Diary of an aspiring filmmaker

On the film road: Fighting the heat, money-reaching subjects & new realities

Trying to shoot combines working the fields on the side of the interstate, justnorth of the Oklahoma border
Interviewing Dave Major in Benton, Kansas, on a cloudless, 105-degree day
The world's first Kentucky Fried Chicken is actually a modern KFC stuck insidethe original building, still called the Sanders Cafe.
Interviewing Jeff Lockheed at the quirky Venice Cafe in St. Louis was a definitehighlight.
Sweating through our shirts at a Cardinals game was not.

Editor's note: Ford Gunter quit his full-time journalism job in Houston to make a movie with his childhood buddy/co-director/business partner Carlton Ahrens. This is his account of chasing the dream with Art Car: The Movie.

242. 806. 265. 707. 628. 815.

That’s how many miles, each day, we drove on our road trip.

We had filming to do in Kansas, St. Louis, Louisville, Orlando and West Palm Beach. Five interviews, four states, 3,000-plus miles, two of us and one hybrid.

Two guys, grown men, each over six feet tall, folded into a Honda Civic with hundreds of pounds of equipment packed in a manner that could only beg to maintain a little visibility out the back window. Two duffels. A constantly revolving supply of water, tea, coffee and sunflower seeds.

On our first shoot, in the middle of a Kansas airfield, the temperature was 105. We weren’t going to shower much.

***

We cut the corner and drove to Dallas after my last day of work. That was a Wednesday and it doesn’t count.

The next day we drove many miles to a small Kansas town outside of Wichita called Benton. There we interviewed a guy who one day felt the need to start turning vintage BMW Isettas into airplanes and helicopters and fan boats. It was very hot. The camera struggled in the sun and my phone, which I left in the car, gave me an overheating message I’ve never seen before or even heard of. Took more than an hour before I could use it again.

After two hours we got back in the car for many more miles, fighting off a strong, strong urge stop for the night in Branson before rolling into St. Louis at 3 a.m. Friday morning. We weren’t planning on arriving in St. Louis until half a day later, and we were staying until Sunday, and we were staying for free.

So far, we are kicking ass.

***

Before setting out on this trip, we had already filmed in Houston, Minnesota, Northern and Southern California, Austin and France. We might include images from faraway places like Pakistan, Mexico, Haiti and Detroit. We tried to track another international artist and his response was initially favorable, if in very broken English. But then he closed his email with:

I my love, me no generalize.
Fuck off.

After we responded in kind, he agreed to the interview but asked for money. When we explained that we hadn’t paid anyone yet, his gripe was along the lines of “Of course, no money for the artists. I see how it is.”

I suppose now is as good a time as any to talk money. The budget on a true indie film is a moving target, vacillating on how much value we feel like placing on slippery things like depreciating equipment, business lunches and the last year of our lives.

It could be as low as about $25,000. Those are our hard costs —money we spent to make this movie and only that. Hotel rooms, airfare, business cards, websites, mortal supplies like batteries and tapes, digital animation, musical licensing, T-shirts for the artists and our pro bono crew and a thousand other things, big and small.

Or it could be double that, if you factor in equipment, loosely amortized over the duration of the shoot. Want to throw in salaries for each of us for a year? How much is that worth?

You: “$25,000 each.”
Me: “What!?”
You: “Neither of you guys have made a movie before. What’d you expect?”
Me: “Yeah but we both have masters degrees. We’re smart.”
You: “$30,000.”

Either way, you can see how an ultra-low budget could swell up to $100,000 or more. Bloated, for sure, but terrifying as well, considering its poor, poor chance to ever turn a profit.

This is why it is important to do things like stay for free in St. Louis, in my friend’s lovely house that he and his family just vacated for two weeks. They let us stay anyway, having no idea the stench our arrival would bring. Six-and-a-half hours in the car, working in 105-degree heat for two hours, seven more hours in the car.

Did I mention we had onion burgers in Oklahoma? I smelled worse than the last time I saw this guy, which was basically college.

One of the first things I learned about filmmaking is relying on your friends. You have to. It’s impossible without them, at least early on, before you become famous and forget them.

***
St. Louis was an oasis in the desert, three nights in the same bed in the midst of a week on the road. We filmed one artist Friday, another Saturday, slept in and left after lunch. We even caught a Cardinals game.

