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Perils of Production, Indie-Style
by Doniphan Blair
Debbie Brubaker, a premier Bay Area indie producer, giving her trademark 'Hunh?' if you try to block her in her quest to serve one of her films. photo: D. BlairFILM CREWS ARE LIKE FAMILIES. THE
happy ones are much the same, as Tolstoy observed in more elegant Russian, but the unhappy ones are troubled in their own special way.
Film crews also encompass the full gamut of human relationships, from celebrity inner circles to the egalitarian group, from the shaman-like actor or cinematographer to the slave-like gopher or production assistant—all driven by the monomaniacal father-figure, sometimes called a dictator.
Battlefield crewing is the toughest, to be sure, but a near second is the indie, where macroscopic egos are matched only by microscopic budgets.
“It was one of the most difficult shows I’ve ever been on,” recalled Debbie Brubaker, the legendary Bay Area indie producer, who has done everything from “La Mission”(2009), with the Bratt Brothers, to “Blue Jasmine” (2013), with Woody Allen (see her feature cS article), “and not because of the low budget.”
“There were times I was seriously considering walking away,” Brubaker continued by text, about a film shot around Oakland and Berkeley in the fall of 2014, “letting [the director] fire me and watching the whole thing crash and burn. But that code of ethics, about finishing what I started, kept me from doing that.”
“It was ‘interesting,’” remarked Glenn Mack, the film’s transportation coordinator, by phone in early December. “Sleep deprivation is the bonding ritual of low-budget movies. If it is a director’s first time and it’s low-budget, there is going to be a lot of bitching and moaning.”
“I thought he had a very good crew, especially at those rates,” Mack continued. “I thought he was hard on the crew. That was my opinion. That was counterproductive. [But] people who are stressed out, act like they are stressed out. He was wound up pretty tight. He was in the middle of making a movie—lot of stuff on the line.”
“He thought his crew had turned against him and didn’t want him to finish his film,” recalled La Mar Stewart, the second assistant director, a 30-something African-American (most of the crew was not of color, while the director is half Latino, albeit Argentinian).
“He neglected to get the camaraderie of the crew. He was trying to film his vision of his life and he wanted everyone to jump on board but without adequate instruction.”
Although cineSOURCE has been spared sexual impropriety accusations, either of our staff or article subjects (except Hitchcock), we have periodically had to confront contradictions between a film, a filmmaker’s political position and their private behavior.
Santiago Rizzo, director of the film 'Quest', in front of the Berkeley middle school where a lot of it takes place. photo: D. BlairI loved “Quest” by Santiago Rizzo, a semi-autobiographical film about a boy growing up abused and half-homeless on Berkeley’s south, tougher side, getting immersed in graffiti and, after near expulsion, connecting with an enlightened teacher (see cineSOURCE article).
I also loved Mr. Rizzo’s assertive call to action and critique of white privilege, when I saw him speak in November, after the film screened at the Napa Valley Film Festival, to an audience that was entirely white.
“A perfect cineSOURCE story,” I thought, given our interest in indies, the East Bay and Rimbaudian-rebel teens, until I noticed one of the producers was Debbie Brubaker, a friend, and I gave her a call.
“At that time he appeared to be a complete narcissist… very immature… one of the most difficult sets I have seen in my career… falsely accused the crew of wrong doings on many occasions… had an on set romance, which was not handled well... hired his friends, some of whom I had to train—though one turned out to be a 'mensch.'”
“Santiago Rizzo???” I exclaimed. “That cool, enlightened guy I just interviewed?”
“All first-time filmmakers are narcissists,” noted Mick LaSalle, the respected Bay Area critic and author, when I contacted him by tweet.
LaSalle praised “Quest” highly, even comparing it to Truffaut's "400 Blows" (1959), and went on to pen a glowing feature, replete with luminous photography of Rizzo, for Stanford Magazine (see article). “A great guy,” he added.
But, I tried to rebut, Rizzo was mentored by Tim Moellering, the middle school coach and English teacher whom Rizzo compared to the Dali Lama. Given the film is very much about Moellering’s ideals of truth and tolerance, respect and responsibility, isn’t there some contradictions with Rizzo's on set behavior?
