the idea of a guy killing his wife was something that had already been done a lot and that it would be more interesting to have the woman kill her boyfriend instead.

Guillén: Well, I have to be upfront here and say that I thought it was the best selection that I saw from I48, both in style and atmosphere. I think it deserved the top prize and was surprised it didn't win. It certainly drew my attention to both your work and Troy's.

Wayne: Good, I'm glad to hear that. I wrote Closure but Troy directed it. We've worked together now for a couple of years; but, we're starting to switch back and forth now with the directing.

Guillén: As someone who's come from outside who's monitoring Boise's film production, it strikes me that there are creative teams at work here: you, Troy Custer, actors Jim Lile and Kristy Lussier, you're working with each other again and again and familiarizing yourselves with each others' talents and developing an ensemble style. Would you consider that a fair assessment? The fact that you're working together a lot?

Wayne: We have. In terms of talent, it tends to rotate a bit. Jim Lile is always up for just about doing whatever so he's someone who's easy to involve. The lead in Magpie, Chris Thometz, used to be located out of Chicago and did some acting there. We had seen him do a character-driven piece in an I48 film and I talked to him and told him I would love to work with him on something else and he was into it. When I was writing Magpie, I was writing it for him, though I hadn't yet told him that or anything. Then I sent it over to him and he got on board.

Guillén: Along with Magpie being selected for the short films program, you've also earned a slot in the program of music videos with TW Walsh's "Pawn Shop Guns", on which you lent a directorial hand. Walsh, in turn, provided the unsettling score to Magpie. How has that collaboration come about and what is involved in working with a musician to create a music video? Did you approach him with a concept after listening to the music or did he approach you saying, "This is what I want?" How did that process work for you two?

 

Wayne: That project was sheer happenstance. I follow TW Walsh on Twitter and I'm a big fan of his work, both when he made music with David Bazan in the band Pedro the Lion, and then in his solo work. Walsh has come out with his first album in eight years or something like that and he had said something on Twitter about anyone wanting to make a music video for a song from his new album? I replied to him and asked if it would be my choice? He sent me his email address and we went back and forth a few times and I said I had a couple of ideas for a couple of different songs. He said that sounded like a lot of fun. So I said, "Why don't we do a little test shooting on one of these ideas?"—a time lapse shot on that song "Pawn Shop Guns"—so over lunch one day we did a test shoot and sent that over to him and he really dug it. I did more of a formal treatment and sent that over to him and he gave us his blessing and we shot it.  The cool part was that he said, "You know, I don't have a set budget for this but what I can do is pay you in trade. I can pay you with original music, if you want to do something like that?"

Guillén: What a great deal!

Wayne: Yeah, it was fantastic for us because I had already written Magpie and had originally created it for a film contest out of Chicago, and that specific contest required original music. So we needed original music for it and I worked with TW Walsh on it and he made some original music for us. Then we asked him if we could use one of his songs from the album for the final part of Magpie and he said, "Yeah. Absolutely."

Guillén: So to wrap up here, how do you subsidize your film work in Boise? How do you earn a living?

Wayne: I'm a copy writer in an ad agency. That's my 9 to 5.

Guillén: Any thoughts on what it means for you to have been accepted into the Sun Valley Film Festival with both projects? Is there anything you're hoping to get out of the experience?

Wayne: It's a big, big deal for me to be accepted because it was something totally that happened out of sheer luck. Our script supervisor on Magpie sent us an email alerting us that Sun Valley was calling for short films and music videos so we submitted both, just a couple of days before the deadline. When you do these short film projects like this, you kind of create it for one thing and you submit it to whatever that thing is and then you move on, y'know? If you win an award, great. If not, it doesn't really matter. You move on to the next project. But this is an instance where we were able to get a little more life out of Magpie and we feel good about the end product so we've been searching for something to spur us on a little bit, to maybe look at other film festivals that we can maybe submit it to. Sun Valley Film Festival feels kind of like a jump off point for us.

Guillén: You're developing your film festival cred?

Wayne: Yeah, and we didn't think that was a possibility but now we're thinking, "Maybe it is!"

Guillén: Most short form content—short films and music videos—usually inhabit a space online. Both Magpie and "Pawn Shop Guns" are already available on the Internet. However, the value of being accepted into a film festival such as Sun Valley means the project takes on a portfolio quality. It exists in both on and off line spaces, with their respective audiences. How do you feel about having an audience for the "in-cinema" world premiere of your images?

Wayne: I don't know if it's age or what—because I'm not sure if I necessarily value having the traditional audience in a cinema—but, I do like that aspect of it, of people actually going to a physical cinema to view something I've done. That's still something we do as a society. Granted, I don't know if the in-cinema experience is necessarily dying or not; but, it seems more likely that people watch a film in their home rather than go out. Yet people still do trek to the cinema so I think it's kind of a fun idea that people would physically go somewhere to see something that you do.

