Less than a week ago, my team and I finished post-production on my latest short film called Roses. It's about an obsessed, middle-aged gardener named Dave who goes crazy at the sight of his neighbor's rose bush. One thing leads to another and before you know it he's covered in blood and tearing the flowers apart. Now that it's done and I can look back at it the completed product, I can safely say it is my best work that I have done up until this point in my life. Even after watching it hundreds of times in the cutting room, my heart still races every time it pops up on the screen. It's almost addicting, watching it over and over again; scrutinizing myself, my direction and looking at every detail imaginable. You might call me obsessed... well, life imitates art I guess?
The next, and final, step in the process for Roses is to distribute it. I'm very excited to throw this project into the festival circuit and watch it collect all the laurels it deserves.
Now that I have a little bit of breathing space between post and distribution, I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on each step of the process; what I learned, what I wish I could've done better and why I made the decisions I did on the film. Let's take a deeper look at...
Let's start with the basics: story and themes.
Over summer in 2018 I was helping my grandparents lay bark dust over their front lawn. One ton of shredded tree bark and lots of sweat later, I thought to myself: only a crazy person would care this much about how their front lawn looks. And thus, the story for “Roses” was born.
Since the beginning, I had always wanted to write something dark and scary. I was drawing lots of inspiration from The Shining, written and directed by Stanley Kubrick. I wanted to project Dave's obsession and need for validation in a negative light; the audience should follow him in his descent into madness and be repulsed by his actions. But there was one small error in my method: The Shining is over two hours long and my script has to be ten pages or less. How do I show a man going crazy in ten minutes? The solution was to switch things up. In The Shining, Jack Torrance starts off as a normal man in an abnormal setting (The Overlook Hotel). In Roses, I had to make Dave an abnormal character in a normal setting (his neighborhood). From there, the character web and plot fell into place like clockwork.
Once I bought the script into development and showed it to my producer, the story really started to take form and become something that I could truly envision as a director. Our project got green-lit, we started to build a team and the pieces were coming together. Then, something unexpected happened...
We had a "table read" with my classmates and writing instructors at VFS. It was the first time a majority of my class had heard the story, and the first time my teachers were hearing it out loud being read. The reaction was surprising: laughter. Giggles. People thought it was funny for some reason. A story about a crazy man killing his neighbor over a rose bush. Why is that funny?
It's funny BECAUSE it's a crazy guy killing his neighbor over a rose bush. It's ridiculous. It's hyper-real. Who talks like Brian or Ed in real life? Who raises a daughter like Jamie? It's all in Dave's little world and it's an inherently hilarious situation he's got himself in. He has irrational anger, validation issues and an outrageous obsession over his front lawn. Once I realized this I decided to run with it and turn our psychological thriller into more of a dark comedy.
Now that the story is done, it's time to prepare for filming. What does prep for a micro-budget student film look like?
Well, we needed money. Not a specific amount, just as much as we could get from any person generous enough to donate to the film. In combination with online crowdfunding and a small grant from the film school, we scrapped together just enough cash to make the project and fund our three day shoot.
This was where we started getting insanely lucky with this film. It's not easy finding two houses next to each other that fit the aesthetic we wanted for the film. On top of that, finding them for free with generous homeowners. Surprisingly we were just that lucky in Port Moody, BC. Not only did these homeowners let us film in their front lawn, they let us block parking for two days, use power from their home and dig in their lawn! Who would've thought Canadians could be so nice?
I also knew going into it that the cast would make or break the film. The role of Dave was a big one to fill, and the cast surrounding our lead had to be just as stellar as him. Luckily for us one of our guest teachers at VFS, Gabriel Carter, loved the script and was interested in playing the lead. From there the rest of the cast fell into place with chemistry reads. Martina Biljan as Kristen, Olivier Lunardi as Brian, Alyssa Brady as Jamie and Louis Lin as Ed.
Little did I know that not only would this cast carry the film, they would lift it up under their wings and let is soar like an eagle.
Our main crew came for free, courtesy of the school an it's final project policy. The key creatives hand picked their teams from their student peers and what emerged was a ensemble of an incredible crew. Part of our budget paid also for on-set sound recordists, a stunt coordinator, union actor fees and a composer/post sound mixer. There was a lot of pressure on everyone to deliver in their individual roles, and again the crew went above and beyond. The recipe was set and the cake was cooking, all we had to do was wait and watch it until it was ready to come out of the oven.
Now I want to talk about the biggest things that I learned on this project and what I wish I had done better. My first, and biggest, lesson I took away from Roses is the importance of sound in film. I learned this two ways: by working closely with my mixer and composer Jordan Andrew, but also by watching his work and seeing the film come to life through sound. The picture gave the film a face; a visual for the audience to connect dialogue with actors and movement. The soundscape, music and foley gave it life. For the first time, surprisingly, the film felt like a living and breathing entity that I could hear as well as see. I felt like a kid in a candy store at each mix session; the anticipation for the new sound effects and music gave me a whole new motivation for the film, even after months of planning and editing.
The second biggest lesson I walked away with on Roses was how to direct professional actors. Not only was the cast stellar, but they were professional; they did their homework, practiced their lines, and when the camera started rolling they were 100% there to deliver that jaw dropping performance you cast them for. As a director, casting is your most important job and if you've done your job correctly life on set should be a breeze. The amount of times I went up to my actors and gave them actual direction was close to never. Very rarely did the cast stray away from what we had rehearsed and talked about, and it showed on screen and on the days of filming. I rarely took more than two takes fro performances, and most of our retakes were for technical reasons. Again, kudos to the amazing cast for delivering and being vulnerable when they really needed to.
I feel like this lesson is a given, but it always surprises me when I learn about communication and how to work with other filmmakers. Especially when you're the one in charge, communication and workflow is essential to the film making process. I got lucky this time around and got to work with other students who were learning how to communicate as well. What ended up happening was an open, collaborative and creative communication that benefited the film in several ways. With that said, there's also times as a director you really need to stick to your guns and believe in your vision and what you want. Even in the face of what's logical or what makes sense, sometimes its best to go with your gut and say "screw everyone, this is MY film".
I would be lying if I said there wasn't a piece of myself in this film. I am obsessed with movies and I hope that someday my films are cherished and validated by film makers I respect and love. Last Saturday I screened the film privately for the actors and homeowners involved with the project. The response was incredible; applause, surprised faces, happy faces, an overall ecstatic reaction to the movie. An agent and major film festival manager were in attendance and hearing how much they enjoyed it was strangely surreal. The validation I was chasing with creating Roses, similarly to the validation Dave was chasing in the move, had finally been fulfilled. Granted it was only a small taste of what (I hope) is to come, it was a truly great start to a highly anticipated distribution phase.
Roses has a long festival run to complete before it can released online for the world to see. Until then, sit tight and keep an eye on your front lawn. Thanks for reading :)
- morgan