The North by Northeast Music Festival and Conference (June 14 – 20) isn’t just about rocking out; the program boasts impressive film and interactive (sold out!) components. Today, Toronto-based actor, TV and radio host, Sook-Yin Lee, left, blogs about some of the challenges of directing her first feature film.
Hi, I’m Sook-Yin Lee. My first feature movie — I wrote and directed, Year of the Carnivore — is an offbeat romantic comedy about a girl in love with a boy who thinks she’s bad in bed so she goes out into the world to get better at it. It’s an inverted love story about fallible people making big mistakes on their funny and heartbreaking mission to find love.
Now the thing is, the romantic comedy is one of the hardest genres for a filmmaker to tackle. Often the big studio solution for success is to cast superstars, the Jennifer Annistons and Ryan Reynolds of the world, but these days, even that’s no guarantee of a good flick.
Year of the Carnivore is a small independent Canadian picture, so when it came to casting, the key for me was to find actors with good chemistry, who you root for despite the obstacles they face. If your leads have no chemistry, chances are your romantic comedy will miss the mark.
I spent months searching for hero, Sammy Smalls. It was a tall order, finding someone who could make me laugh but also cry and touch my heart. I wanted to work with actors who were willing to look less than perfect to reveal their vulnerable flaws. I finally found this and more in New York City based Broadway theatre actor, Cristin Milioti, above right. Year of the Carnivore is her first starring turn in a movie and her performance is brave, stunning, hilarious and heart wrenching.
My next hurdle was to find Sammy’s romantic counterpart. The actors who auditioned for Eugene tended to play him as a meanie, an easy choice given he’s the one who rejects Sammy. But to me, Eugene is so much more. The character is based on my first love who broke my heart, but who also taught me a lot about love. To this day, he’s one of my best friends. So it was a very special actor who could recognize Eugene’s humanity despite his shortcomings. On an afternoon in Kensington Market, I ran into actor Mark Rendall and was shocked to find the former child actor had grown into a man! When he came in to audition for Year of the Carnivore, his tender, subtle interpretation of Eugene won me over, and I was so happy to have found my twinkling stars.
The next obstacle in indie movie-making was getting past the economic crash that sent the world reeling. The entertainment industry was hard struck. I could afford just two days of rehearsal, no more, and my lead actors had never even met each other! It forced me to come up with a short-hand solution to help them reach the level the intimacy and friendship required for the story.
Through a combination of improvisational exercises and a technique I learned as a competitive swimmer when my coach walked beside the pool, directing me through my stroke, I walked “invisibly” with the actors, guiding them when they needed direction. To prep for Eugene, it was crucial for Mark to know what it’s like to be a street musician, playing songs to apathetic passersby. So Mark and I took to the streets of Vancouver with an acoustic guitar and I directed him to stay in character as Eugene singing his songs for money on a busy downtown street corner. Little did he know, Cristin had checked into the hotel and I had directed her to find us, and remain in character, as Sammy on the first day she introduces herself to Eugene. With a couple cameras in tow, we documented their first meeting. What followed was a lengthy improvisation and first “date” together. Sammy and Eugene wandered through the city, played pinball in a Granville Street arcade and an explored the coin-operated peep shows in the back room. Three hours later they were sharing secrets and eating dinner at a 24-hour fast food restaurant. When I yelled, “Cut!” the extended improvisation ended and Cristin and Mark broke out of character and introduced themselves to each other for the first time, as themselves. From then on they were close companions, having created a sense memory of their history together to draw upon while we shot the movie. Their connection was palpable and immediate, and do they ever have amazing chemistry!
I’m excited to finally be able to share Year of the Carnivore with you! We spent a couple of intense years making it and I’m relieved to come out the other side, proud of what my friends and I created. In addition to the movie, I also recorded a companion concept album of original music that explores the themes of the movie. We describe it as a musical treatise on contemporary romantic relationships by Buck 65, Adam Litovitz and myself. It’s a cultural oddity that goes hand in hand with an idiosyncratic film. I hope you can come see it.
xo
sook-yin
Sook-Yin Lee’s writing and directorial movie debut Year of the Carnivore has an exclusive NXNE screening June 17th at the AMC Theatre at Yonge-Dundas Square. It opens in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal on June 18th. Original Music from and inspired by the movie (by Buck 65, Sook-Yin Lee and Adam Litovitz) is available on Last Gang Records.
Photos by Bob Akester
For information and tickets to NXNE 2010, visit www.nxne.com
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