I did a reading recently at Hyde Park Books and, similarly, a number of people that don't normally go to those readings showed up when I mentioned I was going to read there. That meant a lot to me because these were people who made the physical effort to come out and hear me read.

Guillén: Your seeming unfamiliarity with in-cinema experiences intrigues me as characteristic of an online generation; but, I do believe that the portfolio approach I mentioned before—of being present on line and off—strengthens the flow of community and response, commensurate to scale. I'm hoping that your experience at Sun Valley proves to be a rich one for you.  Thank you for taking the time to talk with me today.

SVFF 2013—The Evening Class Interview With Executive Director Ted Grennan

You have to love the intimate displacements of the modern age. From my desk in San Francisco I phoned Ted Grennan at his relatively new desk in central Virginia (he's just moved his family from Los Angeles to north of Charlottesville) to talk about his involvement with the sophomore edition of the Sun Valley Film Festival (SVFF), where we'll both be converging this coming weekend. Here, there and everywhere.

* * *

Michael Guillén: Ted, can you tell me a bit about your background and how you've come to helm the Sun Valley Film Festival?

Ted Grennan: I was in Sun Valley a couple of years ago. I had just been fired off a story I had sold to Fox Searchlight and didn't have anything else to do that summer. I loved that you could walk into a movie theater in Ketchum and Sun Valley and get a beer and/or a glass of wine and watch a movie. I called a friend of mine up and said, "Wouldn't it be fun to have a film festival in Sun Valley?" She said, "There's film festivals everywhere." "Yeah," I said, "but there isn't one in Sun Valley." Which wasn't completely true—there used to be the Sun Valley Spiritual Film Festival a few years back—but I meant a festival in a broader sense. I contacted a couple of people—Sabina Dana Plasse, Rick Kessler, and the Sun Valley Resort—and though this wasn't an original idea by any means, it was good timing. We launched in the fall and slotted the festival in for March.

Guillén: Hollywood's connection to Sun Valley has historical precedent. So I'm surprised that a festival of this caliber hasn't been proposed before?

Grennan: They had a film festival in Sun Valley about 10-12 years ago that we didn't learn about until we were well underway with our festival. We actually got some kind and supportive emails from some of the people who had been involved with that original inception of the festival. They did it one year and—though it was a good idea—the timing wasn't with them. I really don't know much else about it other than the emails we received wishing us good luck.

Guillén: But you feel the timing is with you? Can you speak to why now is the right time to launch the Sun Valley Film Festival?

Grennan: Timing is everything, though I don't know if there's always a reason for it. The key to the good timing was that the Valley was not only receptive but incredibly supportive. We had over 75 volunteers in our first year and most of them who are able are returning this year. Further, the Valley has fantastic venues—the Magic Lantern, the Opera House, the nexStage Theatre—which are great places to sit down and have a beer or a glass of wine and watch a movie. And although Sun Valley's not next-door, it has a proximity to Los Angeles by way of a short flight to Sun Valley. It's not that far to get to, but once you get there it feels like it is a real destination.  [Alaska Airlines, one of SVFF's main sponsors, offers non-stop LAX-SUN flights all winter long.]

Guillén: I wasn't able to attend last year's edition of SVFF, but it appears the effort was worthwhile, the feedback from audiences was positive, and you engineered a strong programming coup by engaging the Weinsteins. Are you furthering that collaboration this year?

Grennan: We are. The Weinsteins are coming back with three films this year. Lionsgate is coming back with a film or two. National Geographic has been the most pleasant surprise for us. They're such a fit for Sun Valley anyway and there's a local population of National Geographic guys—Greg Carr; Bob Poole won the One in A Million Award last year for War Elephants—and National Geographic considers Sun Valley a good home for them and they're coming back this year in a much larger capacity. They're launching two new television series that they'll be unveiling at SVFF and they're also holding a press conference where they'll be making a really exciting announcement in conjunction with the African Wildlife Federation (AWF). In fact, SVFF was the genesis for AWF and Nat Geo working together on a project revolving around a film-centric idea. So we're really grateful to have Nat Geo involved with an event that shares a lot of Nat Geo's values.

Guillén: Wonderful accomplishments! Now to backtrack just a bit, I understand you come from a screenwriting background?

Grennan: I do. Sometimes I get paid for it. Sometimes I don't.

Guillén: As do we all. So I've had my eye on this year's new development: the Screenwriter's Lab with Will McCormack; an event that everyone I've spoken to is planning on attending. It seems obvious to me that this will help to distinguish SVFF. On that train of thought, what do you consider the brand of SVFF? With proliferation of film festivals being something of a hot button issue, what is it that you think will set SVFF apart as a unique event?

Grennan: Frankly, it's the destination. It's Sun Valley and what it has to offer as a location. As for the festival's tone? It's family-friendly, as the Valley itself is family-friendly. We've tried to model the spirit of the festival on the spirit of the Valley. Let alone—as you mentioned earlier—Sun Valley's historical connection to Hollywood.