In short, what if the making of a film contradicts its message?
I soon entered a storm of journalist ethics and obligations, starting with “What story do we tell?”: the one about the movie “Quest”, the one about Rizzo, which differs slightly from the movie and extends forward to a 36 year-old Stanford graduate, stockbroker and now filmmaker, or the wild and woolly “Making of Quest”?
Colleagues to whom I reached out were almost evenly divided.
Mateen Kemet, a New York/Oakland/and-now-LA filmmaker, recommended reporting the facts as I found them “to give indie directors a wake up call.” Edgar Ayala, publisher of an online Latino-issues magazine, told me, “Drop the entire piece. Whatever you print will offend either Rizzo, the crew or viewers.” David Roach, director of the Oakland International Film Festival, noted that he focuses on the film not the filmmaker.
'Quest' crew and cast, notably Keith 'Lakeith' Stanfield, the actor playing Rizzo's childhood best friend, with his hands up. photo: courtesy S. RizzoI had to admit: Godard, Kubrick, Jodorosky and many more directors were utterly insufferable, not only on their first films but second, third, tenth. Moreover, shouldn’t cineSOURCE stand by filmmakers whose idiosyncrasies are part and parcel of the person producing the art?
Wasn’t Rizzo under enormous pressure both producing and directing his first film, especially since it was about his life and put it under a microscope? Didn’t he also have financial difficulties, not to mention it was a shoot from hell, plagued by many problems, some not of his own making, including three insurance claims—although he claimed six or seven in his interview?
“If you asked me would I work with Santi [Rizzo] again,” La Mar Stewart concluded, “the answer would be no. There was a lot of stepping on toes and crossing of lines. There were some moments, whether due to time or set restrictions, he did get upset.”
“The set was a combination of experienced filmmakers and amateurs and Santi was the latter. He was learning as he was going. He wanted to tell it his way and there quite a few roadblocks to tell that story. His interpretation of how to direct his actors was hard for some.”
“I came up through the ranks. I have seen first time directors with budgets of five million or more but they put their trust in their ADs. Santi didn’t—he didn’t trust us. I didn’t have to understand the complexity [of the film] but I needed trust to get the stuff done in the day—we were shooting 12-14 hour days.”
There seems to be little doubt that Rizzo as a director was difficult, deplorable, even. But he was also chrysalising into an artist, which deserves some credit, accommodation, moral relativism, even (see cineSOURCE's "When Flawed Men Make Awed Art").
Although Rizzo was an avid photographer, he had never made a film before, nor taken a film class, or cracked a book on the subject. Because he grew up poor, he decided “to go for the money” and major in economics at Stanford, although both his father and stepfather were painters.
Despite all this, he jumped feet first into filmmaking. Indeed, Rizzo put his “all”—his money, his story, his identity and most importantly his heart—into “Quest” and succeeded. Indeed, it took both the audience AND the jury awards at Napa as well as other awards elsewhere.
A minor masterpiece of indie-styling, it has plenty of soul and enough cinematic coherence to take us all the way into its characters and story.
Santiago Rizzo found producing/directing 'Quest' to be difficult and triggering of past trauma, he said in his interview with cineSOURCE. photo: D. BlairIndeed, in the rough and tumble world of low-budget filmmaking, don’t we have to hail these mavericks—despite some serious shortcomings—for telling important, unheard stories AND for bringing projects, money and recognition to our community?
“Santi and I are friends despite what happened,” Brubaker told me, at the end of our discussion. “We weren't while the movie was in production, but I didn't abandon him then, or even after it was over. I always responded to his texts, emails or phone calls.”
“I discovered that he was honestly making some changes in his life while creating the movie,” she continued. “I think the post-production process is what made the change in him. He had to find the ‘pony’ hidden in the footage. It took close to three years to get the film to the edited version that has garnered positive attention.”
“It was like [making] the movie was reinventing him on a lot of levels. As he found the truth of the film, so did he find his own truth,” Brubaker concluded. “It took almost three years to get the editing done and for Santi to realize the gift that the crew had given him.”
