SAGIndie

This month, SAGIndie puts the focus on “Red Doors”, a diversity film that’s
tearing up the festival circuit, raking in good reviews, and has nailed down a
distribution deal with Warner Bros. Home Video.

We recently talked with actor/producer Mia Riverton about wearing two hats
on set, chasing down the money for the film, and the importance of diversity film
in today’s market.

Who is Mia Riverton,
and how did you become interested in filmmaking?

I have been a performer since I was very young – singing,
dancing, playing piano, and acting professionally on stage and screen. After attending college at Harvard, where I
performed with the American Repertory Theater, I started acting full-time in Los Angeles. I became friends with a lot of
behind-the-scenes folks – writers, producers, directors, etc. – and realized
that in addition to performing in other people’s projects, I really longed to
be a part of the creative genesis of my own material as well. In addition, I’ve always been a big film fan
– I especially love old movies with strong female characters (GONE WITH THE
WIND, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S, ALL ABOUT EVE, etc). Those were the movies that inspired me to
pursue a career in show business.

Can you talk about
how the project was conceived?

I attended Harvard College with Georgia Lee,
the writer-director of RED DOORS, and the two of us discovered that we shared
common backgrounds (we are both the children of Chinese immigrants) and a
mutual love of film. After Georgia graduated, she went to work at a
consulting firm called McKinsey in New
York. She took
her summers off to make short films through the NYU intensive film program, and
her first short was seen by Martin Scorsese – he was so impressed that he later
invited her to apprentice with him on the set of GANGS OF NEW YORK and mentored
her subsequent short films. Even though
I moved to LA after graduating, I worked on some of her short films, and we
always talked about making a feature film together – I wanted to work with her
as a director, and she wanted to work with me as an actress and producer.

In the fall of 2003, Georgia enrolled at Harvard
Business School
at the insistence of her parents. I
convinced her to take a leave of absence after one semester and come make a
feature film with me. In January of
2004, she moved to my house in LA, where she wrote RED DOORS at my kitchen
table. We persuaded our third partner, Jane
Chen, to quit her job and come produce the movie with us– Jane was another
friend from Harvard who was passionate about film. We raised the $200,000 budget and were in
production four months later.

The story of RED DOORS is quite autobiographical – the
characters are inspired by Georgia’s
real friends and family, several of whom play versions of themselves in the
film. For example, Georgia’s
real-life youngest sister, Kathy Shao-Lin Lee, plays the youngest sister in the
movie (“Katie Wong”). The character I
play (“Mia Scarlett”) was written specifically for me.

Our goal in making this movie was to tell a coming-of-age”
story about a family that has grown apart and become disconnected, and the
journey they take as they stumble along and attempt to reconnect with one
another. The fact that the family is
Chinese-American is secondary, though it lends the film a lot of rich detail
and a sense of cultural specificity.

What was it like
producing and acting in this film?

The dual role I played on RED DOORS (actor-producer) was
both the most challenging and most rewarding experience of my professional
life. The challenges primarily arose on
set, especially on days when I was working as an actor – the demands of production
don’t go away just because you have to be “in character” on a particular
day. For example, on one day I found
myself having to recast a part at the last minute because an actor dropped
out. I was working as an actor that day,
so in between takes I was on my cell phone trying to solve our casting
problem. It was fairly stressful – I
definitely had to learn to compartmentalize and be very disciplined, focused,
and flexible as both an actor and a producer.

The rewards of acting in and producing the same project are
many. I felt more committed as an actor
because I had helped develop the script and my character as a producer – and I
also had a deeper relationship with the director and the entire creative team,
so the emotional investment was higher. By the same token, as a producer I felt much more committed to seeing
the project through as best I could because I knew that the quality of the film
would reflect positively on my performance an actor.

How did you secure
financing for the film? Was it a tough sell?

We kept the budget small enough that we were able to raise
all of the money through private equity – friends and family, and friends of
friends and family. It was a tough sell
mainly because the three of us had never produced a feature film before, and it
was an ensemble dramedy about an Asian-American family – not a horror/action
film or a project with big movie star roles. Everyone who invested in the film did so because they believed in our
team, our script, and our passion – and they felt that this particular story
needed to be told. Many of the investors
are part of the Asian-American and/or LGBT communities, both of which are
sorely underrepresented in mainstream cinema.