Guillén: Do you offhand know if the Sun Valley Resort has an archive of materials relating to its association with Hollywood back in its heyday?

Grennan: One of the richest in America! It's extraordinary. For example, they've got the most extraordinary photograph of Marilyn Monroe getting off of the Snowball Special where she's wearing these little pompoms on her toes. They've got a great photograph of Clark Gable up on the mountain next to Henry Kissinger. Jimmy Stewart. The Kennedys. It's extraordinary the amount of photographs they have in the special archive room they have in the Resort. I think it's an American treasure. We're just now getting about 12 pictures from the Resort to put up on our website.

It's actually an interesting story—I don't know if you know, stop me if you do—but the man who launched Miami Beach in the '20s, Steve Hannigan, was hired by W. Averell Harriman to help develop a winter resort. In fact, Hannigan was responsible for naming the resort Sun Valley. He was the original starfucker. He advised that if Sun Valley really wanted to open itself up as a ski shangri-la, they needed to invite up all of Hollywood's startlets and their hangers-on and so that's exactly what Averell did. He established a train called the Snowball Special that ran from Los Angeles' Union Station into Sun Valley. Everyone came and brought their family, friends and managers and the only thing Averell asked for in return was to photograph them while they were eating, drinking, skiing and they used all those photographs for their original ad campaign to sell Sun Valley.

Guillén: Fascinating. That's an early example of what film festival studies would term the "spectacular dimension" of a film festival; the necessary celebrity presence with its attendant red carpet premieres. Will SVFF be able to offer any of that this edition? Have you secured any talent to help promote the festival?

Grennan: Jodie Foster's coming! Geena Davis is likely coming. And we have some other celebrities who have expressed an interest in coming to the festival this year: Joshua Leonard, Will McCormack. One of the things I learned last year was about being ready for that celebrity presence. We had entered into arrangements to bring Guy Pearce to the festival to accompany one of his films and to provide PR for the film and Guy. The publicist called me up and she said, "We should bring Guy up and this, that and the other" and I had to tell her, "Look, you know what? We love the film but we're not ready for Guy. I'm not going to be able to put on the dog for him." She laughed at me but said, "You're smarter than I thought." I didn't want to let Guy Pearce down. I realized it was a great opportunity and it would have been fun for him to have attended the festival, but—as the girls in the office put it—we didn't have the bandwidth to handle it.

Eventually the stars will come as SVFF grows forward. Jodie Foster is an old friend of my wife's and she comes up to Sun Valley frequently; but, I didn't invite her last year because I wasn't sure how the festival was going to turn out. I asked her to come this year and she was lovely to accept the invitation. As SVFF begins to establish itself, it will naturally attract films and the actors within those films.

Guillén: Absolutely! I firmly believe that Sun Valley has the solid potential to become a true destination film festival, which—amidst festival proliferation—seem to be the festivals that are actually working and surviving.

Grennan: We had several hundred submissions this year and have ended up with a great line-up. We've really lucked out. Trevor Groth, the Director of Programming at the Sundance Film Festival, is coming up to SVFF and he's going to do a talk. But he was also kind enough to build a slate of films for us composed of films that crossed his desk at Sundance. Some of those films were admitted into Sundance but others he didn't think were right for Sundance but felt would be great for SVFF. He gave us films he really liked that we've incorporated into the festival.

To go back to your question about what will individualize SVFF on the festival landscape, we have an award that we call the Vision Award. It's our festival's top award and it recognizes the producers in this field of filmmaking who are ultimately responsible for making a film. In terms of the amount of films and where they were coming from this year, that Vision Award turned out to be an important angle that has proved quite productive for us: recognizing producers and what they actually do to help create a picture from conception to screening. This year we're featuring Jim Burke who produced The Descendants (2011). He's coming up to open our Coffee Talk series this year. These guys are the gas in the tank that keep the thing going and, as I said, I really think that a lot of the films that came to us this year are a direct consequence of our focus on producers. Alaska Airlines has been very generous this year in providing a special-flight budget to bring in more filmmakers. For example, this year we're bringing in documentarian Barbara Kopple from New York. At least, everyone's committed if not confirmed.

Guillén: Well, Ted, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me this morning. Any final thoughts regarding your hopes for this year's edition of SVFF?

Grennan: I said last year when we opened up this festival that it takes a village to do it. And it has. It's taken the entire Valley. We've had so much support from the Valley and Boise. There's a spirit in Idaho that's unique in the West. We were allowed to capture some of that at SVFF last year and—given the momentum that we have this year—I'm anticipating a lot of more of that will happen this year.

