Going from Stage to Screen
a conversation with Mrinalini Kamath

Why Did You Decide to Produce a Short Film?

Well – there’s the obvious: I like movies. But that’s not the reason why I decided to adapt this play into a film. The idea first came from a theatre reviewer in Australia three years ago. He had seen my play The Some of All Parts, at the Studio Theatre of the Opera House (yep, THAT opera house) as part of a showcase for a ten-minute play festival. Not only had he declared it the best show of the night, but he also said that he could easily see the play being made into a movie. While I was flattered at the time, I wasn’t really into writing movies then.

Yes, But Why Now?

For several reasons, the biggest of them being that I’ve been writing plays for about 11 years now, and while I have had many readings and a decent number of publications, I have had very few full productions. I know the race is not always to the swift, etc., but dammit, I have stories to tell, and I want people to see and hear them, not someday, but NOW. If the stage ain’t takin’ ‘em, why not try the movies? I thought I’d start small with something I could actually self-produce (because if I decided to look for a producer to do it, I’d be back where I was with the theatre) and came back to this play, which I could see potentially doing well on the film festival circuit.

How Did You Become a Producer?

*Drum roll* I took a class!

Sorry – I’m a nerd.

Growing up, if I ever wanted to figure out how to do something, I’d go to the library and find a book on it. In the age of the Internet, I google it, and if it’s something that I think might be a little beyond book/website learning, I try and take a class in it. I just happened to see an ad for a class called “Make It Happen” being led by the Artistic Director of a theatre company who had also produced short films as part of her day job. It was advertised towards actors: “Are you tired of going to audition after audition and coming oh-so-close to getting the part, but just not getting it? Take matters into your own hands by producing your own play or film,” or something to that effect.

About half of the class wanted to produce plays (some self-written, some not) and half were looking at doing films, filmed sketches and webisodes. Not a single person in the class had produced anything before, so I was in good company: We were all starting from scratch.

How Has It Been Going?

Well – it’s been a mixed bag, really.

The first thing I did was secure a director. I got someone who really liked the play, who had directed the play and had just finished directing his own feature-length film, which he bankrolled with his savings. He was enthusiastic about the idea and offered to work for free and allow me to pick his brain as much as I needed, as I learned the ropes of producing.

Next came the actors. I eventually ended up with the same actors I had used for a New York staging of the play, who were all willing to work on a deferred SAG contract. (Only short and student films can have this type of contract with SAG, where the $100 per day that they are to be paid can be deferred until the film has been sold.)

Then came the crew. This was probably the hardest for me. As one who has never worked on a film before, let alone produced one, I had no idea what to ask or what to look for. Luckily, my director had some experience with this. With his help, I was able to secure a Director of Photography (AKA cinematographer), a production designer, an editor and a composer. I learned about Shooting People (www.shootingpeople.org) a website/organization that was started in the UK but has branches all over the States now as well, and mandy.com, a premier source for finding crew (your first posting is free). I also found that just by telling people what you need (i.e., throwing it out into the universe) recommendations would come floating back. I’m still in the process of hiring a sound person and a line producer (oh, all the terms I learned in that class!) but I’m much more confident about it, especially since I had a mini-production meeting with the DP, director and production designer, who all seem to know what they’re doing.

The most difficult part of all of this was scheduling. I really wanted to run with the energy and excitement I had built up while taking this class and wanted production to take place the first and second weekends in November. To my chagrin, my director’s bosses in DC (where he currently holds a theatre directing fellowship) wouldn’t let him out for those two weekends. We moved to the next month – the first two weekends in December. Again, the director had a conflict. We then switched to the second and third weekends in December, when two actors ended up having conflicts. We finally managed to settle on the second and third weekends in January. Later than I wanted, but with less likelihood of changes having to be made to the schedule, since it’s too early for theatre shows or other projects to be in swing. If I tear out half as much hair during production as I did trying to schedule production, I’ll be a happy camper.

What About Money?

Ah, money. Well, I decided early on that I was going to set a budget and see if I could work within it. I set a small budget that relied on a chunk of my savings. The original idea was to see if I could get people to work for free—something that was suggested in the class. But as I asked around for recommendations of names for various crew positions, I kept hearing the same thing: Offer something. It doesn’t have to be the going rate, or what would normally be charged. Figure out what you could comfortably afford to pay—a set fee, rather than an hourly rate – and offer it. Even for small amounts of money, I was assured, people are willing to do a better job. It’s a pride-in-your-work sort of thing.

