One Too Many Mornings - a new comedy.

Here’s a little video I made for Sundance’s YouTube page:

Here’s the eventual directors statement we ended up going with. While the one below in our last post was absolutely personal, it really didn’t give enough insight into the process behind making the film. Really, it’s a perfect entry for a blog like this. But for someone like Roger Ebert, he can read this one (man, how cool would it be if Roger Ebert saw our movie!).

Where did you come up with this concept?

Back in 2007, Stephen Hale, Anthony Deptula and I were about to make our first feature film. We had been hired to write a horror comedy script, and spent the first 6 months of the year getting the script in shape, and doing pre-production. We had the budget, we had leads on locations, we had a start date. And right as we were about to pull the trigger, and tell our bosses at our day jobs that we needed to take a leave of work for the month of August, we pulled the plug. We realized that while we were intellectually invested in the idea, it simply wasn’t personal enough. At that moment, we decided that we’d rather not make our first feature film, than to spend the next year of our life making this one. That’s not fair to us. That’s not fair to our audiences.

So the three of us, after making countless short films and music videos together, we challenged ourselves to look hard within ourselves and tried to come up with a story that was the most intensely personal story we could come up with. We were starting from scratch – and we all met in Stephen’s apartment to come up with the story. The thing about Stephen’s apartment – it’s in the back of a very large church complex. He lives there for free, in exchange for turning off the lights, and locking one door. He even works directly next door at the YMCA.

So that’s where we started. “It’s about a guy who lives in a church.” Not only was it personal, we had a free location. The rest fell into place from there.

How is this film different from other comedies?

I think there’s a lot of humor in everyday life. I’ll be riding the bus or walking down the street, and I’ll just see ordinary things that make me laugh. Could be anything: an out of context bit from an eavesdropped conversation, a street sign that has a typo, someone who put their shirt on inside out.

And I wanted to take a similar approach to the humor in One Too Many Mornings. We didn’t set out to make something that was a laugh riot from start to finish, we set out to make something truthful. Part of that is not only putting in these simple and peculiar bits of observed human behavior into the movie, but having it come from these awkwardly lost characters.

I think this film is visually different from most comedies as well. I would describe the visual aesthetic as “hi-fi lo-fi.” I was really inspired by the mumblecore movies that have been coming out recently, but we wanted to challenge ourselves to take this one step further. Part of that was really taking our time to experiment with camera movement and lighting, and trying to do so in a way that didn’t infringe on the looseness of the performances. It took a long time, but I feel like this film is that much more special because of it. It’s very pretty to look at, but still feels handmade.

Why did you want to make this film?

A friend of mine had a drinking problem, and I had no idea how to help him through it. He would get really drunk, do something stupid, and then apologize for it, saying he’s never drinking again. A week would pass, and it would happen again. It was incredibly cliche. I had no idea how to help him through it. I would try talking to him, but didn’t have the proper words. I would encourage him to get professional help, but that would just piss him off.

During that time, being his friend really sucked. I hated loving him.

Making this film allowed me to explore this obligation of friendship, and how people you think you know incredibly well can also be complete strangers. Through making this film, I discovered that when you are forced to help out a friend with their problems, it really forces you to look at your own. Sometimes your own problems are even worse.

How was the cast/filmmakers chosen? What was it like working with them?

Everyone associated with this movie is a friend of mine and worked for free. Anthony and Stephen co-wrote and produced it. Tina Kapousis is Anthony’s fiance. Almost everyone on the crew are people I’ve been friends with since college.

I think it was an absolute luxury. Everyone was there to support us, and in the most genuine way possible. If a shoot ran a few hours late, nobody was upset – they were there because they wanted the work to be good. It also felt like a family.

And somedays, all of our friends would be busy. There were many a night where it was literally Me, Elisha (DP), Anthony, and Stephen. We worked extremely slow those nights, but it didn’t matter. We were still making our movie the way we wanted to.

What do you hope audiences will experience while watching the film?

There are two things I hope audiences experience:

The first is simple, I hope after seeing these characters, people think “I know someone like that” or “That’s me.”

