small films on the big screen

three local filmmakers premiere their work at the San Marco Theatre
By:jon bosworth
From: EU Jacksonville
Date: 1207595640

What: Free showing of Short Films Haberdash, Abigail’s Spring and Face 2 Face
Where: San Marco Theatre (1996 San Marco Blvd)
When: April 19, 12:30 pm

“Francis Ford Coppola in the 60s or 70s predicted that in the future you’ll have a briefcase and everything you need to make a movie will fit in it. It has gotten pretty close to that,” said local filmmaker Patrick Barry, creator of the film Haberdash, when he met up with EU to talk about the local premiere of three new films at the historic San Marco Theatre.
The phrase “local film” wasn’t something you would frequently hear around town twenty years ago. Even low-budget films still required tens of thousands of dollars before they could ever make it to any sort of a big screen. But dramatic advancements in technology have not only made it possible for nearly anyone to make a film, but they have also allowed hopeful filmmakers to advance their skills and abilities beyond what was possible before.
“I have a MySpace page, and it is good if you don’t have a website. You can put stuff up for free, but on the other hand some thirteen year old in Anchorage, Alaska films his dog and starts his MySpace Film account. And then there are two million hits of ‘Dog Using Toilet!’” Barry laughs.
Barry admits that the best thing about him and the two other filmmakers premiering their new films at the San Marco Theatre on Saturday, April 19 at 12:30 in the afternoon is that although they take film very seriously, they don’t take themselves too seriously. But that’s not to say they are just another of the throngs of people skipping together films. Quite the contrary.

haberdash

Patrick Barry graduated from Florida State University with an art degree and considers himself something of a film purist. His film, the first of the three that will show on April 19th, was actually shot on 16 mm film, a rarity for sure in this age of the digital takeover. Of course shooting on film meant his movie grossly exceeded the expense of most locally made films (and required an investor), but it is also a logical step to take in a world where it is increasingly difficult to separate yourself from the novice or “art” filmmakers that output two movies a week.
Haberdash does have the rich texture of a movie shot on film, and the characters in Haberdash are genuinely well constructed. The actors even manage to look and feel like the characters they are portraying, pulling them off of the screen. In fact, the light-hearted attitude of the film makes it not seem too stoic, in spite of it being shot in black and white. The opening shot is easily my favorite of the entire program.
I would love to say the entire film escaped looking like a locally produced movie, but the fact is that the story arc seemed rushed and the plot wasn’t allowed the time it needed to truly include all of the character elements that were dropped in sort of pell mell. This is a complaint I have with a great deal of filmmakers-they insist on being auteurs and writing and directing their own work. Barry’s talent is clearly in directing and editing, but his story is still cohesive enough to keep your interest, even if it is a little sloppy.

abigail’s spring

Antonio Sarte made the second film that will show in the premiere, Abigail’s Spring, and his skill behind the camera is apparent. Again there is little to no story arc, which many will concede to the realm of art film ambiguity, but the vivid colors and the amazing scenery of the location in Live Oak is exquisitely captured. The sounds of babbling brooks and the crisp clarity of the pristine spring water are masterfully recreated. Although the allegory of the changing water in the same space is heavy-handed, the allegory is all of the story that we are given. Were Sarte to be teamed with a writer, the films he would be capable of would be outstanding. The acting in this piece, especially by Scott Rymer, was the finest of the entire program.

face 2 face

Michael J. Breen’s satire of consumerist America is easily the most rewarding of the films in the program, although the acting is the weakest. There is little subtlety in Breen’s montages about the self-image of women in 21st century America and the role of advertising in crafting unrealistic goals, but this flaw is quickly overshadowed by the story. The reason it is such a strong film is because there is an actual character-centered crisis presented in the opening scenes. There is a catharsis, a change, and a resolution. Aristotle’s story arc is followed and the viewer is left with a sense of completion. It even has a denoument! Of course carrying a story of this sort of complexity means relying heavily on the talent of your actors, one shortcoming of the Jacksonville film community.
“The film industry is decentralized by the Internet and new media. As an actor, there is a plus to going to New York or LA, but as a filmmaker there is less importance as maybe fifty years ago,” said Barry.
The flip side to that argument is that it means the decent actors are not in the places where you are making your movies. Barry didn’t say that, in fact he had nothing but praise for all of the people that made their time and talent available to helping these filmmakers realize their visions.
“If you meet people in Jacksonville who do film or make music there is the sense that they are doing it for the right reasons. Not that people out there don’t, but there is a kind of cynicism out there that you don’t find as much here.”
With all of that said, don’t use any of these critiques as a reason to not attend the April premiere. These filmmakers have all shown remarkable skills and these films will surprise you. Go into the theatre expecting novice films and you will walk away amazed that they could be crafted by local filmmakers. And notice that they are novices, not amateurs. Sarte won the Best Short Film award for his previous short film, Was It Something I Said? at Worldfest. Charleston and Breen’s previous short, Saffron Burrows, starred a young Anna Faris (who movie buffs will remember from Sophia Coppola’s Lost in Translation) and went on to screen at the New York Film Festival and the LA Film Festival. Barry’s previous film, A Swiftly Fading Spirit, recently screened at the Southern Winds Film Festival, the Gem City Film Festival and has been selected to the invitation-only Krasnogorski Film Festival in Moscow. So they aren’t rookies making bad films in the park on the weekend. They are bonafide filmmakers. But why screen them now? Were they not good enough to make it into the Jacksonville Film Festival in May?
“We were holding off with the hope that we would screen them at the Jacksonville Film Festival, but when they released what they were looking for, the shorts had to be fifteen minutes or less and their features had to be an hour or more, so we were stuck in no man’s land… If you have a short film program you don’t want one movie to take up half of it.”
It will be interesting to see what films the Jacksonville Film Festival puts up on their “Made in Jacksonville” program this year if they are not including these three local filmmakers, who have been among the most active in the last couple of years on a grass roots level.
From the opening shot of Haberdash through the closing credits of Face 2 Face (which roll to the sounds of local rock band Crash the Satellites) you will recognize many faces and places in this program and the three films together come out to an hour and a half running time. So in the time of one regular feature-length film, you get to see three films with which you have a lot more in common than anything at the megaplex. And this film program is free! What better way to spend a Saturday afternoon?
Barry also wanted it noted that the last film of the program, Face 2 Face, is not appropriate for younger viewers. For more information about this free premiere go to bluellamastudios.com.