What has the festival
circuit been like? Have you enjoyed the experience?

The festival circuit has been a wonderful, once in a
lifetime experience. Screening RED DOORS
to diverse audiences all over the world has opened our eyes to the broader
appeal of the film. People from different
cities, cultures, ethnic backgrounds, and all walks of life have enjoyed the
film and told us they relate to its themes and characters. We never realized that it was such a
universal movie until we heard so many different types of festival audiences,
juries, and critics praise the film during its festival journey. And, of course, I love to travel to new
places – so that was great!

Were your festival
wins instrumental in getting distribution for your film?

Our festival wins were key in getting distribution for RED
DOORS – our first big win was Best Narrative Feature at the Tribeca Film
Festival, and we went on to win a prize for Best Ensemble Acting at CineVegas
and both the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize for Screenwriting at
Outfest. Any buzz sets you apart from
the multitude of independent films that are made every year, and we were lucky
enough to win multiple awards at several different festivals – so I think it
made distributors sit up and pay attention to the movie, which is otherwise not
an easy sell (again, because it is a story about an Asian-American family and
has no movie stars, nudity or explosions).

You guys have
garnered much positive critical attention. How important is that to you?

Much like the festival awards we’ve won, our positive
reviews have helped us at every stage of the game – they certainly helped
generate interest from distributors when we were selling the film, and now that
RED DOORS has been theatrically released, our reviews help bring in audiences
as well. As much as my producing
partners and I try not to care personally about reviews, good or bad, we all
acknowledge that they are powerful in terms of driving interest in the
movie. Roger Ebert saw our film at the
Hawaii International Film Festival and gave us a positive plug – that is
invaluable to films that might otherwise go unnoticed by the general public.

Do you feel like this
is a niche film, or does it have wider appeal?

RED DOORS may appear on the surface to be a niche film – an
Asian-American film and a queer / LGBT film (because it includes a lesbian
storyline). However, as our festival run
has shown us, the film actually transcends all lines of race, gender,
sexuality, nationality, age, etc. Everyone can relate to the story, because everyone is part of a family,
and they recognize and understand those relationships and issues. All of the characters are struggling with
challenges that are part of everyone’s human experience – romantic angst,
professional dissatisfaction, adolescent rebellion.

As we have screened RED DOORS for diverse audiences all over
the world, what we’ve discovered is that everyone finds an entry point into the
film – whether it’s the character of the father, the teenage daughter, the
lesbian sister, etc. – and they get caught up in the family’s story and often
forget that they are watching an “Asian-American” film. We’ve had so many people from different
backgrounds (a Jewish retiree from Long Island, a young woman from Kazahstan,
an Italian matron, etc.) tell us after seeing the film that they felt we were
portraying their families on screen!

What kind of
expectations do you have for the film’s box office prospects? Will you make
your money back?

We were happily surprised that we were even able to land a
theatrical distribution deal, so we didn’t really have any expectations for how
well we could do at the box office. We
certainly hope to have a successful run in theaters, or at least we hope not to
lose money on the theatrical release (which most movies do – both independent
and studio films)! If we can last a few
weeks in theaters in the major markets and open in a few other cities around
the county, we will be very happy. Between our theatrical release, DVD, TV and foreign sales, we are in
good shape to make our money back and turn a profit.

Do you think
producing is something you will pursue, or is this a one-off deal?

There are many stories I would like to tell, so I definitely
plan to produce more film and television projects, though I will need to
balance that carefully with my career as an actor (and, more recently, a writer
and singer-songwriter). It takes an
unbelievable amount of work to produce a feature film, so I will only commit to
projects about which I am truly passionate.

This film features a
very diverse cast. How important is to you that there are films that tell many
different stories, the kind of stories that Hollywood may overlook?

My raison d’etre,
as far as my professional life is concerned, is to be involved in projects and
help give a voice to the stories that Hollywood usually overlooks – unique, inspiring, perhaps socially conscious stories with
diverse casts and interesting perspectives. The kind of storytelling that interests me tends to come from the
margins, especially from the independent film world, and I plan to continue
being involved with these types of projects by acting in them, writing them,
producing them, or just supporting them.

What’s next for you
guys?

