Filmmaker blog by writer / producer Georgia Menides

1/23/08 - From the Basement

Still Green preproduction began in a basement.

When I say a basement, I don’t mean a spruced up living room / rec room / whatever nicer set up that happens to be in the bottom floor of a house. I mean a basement like the dusty messy rooms full of discarded toys, clothes, appliances, etc in the middle of nowhere New Hampshire that served as Uncovered Production’s official office in June of 2005.

In June of 2005 Doug and I officially became homeless.

We had opted not to renew the lease on our hip downtown Providence apartment and unofficially signed a lease with our new landlord…Still Green. We decided that from this point on, we would let the movie lead, and live/crash/squat in whatever home, apartment, city, state would enable us to continue working on the movie. We knew we were going to Doug’s parents basement in June, and Florida in July (although the woman who had kindly offered to loan us her winter home there in exchange for a film credit unkindly backed out two months later so we had no idea where we’d be living in FL either) and we hoped this ride would end with our successfully moving into our first apartment in Los Angeles at some point in the future, but whatever might happen between this point and that point was still the vast unknown.

Speaking of the vast unknown, there were a quite a few elements of this production falling into this “vast unknown” category as we moved into preproduction…such as our budget, what we were shooting on, who we were working with, whether over half our potential investors were in or out, and whether this could really be a SAG production with our two Hollywood actors or if their managers would fall out of their plush Beverly Hills chairs in shock when it came down to actually releasing their clients to us for five weeks far away from Los Angeles and all opportunities to audition for bigger budget films that had way less murky of a future than ours did.

For me, the most distressing vast unknown of all these vast unknowns something we couldn’t control at all…the weather.  We had meant to arrive in Florida in May, shoot June-July still in off season (aka, cheaper) but then wrap and get the hell out of there before Hurricane Season started up in August. But it wasn’t until June that we had enough money in the bank to actually say “Yes, come hell or high water we are shooting Still Green this summer,” which meant we’d arrive in Florida in July, and shoot August-September. The good news was that housing and equipment would be even cheaper. The bad news was that during Hurricane season, there are Hurricanes.  I initially went into denial about this, and proceeded to talk to literally every contact we had in Florida hoping to hear a different answer or reference to some magical year where August rolled into September Hurricane free, but it was quickly confirmed by everyone I talked to, from the Film Commissioner to the guy at the Marco Times interviewing me for our first piece of FL press, there was no such thing as a magical year.  We would be unquestionably battling a few Hurricanes while shooting in Naples.

This may make someone ask why we wouldn’t then just set and film somewhere else.  It’s a legitimate question that we also pondered.  There was talk of filming in Cape Cod, Maine, and a few other Hurricane free zones.  But that all just felt wrong. We had already fallen in love with the vibrant tropical landscape of Naples, FL and its lush green gulf waters. We were all, by then, married to the idea of this darker story being set to a contrasting colorful paradise. There were too many thematic moments tied to the necessity of filming Still Green in water that teemed with life to switch locations. 

Film production is business but it is also art. Threaded into even in the most businesslike practical mentality that surges though all film sets, there is still spirituality. An indescribable energy in Florida was calling to all of us. It just felt right, in that hippie trippy destiny way that’s hard to explain, except again, when it’s there you can just feel it and we were all the type of people that went with our gut. We figured whatever might go down in the event of a Hurricane was most likely meant to happen and would lead to something even better coming from the film. On the realistic side, not every hurricane is Katrina. Sometimes it’s just a bad storm. People do live in Florida despite the Hurricanes, just like people live in California despite the forest fires. None of the locals seemed nearly as afraid of these Hurricanes as we were. Entire counties full of people rich enough to bolt if it were really that bad functioned their way through hurricane season every year. We figured if they could do it, so could we.

Back to Doug’s parents basement.

It helps to have supportive parents who believe in you and we had two sets of those. Doug’s parents lovingly let us turn not only their basement, but their entire home into Still Green’s production office. Headshots spilled out of their mailbox and piled onto their floors, our phones rang incessantly at all hours of the night, our paperwork was everywhere, as was everything from the past two years of living in Providence piled up in boxes all over their home. They endured our mood swings, and by ours I really mean mine, as I was prone to intense bouts of hysterical screaming with joy or all out sob fests as money, actors, crew, locations fell into and out of place on an hourly basis, and thrown into this mania was the fact that Doug’s sister had just graduated from college and had moved back home as well, along with her boyfriend as she looked for her first real job, and this home only had one bathroom. But somehow Doug’s parents handled it all with love, support, and amazing home cooked meals every night.

