Stories
Over the course of our shoot we experienced a lot of good luck/bad luck. These are a couple stories...
Casting The Lead
In casting the lead actor for the role of SETH in MONTH TO MONTH, we went through several rounds of casting, but had a very difficult time finding the right actor. We were watching audition tape for the role of NATE and our associate producer, Anne Gill, noticed an actor, who we'll call Andy, who she thought might be a good fit for the role of SETH. We called him in and had him read with the other actors and it was clear we had found our guy. That made it all the more disheartening when, a day before we were to begin shooting, Andy's agent called to tell us he had booked a guest star role on NBC's THIRTY ROCK which filmed during our shooting schedule, and he was going to take it.
Needless to say, this was an unwelcome development. We had already paid everyone for the two weeks and it looked like the whole project was about to go under. The producer, Chad Nicholson, and I began to sift through actor headshots trying to remember if we had liked anyone else and came up with nada. Chad started brainstorming and remembered an actor he knew in LA, who he had originally thought was too handsome for the role. We looked at his reel and it was clear he was a talented actor, although his reel was mostly dramatic material. We called him to talk about the role and luckily he was free for the next two weeks. After checking with his agent, Chris Stewart caught the red eye from Los Angeles that night. He read the script on the plane, landed, and was rushed to set to begin shooting. He turned out to be truly fantastic and made the film and everyone in it better. I guess this is one of those cases where the worst case scenario turns out to be the best case scenario.
Location Scouting
We shot mostly in and around the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. It was a neighborhood I had lived in and was familiar with and fit the story and aesthetic of the film. Unfortunately, on our marathon eighteen hour final day of shooting, we had the misfortune of sharing Greenpoint with the crew of CBS's TV show THE GOOD WIFE. This led to run-ins with teamsters as some of the locations we had already scouted out had been cordoned off with orange cones for their show. The most significant impediment occurred while shooting the climax of the film in a local playground. One of their giant craft services trucks pulled up and parked in the background of our shot. For viewers unaware of the budget of our film, for all we knew, it would appear as though the truck was ours and we were too lazy or incompetent to move it out of the shot. The scenes were to take place at dawn and we were losing time, thankfully we were able to convince the driver to park elsewhere and we still got our shots in. Still, if THE GOOD WIFE comes on TV I can't help but squint and shake my fist. No offense Julianna Margulies, you're great.
