Digital Monster

Fenton Bailey & Randy Barbato talk about shooting Party Monster on DV

by Jennifer M. Wood | Published February 3, 2007

Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (sitting).

While the decision to shoot digital rather than film is a big decision for any first-time feature moviemaker, Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato are not typical first-time helmers. Though Party Monster marks their feature directorial debuts, they have been working together in the non-fiction realm for several years now, with such films as The Eyes of Tammy Faye and Monica in Black and White to their credit. And while digital wasn't their first choice of format on Party Monster, it turned out to be a blessing. Recounting the relationship between convicted murderer Michael Alig and writer James St. James, New York City's original "Club Kids," the film revisits the scene of their earlier documentary of the same name. Here, the directors speak with MM about the differences between documentary and feature moviemaking, how the digital format lent itself to their subject and why a good caterer can make all the difference.

Jennifer Wood (MM): You guys have been making documentaries for several years, but Party Monster marks your feature film debut. What was it about this story that made you want to tell it as a feature film-particularly considering that you had explored the lives of Michael Alig and James St. James in an earlier doc?

Fenton Bailey (FB): The doc is more about the scene, whereas the film is more about this incredible relationship between James and Michael. Most movies about relationships deal in terms of love (good) or hate (bad), but perhaps what is truer to life is that our relationships involve ambivalent feelings of love and hate intertwined. For us, the co-dependant relationship between James and Michael was the ultimate example of this.

Randy Barbato (RB): The doc essentially became pre-production for the dramatic. During the course of making the doc we really only skimmed the surface, particularly of the sick and twisted relationship between James St. James and Michael Alig. While making the doc, we suggested that James write a book about this relationship, which he did. It's called Disco Bloodbath, and we used that book, along with the doc, as the source for the dramatic film.

MM: For each of you, how did the feature moviemaking process differ most from the documentary moviemaking process? What were some of the biggest challenges you faced?

FB: It's similar in that whether it's a doc or a feature, it's all about trying to create a safe space for either the actor (if it's a feature), or the real person (if it's a documentary) to feel comfortable as they reveal themselves. And then in the edit room it's also very similar; you're trying to find the best way to tell the story.

RB: That's right. For us they are very similar experiences. In both instances you're trying to tell a truth, and creating an environment that helps people contribute in an honest way-whether they're actors or "real people"-is at the heart of it. Also, though, whether we are making a documentary or a dramatic film, the key is in the story. And for us, we not only want to tell a great story, but we also always want to fiddle around with the storytelling-to try and tell a story in a fresh and interesting way. That's as important as the story itself, and that applies to a documentary or a narrative.

MM: What are the things you prefer about documentary moviemaking over feature moviemaking, and vice versa?

FB: It's all a nail-biting nightmare. The catering on Party Monster the feature was fantastic. We put on tons of weight. On Party Monster the doc we lost tons of weight because there was never anything to eat.

RB: And with Party Monster the doc, we were lugging around equipment and setting up lights, and had the talent releases in our back pockets. At least with a feature, even with the tiny budget we had, we had some help doing that stuff-and we were very fortunate to have an incredible team who made our jobs much easier. Bottom line: docs can often be a one-man band, and narratives can be, well, considering our budget, a two-man band! The more the merrier, we like to say!

MM: For many feature moviemakers these days, the decision to shoot a film on digital versus film is usually a huge one. Coming from a documentary background, where digital is often the format choice, did it seem logical that this was the way you wanted to go from the beginning?

FB: Not really. Originally we had visions of shooting IMAX, but the funds we were able to raise for this extremely unusual story didn't allow for that. So we ended up with digital. However, sometimes we don't know what's good for us and shooting digitally with PD150s-small format cameras-was the absolute best thing we could do. Because the fact was the club kids were the first generation who used palmcorders to record themselves. They lived in the eye of each other's lenses. And then, of course, the lightness and maneuverability of the cameras allowed us to shoot handheld and documentary-style. So it really was a blessing we didn't have the budget that we originally hoped for.

RB: The other big thing for us was that once we decided to shoot on digital, we went for it in a big way. So many moviemakers who decide to shoot digitally think they're somehow going to be forced not to make a cinematic film. But Fenton, myself and our DP, Teo Maniaci, along with our producing partner, Jon Marcus, knew we wanted something cinematic, so we spent an enormous amount pre-production time preparing for this. We did a ton of digital shoot-outs, testing film stocks, costumes, color palettes, make-up. We literally got all the departments involved, because our goal was to make digital look cinematic. It can be done!

I think a lot of people decide to shoot digitally and they think that when they make that decision they don't have to worry about lighting, but actually it's the opposite. Lighting becomes so crucial when shooting digitally; it becomes the difference between gorgeous film shoot-outs and noisy, sloppy artifacting.