“He stated that his growing pains were part of his truth,” according to Assistant Director Stewart. “As he produced the story, he grew up himself. Everyone walked away safe. We understood we were [working] with a young man who didn’t understand the protocols.”
“Santi was a kid—a kid in a big man’s world—and, eventually, he learned how to touch the pedals and drive the car.”
Doniphan Blair is a writer, film magazine publisher, designer and filmmaker ('Our Holocaust Vacation'), who can be reached .
Posted on Jan 02, 2018 - 06:48 PM
by Doniphan Blair
Debbie Brubaker, a premier Bay Area indie producer, giving her trademark 'Hunh?' if you try to block her in her quest to serve one of her films. photo: D. Blairhappy ones are much the same, as Tolstoy observed in more elegant Russian, but the unhappy ones are troubled in their own special way.
Film crews also encompass the full gamut of human relationships, from celebrity inner circles to the egalitarian group, from the shaman-like actor or cinematographer to the slave-like gopher or production assistant—all driven by the monomaniacal father-figure, sometimes called a dictator.
Battlefield crewing is the toughest, to be sure, but a near second is the indie, where macroscopic egos are matched only by microscopic budgets.
“It was one of the most difficult shows I’ve ever been on,” recalled Debbie Brubaker, the legendary Bay Area indie producer, who has done everything from “La Mission”(2009), with the Bratt Brothers, to “Blue Jasmine” (2013), with Woody Allen (see her feature cS article), “and not because of the low budget.”
“There were times I was seriously considering walking away,” Brubaker continued by text, about a film shot around Oakland and Berkeley in the fall of 2014, “letting [the director] fire me and watching the whole thing crash and burn. But that code of ethics, about finishing what I started, kept me from doing that.”
“It was ‘interesting,’” remarked Glenn Mack, the film’s transportation coordinator, by phone in early December. “Sleep deprivation is the bonding ritual of low-budget movies. If it is a director’s first time and it’s low-budget, there is going to be a lot of bitching and moaning.”
“I thought he had a very good crew, especially at those rates,” Mack continued. “I thought he was hard on the crew. That was my opinion. That was counterproductive. [But] people who are stressed out, act like they are stressed out. He was wound up pretty tight. He was in the middle of making a movie—lot of stuff on the line.”
“He thought his crew had turned against him and didn’t want him to finish his film,” recalled La Mar Stewart, the second assistant director, a 30-something African-American (most of the crew was not of color, while the director is half Latino, albeit Argentinian).
“He neglected to get the camaraderie of the crew. He was trying to film his vision of his life and he wanted everyone to jump on board but without adequate instruction.”
Although cineSOURCE has been spared sexual impropriety accusations, either of our staff or article subjects (except Hitchcock), we have periodically had to confront contradictions between a film, a filmmaker’s political position and their private behavior.
Santiago Rizzo, director of the film 'Quest', in front of the Berkeley middle school where a lot of it takes place. photo: D. BlairI also loved Mr. Rizzo’s assertive call to action and critique of white privilege, when I saw him speak in November, after the film screened at the Napa Valley Film Festival, to an audience that was entirely white.
“A perfect cineSOURCE story,” I thought, given our interest in indies, the East Bay and Rimbaudian-rebel teens, until I noticed one of the producers was Debbie Brubaker, a friend, and I gave her a call.
“At that time he appeared to be a complete narcissist… very immature… one of the most difficult sets I have seen in my career… falsely accused the crew of wrong doings on many occasions… had an on set romance, which was not handled well... hired his friends, some of whom I had to train—though one turned out to be a 'mensch.'”
“Santiago Rizzo???” I exclaimed. “That cool, enlightened guy I just interviewed?”
“All first-time filmmakers are narcissists,” noted Mick LaSalle, the respected Bay Area critic and author, when I contacted him by tweet.
LaSalle praised “Quest” highly, even comparing it to Truffaut's "400 Blows" (1959), and went on to pen a glowing feature, replete with luminous photography of Rizzo, for Stanford Magazine (see article). “A great guy,” he added.
But, I tried to rebut, Rizzo was mentored by Tim Moellering, the middle school coach and English teacher whom Rizzo compared to the Dali Lama. Given the film is very much about Moellering’s ideals of truth and tolerance, respect and responsibility, isn’t there some contradictions with Rizzo's on set behavior?
