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production notes

"straw" came about over a meeting at Arabica Coffee Shop in Portland, Maine during the winter of 1999. Kevin McQuinn, a mutual friend of both Lance Cromwell and George Benington, suggested the get-together and had the "let's do it" attitude that set everything rolling.

Everybody left Arabica that day pretty jazzed, and Lance set out to find a suitable tale, or to create one. His own short stories didn't yield anything that would be relatively uncomplicated on film, and though there were some stories that he had thought of in terms of film, they were all published properties, that would most likely be expensive, if attainable at all. Then to the coffers of Public Domain. The stories of Anton Chekhov seemed like a particularly good place to investigate, but the considered stories were either not really translatable to film, or they would have had to be done on a larger scale than had been discussed. His own ideas persisted in being longer works, and/or were not worth pursuing. In frustration, he vented to his studio partner, Bill Flynn, who said simply "how about one of my stories?" Being an enormously industrious fiction writer, he had several on hand that he generously offered up as possiblities. One in particular seemed intriguing: "A Fair Farewell", which chronicled the icy and frustratingly silent collapse of a relationship. Lance had read the story many times in various incarnations, and had participated in the public reading where it was first aired at Java Joe's in the summer of 1998. Bill was game, gave Lance leave to make whatever changes seemed necessary, and the film project came into view.

The hook of this film is completely Bill's invention and is fairly close to what happens in his story. The characters themselves went under the knife a bit (new names, identities, backstories), and the setting was simplified, keeping production in mind. A big part of those changes was suggested by a friend's darkroom being right down the hall. His images are so striking that they nudged their way into the evolving script, and through his generosity we were able to use the photographs of Mike Piveronas in the film. Thus "Garrison" became a photographer, and "Sara", his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend, became an artist. The script came together pretty quickly from there, weighing in at a lean 12 pages, with about 80 set-ups, all in one location, in what was expexted to be a 12-13 minute film.

First look went to Bill, who didn't freak out about the changes, and gave us his ok. Next: a reconvening at Arabica, which got pre-production rolling. Kevin went out in search of funds, George went out in search of crew members, sound equipment, lighting kit, location, and film stock (it was decided that 16mm would be used), and Lance went out in search of a camera, actors, catering, and extra sets of willing hands to help out. People were very enthusiastic, and things fell into place quite nicely. A test-filming date was set for June 1999 and the production was scheduled for a long weekend (Fri-Sun) in August.

The shoot was mapped out based on the location tests which were shot on George's 8mm Bolex. The set was the apartment of a friend, who very graciously vacated her own home so that this film could be made. One catch there was that the apartment is part of a condominium complex, a converted school building in the West End of Portland, that was full of neighbors who might object to a film crew invading their building and messing up a summer weekend. The production had to be very quiet, and very low-impact, because the production was not really supposed to be there, but for the permission of the friend/host.

George and Lance had a number of conversations about set design/orchestration that mostly were concerned with the cheapest way to alter the apartment, and to alter it in a way that made no permanent changes to the living space of our friend. George's wife, Michele, was in on much of these art design concerns, and did a wonderful job realizing them on a non-existent budget.

Casting was done by invitation and both people that were asked, accepted. Thankfully. Kristi Leigh was at the time the roomate of Lance and was busy on many of Portland's stages. This would be her first film project. Her partner in this acting effort was Kevin Carlsten from New York City. A veteran of both stage and screen in New York and elsewhere, Kevin brought a great deal of experience to the set. Experience specific to no-budget, independent film projects such as straw.