The second, is that I also hope that the story behind the making of this film inspires more people to not let a lack of funding hold them back from telling their stories. Making a movie is no different from writing a novel now – your phone has a camera on it, and every computer comes with some kind of editing software. Everyone can and should make films, but only if their stories are personal.

Are there particular moments from the film that are your favorites?

When I first started making the film, I was really inspired by Stranger Than Paradise – specifically how simply it was shot. Every scene is done in one simply staged take. When we started filming, I realized just how hard that is to do. Everything has to go right. Marks have to be hit perfectly. You cannot control the performances in editing. But there are two moments in the film, where I knew the best way to tell the story would be to let it unfold in one long unbroken take.

The first moment is when the character of Peter is left alone with Christine, a “cougar” he has brought home from the local bar. She is ready and willing to give him a blow job, and he is conflicted as to whether or not he should let her go through with it. I knew that the best way to capture the tension and excitement of that moment for me to stay out of the way, and let that moment happen in real time. I am so glad that we were able to really capture this in one take, as cutting it up would have really lessened the impact.

The second moment is when the character of Fischer is confessing to Peter that he has a drinking problem and needs help. It’s also done in one take, but during the course of the scene, the camera is dollying ever so slightly towards them, over an old television set. At the start of the shot, the rabbit ears/antenna is sharply dividing the frame so that the characters are visually kept apart from each other. As the scene carries on, and the characters open up to each other, and start listening, the camera passes thru the TV so that the characters are no longer split apart visually (or emotionally).

To me, moments like these are what cinema is all about.

What was the most challenging part of shooting this film? How long did the shoot take?

We shot this film on nights and weekends over a two year period. Friday night we would all leave our respective day jobs, meet at the church, set up the lights, build the sets, and maybe shoot 1 scene late into the morning. Then everyone would crash on the floor of the church, wake up, shoot all day Saturday. Sunday morning was tricky because of church services, so we couldn’t shoot anything with dialogue – otherwise you’d hear the organ over it. But we’d still shoot all day and into the night. Monday morning we’d wake up extra early to return the equipment, and be back at work by 9:00am. And all week long we would prep for the next weekend.

We never questioned our dedication to the project, not once. We also had to keep our expectations in check. There’s no guarantee that we’d get into any festival, let alone Sundance – so the reward of making this film had to be the process of making this film. But it was simply exhausting. Whenever I’d see my friends, it was only on set, and they were running around helping move lights, and hold the boom mic. I never had time to do normal-people things, like pay my bills or do laundry. The only exercise I got was lifting c-stands and dolly track from one side of the church to the other. I really missed my wife. But looking back – it was absolutely all worth it, and I wouldn’t have done it any other way.

Now that we’re going to Sundance, there are all sorts of other people who are part of the team. We’ve hired some really fantastic publicists to help spread the word further than we could do ourselves.

Right now they’re creating a press kit that they will give the media to learn more information about us. Part of this press kit is a “director’s statement” that has more insight into why and how we made the film.

Below was my first stab at this statement. They told me I had to re-write it. They were right.

Michael Mohan – Director’s Statement.

I’ve got problems. I’m kinda fat. I’ve got a hairy back. I overcompensate for my low self-esteem with being too enthusiastic. I work too much. I’m messy. I take on way too many projects. When I get really stressed out, I get physically sick. I sweat really bad when I sleep. I’m nervous. I am always in need of a haircut. You know, I really just don’t have it together. But, you know, it’s alright. I’m okay with it.

The two main characters in One Too Many Mornings, they’ve got problems too. Peter’s awkward and insecure. He’s the kind of guy that runs away from his problems instead of dealing with them. Fischer’s way too sarcastic. He’s completely self-distructive and is just bludgeoning his way thru life. And the difference between me and these characters, I don’t think they realize the degree to which they are screwed up.

When me and Anthony and Stephen were writing One Too Many Mornings, a good friend of mine was going thru a drinking problem. He had just gotten a DUI, and suddenly me, the most unqualified person in the world, had to help him go thru it. This is the obligation of friendship.

The thing I learned is that when a friend is dealing with serious issues, it’s almost like you’re forced to look at all the problems in your own life in order to commisserate. “Oh man, you got a DUI – that sucks man, well I’m a fat messy nervous weirdo. Doesn’t life suck.”