In Louisville, we hit our first snag. Our target interview was out Sunday and had scheduled Monday as a day off. On a tight schedule and an ultra-low budget, another day in town was not an option. Another employee stepped in and saved the day, so we got our shot, but now it’s Monday afternoon and we’re staring down the barrel of a 707-mile drive to Florida. For comfort we stopped at the first-ever Kentucky Fried Chicken but it sucked. Then it started raining and didn’t stop until Georgia.

We are no longer kicking ass.

***
If you told me we would spend the last two nights on the road in Florida, I would have believed you. If you told me they would be both be in Lake City, I would have wondered how much the car was going to cost to fix.

Turns out, Lake City is just a little town at the intersection of two interstates. One, I-75, we were taking straight down the length of Florida, with filming stops (two hours each) in Orlando and West Palm Beach, and back in the same day. That was Tuesday and it was a long day.

The other interstate, I-10, that’s the one we’d drive on Wednesday, all the way home. We left the most miles for the last day, but we’d packed the cameras away for good. We ate fried shrimp in Pensacola. I gave my email to the waitress. She didn’t write. We ate fried shrimp po' boys at George’s in Baton Rouge — a favorite — and hit the home stretch feeling good.

3,463: miles traveled
60: hours in the car
5: hours of footage

We rolled into Houston before midnight, which was pretty damn good all things considered. My dog laid on a pretty heavy guilt trip, and I imagine Carlton’s cat did the same. Scheduled to leave town again in two days for another four days, we had just enough time for laundry and some squeezed-in family and friends time, which is becoming increasingly more difficult.

It’s been a week since I quit my job and I haven’t had a day off yet. Carlton warned me. He’s run his own business for more than a decade. We used to give him shit when he couldn’t make wing nights or parties, reminding him that he was his own boss and he could do what he wanted.

To some degree that’s true, but to a large degree it’s not. When you are your own boss, he told me, you have to work twice as hard, and have twice as much discipline.

I am beginning to understand.

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Movie Review

An all-star cast delivers clever laughs in new comedy The Invite

Photo courtesy of A24

Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penelope Cruz, and Edward Norton in The Invite.

Once upon a time, well before scandal embroiled him, Woody Allen made great comedies aimed at adults. That type of film — which is different from the raunchy, R-rated comedies of the 21st century — has fallen out of favor in Hollywood, but as the new film The Invite proves, when done well it can be as funny as anything else out there.

Joe (Seth Rogen) and Angela (Olivia Wilde) are an unhappily married couple living in San Francisco. As we meet them, Joe has arrived home to Angela preparing for a visit from their upstairs neighbors, Hawk (Edward Norton) and Piña (Penélope Cruz), who have moved in relatively recently. Their impending arrival starts a new round of arguing between Joe and Angela, something they can barely contain once the other couple comes to their door.

What proceeds is a getting-to-know-you process that is mostly awkward as Joe and Angela continue sniping at each other while Hawk and Piña put in their two cents in a much calmer manner. A sticking point between the two couples — the loud sex Hawk and Piña have on an almost nightly basis — turns the film on its head with an unexpected invitation.

Directed by Wilde and written by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones, the film is a fast-paced chamber piece that takes place almost entirely in Joe and Angela’s apartment. Wilde, the writers, and the actors speed the story along not with action but through almost non-stop dialogue that often has the characters overlapping each other’s lines. The rapidity of the speech fuels the humor of the situation and establishes the differing personalities of each person.

Sex is very much top of mind for each of the characters for most of the film, but the filmmakers approach the topic in such a way that it never feels salacious. Each of the characters is a rational adult who can talk about sex in a mature manner while also acknowledging their unique feelings on the matter. And it’s the discoveries each of them makes along the way that brings about the most comedy.

But, like any comedy for adults, the film also has a dramatic tilt to it, and Wilde edges the story back-and-forth between the two tones extremely well. Joe and Angela fighting is played for laughs at times, but the sadness of their relationship comes through loud and clear. Hawk and Piña are much more intimate with each other, but the funniness of their openness is juxtaposed with a depth that arises through their conversations.

In the 2020s, Rogen has managed to make the transition from goofy stoner to stoner with real acting chops. In a stacked cast, he is the one who sells every moment the best. That’s not to say that Wilde, Norton, and Cruz don’t measure up, though; each of them inhabits their respective roles magnificently. The four actors play off each other as if they had been working together for years.

While The Invite will likely play better to those who have experience with long term relationships, its insights — and occasional bawdiness — make it a comedy that can be appreciated universally. With four actors at the top of their games and a razor-sharp script made even better by some well-done improv, it proves that you don’t need to go low to get great laughs.

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The Invite is now playing in theaters.

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