Georgia, Jane and I will likely produce our second feature
together next year through our production company, Blanc de Chine
Entertainment. Meanwhile, I am producing
another feature called BROKEN HEART, written by and to be directed by two other
SAG members – I love working with other multi-hyphenates! In addition, I have written a screenplay and
am working on a second, and I continue to seek out roles that interest me as an
actor (I will be working on another indie film in early 2007). I’m also a singer-songwriter, and I plan to
record an album over the next few months.

Open mic time: Is
there something you would like to say to our readers?

Go see RED DOORS in theaters! It is a film about finding and following your
passion, something to which we can all relate – it is funny, touching, and
thoroughly entertaining. You can find all of the information on our website: www.reddoorsthemovie.com

Behind this door, in a super-secret undisclosed location, is the newly relocated nerve center of the SAGIndie Empire.

That’s right. We’ve moved.

Would that I could reveal our exact whereabouts - but if I told you, Eliza would have to kill you (I’m squeamish). Suffice it to say, our Miracle Mile secluded redoubt is impenetrable.

However, as a service to our (twenty or so) readers, I’m going to take you inside this red door for an exclusive look at our new digs. Some of what you see may disturb you, but rest assured that everything that takes place within these walls has been vetted and cleared by lawyers for the Bush administration.

As you can see from this pic, we have much more room in which to read Defamer, drink coffee, and create this well-written but woefully under-read blog. Yes, we now have plenty of space in which to continue our work on behalf of you, the independent filmmaker.
It’s what we do.

The move-in process has gone smoothly, for the most part. Our cache of heavily redacted documents has been filed away, our extensive collection of blackmail photographs has been placed safely within the three-foot thick titanium walls of the SAGIndie Vault, and the restraining system we use to keep Paul from practicing his finely honed ninja skills on us has been installed, and awaits his return from New York City.

And yet, as in any organization, there are laggards - those insolent, lazy few who, through their lack of initiative (not to mention basic cleaning skills) threaten the efficacy of the group. Behold:       

Sad, isn’t it?

Happily, there are always those who, with pluck, drive, and super-developed organizational skills, counterbalance the low impulses of the blackguards of the world.

Look to the left for a case in point. Notice the clean, organized work environment, and how that environment engenders in this worker a confident, relaxed air. In this cubicle productivity is higher, work is of a superior quality, and, in contrast to the sad case above, vermin have no place to hide and multiply.

There is much else I could show you, but in this current world environment one cannot be too sure about security. We’ll have to hold on to some of our secrets, until the time is right - when evil is defeated (in November of 2008), and when someone cleans up their fricking workspace.

Since I have been threatened with dismissal unless I produce some blog content, I decided that I should probably post something in this space before I find myself scraping by on a pittance from the dole.

Thankfully, I actually thought of a reasonably useful concept Eliza actually thought of a reasonably useful concept* that I’ll be revisiting from time to time. Once a week (or as events warrant), I’m going to draw together a list of links to some of the best film-related sites on the web, and post them here. I’ll try to limit the scope of this column to indie film, but if some mega-media-conglomerate stuff sneaks through, you’ll just have to accept that as the cost of living in a oligarchical society ruled by New Media robber barons who saturate popular culture with their dreck - errr, I mean, "Vertically Integrated, Cross Market Intellectual Property."

That said, lets get to the nutmeat of this thing, which I have  unimaginatively titled "Linkages!":

First up in this inaugural edition is FilmRadar.com, a comprehensive guide to specialty film events in the greater Los Angeles area. This site (which also has a presence, along with most of the known world, on MySpace) and it’s associated newsletter are a great source for information on indie, revival house, art house, foreign film, cult movie, and documentary screenings. Kari Bible, the one woman band behind the site, also organizes outings to such events as the ever-popular Cinespia screening series at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. For film geeks, FilmRadar is definitely worth a bookmark - it’s on my del.icio.us profile.

Next up today is a utility that cash-strapped indie filmmakers (i.e., everybody reading this) will find useful. Storyboard Pro Software is a freeware application that works within Filemaker Pro to create, well, storyboards. It’s an academic program without all the bells and whistles of the proprietary storyboard apps out there, but hey - it’s free.

