#indiepix

After violating the strict moral standards of The Foundation, the puritanical institution for young women in which she was raised, Anna Pohl (Tarryn Wyngaard) is sent to care for one of its founding members.

DISTRIBUTOR: Indiepix Films

In Santiago, best friends Oliver, Moises and Hemingway are preparing for a ritual known to middle-class teenagers around the world—one last carefree summer road trip, just before college, when the first steps into adulthood will begin and everything they know will change.

Indiepix Films Partners w/Winter Film Awards for “Indiepix Vision Award” at #WFA2016 #WFASoDiverse

Rewarding Singular Filmmakers with Distribution Across All Platforms, IndiePix Offers this Award for Winning Filmmakers at Winter Film Awards #2016. IndiePix Films brings film lovers the very best of independent cinema from around the world and has been in the business of doing so since 2004. The company is fiercely committed to sharing new cinematic voices and experiences across all avenues of…

ENTER TO WIN A 10 DVD INDIEPIX FILM PACK

WHAT CAN YOU WIN? (1) 10 pack DVD of the Indiepix Film Pack. HOW DO I ENTER? Find me on Twitter (@AVCentral) or on Facebook or anywhere else online I turn up. Just tell me why you want to win.   A winner will be selected and we’ll grab mailing info at that point. IF YOU DON’T WIN, CLICK HERE TO BUY THE RELEASE AT AMAZON!

INDIEPIX MIX 10 DVD COLLECTION

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So it’s pushing 11 years since I made a movie called EVERY DOG’S DAY.  Thanks to indiepixfilms.com, it’s still available.  People still ask me about it, so what the hell, it’ll be this month’s post.

Jeezis, what do I say about EDD?  It’s a story I somehow talked a bunch of my friends into helping me tell with a camera.  I honestly thought I could make a digital movie for thirty grand and turn it around for sixty.  I could only get my paws on ten, but I still thought maybe an idiosyncratic movie with a unique look, voice, and talented if unfamiliar cast might be marketable.  What can I say?  I was young.

It’s an exercise in pragmatic imperfection.  Somehow, it exists.

 I wrote the script in maybe 1998, based on the pre-9/11 hustle by which people would marry aspiring immigrants for cash.  I’d heard about people who’d been divorced three and four times before they turned 28.  The story was smack in the gray area between love, loyalty and finance that marriage often exists in.  That was the Rubin era on Wall Street and the Deitch era in SoHo, and American culture was well on the path to corporate quantification.  The idea that humans should mate based on FICA scores was just beginning to become dominant (it wasn’t always like that, kids), so I figured those themes might be relevant for a while.

I tried to write it as a mainstream romantic comedy.  (Those who know me know that’s not a comfortable fit.)  I developed it under the tutelage of Hal Hartley, who I’d met while doing art department work on his movie HENRY FOOL.  He was interested in executive producing it, packaged with a couple other projects.

 That didn’t come together, so I took a stab at shopping it around on my own.  The response was positive but the most common line I got was, “You won’t have a problem selling this, but it’s not for us.”  Riddle me that, Batman.

So I shelved it and continued to scrape by on prop gigs and hack carpentry.  Next thing you know a bunch of stuff happens and it’s 2003. 

I’m working and hanging around a scenery shop in DUMBO (VHS4EVR!) and am surrounded by an unfair number of astoundingly talented, funny and active artists and performers.  I was itchy to make something and I had this story sitting on a shelf.  The Panasonic AGDVX-100 had recently hit the market and would fit on a credit card.  Attainable computers could run editing software.  All the makings of a movie were right there, except, y’know, a budget.

I tried to raise sixty, then fifty, then thirty grand, but only came up with ten.

The only person who got paid beyond meals and transportation was Dan Johnson, the sound mixer.  I shot it myself and drove the van.  Susan Leber and Jeff Caldwell kept the paperwork in order and wrangled a sprawling cast of 26.  The rest of the production staff consisted of Edna Leshowitz (then girlfriend, now wife).

 People ask why I didn’t just make a good-looking short, or a more realistic portrait of fewer characters.  I dunno.  If that’s what you want, watch THE VISITOR.  It’s a really good movie.  But it baffles me how people can look at a thing and critique it based on the fact that it’s not another thing. 

 People also tell me I shouldn’t have shot it myself.  Maybe.  But I respect the trades and don’t want anyone working on my shit for free.  Jeff and Susan own a piece of it for their help and I insisted on giving the cast SAG-sanctioned deferments even if they didn’t care. 

 I threw the script over my shoulder once production started.  Steve Cuiffo and the girl who played Stella knew all their lines, but everybody else winged it.  I taped up pages off-screen for Peter Lorenzo sometimes.  Since most of my favorite lines came from the cast I didn’t take credit for the script.

 The result is pretty much the cinematic equivalent of a Xeroxed comic book drawn by someone who really can't draw but tries really hard.

 Some people don’t like it, others love it.  The people I know who love it tend to be awesome, and the people who don’t like it (often also awesome) still seem to find things about it they enjoy watching. 

 I’m not one for nostalgia, but I really enjoyed the ten days we shot it over and I think the movie retains a sense of shared fun.

 Yeah, I tweaked the story after 9/11.  I watched the towers fall from the waterfront in DUMBO.  I understand why seeing that could make someone want to join the army.  But for me, it had the opposite effect.  The way I see it, the only real way to stop a game of whack-a-mole is to unplug the machine.  A strong military matters, but only a strong society can do that.

 For the record, the best movie about post-9/11 NY is Ilya Chaiken’s LIBERTY KID.