And in doing this, not only was it NOT helpful to him, but I realized that I’m sure I’ve still got a lot of problems that I don’t even know about up ahead of me. Just like my friend’s drinking problem was to him.

So what good is this? Maybe, just maybe these problems can help define who I am. Then at least I’m aware. I think that’s what this obligation of friendship is good for – getting a deeper understanding of ourselves.

So screw trying to actually solve our problems. Nobody is good at that, and nobody really wants to change (or do the work it takes to bring about change). Myself included. In the end I’m just have to be thankful I have true friends who help me continue to be comfortably imperfect. To me that’s what One Too Many Mornings is all about.

I hate flying. I never really flew anywhere growing up, but now that I live in California and my family lives on the East Coast I fly a lot. I knew a lady who REALLY hated flying. She told me she had to see a therapist because of it. Now THAT is a fear of flying. I guess I’m just a rookie because I’m only at the phase where I need to drink before I fly. And it’s not good either, because sometimes I fly out at 9am. So by 9am I am drunk and midway through the flight I get a hangover. I’ve been trying to cut back on the drinking lately so I’ve been covering my eyes with my hat or a jacket and just try and zone out.

Here’s another problem. It’s not just a fear of flying , it’s that every trip something ALWAYS happens to me on either my inbound or outbound flight. I’ll have a smooth ride going back east and then flying back west I’ll head through a severe lightning storm. True story – I was sitting in a row with two little girls who were flying by themselves, probably 7 and 10, and a lightning storm just happened around us. Well the thunder and lightning was really scaring these girls and the youngest one grabbed my arm after a loud boom outside. She thought I could protect her. Is she kidding?! We are on a plane, nothing can protect us if we get hit by lighting (which I think can’t happen, but when I’m on a plane and there is a lightning storm outside, we sure as hell can get hit by it) I was more scared than this little girl but I couldn’t show it.

I’ve had to do an emergency landing because some old man looked like he was dying in the middle of the aisle. One time the ride was fine, but I have to sit in the airport for 2 hours because my luggage is delayed (?!?). EVERYTIME something seems to happen.

Yesterday I flew back to California, after being on the East Coast for the holidays. The first half of the flight there was awful turbulence and then a stewardess asked if there is a doctor on the plane because some lady kept fainting in her chair. And if even one person starts to freak out on a plane, well that just adds to my freaking-out-ness (I think that’s a word). So I decided to go through and think of things I am happy for, just in case her faints were contagious and the pilots got it and we crashed.

Here’s what I thought of –

1) Family
2) My Girlfriend
3) Mike and Anthony
4) The Buffalo Bills

Then there was more turbulence and I drank a Heineken and tried to zone out.

But I’m glad I know Mike and Anthony.

I have two important cards on my cork board above my desk. They were motivational reminders while in production. A card that reads “Sundance” and a rubbing of a logo from a steel door. The rubbing reads: “Weirton Steel Co, 1c, 20lb, Fire Door Standard.”

My grandfathers, father, and half my family worked at this mill. I was helping the band Division Day with a music video (dressed as a bear) when I found myself behind this door. My family could have made this door. It gave me pride in my work and made me thankful for the sweat and years my family put into making steel. These reminders inspired me everyday for two years.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to everyone.

-Anthony

p.s. I’ll mail the Sundance note card to the first person that emails me. Just a small torch to pass on.

John Lopez interviewed Mike for an article in the LA Times. Look for it in the coming days. In the meantime, here’s our interview of John!

Making this film has been kind of like a very long marathon. We’ve been moving along at our own pace. Now that the finish line is in sight, we are sprinting as hard and as fast as we can.

The beginning of this week found us focused on the music for the film. I was emailing back and forth with Mark Harrison and Darin Seal of my favorite band Capybara. They were snowed-in in Kansas City working overtime on the score. I’m excited to share one of their cues from the film below.

Thursday was my 30th birthday, and I was woken up at 7:15am by knock on my door. It was a photographer from the LA Times, that I was not expecting until 10. The week prior, I was interviewed for an article that I was told may or may not get published. So apparently it must be going to print, and I guess my picture will be next to it? At any rate, I tried my best to look natural in a situation that is completely posed. I’m not comfortable with this part. I don’t know if I ever will be.