In short, what if the making of a film contradicts its message?
I soon entered a storm of journalist ethics and obligations, starting with “What story do we tell?”: the one about the movie “Quest”, the one about Rizzo, which differs slightly from the movie and extends forward to a 36 year-old Stanford graduate, stockbroker and now filmmaker, or the wild and woolly “Making of Quest”?
Colleagues to whom I reached out were almost evenly divided.
Mateen Kemet, a New York/Oakland/and-now-LA filmmaker, recommended reporting the facts as I found them “to give indie directors a wake up call.” Edgar Ayala, publisher of an online Latino-issues magazine, told me, “Drop the entire piece. Whatever you print will offend either Rizzo, the crew or viewers.” David Roach, director of the Oakland International Film Festival, noted that he focuses on the film not the filmmaker.
'Quest' crew and cast, notably Keith 'Lakeith' Stanfield, the actor playing Rizzo's childhood best friend, with his hands up. photo: courtesy S. RizzoWasn’t Rizzo under enormous pressure both producing and directing his first film, especially since it was about his life and put it under a microscope? Didn’t he also have financial difficulties, not to mention it was a shoot from hell, plagued by many problems, some not of his own making, including three insurance claims—although he claimed six or seven in his interview?
“If you asked me would I work with Santi [Rizzo] again,” La Mar Stewart concluded, “the answer would be no. There was a lot of stepping on toes and crossing of lines. There were some moments, whether due to time or set restrictions, he did get upset.”
“The set was a combination of experienced filmmakers and amateurs and Santi was the latter. He was learning as he was going. He wanted to tell it his way and there quite a few roadblocks to tell that story. His interpretation of how to direct his actors was hard for some.”
“I came up through the ranks. I have seen first time directors with budgets of five million or more but they put their trust in their ADs. Santi didn’t—he didn’t trust us. I didn’t have to understand the complexity [of the film] but I needed trust to get the stuff done in the day—we were shooting 12-14 hour days.”
There seems to be little doubt that Rizzo as a director was difficult, deplorable, even. But he was also chrysalising into an artist, which deserves some credit, accommodation, moral relativism, even (see cineSOURCE's "When Flawed Men Make Awed Art").
Although Rizzo was an avid photographer, he had never made a film before, nor taken a film class, or cracked a book on the subject. Because he grew up poor, he decided “to go for the money” and major in economics at Stanford, although both his father and stepfather were painters.
Despite all this, he jumped feet first into filmmaking. Indeed, Rizzo put his “all”—his money, his story, his identity and most importantly his heart—into “Quest” and succeeded. Indeed, it took both the audience AND the jury awards at Napa as well as other awards elsewhere.
A minor masterpiece of indie-styling, it has plenty of soul and enough cinematic coherence to take us all the way into its characters and story.
Santiago Rizzo found producing/directing 'Quest' to be difficult and triggering of past trauma, he said in his interview with cineSOURCE. photo: D. Blair“Santi and I are friends despite what happened,” Brubaker told me, at the end of our discussion. “We weren't while the movie was in production, but I didn't abandon him then, or even after it was over. I always responded to his texts, emails or phone calls.”
“I discovered that he was honestly making some changes in his life while creating the movie,” she continued. “I think the post-production process is what made the change in him. He had to find the ‘pony’ hidden in the footage. It took close to three years to get the film to the edited version that has garnered positive attention.”
“It was like [making] the movie was reinventing him on a lot of levels. As he found the truth of the film, so did he find his own truth,” Brubaker concluded. “It took almost three years to get the editing done and for Santi to realize the gift that the crew had given him.”
“He stated that his growing pains were part of his truth,” according to Assistant Director Stewart. “As he produced the story, he grew up himself. Everyone walked away safe. We understood we were [working] with a young man who didn’t understand the protocols.”
“Santi was a kid—a kid in a big man’s world—and, eventually, he learned how to touch the pedals and drive the car.”
Doniphan Blair is a writer, film magazine publisher, designer and filmmaker ('Our Holocaust Vacation'), who can be reached .
Posted on Jan 02, 2018 - 06:48 PM
