Derick and Steven Martini |
The international Press Corps voted for best first feature at the Toronto International Film Festival and awarded the Benson and Hedges Discovery Prize to new American indie Goat on Fire and Smiling Fish, by Kevin Jordan. In the tradition of Clerks and The Brothers McMullen, the film is a romantic comedy from the heart, a story about orphaned brothers. The title comes from the nicknames bestowed on the boys by their partially Native American grandmother, who calls stressed-out older brother Chris, born under the sign of Capricorn, “Goat on Fire,” and happy-go-lucky younger brother, Tony, a Pisces, “Smiling Fish.”
The film picks up with the brothers, now grown, still living in their childhood home, and traces Chris’s path through a series of unsatisfying relationships, job trouble, and his continuing role as parent/mentor/friend to Tony. A colleague’s 80-year-old uncle, who once worked for the old Lincoln Motion Picture Company, offers his wisdom about love and life’s essentials. The part is brilliantly played by Bill Henderson, and Jordan uses terrific antique footage from Lincoln’s original films to add texture to his enthralling, insightful debut, co-written and co-produced by actor Derick Martini, who plays Chris.
Kevin Jordan and Derick and Steven Martini have an infectious enthusiasm and encouraged contributions to their $40,000 film in a most unusual way. I interviewed them in the lobby of a Toronto theater while the last Toronto International Film Festival screening was taking place.
Stephen Ashton (MM): How did the movie come about?
Kevin Jordan (KJ): My best friends are Steven and Derick, who are brothers, and I have a brother myself. Goat is a story about what it means to be brothers. We wanted to make our first feature about something we know about. Brothers, we know.
MM: Have you guys worked together on any films prior to this one?
Kevin Jordan (KJ): We’ve known each other for about 10 years. I went to high school with Steven at Professional Children’s School.
Steven Martini (SM): Yeah, we were in this art high school in New York doing acting and plays. Of course, we were obsessed with Goodfellas and The Godfather, and Kevin would set up a video camera and we used to re-enact scen
|
KJ: We still have the tape, but believe me we’re keeping it under close wraps...
SM: I’m trying to get him to release it.
MM: You should put it on the website.
KJ: Yeah, and we were always doing scenes from Mamet. At 15 we’d go in and audition for parts and do scenes from Glengarry Glen Ross. We thought we were 40-year-olds, but we were like babies. We never liked the parts they had for guys who were 15.
MM: And were you getting parts?
KJ: Yeah, we got some TV parts.
MM: But your first real shorts were at NYU?
KJ: Right. I did a five minute short there called “The Ride Inside the Old Garden,” which got some recognition. NYU passed it on to Martin Scorsese, who started scholarships for an undergrad and a grad student for that year. I received the undergrad scholarship. He took me and the grad recipient to lunch, which was a thrill. Later I was invited to go with him to Morocco to work on Kundun. I didn’t have to work, just sit next to him and observe. Here we were, in this Salvador Dali landscape at the edge of the Sahara. Every day there would be a huge sandstorm and we would be wearing these huge goggles and Marty would say (imitating Scorsese’s trademark rapid-fire speech) “I-I hope we can get this shot off by the end of the day.” There’d be these 200 Tibetan monks wandering around the set. It was surreal.
MM: What were your impressions of how he worked?
KJ: The passion and energy. The second he walked onto the set he was on fire to get every shot.
MM: What did you gain most from this apprenticeship?
KJ: I was so impressed that he had every detail worked out with a vision so clear. Then when the elements changed on set his ability to adapt really struck me.
MM: Getting back to Goat on Fire...
Derick Martini (DM): In about four months we had a script. We did a lot of writing all along the way, through pre-production and casting, even on the set.
SM: Me and Derick auditioned with all the actors. We wanted to give them something, not just have them read with some schmoe. It’s such a drag to go to an audition and not get anything to work off of.
DM: It was a great rehearsal process for us, too, auditioning with all the actors. It gave us a lot of insight for rewriting and refining the script. We read so many really good actors, but somehow you know there’s just the perfect one still to come. When they start giving you the lines in just that unique cadence it really comes alive. Sometimes it’s better than you ever conceived of.
KJ: The screening Thursday night (in Toronto) was the first time we got to see how audiences would react. We were really sweating it ’cause we were numb to the pace and timing after having seen it on the Avid 400 times. When the first laugh hit in the opening montage, it was such a huge relief.
MM: It was almost like a cast and crew screening... people were going wild.
DM: The film is really fun. We had a great time on the set, too. Even though everyone w
 Christa Miller and Steven Martini |
MM: You shot this in 12 days?
KJ: Twelve days and $40,000.
MM: How many lobsters?
KJ: Quite a few... We got free development and telecine with two two-pound lobsters and a pound-and-a-half of shrimp. We even got locations for lobsters...but it was more of a gesture, really. We’d meet with the head of the company, pitch the film and say, ‘Look, we don’t have any money, but we have this film, and my family has a lobster business. Can you help us out?’ So the next day they’d get a special Fed Ex package with live lobsters. Even if we didn’t have a meeting we sometimes would just barge in on the head of the company, pitch him, and ask for a hand on our first film. The lobsters (about 40 altogether) would be sent as a way to say ‘Thank you for taking your time to listen.’ They had the ability to wave a finger and make it happen. We were hoping they’d say ‘These guys are OK. They’ve got some balls. Let’s do them a favor.’