SAGEBRUSH: CRAWLSPACE (2011)—The Evening Class Interview With Actors Kristy Leigh Lussier and Jim Lile

My involvement with the sophomore edition of the Sun Valley Film Festival (March 14-17, 2013) has involved negotiations with the Idaho Film Office (IFO) to increase media visibility for the event, in hopes of shaping the festival to become a desirable destination experience for out-of-state visitors wishing to combine recreational skiing with film viewing; a package that Idaho—and Sun Valley in particular—are poised to provide. The IFO, of course, is hoping that some of those visitors will be scouting for locations for upcoming film projects, which is admittedly the presiding objective of a film commission. But even as Idaho woos financial investment from out-of-state, it celebrates its regional production by exhibiting a curated selection of films crafted partially or wholly within the Gem State. With exhibition being the weakest aspect of Idaho's film culture, the role of the Sun Valley Film Festival (SVFF) as an exhibition venue has become increasingly vital. Producing a film that few will see is of limited value; thus, my hat goes off to SVFF for providing local talent a chance to shine and to, hopefully, be seen by a broader audience. Although the tension between national cinemas within an international network of distribution has been discussed at length, attention to the difficulties that regional cinema faces in achieving a national identity is equally important, though too often blithely disregarded.

Regional programming makes sense of course. The Toronto International Film Festival—which has evolved into one of the world's largest film markets—began as an effort of frustrated Canadian filmmakers wanting their films to be seen by the world. A comparable impulse is inspiring the development of the Panama International Film Festival, which—like SVFF—held its inaugural edition last year at about the same time. For me it's an interesting exercise to watch two film festivals being built upon similar impulses, if on dissimilar scale. Bruce Fletcher, who programmed the now defunct Idaho International Film Festival, was the one who invited me to consider the importance of regional filmmaking and with my visit to the Idaho International in October 2007 my interest in Idaho's film community began. Since then it's been of considerable interest to monitor Idaho's "community", as inspired and fractured as it now appears. Once I moved to Boise, attending the monthly Boise Cutters meetings at the Owyhee Hotel has proven to be a great introduction to creative individuals and projects being endeavored at the local level. This is how I met the team behind the 2011 short Crawlspace, produced by All Fools Productions, co-directed by Christian Lybrook and Tom Hamilton, and starring Jim Lile in the lead role with Kristy Leigh Lussier in a strong supporting turn.

All Fools Productions came to do a preview presentation of Crawlspace at Boise Cutters and I was not satisfied with the teaser—I wanted more—so I turned to Lybrook, who was sitting near me, and I said, "I know you have a screener in your backpack. Give it to me." He was startled if obedient and I took the screener home and watched it. Crawlspace impressed me. I found it to be an evocative and ghostly tale of coming to terms with one's past. It felt perfectly honed down to its essential core, which reflected the care and responsibility taken with the script. I'm grateful to Jonathan Marlow at Fandor for agreeing to stream the film concurrent with the Sun Valley Film Festival, along with Lybrook's more recent venture The Seed (2013), to promote not only All Fools Productions but SVFF itself. When that stream goes live, it will be accompanied by a conversation held earlier with Lybrook.

One thing I need to stress about Christian Lybrook is that he is adamantly non-auteurial, in the sense that he isn't trying to grandstand or claim all credit for himself. This is actually quite an attractive quality. Lybrook has made it clear to me that both Crawlspace and The Seed are collaborative ventures with his creative partners; but, it just so happens that he's the guy out in front because Tom Hamilton is preoccupied with a newborn and Chris Brock—co-writer, co-producer, assistant director and miscellaneous crew—is either shy or unfamiliar with self-promotion. So as a caveat, though the Fandor piece is being billed as a conversation with Christian Lybrook, he is speaking on behalf of the team and wants that to be known up-front.

Two members of the film's extended team, however, were out in front of the camera. I spoke with Kristy Leigh Lussier at the following Boise Cutters meeting and met with Jim Lile more recently in my home. My thanks to both of them for being willing to discuss their involvement with Crawlspace. I'll approach this in a mannered way and present Kristy first.  Photos courtesy of All Fools Productions.

* * *

Michael Guillén: As I've been interviewing folks in Boise about its local film production scene, I've been struck by the absence of women, particularly as directors. Either I find women behind the scenes engaged in production or in front of the camera as actors, like yourself. Can you speak to your background and how you came to acting? And what it's been like for you to be an actor in the Treasure Valley?

Kristy Leigh Lussier: I moved to Boise almost six years ago. My background is similar to Christian's: creative writing and an English literature background. I did some film study work in the Midwest, have done a lot of production work, and actually used to work with South by Southwest. I did a lot of independents down in Austin as a production assistant and got my feet wet on film sets down there.

For fun—when I first met Christian, Chris and Tom—I mentioned to them that I was a screenwriter and have always loved the writing element of filmmaking, but have always wanted to be onscreen as well. I did a lot of theater in high school and in college. Early last year I thought, "Gosh, I really have to get back into the film realm." I had taken a break, had a couple of kids, and wasn't doing much more than caring for my babies at home. But I'd heard about film projects going on and knew films were being shot around town so I began paying attention.

