Making of
91 Minutes - HD – 15 Day Shoot
Locations: Manhattan, New York; Redding, Connecticut; Marlboro, New Jersey
DIRECTOR’S NOTES
I wrote the script for Hello Lonesome during a lonely funk. (I’ve since met the love of my life: http://vimeo.com/7153544) This was also in the wake of my sister Lisa passing away from breast cancer. All the characters in Hello Lonesome find themselves at a similar intersection of isolation and mortality, boy does it sound depressing put that way, which is why more than anything I wanted to find the humor in all that drama. I wanted a light touch in Hello Lonesome, despite the heavy stuff.
From the very beginning I knew I was writing three stories that were linked in theme only. Some of my very favorite films feature a menagerie of characters and cross-cutting narratives. (Altman, Almodóvar, Inarritu) I was very drawn to this structure. The best of these films work to me because of their thematic connections rather than by how the lives brush against one another.
As a promo producer I have worked with a lot of voice over artists. I think a lot of us wish we could have that kind of life. From the outside, it’s a lazy persons paradise: Wake up, crawl to a sound proof booth in your basement, read out loud into a microphone and get paid handsomely for it. Bill Soap is the center of our three-ring circus. We cast real life voiceover Harry Chase and shot on location at his home. (It’s worth noting that Harry happens to be a wonderful husband and father, unlike his character, but does occasionally report to work in his underwear.)
The story of the young couple, Gordon and Debby, is based on the true story of my sister Lisa. It took several drafts to make this very personal plot line work, it had gotten so intense being based on real life. It took me a while to find that perspective where I wasn’t a slave to every reality of my sister’s struggle. I’ve had such mixed feelings about her situation and developing Hello Lonesome has been a powerful way to explore that.
Lynn Cohen starred in my short film (While the Widow is Away) and I wrote the role of a fast driving widow just for her. I’ll always have a role for Lynn. She’s my Uma that way. In the first draft, the neighbor character was much older and not a young man at all. It was only in looking for who would play him, reading actors with Lynn, that I realized she was too young at heart and needed a much younger “old soul” to play opposite her. I think James Urbaniak and Lynn make a fabulous couple and have a real spark together. (In a mostly non-sexual way, of course.)
Each story in Hello Lonesome is a parable. I wanted all of the characters to be very real and believable, and at the same time, this is a movie about how the smallest communication can change your life. In Bill’s case, that’s quite literal. He’s isolated himself and is now trapped in his own voice over booth. All of the stories have this similar persuasive karma guiding them. At the risk of sounding cheesy, I always imagined an emotional baton being passed from character to character in the film. The other image that always came to mind was that of a braid. I had these three stories, and I was looking to just fold one over the other into a weave.
When I direct commercials, which is how I make a living, we usually have much larger crews and the budget to match. We can easily spend our entire budget ($50k) several times over on one day of a commercial shoot. Hello Lonesome was shot in fifteen days, three weeks with weekends off. Operating the camera myself and working on this intimate scale simply made the film possible.
I am a writer and director at heart. I can’t imagine doing one without the other. I enjoy both roles so much. Hello Lonesome was a personal project, an art film at its core, and it was never conceived to be a business. I am however excited to take on larger, more expressive projects with help from filmmakers with more experience than me. That’s the next frontier.
-Adam