MM: Did you have all of your needs set up before the shoot started, or did you have to keep going back for more?
KJ: We had most everything together a month ahead. We had a cinematographer, we had our crew and everything in place, ready to go. Derick line-produced the film and got everything. But we did go after telecine after we started shooting. Originally we were going to do dailies and cut on a flatbed, and it wasn’t until we were through shooting that we got a favor with the Avid.
DM: Oh, line producing! I didn’t even know what to call it when we started. I just knew we needed this stuff and started making calls. I didn’t even know all the stuff we needed. We had to look it up in books at Barnes and Noble!
KJ: We actually had too much stuff. The Kodak Vision film stock was fantastic, with great latitude. Goat isn’t a big film, but we had 12K’s that were too much for the scope of the picture. We shot at 500 ASA, so we cut back on the amount of light. We shot on Super 16 with an Arri.
DM: We did a couple of scenes in the bathroom with available light and it looks great.
MM: I’m looking forward to seeing a film print, even though the transfer print looks great.
KJ: We tried to get the negative cut and a print made but there was no way we could get it on time. We got notice that the film was going to be in Toronto and
 Steven and Derick Martini with Director Kevin Jordan |
MM: Well, the print is perfect for this film. It gives it an immediacy, although I am sure you want to see a print from the film you shot.
KJ: Right now we’re happy with the way it plays, and a print from the neg. will be great.
MM: How did you create the part Bill Henderson plays and how did you get him?
KJ: It actually was something that I got out of working on Kundun. There was an old master sound man that worked with Marty named Clive Winter. He had all kinds of stories of the early days. He was so warm and friendly. We wrote in a character like this into the film...originally as a white guy. We auditioned all of these 70-year-old actors and it just wasn’t working. We kept thinking about an Ozzie Davis type guy and kept reading other guys. Then Bill Henderson came to Derick’s apartment to read and just blew us away.
DM: You struggle with something for weeks, you know, and it’s not working, not working... and then you strike gold. Kevin came across a reference on the internet to the Lincoln Motion Picture Studio, an early black movie company. We came across all of this information, which led us into a whole new dimension. That’s an amazing story in itself. All of this old footage was found in a garage or something when it was thought to have been lost for years. We got in touch with UCLA Film Archives and they helped us.
One day Kevin disappeared for hours. He came back with all this footage of all of these black films. Footage with Paul Robeson and stuff. Then the character took on a real shape and became an important part of the film. Bill Henderson started as a jazz singer with Count Basie, and started acting I don’t know when. But he was a super fan of Paul Robeson and he agreed to do it for us. He even contributed three songs to the track.
The film just grew bigger and bigger. We added more locations along the way. It was all shot around LA. People were pretty cool about giving us locations... at least until about 14 hours into a shooting day. Then they sometimes got a little testy.
MM: Did you try to shoot the film in sequence?
KJ: It was totally “location driven,” so we were at the mercy of the people whose houses we were using. Some of the most emotional scenes had to be shot at the beginning and I would have liked more time to build the relationships. But it works because of our rehearsals.
MM: What was the hardest part of the shoot?
KJ: Having two company moves a day...the fights and the worries about being able to make the day...not having enough film to capture the performances...the nagging worry that the actors would be frustrated that they couldn’t give their best performances. But what we got on the first take was usually amazing. We actually had the opportunity to do an improv take every once in awhile. I had the chance to let the camera hang, give it time for a reaction or remark. Cutting too early is one of the biggest mistakes I made in my short films, so I forced myself to keep rolling at the end of the scene. It was tough when we had to buy film on a daily basis.
SM: I’m still amazed at Derick, who acted and line-produced at the same time. That was a challenge.
MM: So you couldn’t get to an Avid right after the shoot, right?
KJ: Right. We didn’t have any money, but we did have time. We took the time to really live with the footage for a while, because we had to wait to get the Avid. It was really valuable for us to see what we had. Not being rushed is really important.
DM: Time is critical in developing the script, as well. I would hate to be rushed by a studio, either in pre or post-production. Both are so important.
KJ: Yeah, I’ll always fight for time.
MM: Was 12 days too short?
KJ: There’s something about having to make it in 12 days. It gives you energy, although it’s tough. We only had the money for 12 days’ worth of catering, so we had to find a way.
MM: How important is the producer’s rep at this point?
KJ: Really important. Jeff Dowd, our producer’s rep, is the greatest. He is the Bill Parcells of the independent film world. He calls the plays and we keep running in there...to meet this distributor, to talk to that acquisitions person. That’s another thing—our Executive Producer, Sheila Goldman, who got us finishing funds, got together with Nancy Willen, a very classy woman at DDA, and she loved the film and wanted to rep it here in Toronto along with all these other big films.
KJ: Steve, before we finish up, about that Scorsese question... you asked what I got most out of being at his side... It was the realization of how much I haven’t learned... how much I have to go back and study my classics. I see how Marty refers to other films all the time, and I grew up with Star Wars. I want to study the classics.” MM