I started surfing Craig's List to get back into the scene. That's where I spotted Christian's ad for Crawlspace. He was looking for an actress to read for the part of Beth. We met and he cast me in the role. Crawlspace was the first thing I did in Boise's film community after years of being away from filmmaking. We shot it in May. Since then, I've worked on at least 9 or 10 other projects, including Brandon Freeman's Mark of the Veil, a couple of I-48s, an H-48 with Troy Custer, and last summer I was cast as a lead actress in a feature film project by Kim Kovac [A Ghost Of A Chance] out of Mountain Home.

Facebook and social media have helped me to network, to find out what's going on in the community, and have led me to projects like Crawlspace. I met Jim Lile working on Crawlspace and, since then, Jim and I have worked on the bulk of all these projects together. You meet other actors who are involved in a project and then you keep each other connected. If you hear about something, even something you can't do, then you offer it to someone else. "I've heard about this audition. I can't make it but you should try." I've noticed that a lot of people in the community really keep each other informed. So if it's a role that I won't fit because I'm too old or not young enough, I'll send the notice to a girlfriend of mine or someone who I might know that could fit the part or might be interested in the role. Boise's acting community keep each other in the loop and help each other out.

Guillén: I'm glad to hear you acknowledge that there is a community.

Lussier: I've only been involved with it for a year, but what I've noticed is its entrepreneurial sense; friends like Christian, Chris and Tom who say, "We can do this. We're not experts, we don't have a million dollars, but we can do this." I've been so happy over this last year with all the projects I've gotten to be a part of because most of these people want to tell a great story, they have great ideas, and they pull together people who they trust and who want to help them tell that story. Most of us work at careers outside of these projects, but we do them for fun and as a form of self-expression.

Guillén: Have you signed up with local casting director Catrine McGregor?

Lussier: Her name keeps popping up but I've never met her, though I would definitely consider that. Obviously, I would love to go further. Everyone wants to go further. Sure, I'd like to wake up and make movies every day and get paid to do it; but, if I only continue doing this, for fun the way I have been, and meeting a lot of people and having a good time with my friends making films on the weekend, I would still do that. I love the nature and the spirit of it.

Guillén: It seems to me that most of the positions available for films in Boise are in production. You mentioned you've trained as a production assistant. Would you consider going back into the production side of things?

Lussier: I would love to stay on camera. If I did move into the production realm, it would probably be writing or directing (though I have some fear about directing). As a screenwriter, it's a part of me and a piece of my soul to put it down on paper and tell the story that way. I feel confident that way. I feel confident as an actor to bring a script, a role, a person's story to life. To translate that story to screen as a director? I haven't done it yet. I'd be up to the challenge, but I'm hesitant to go in that direction. It's a matter of time.

Ironically, because of I48 I spent the weekend hanging out with a lot of local film people. I spent Saturday evening talking to some well-known people around town about a script that I had written last year and tossed around ideas about how to get the script to feature and put it to film. How would we shoot it in Idaho? How would we fund it? By its nature the script asks for a big budget. But I love that independent feel and I don't want to leave Idaho. I would rather shoot here. I would rather put people in Idaho to work behind the camera and in front of the camera. I love writing and, sure, I would love to get a million-dollar paycheck for a script, but if I had a chance to make it here instead of selling it, I would make it here in a heartbeat.

It's a lot of fun to have people in the community that you can go to and say, "Hey, I'm working on this script. Can you read it? Can you give me your ideas? Can you give me your thoughts?" Or, "So and so's working on this project and I thought of you. What do you think of his idea? Do you think you can do this? Would you come shoot it?" It's a lot of, "Hey, come help us do something and make something and bring something to life." A lot of people around town are willing.

Guillén: Can you recommend other women who are doing good film work here in Boise?

Lussier: Whitney Maunie is a great young actress who's been doing good work around Boise for the past few years. Kirsten Strough is a good producer-director out of the Boise State University group who's just graduated recently.

* * *

Guillén: So Jim, what's your background? How did you come to acting?

Jim Lile: Like many people who have an interest in the industry, I was just a fan of movies; but, the more I watched films, the more I watched actors and how they acted. I was always jealous of people who could act and play roles and as I developed professionally and no longer worried about standing in front of a group of people and giving presentations, I knew my skills were ready.

Gregory Bayne had an open casting call for a handful of positions for his film Person of Interest. I'm a corporate guy, usually in a suit during the day most of the time, and I thought, "Well, I'll play one of the FBI agents. That'd be an easy introduction." Then as I sat there, I scratched my head and thought, "Wait a minute. There's a role for a guy who's a war vet with PTSD who's lost a leg, is kind of weird, and is pivotal in this one scene, even though it's a small part." Even though he didn't have a lot of time on screen, his character underpinned the story. I decided I wanted to do that, which was good because the role of the FBI agent ended up being completely cut out of the film. So I got that part and got such an energy rush from doing it; it was a natural high. I was excited to get the role and loved being on set during rehearsals.

Guillén: You had no official training as an actor?