I also realized this week, after doing our 2nd pass on the color correction, that the screens in Park City are significantly larger than the screen on my laptop. So I called on our good friend Tucker Marolf, who helped out on set one too many weekends to see if we could crash his work to check out the film on a real HD monitor.

We had scheduled time to go to Tucker’s work on Friday the 18th. This was also the day of my wife’s company party that I had been planning on doing. At this point, the movie is in Sundance, we only have a few days left to finish it, I was really stressed out, and I had to cancel.

Well, turns out, there was no company party. My wife had planned a surprise birthday party that night for me.

I was floored. I was so touched, but also so sad that my life had gotten so busy that I couldn’t live a normal life where I could see my friends on a Friday night. Because there’s been a lot of nights like this along this road. The last two years I’ve hung out with my friends a fraction of the time I had before.

This really brings me to an important point – this is for all the people that are looking at our story and being inspired to make their own films. You need to know this going in – the sacrifice you make to tell your stories is real. And you’re not the only one making sacrifices, your loved ones do to. The nights I’ve worked until 2 in the morning, and come home to my wife already asleep – that sucks for her too. Every summer that has gone by where I haven’t visited my family – where I haven’t been able to partake in seeing my little niece get older – this was sacrificed in favor of me devoting my life to this thing. And along the way I wondered multiple times if it was all worth it.

So if you really want to see your projects through, you really do end up giving away a tangible and large piece of yourself to it. A two year sacrifice boiled down to a 78 minute experience for an unmeasurable audience. It’s crazy if you think about it.

I’m thankful that I still love this story, and I’m thankful that Sundance is allowing us a forum to tell this story to a much larger audience than we would have otherwise, but I’m extra thankful to all of my friends and family who I really didn’t see enough of throughout this journey, and who still remained 100% supportive even if I was only there 20% of the time. The finish line is really in sight. It’s this Tuesday.

-mm

Finally! My mom is taking this Sundance business seriously…

Who was the first person I called to tell about Sundance? My mom. Was she excited? Yes, because I was excited and she loves me. Did she know what Sundance was? Um, I don’t think so.

I know this because she then immediately started talking about this game called Farmville on Facebook, wanting to know when I was going to add her as a neighbor. She said she needed more neighbors to get to the next level. This conversation repeated itself over the course of the next few days. She would scold me for letting my strawberries die and not milking my cow. I hung up the phone each time frustrated at her lack of enthusiasm for this great news. I found myself in the middle of the Denver airport yelling into the phone, “No, I am not going to send you an apple tree or fertilize your crops! No, Anthony is not gonna add you as a neighbor! Do you even understand what a big deal this Sundance thing is?!” She still didn’t quite understand. In her defense she did try, though. She said she had googled it.

Then, one day, she understood. I called her for our regular morning phone call. I was still a little bit saddened that she wasn’t getting it. Then she says excitedly, “Oh, they were talking about Sundance on One Life to Live! Dorian was elected mayor of Lanview and her adopted daughter’s boyfriend was taping a video of her. And she said, “Will this be done in time to submit to Sundance?”” I said, “Now that they’ve mentioned it on your soap opera, do you understand that it’s a big deal?” She was happy and agreed that it was.

Well, at least I’ll never have to convince her of things like evil twins who have been separated at birth who come back after getting surgery to disguise their faces to hide people in secret caves after they’ve been thrown into amnesiac shock from being tossed out of their car after sliding off an icy road. She already knows all of this to be true from her soap operas. Does anyone want to fill in for me and call her to say, “The role of Tina Kapousis will now be played by…?”

Tina

This entry comes from guest blogger Zack Fox, who is a great friend and came out countless weekends to help out on One Too Many Mornings:

I knew it was coming. I heard the saying last weekend but guess I forgot. As soon as I walked into the room a bad Irish accent called out: “Top of the mornin’ to ya!” This would have been a (relatively) normal morning greeting if it weren’t for the fact that it wasn’t morning at all – but rather a Friday night. I responded back in a much worse attempt with the accent: “top of the morning to you.” And before you knew it, the entire crew began blurting it out, “Top of the mornin’ to ya,” all trying to one-up-each-other in how they said the line, and how terrible of an accent they could don. This phrase, this slogan, this line became an ongoing joke on the set. You couldn’t go for more than a few hours without someone repeating it and laughter following soon after.