So I did. I figured out what I could afford, and offered all of my key crew members the same amount. Thus far, no one’s turned me down over it. In fact, almost every crew member asked to read the script, and after reading it, said they would love to work on the shoot. Encouraging, no?

But Where Did You GET the Money for Paying the Crew Members? Are You Independently Wealthy?

Would I be shooting a “low-budget” movie if I were independently wealthy? Hell, no. Yeah, I have some savings, but there was no way I was going to use most or all of it on this project (which would be easy enough—I don’t make a lot of money). I got most of the money by asking for it. I applied to a non-profit arts service organization called Fractured Atlas (www.fracturedatlas.org) who became my fiscal sponsor. Now anyone who donated money to my film could get a tax write-off. In return, Fractured Atlas takes a 6% administrative fee. After receiving my fiscal sponsorship, I immediately sent out letters to thirty people, mostly close friends, family and family friends, explaining the project and telling them that in exchange for their donation, they’d receive a thank you credit in the film.

When I sent the letters out, I figured that I’d be in decent shape if they all wrote back donating at least $25 each. (I had been planning on keeping production costs low, after all.) To my surprise and delight, people were incredibly generous, giving all sorts of amounts. Some gave $25, but some—most, in fact—gave much more. I was in pretty good shape.

Next came the possibility of having a fundraiser. One of my classmates mentioned a bar in NYC where they hold charity nights—that is, if a charity wants to hold a fundraiser, the bar charges a $5 cover for all-you-can-drink Bud and Bud Lite with other drinks for $3, and lets the charity keep all the money. Now, I don’t know if it’s just because I’m a writer and sort of introverted (to put it mildly) the idea of holding a fundraiser with lots of people in a bar didn’t really thrill me. More to the point, my gut balked. I know a lot of people, but would they all be willing to come to this? And even more to the point—if the cover was just $5, I’d have to get an awful lot of people to come on over if I wanted to raise a decent sum of money. The more I thought about the amount of time and effort I would have to put into this (versus putting in time and effort on the actual film) the less the idea appealed to me. I did a gut-check by asking a friend of mine who is a professional freelance event planner what she thought, and she absolutely agreed with me. It was not worth expending so much time and effort for so little in return.

But I knew I was going to have to do something else. Production and post-production costs aside, I wanted to enter the finished product in film festivals, and festival application fees generally run between $35 and $50 per application. And I would have lab fees, DVD replication fees, etc. I was definitely going to have to raise more money, and applying for grants wasn’t terribly feasible. Yes, there are grants for films out there, and grants for short films, but very few and far between for short narrative films. The majority of money available to short films is for funding documentaries. While I definitely planned on investigating and applying for grants, I wasn’t holding my breath.

And so the idea of an online raffle was born. I wasn’t terribly certain I was going to be able to hustle prize donations, but, as I’ve come to learn in this process, you never know until you try. Again, people were extremely generous. A friend who works at Comedy Central was able to get me VIP (i.e., guaranteed seats that allow you to jump the line) tickets for a taping of The Colbert Report. A co-worker at one of my jobs who also has a practice as a massage therapist was happy to donate a one-hour full-body massage. Another friend who is assistant to a producer was able to get me some great DVDs, and so on. That’s the beauty of throwing things out into the universe.

So Where Are You in the Process, Now?

I’m in pre-production, still. Finishing with crew hires, looking into grants (I found some for which I might just qualify) futzing with the budget numbers and filling out the paperwork for our January shoot. I’m also researching restaurants in the area of the shoot that might be willing to give us 25 – 50% off (I figure it’s January, one of the deadest months of the year for restaurants on the East Coast). I have to say that, while at times I wonder what the hell I’ve gotten myself into, I do enjoy something I feel I’ve never had as a writer: a sense of power. Whether or not this movie gets made (and it WILL get made) it is up to ME. I have not sent the script off, I am not waiting for someone to give it the green light, I have not made changes to it in the hopes that the changes will move it one step closer to a full production—this sucker is getting produced.

And I like that.

Mrinalini Kamath is currently converting one of her short plays into a short film. In addition to her Writer credit, she will be sporting a Producer credit as well. She’s currently running an online raffle to raise funds – see www.fourthdatethemovie.com/raffle for more details.