Lile: No. I've started official training two months ago. I work over at Nike in Portland and I take classes from Jana Lee Hamblin at Act Now Studio. I get great feedback from her. Now that I have a handful of films under my belt, I feel good about getting more training. I feel doors are opening. I've started to work with an agency. Grimm's interested in meeting with me! It's filmed in Portland. Knock knock on wood.

Guillén: So after Person of Interest, Crawlspace was your second project?

Lile: Yes, and my first as a lead.

Guillén: What is the value of getting your start as an actor in Idaho?

Lile: The benefit is the work. I just turned 40 a couple of weeks ago and I often see movies that have roles for guys 35-40 as the leading character. There's not a lot of competition for that in Idaho. I feel that I'm getting consistent work and that definitely feels good. It gives me on-the-job training. I've learned my own way of reading a script and thinking about mannerisms or how my presence comes off on film when there are cameras around. Interestingly, many of the things I've taught myself are 80% in the ballpark as to how professionals organize and learn their dialogue, and their actions and reactions to scenes. That's definitely a pro.

The con is that there are a lot of people who have an idea about a project, they write a story and have a camera and a couple of guys and they want to make a film but they don't understand the editing process, or lighting, or what it means to add music and undertones to a film. Probably half of the local projects I've done have never been finished. Maybe, ultimately, that's a good thing? I don't know.

Guillén: You've mentioned that you're continuing your training in Portland because it's convenient to your work, but would you have considered training here in Idaho? Is there any kind of real training for actors in Idaho?

Lile: There's some training. There's a lot of stage work. The people who offer training tend to come up to this area from Salt Lake to do training; but, I'm not quite sure how I feel about some of those folks who are brought up here to do the training. I get a mixed review from local actors. Why would I want to get training from someone questionable?

Guillén: And the point is that training builds upon natural instincts, natural talent, which I suspect you have as an actor. When I was talking to Christian about the filming of Crawlspace, he told me you filmed the last and most powerful scene first.

Lile: He was ambitious.

Guillén: He said he was stunned by your performance in that scene and that he knew the film was going to work after he saw what you did. He said you came right into the scene, grabbed the emotion, and wowed everyone on the set. So my question would be: without any official training as an actor, where did that come from? How did you know how to emotionally inhabit that character and ground him in your performance so quickly?

Lile: The simplest way to answer that is that you read the story and—if you believe in the story and if you understand the character and what he's gone through—then you can do it. I associated any feelings I had of unresolved guilt in my own life to the character. I felt that final scene was a moment of reconciliation in my character's life. He had come to terms with his brother's death. I thought about it and felt he had to first break before he could rise. He needed to hurt and feel his pain and then let it go. He realized he shouldn't carry this burden anymore. So that's how I thought about it and then I brought personal sadness to it to make the connection more real to myself.

Guillén: Christian said no one expected you to actually cry in that scene.

Lile: Right. [Laughs.] I wondered. Nobody said anything. It got really quiet and dark for a minute and I said, "Give me one second." Then I sat down, thought about these things, and put myself in the mood. I thought of a phoenix. Even though you don't really see me rise, you do see me cry with the relief of letting go. That's what I wanted to show. Christian didn't actually even know that I cried at first because he was at such a distance underneath the crawlspace and the way he was all tucked down. He was having a hard time seeing through the camera. But we did one shot, one take, and I got up and everybody was really quiet. It was a little embarrassing. I walked off and gathered my thoughts and everyone was standing there staring at me. I was wondering if they thought I was mental. Then I came to find out when he got home that night that he didn't know I had cried, but he made me feel really good about it. I think it shocked people. I grew up as a tough sports guy so people who knew me then who have seen the film say it really moved them.

Guillén: Hey, Channing Tatum has built a career being the butch guy with a vulnerable side. Audiences lap it up. So you're on a winning track there. Since you've had an opportunity now to work with a few of Idaho's filmmakers, and can compare, can you give me a sense of Christian's style? Of what it's like to work with him?

Lile: I absolutely enjoyed working with Christian. I've also much enjoyed working with Troy Custer. They're probably not that different in some ways. As an actor, you get their artistic creativity. You get that they spend time on setting up their films. They prep their films. They both have a strong grasp of the visual impact of their films with many cuts and many different angles that help the film build.

I've done more work with Troy Custer than anybody. Troy's a great character. He has such a passion for film. He is probably as good of a DP or DP coach—knows how to set up shots and scenes—as anybody I've seen. The product he delivers is as good as Christian's. They both have beautiful shots. Half the failure I see of films shot around Boise, even films I've been in that I haven't liked, is not so much the quality of the acting, but the quality of the film: how they cut in, the tone, the speed of things. You can have a great performance in a film and watch that performance and be enthralled, but that same performance filmed from many angles, many shots, the right tone in lighting, the right look with the close-ups and the cutaways will make it work that much better. Definitely, I would love to work with either of them again.

Guillén: Who else have you worked with that bears promise?

Lile: I'd work with Greg Bayne again. It was a great experience. His was a very comfortable environment, well-organized, smooth, polished, no stress. It was like you were walking into somebody's house to have a cup of coffee and then, "Okay, let's start filming." I see it as a Clint Eastwood style: "Take your time. Get ready. We'll start when you're ready to go."