One Too Many Mornings is a movie about friendship. And in the end, the movie was made that way, too. This realization came through in bright, vibrant colors on this night in particular. The scene being filmed was an important one between Tina and Anthony. It was a complicated scene and a long one – at least four pages if my memory serves. I remember Mike would play out the takes in long masters and as the trusty boom operator, my arms would start to hurt and shake right around the time when he yelled “cut.” It was a scene that was more difficult than any of us initially thought. Poor Tina had to cry over-and-over again. As we kept shooting into the night, I remember looking around and being in awe of the sacrifices everyone was making. Here we were, probably a dozen of us, working at 3am to get the scene right. This was a Friday (now early Saturday) night. The cast and crew had girlfriends, husbands, lives that awaited them and sleep that was calling their names. But no one complained. Everyone stormed ahead and kept going, all while laughing in between the shots.

It was friendship that built this movie, those who loved being there and wanted to make the moment perfect. Mike constantly asking for “just one more,” Elisha making little tweaks on the lights, and the willing crew who donated their most precious resource – time – to do whatever they could to make it right. While cutting the movie, I remember Mike telling me about how this scene – so difficult to shoot – was one of the easiest to cut because of the multiple options and effort that went into it that night. Hearing this was icing on the cake.

There were many apologies about going so late. Many demands that I should sleep over and not drive another 30 minutes home, but I wanted to get back to my bed instead of finding a comfy spot on the floor. “I’ll see you in a few hours,” I shouted out in the parking lot to those still there to hear me. I got a response back. It was a phrase I heard earlier. Only this time, it felt appropriate, bad accent and all.
-Zack Fox

In our movie I play a character named Fischer, who lives in a church.  In real life I play Stephen, who also lives in a church.  If only that was all that art imitated in my life.

In our movie, the character of the church janitor, J.B., is really, really angry at my character. In real life, the janitor at the church I live in is also really, really mad at me.

Quick tangent: It’s important to know, the term “janitor” has actually got some seniority to it. For instance, in the church directory, underneath his picture, there’s a picture of me labeled “custodian.” In the picture I am holding up a portable heater. When they were taking my picture, they said “Do something a custodian would do.” So I picked up a nearby object – a portable heater – and smiled. It was either the portable heater, or a bag full of multicolored balls of yarn. And we all know custodians don’t knit! Am I right?!? I really wish I was kidding about all of this.  But I guess I now know the ranks.  Janitor is above custodian.  I am below him.

But the janitor in my church is really angry at me because I forgot to turn off a bathroom light two nights ago. I don’t know why, out of the 32 lights I have to turn off in the church in exchange for free rent, I always forget this one.

It’s important to mention, the janitor is apparently a huge fan of action movies. So the worst part about these arguments is that he calls me “Steven Seagal” (because my first name is Stephen?), and he calls himself “Van Damme” (I don’t know why). I think he picks these fights with me so he can hopefully live out one of his action films he watches one day.  Van Damme vs Seagal.  A fight to end all fights!

But it doesn’t stop there. In his dream, the pastor of the church, who he refers to as “Antonio Banderas” (because he plays a guitar like Antonio Banderas in Desperado?), would get involved. Then it would be 3 on 3.  Mano y Mano y Mano.   “The greatest action fight of all time,” according to him.   Need more convincing?  Every time I run into him in the hallway, Van Damme flexes his muscles, showing off his biceps.

I bring this up because I want to apologize in advance to anyone I may be talking to on the phone one day, if the line goes silent. Which is what happened today when Van Damme started yelling at me as I was talking to someone reeeeally important about the film. It was almost “the greatest action fight of all time,” but it didn’t happen. Next time Van Damme. Next Time.

Actually, if you think about it for a moment, that might be a pretty amazing fight.  I may forget to turn off that light again tonight.

Seagal out!