"No-budget", in this instance, means approximately $6,000 which was put up by the three producers. The money was almost entirely spent on the camera, film stock, processing, transfer, some props and design items, original musical score, and some food. Outside of the money actually spent, there were many donations that were extremely valuable. Without these, this project would have never seen the light of day. First and foremost was the massive donation, by themselves, of workers. Quite a few people put a lot of effort into this film for love of the project, experience, or just plain friendship. Hopefully they all know how much that was appreciated. All of the major meals were donated by local restaurants. Advice was given out freely. Many of the props were gleaned from various crew members' homes. The photographs! Their use was donated by Mike Piveronas, and he worked for free to take pictures specific to the film as well. Permission was granted to use the Ani DiFranco song in the middle of the film for free. All of the editing was done for free! The use of the Avid system was granted by VP Films and Roger Cropley (the editing god) worked untold hours to get this film into its final shape. So you get the idea. Generosity abounded.

The shooting schedule was set up so that relatively easy shots were done first. Most of the really important shots were set for Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning (remember that the shoot took place over three days: Friday 'til Sunday). The other major consideration was which parts of the apartment would be used in what order. Because the production basically had to get into the apartment in one shot, and out in one shot, all the equipment that was to be used had to be inside. In trying to keep a low profile, there could not be a lot of back-and-forth between set and "grip truck" (a packed van). So, equipment had to be shuffled around, out of frame, in consideration of the next block of shots. The order, roughly, was: the kitchen, the living room, entryway, inside the closet(downstairs), more living room, upstairs(desk), outside the closet(upstairs bedroom), and the bed itself. A little cheating on the closet shots, because scouting had been not been thorough in regards to the closet. When the upstairs closet was opened during the initial set up, it was found to be very shallow. Wouldn't do for what the script had in mind, so the entryway closet became the inside, and the upstairs closet became the outside. The magic of editing! A lot of shots were dropped to make time, but the essentials made their way into the camera, onto film. It left fewer options for post-production, in terms of coverage, but encouraged more creativity in the editing suite. Not such a bad thing to learn from in the end.

There were a few shots that were done, after the shoot, in a studio. These were done on a couple of short ends and were for the opening shots seen through the back of a camera. The other change visually was in regard to the montage of still photographs in the opening. The photos had been hung on a wall in the apartment, and a slow pan planned to get all the photos in for the opening. The script called for something very much like what is now seen in the film, but it was tossed for what seemed easier, cheaper, and actually doable. Because of a bubble in the tracks, there was a bump in the pan that was not acceptable. Several takes had been done on location, dollying at different speeds, so that some options would be available in Post, but none of the options was a good one. The photgraphs were eventually scanned into a computer and manipulated through After Effects.

Post-production happened over the next two years. Because the equipment was used for no fee, and there were three schedules to coordinate (Those of George, Lance, and the editor, Roger Cropley) work was done around all the paying clients, and around family schedules. So what was probably two weeks worth of work, was stretched over two years. Which may have been extraordinarily lucky, at least in terms of music. After many months of writing letters, permission was granted by Righteous Babe Records to use a song of Ani DiFranco's, and after working with two different people, over many, many months on musical score, Claire Harding appeared to create a fantastic score. It made the film a whole different thing. Were it not for the other delays, perhaps, the opportunity to work with Claire might not have arisen. Who knows? It took the amount of time that it took.

All in all, the shoot took 41 hours over three days to get approximately 65 minutes of exposed film. This would be edited down, over the next two years, to the nearly 16 minutes film, from the opening frame until the final credit. Nearly 30 people, in some capacity, worked on the film. The apartment was left in the same condition that we found it in, and the surrounding apartments seemed to not notice, in the least, that a film production had been there. The goals originally set out by the three producers had been met and/or exceeded on all counts.

By the time straw hit the screen at The Portland Festival of World Cinema, it's premiere, in October of 2001, it had been two-and-a-half years in the making. The film was completed roughly two weeks before its premiere. The festival, by the way, was sponsored by MovieMaker Magazine, and saw fit to nominate straw for The Katahdin Award, which is an award for the Best Maine Filmmaker from any film category.

The filmmakers are hoping that straw has a strong run in the festival circuit, but mostly are very pleased with the outcome of this first film.