Kristy and I both acted in a feature-length film called Ghost Of A Chance by Kim Kovac which is now in post. I need to go back and re-shoot one scene with her but I think most of the film is ready to go. We'll see how that goes. It'll be interesting. She's never done a full-length project and there's a lot of newness to it.

Guillén: I need to ask the dreaded question. In order to develop as an actor, will you need to leave Idaho?

Lile: I have been pushing and trying for probably a year and a half to help produce and create projects. A couple have been failed attempts. I've taken the approach of trying to build a project that's right for me and would work for me in terms of characterization and story, with the right ensemble of crew, professionals like Christian or Troy, but the problem is we don't have the right network in place, with the right screenwriters and production crew that can step in. We don't have that professional level of people to drive projects. Half the time people will come into a read or an audition and the script's not even done. Then it's two months before you get a callback. They don't have a distribution model. They don't know what they're going after. Their only plan is to submit to film festivals—which isn't a bad route in a lot of cases—but folks don't seem to know much past that. They don't know that there are mechanisms to get to DirecTV and cable contracts.

Guillén: Gregory Bayne has the best sense of that among the local filmmakers I've interviewed.

Lile: Completely! So, to answer your question, will I be able to stay in Idaho? My goal is to build a killer film in Idaho that will take me out of Idaho. This is my arrogant view of the world: I'd rather not go stand in a cattle call line in L.A. thinking I have some skills as a guy who's now 40. I'd rather have somebody see a film and think, "Wow, that was a really good film. I loved that actor. I want to use him for this role." That's my pipe dream goal. I would love to see it work that way.

HOLLYWOOD BEFORE THE CODE: DEEPER, DARKER, NASTIER!!—BLOOD MONEY (1933)

Perhaps the most salacious quality of Blood Money (1933) [IMDb, Wikipedia]—the second half of tonight's opening night double-bill of Elliot Lavine's pre-Code series "Hollywood Before the Code: Deeper, Darker, Nastier!!"—is its endearing portrayals of transvestism and sadomasochism, which titillate and entertain (and/or offend) audiences as much today as they did 70+ years ago. Directed by Rowland Brown and based on a script that conflated Brown's short story "Bail Bond" with reporter Speed Kendall's short story "Bail Me Out," Blood Money's crime narrative concerns crooked bail bondsman Bill Bailey (George Bancroft) and the erotic triangulation he negotiates between longtime lover Ruby Darling (stage actress Judith Anderson in her film debut), and thrill-seeking socialite Elaine Talbart (Frances Dee). The film was considered to be lost for nearly 40 years before reappearing.

Unimpressed with the particeps criminis of Blood Money's "pavement plot", New York Times critic Mordaunt Hall expressed moral indignation: "This whimsical little tale of thievery, thuggery and attempted slaughter was mistaken for entertainment by Darryl Zanuck" but those "unfortunate enough to want some suggestion of logic in their motion pictures will be somewhat disappointed in this effusion." Overall, Hall characterized Blood Money as "flat stuff". Consider Hall's priggish disdain all the more reason to catch this rare screening.

There's great information on Blood Money at the Turner Classic Movies (TCM) website, including a detailed plot synopsis, and the following discussion of the film's hurdles with the censors: "According to a memo in the MPAA/PCA Collection at the AMPAS Library, the Maryland State Motion Picture Board initially banned this film on the grounds that it was 'salacious and would incite law-abiding citizens to crime.' The ruling was appealed by the Baltimore United Artists manager to Judge Samuel K. Dennis of the Baltimore City Court, who reversed the censor board's decision. While Judge Dennis stated in his decision that the film was 'ineffective' as far as inciting anyone to commit crimes, he called it 'objectionable on the grounds of extreme stupidity and dullness rather than on moral grounds.' Bernard B. Gough, the chairman of the censor board, stated that he could not appeal the reversal because the law made no provision for an appeal. In 1934, this film was on the first list of films banned for members of the Catholic Church's Legion of Decency. In July 1935, PCA Director Joseph Breen ruled that the film was in violation of both the spirit and letter of the Production Code because of 'the portrayal of a crook as the sympathetic leading character, and the complete absence of any attempt to portray the forces of law and order as opposing his illegal activities.' "

At TCM's companion blog Movies Morlocks, Moira Finnie observes: "Made at Twentieth Century Productions a little over a year before their merger with Fox Studios in 1935, the film went ahead in the first year of Darryl Zanuck's stewardship of the studio. It was one of the movies that seems to reflect the young mogul's brashly iconoclastic Warner Brothers' roots. Featuring themes centered around an exploitive relationship between the corrupt rich and the underworld, the symbiotic ties between criminals and police, loyalty among thieves that was often more reliable than conventional morality, shifting gender roles, and the stranger fruits of human desire, it is far less known than other crime films of that same period, such as Little Caesar and Public Enemy."