Finally, we have the online retail/streaming/rental service from GreenCine. It’s your one-stop shop for all kinds of rare video, and it also accepts submissions for it’s video on demand service from filmmakers - but SAG signatories should check with the Guild before you submit, just to make sure you have all your i’s dotted and your t’s crossed. They get touchy when the contract is violated.

*That she has already patented - so this is my first and last Linkages! column. Sigh.

This press release just came across our desk, and it seems like a great opportunity for you diverse filmmakers out there in the blogosphere:

"Announcing Comedy
Short Cuts (www.ComedyShortCutsNBC.com), a unique showcase of
independent short comedy films and videos with a culturally diverse production
team, cast, or theme.

NBC Universal is producing this festival to uncover diverse talent in front of
and behind the camera for future development.

Semi-finalists films will
be screened before an industry audience in on August 29 and
finalists will be sent to LA for an exclusive screening on September 20th.

All finalists will be screened at NBC’s soon-to-be-launched comedy internet
channel www.DotComedy.com in September.

The winning
filmmaker will be given the chance to pitch to NBC comedy development and meet with top
executives at Rogue Pictures and Focus Features. Additional prizes and
opportunities are soon to be announced.

Deadline for
submissions is July 31 so go to www.ComedyShortCutsNBC.com
to find out how to submit your film and get the opportunity of a lifetime!"

Six years after Jerri Blank, a middle-aged high school
student with a sordid past as a “boozer, user, and loser”, and pivotal
character in the Comedy Central series “Strangers with Candy”, slouched morosely
off the small screen, she has triumphantly returned for more abuse from the
judgmental students and teachers of Flatpoint High School in a theatrical
prequel which opens this month.

SAGIndie recently sat down with Amy Sedaris and Paul
Dinello, two of the three minds behind Strangers
(hot-shot talking head Stephen Colbert being the third), to talk about finding and losing (and
finding again) the money for your film, directing your friends, the film
festival circuit, and the joys of residual checks.

How did the notion of
taking Jerri to the big screen come about?

Amy: We were working on a book called “Wigfield”, and we
kept improvising little bits here and there. Eventually we pulled it all
together, and said “Hey, we have a script.”

Was the movie a hard
sell, or did the show’s popularity make it an easy pitch?

Paul: It wasn’t even a pitch. Mark Roberts, a producer here in L.A., called
and said he had a guy with money sitting in the bank, did we want to make a
film, and I told him we just happened to have a script. So we started the
process, and then a week or so before we began shooting, Mark called and told
us the guy had left town, and taken his money with him. I thought that was it,
I was already moving on to the next thing, because everything was so tightly
scheduled, I figured any kind of delay would lose us everybody. We had people
who could literally only give us 10 hours. But in the end, we found the money,
and went ahead.

Paul, on this film
you’ve made the jump to directing feature films. Can you talk a little about
that experience?

Amy: Well, Paul had actually directed some shorts-

Paul: Yeah, so it was just a matter making some adjustments
here and there, really.

Which was more
nerve-wracking: directing Phillip Seymour Hoffman, or directing your friends?

Amy: Oh, that’s a good question.

Paul: Well, you know-

Amy: We all kind of direct each other-

Paul: Yeah, and for everyone else they just needed some
tonal adjustments so they would fit in with the world we were creating.
Initially I was nervous, but once I started working with them they made it
really easy on me.

You guys all have such
strong improv backgrounds. How much of the final film is as scripted, and how
much is improvised material?

Amy: There are pockets in the film where we were allowed to
improvise, little moments.

Paul: We like to play with words and twist meanings, and
that’s hard to improvise, so a lot of it was carefully scripted. Plus, we only
had 24 days to shoot, so I didn’t have the luxury of a lot of takes. I seldom
do more than 3 or 4 takes, unless there’s so kind of technical issue. But
again, I was lucky, because when you’re doing a scene with Phillip Seymour
Hoffman and Allison Janney, they’re going to nail it. If you’re doing an
independent film with actors who don’t have a lot of experience, I can see that
that would be a recipe for disaster, but when you use top talent it allows you
to shoot in 24 days. And Amy and Stephen are amazing; they nail it almost every
time.

What a great cast.
Did you set out to create an all-star cast, or was it a case of people just
wanting to work with you guys?