MM: What were the basic details of the film: what camera did you use, how long was your shooting schedule, total budget, etc.?

FB: We shot in 25 days. The actual budget is top secret. Well, it was under 10. Actually it was under five. If the truth be known, it was under two. We shot it in 25 days, which was amazing given that we had to get through about 40 set-ups a day. And then there are about 1,000 costumes in this movie. So frankly, it was a tall order and much kudos to Teo Maniaci the DP and Michael Lerman the AD and Michael Wilkinson in wardrobe and Kabuki in make-up who managed to make it all happen on time and on budget.

RB: We knew going into it we had very little room for error, so we spent several weeks, with Teo storyboarding virtually every shot. We even went so far as to find the most mundane locations to match storyboards and/or redo them based on locations. Because we had so many set-ups each day, we knew that we couldn't spend the time at locations trying to figure things out-we also knew that we had to limit some of the more ambitious things we wanted to do, which we were happy to sacrifice in order to get the coverage we needed to tell the story. We figured we could do the ambitious stuff the next time around (when we have a big budget-ya know, $2 mill or something).

MM: The film has a very documentary-like style to it. Stylistically, what sort of look were you looking to achieve, and how did DV help you to achieve this?

FB: The one thing we did with DV was a huge risk that paid off by sheer good fortune: We decided, as we shot, to force the white balance of the camera to give us a variety of different heavily-saturated looks. We have a golden palate, a bluish palate and a sickly green palate. It was the only way we knew to get the rich look we wanted, since we had done all sorts of color correction tests and nothing else came close to the textured look we wanted.

RB: That was a big commitment we were making, forcing the white balances. But in all of our pre-production tests, trying to achieve the saturation we wanted in color correction just looked lame. Also, we knew we didn't have the luxury to "fix it in the mix." We knew that our post-production budget was as tiny as our production budget.

MM: The film has a very intimate feel-which is only aided by the tones of the film and the easy dialogue between the actors. Do you think that this same sort of "intimacy" could have been achieved with film?

FB: Doing it digitally was great because we just kept shooting. We'd let the camera keep rolling at the end of takes or keep it rolling and just do more takes. About halfway through Anthony Pettine, our script supervisor, took us aside and said that our shooting ratio had just surpassed Eyes Wide Shut.

RB: Also, we made a commitment early on to feature lots of close-ups. Partly because of our pre-production shoot-out testing, but also because we knew that this film was about characters and given the extreme nature of these characters we wanted them in your face-we wanted to linger on all the tics. We wanted extreme intimacy and, of course, we knew our limitations to deliver endless wide shot spectacles.

MM: In what ways did you feel most limited by the digital format?

FB: We didn't really feel limited at all. Actually, that's not true; because the PD-150s have no fixed focus, you have to manually guess focus, which makes a lot of dolly and tracking shots extremely hard to do. So we just threw them out and went handheld. And we're very glad we did, because a lot of those traditional filmic moves convey a kind of contrived ploddingness that just doesn't keep pace with the audience's extremely advanced degree of visual literacy.

RB: And of course there are all the textbook things to be aware of-set design/costume design juxtaposing extremely contrasting colors, too much red, losing detail on wide shots-and focus. Oh my god, and sync, of course, which is a royal pain. Most people who shoot on PAL are quite happy to either slow down the audio in the transfer or speed it up, but for us, we had all these incredible music cues and we wanted to keep the integrity of their BPMs and we wanted to keep the tonality of actors voices (and not slow 'em down)-so the mix was a challenge!

MM: What's the most important piece of advice you'd give a moviemaker looking to shoot his/her first feature film-and deciding between film and video?

FB: Shoot video!

RB: You can never be over-prepared.

MM: What's up next for you guys?

FB: We're doing a documentary feature about the sexual revolution as seen through the prism of Deep Throat which, to this day, remains the most profitable film of all time. It cost $25,000 and has grossed an estimated $600 million. Now there's something to aim for!

RB: It's a hugely ambitious project-with many big ideas to share. Brian Grazer is producing. We did an enormous amount of camera testing for this film, as well, and we decided to go with the new Sony IMX cameras. Surprise-we are shooting in NTSC. We made that decision after doing a number of shoot-out tests-and working very closely with Sony. We have an enormous amount of archive from a huge variety of sources and the prospect of post-production sync issues had us biting our nails, but we discovered that the IMX Sony NTSC can look flawless when you blow it up to film. Again, you just have to be very careful what you are shooting and how you are shooting it.

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TAGS digital fenton bailey interview party monster randy barbato

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