Finnie also details the problems George Bancroft was having with his career at the time. Bancroft was as much a victim of the transition from silent films to talkies as he was of his own inflated ego. "He reportedly became more difficult to work with," Finnie writes, "refusing direction at times, and allegedly claiming in one scene in which his character was to die that 'One bullet can't kill Bancroft!' " It had been a year since he had been cast in a film and his appearance in Blood Money seemed a transparent effort on Zanuck's part to revive his flailing career, as noted in Mordaunt Hall's New York Times review, though Hall does concede: "Mr. Bancroft does as well as his role permits."

Blood Money marked the film debut of Judith Anderson (better known for her next role seven years later as lesbian housekeeper Mrs. Danvers in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca). As Ruby Darling she plays a "nightclub hostess", which—as Dennis Harvey has so wryly pointed out in his preview of the Roxie pre-Code series—is no doubt a euphemism for the world's oldest profession, often "never exactly named" in these pre-Code narratives. "This latest Roxie series," he notes, "features plenty of its practitioners, dames at once hard-boiled and over-easy but ready to go soft for an upstanding guy."

Ruby Darling goes soft for Bill Bailey, that's for sure, though calling him "upstanding" would be a stretch. Mordaunt Hall complained that Anderson—already well-admired for her stage performances—floundered in "a part which does not give her any great opportunity to display her real ability." But Moira Finnie counters: "Anderson's presence ... is that of a glamorously assertive, sensual woman who realizes Bailey's many weaknesses may be part of his appeal for her. Having helped Bancroft when he was thrown off the police, she shares a fondness for her boyfriend's tendency to play both sides of the street, and appears to wield an unusual amount of power for a female character in what is superficially a gangster film. While Judith Anderson would play another powerful criminal in Lady Scarface (1941), this is actually a better role than that simpler later film. Exercising more influence over other denizens of the underworld as the story develops, Anderson brings some of the authority that she must have had playing in her classical stage roles to this part."

"Frances Dee is attractive as the silly society girl," Hall comments succinctly. A more provocative characterization comes from Danny Peary who describes Elaine Talbart as "a woman years ahead of her time." Dee is familiar to me largely through her role in Val Lewton's I Walked With A Zombie (1943), and her turn in Blood Money is—in my estimation—the film's most fascinating character. When Dee was interviewed for the TCM documentary Complicated Women (2002), she described her character Elaine Talbart as "a rather weird character, to say the least. She was a kleptomaniac, a nymphomaniac, and anything in between." Her enthusiasm for masochism would put a gay power bottom to shame. One of her best lines is: "What I need is someone to give me a good thrashing. I'd follow him around like a dog on a leash."

When she meets Ruby Darling's brutish younger brother Drury Darling (Chick Chandler) at the racetrack, Elaine "goes for the thief like a feline does catnip" (Ivan G. Shrieve, Jr.) and thrills in his rough kisses that "hurt her lip." And her closing scene, as described by Leonard Maltin, is "a knockout." (Best left unspoiled.)  Finnie adds: "According to her biographer, Andrew Wentnik, 'When a friend … admonished her for playing a prostitute in Blood Money (1933), she denied it saying, 'I played a masochistic nymphomaniacal kleptomaniac, not a prostitute.' "  Incidentally, during the scene at the racetrack when Talbart falls for Drury, he's in the company of two women, one who is Lucille Ball in an uncredited role.

Another uncredited role of note would be Katherine Williams who IMDb describes as the "Nightclub Woman Wearing Monocle". In one of my favorite scenes from the film, Bill Bailey enters Ruby Darling's "nightclub" and encounters a mannish young woman at the bar dressed in a suit and sporting a monocle. He offers her a cigar. She smells it and scoffs, "You big sissy!" As the rough Drury Darling is initially depicted as this cross-dressing woman's partner—he chases after her—one wonders who's zooming who in this S&M merry-go-round?

But all that might be a blind, of course. For a solid queer reading of her character, check out Butch In Progress. "Her outfit," they write, "gorgeous as it is, could be used as an example of 'How to dress a lesbian in classic film'." They're quoting from David M. Lugowski's essay "Queering the New Deal: Lesbian and Gay Representation and the Depression-era cultural Politics of Hollywood's Production-Code" where Lugowski writes: "At her most overt, the lesbian was clad in a mannishly tailored suit (often a tuxedo), her hair slicked back or cut in a short bob. She sometimes sported a monocle and cigarette holder (or cigar!) and invariably possessed a deep alto voice and a haughty, aggressive attitude toward men, work, or any business at hand. Objections arose because she seemed to usurp male privilege; perhaps the pansy seemed to give it up."

Within that same scene is a fantastic performance by Blossom Seeley who, Mordaunt Hall writes, "wears a big hat and sings", though her performance is much more engaging than that for situating Mae West's bawdy influences. According to notes at TCM, Variety speculated that some of Blossom Seeley's scenes were cut. How unfortunate!