Paul: Maybe half of the cast came to us that way, and then
we had a wish list of people we went after. Allison Janney, we didn’t have a
relationship with her at all.

Amy: We sent her a script. Dan Hedaya you sent a script to.

Paul: And Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, Justin
Theroux are all friends of ours.

Amy: I think the only two people who actually came to us
through a casting director were Christopher Pratt and Elisabeth Harnois.

Paul: Yeah, Chris actually was a fan of the show and paid to
fly himself from Utah, where he was shooting
“Everwood”, to New York
to audition for us.

Amy: And the minute we saw him, we were like “That’s
Brason”.

Paul: And we brought back as many people from the show as
possible.

Amy: We only recast people who had gotten older, because
Jerri had to look older than them.

You shot the film
under a SAG Low Budget Affirmative Action agreement. Was having a diverse cast
important to you?

Paul: Shooting under that agreement didn’t add any pressure,
we would have cast that way anyway. I think we like a diverse cast because it’s
just more interesting that way. We’re looking for interesting people, and
that’s a lot more broad than having just white people.

Amy: We want that diversity of experience, because it sort
of informs everyone’s work. Like when we were first up on the Second City
mainstage, everybody was from, like, Ohio, but then
we came, and I’m from North Carolina, Stephen
Colbert is from South Carolina, and Paul’s
from Chicago,
and we brought our own experiences, and that influenced and changed things, for
the better. I think it’s the same way on the film, just having people from all
walks of life makes it richer.

You took the film to
Sundance, where it was one of the toughest tickets in town. How was that experience?

Paul: Yeah, we did the parties and we did the photo ops. It
was interesting because I had been there seven or eight years ago with a short
film, and it was a lot of me standing outside in the snow looking through
windows at other people’s parties. It’s a lot different experience when you’re
sort of on top of the list.

Amy: This all new to me, these press junkets and everything,
I call Sarah and Phillip and say, “This is what you do for a living?” I mean,
you do 48 interviews in a day, so when I talk to them now, I don’t want to ask
them anything. I don’t even want to ask them what they had for dinner. And if
you invite them to a premiere, that can’t just show up, people want to ask them
questions and take their picture. I never saw it from this side before, I mean
this is on a smaller scale, but I can imagine what that would be like.

Did you go to any
other festivals, or was Sundance the one?

Paul: I think that ThinkFilm has been very good for us. One
the benefits of being dropped by Warner Brothers, or whatever happened, is that
the film got a second life in film festivals. I’ve taken short films to Berlin, Sundance, New York Underground, so I love
the whole film festival circus-

Amy: Ahhh…

Paul: Circuit! And I like the whole community aspect,
hanging out with other directors. When we got picked up at Sundance, they
didn’t want to do any other festivals, but when ThinkFilm got a hold of it, we
did Seattle International and CineVegas, which was an experience.

Amy: New York, San Francisco, too…

Paul: So it’s been great. I love it.

Amy, is this it for
Jerri, or are there more stories left to tell?

Amy: It’s like Paul says, she’s like a bad rash, you never
know when she’s gonna reappear. We never plan anything, but I’ve always said
I’d like to do a movie of the week, a Christmas movie with Jerri.

What’s next for you
guys?

Amy: Well, I’m working on a cookbook, it’s more like an art
book. Paul helped me write it, so that’s coming out in October. So I’m in
deadline city right now. This wouldn’t be so hard if I didn’t have that hanging
over me.

Paul: I wrote another feature that I’m going to shoot in the
fall.

Amy: And he needs to let me know when he’s having auditions.
He’s got to have a little something in it for me.

Open forum time. Do
you guys have anything to say about SAG to our readers?

Amy: It’s so exciting for me to get that big envelope in the
mail with a residual check. I have it sent directly to me, so I can just enjoy
that moment. I know if something has run, and if it’s like “Maid in Manhattan” or something
like that, it’s very satisfying to get that check.

Strangers with Candy
opens July 7 in select cities.

HBO Films, the company behind such projects as "Elephant" and "Maria Full of Grace", is moving towards producing more films for theatrical release, according to press reports.

The new strategy, in conjunction with HBO’s recent acquisition of distributor Newmarket Films, should benefit independent producers by giving them a production and distribution house run by a company that not only understands "small" films, but also has the corporate muscle to get behind them in a meaningful way.