Marc Fienberg Knows How to Play the Game

by Eliza Chute | Published July 31, 2009

Marc Fienberg is making his debut into full-length features will full force. He is the writer, director and producer of Play the Game, starring Andy Griffith, Doris Roberts and Paul Campbell. Before features, Fienberg had a lot of success making short films, his most notable being Sunday Morning. Now he is rivaling that success as his new film, which grossed $370,000 in its Florida release, is scheduled for an expanded release August 28, 2009.

The story of a ladies’ man who tries to teach his grandfather the tricks of dating, the film was inspired by Fienberg’s own conversations with his grandfather. He discussed this in his interview with MovieMaker, along with what it was like juggling three roles on the set and working with several veteran TV stars.

Eliza Chute (MM): It says in the production notes that the screenplay was inspired by your own conversations with your grandfather, and that you used many real-life discussions you had with him to write the movie. How much of the main character’s love life is inspired by your own?

Marc Fienberg (MF): Yes, as the writer of the movie it pains me to admit that most of the funniest lines were stolen from my own grandfather. But I think that’s also the reason that many people seem to identify with the characters and the movie in general: It really is true to life in its depiction of older and younger people looking for love, companionship and sex.

MM: Were the “five steps of the game” he teaches Grandpa Joe in the movie something you developed specifically for the film, or were they once your own take on women?

MF: Unfortunately, the main character of David was inspired more by the ladies’ man I tried to be, rather than the ladies’ man I was. The “five steps of the game” were things that my friends and I developed to help us in our dating lives, and although I can testify to the fact that the five steps do indeed work in the real world, out of respect for my own reputation in the dating world (which I’m sure is that of a suave, debonair Don Juan), I have to take the fifth when it comes to saying whether they actually worked for me.

MM: You worked with such beloved TV stars as Andy Griffith from “The Andy Griffith Show,” Liz Sheridan from “Seinfeld” and “Everybody Loves Raymond“‘s Doris Roberts. What was it like directing such veteran actors?

MF: Working as a first-time director with these living legends was exactly how you’d expect it to be: Amazing. And amazingly terrifying. Aside from the normal questions that I imagine every first-time director asks himself on his first day (Do people realize I don’t know what the heck I’m doing? Why is everybody looking at me and asking me questions? Will my old boss at the tow truck company still hire me back?), I was haunted by the question of “What if these legendary actors realize I can’t direct?”

Well, as it turned out, thanks to directing several short films and studying the craft for years, I actually could direct a movie. And where I did have shortcomings, I was lucky that Andy, Doris and Liz were amazingly patient and understanding in working through them (like the time I inexplicably found myself explaining to Andy Griffith how to “rock into” a scene, something he was doing before I was born; he still teases me about that to this day). But most importantly, I quickly learned the most important lesson I think a director can learn: When you are lucky enough to have such talented actors in your film, the best way to direct is to keep your mouth closed and get out of the way. When I did that, magic happened. And when I didn’t do that, inevitably those were the scenes that hit the cutting room floor.

MM: This was your first feature film. How did it differ from working on shorts?

MF: Working on a feature film was nothing at all like working on my short films. On my short films, aside from being the writer-director-producer, I was performing the jobs of dozens of different crew members: Script supervisor, assistant director, gaffer, electrician, production assistant, line producer and even craft services. Because I had a much bigger budget on my feature film, I was able to hire and surround myself with a crew of experts in those areas, so that I could focus solely on directing.

Ironically, although I was responsible for much less, the amount of time, energy and stress involved was an order of magnitude higher. I think like most things in life, as the budget grows, the stakes grow, the problems grow and the stress grows.

MM: What were the biggest challenges in juggling the roles of writer, director and producer for the film? Did any of these titles ever conflict?

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