On the bright side, things were falling into place. Permitting in Naples was relatively simple, the nuts and bolts of production insurance was starting to make sense, we found the perfect beach house in Bonita Springs as our main location and the owners were thrilled to have their home star in a film. We found promising actors from Florida for each character and fluidly lined up our audition spots and procedures, and press had already started to roll without our even really trying. We even devised back up plan that, at least in theory, would allow us to keep shooting in the event of a Hurricane.

We still didn’t know our budget or shooting medium so we couldn’t pick a cinematographer for the movie yet, and Doug being that cinematographer was still a possibility anyway.  But a man who at the time we considered a great choice for an underwater cinematographer loved the script and was extremely interested in doing our underwater cinematography. We were beyond psyched. It felt like a sign.

There is no underwater footage in Still Green. For now, suffice to say things are not always as they initially seem.

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, Jon was running a popular improv show/ school in Hollywood and was conveniently coaching some of the industry’s hottest teen actors. He began to circulate the script to some of these “name” actors.

Regardless of hikes and dips in the budget and changes to the schedule, Doug Spain’s commitment to Still Green never vacillated, despite a heavy shooting schedule of television and films including Walkout. I think it’s beyond understandable that Still Green would be closer to the bottom of the totem pole for an actor with a SAG card and a good agent and it says a lot about Doug’s character and confidence that he works on the projects he wants based on the script and the people, end of story.

Trevor Morgan’s commitment to Still Green vacillated from a definite yes to a definite no and everything in between until, literally, two weeks before we began shooting but it had nothing to do with us and everything to do with the two other projects he was being considered for. The reality of being a small indie film is that you can’t compete with a film starring Ray Liota or one starring Nick Nolte and we ended up losing Trevor to both of these films at once. But Trevor’s passion for the project never vacillated and with his help, Jon was making some headway with some of these “names” particularly with a few actors from Trevor’s agency, Anonymous Content

One of these actors had recent roles in Dawson’s Creek and Blue Crush had given her an impressive fan base. Jon is the kind of director that doesn’t give a shit about credits or fame or anything outside of whether an actor is right for a role. After coaching her, Jon was convinced she would be perfect for the lead role of Kerri. Doug, Andrea, and I were all thrilled at the prospect. At the time, her movie Smile was about to be realeased and her beautiful wholesome face gleamed on the cover of a few distributor magazines as well as from some Billboards on Sunset.  She loved Jon; she loved the script and wanted to play the role.  Doug and I rented her most recent movie.. It was a head trip watching her on television thinking “Holy shit, this girl is going play Kerri”

The steps in between the actress saying she wanted to play Kerri and actually getting her on a plane headed for Florida, as it turned out, were arduous, precarious, frustrating, embarrassing, and even a little dangerous, but the point is, in the end, we were determined, she was enthusiastic, Anonymous Content was supportive, and we got her!

Still Green does not star the original actress as Kerri.  Still Green stars Sarah Jones as Kerri. Again, for now, suffice to say that things are not always as they seem.

But that was all still in the future. There was a more immediate concern on July 3rd of 2005 as we packed up Doug’s minivan and my geo prism, said goodbye to Doug’s folks, picked up our two co producers Evil Tom Morash and Paul C McKinney, and started the drive down to Florida.

I’m not talking about money, which was of course also a problem as it always was, is, and always will be for every production, even studio productions always seem to be running out of money. Money you are promised either doesn’t materialize, or materializes way later than you need it, or it materializes but you then quickly realize you need way more than you thought you needed and I’m not going to bore anyone including myself writing anything else about money.  Just like you can assume that while we were making Still Green, we were also breathing and brushing our teeth, you can always just assume that while whatever else was going on for these past three years, we were also stressing about money, trying to raise it, trying to figure out a new way to do whatever it was we needed to do without the money we needed, and that sometimes those solutions marred the project and sometimes the solutions were so creative they made the movie even better.

The immediate problem was actually more specific to Still Green and to Florida in general. It trumped even the fact that Hurricane # 1- Cindy- was building energy in Virginia and of course headed to Naples, scheduled to touch down right when we did.

The immediate problem was that although just north of Naples proper, Bonita Springs, where we were filming, was not in Collier County where Naples was. Bonita Springs was in Lee County. This little geographical tid bit at first glance seems like it would make no difference whatsoever.  It ended up being a difference that nearly shut our production down for good.