Monday, August 25th, 2008
by Kevin K. Shah
Darkness and Light - Behind the Scenes of White Knuckles (2008) - a film by sabi
DARKNESS AND LIGHT:
The character of Julie (played by Martie Ashworth) in White Knuckles – a film by sabi
Martie Ashworth, an incredibly talented artist and an elegant and warm older woman, is truly as vibrant as ever in the autumn of her life. She has a sweetness that is hard to describe, other than it makes you feel welcome. The character that Martie plays (Julie) is similar in a lot of ways, but she also has moments where she is cold and deliberate – and incredibly dark in her choices, and in her deeper intentions.
BALANCE
The important thing to Martie Ashworth and I, in our discussions of imagining this character before we began shooting, was to portray Julie in a balanced way to the audience. That first and foremost, what happens in the story is not entirely Julie’s fault, though she can certainly bear the blame (as can William). It was important to be with Julie in the first half of the story, to have sympathy for her and her situation, and then have these feelings shift as we get deeper into the tale.
But Julie to Martie and I is a woman that ultimately gives up on her husband, a woman that finds no other way out but to destroy – something that initially Martie could not relate to from personal experience – so she had to imagine it. Of course, we all know what it’s like to be in a dead end relationship – but what is it like to begin to kill someone? Martie Ashworth, in her character work with Julie began to imagine the character having momentary daydreams of William’s car going off a cliff, or she imagined Julie getting joy out thinking about what her life might be like if William was suddenly gone. She imagined what extreme measures she’d have to do to make him change.
Martie shared a few of these aspects of what was going on in Julie’s head, and also in a bio that she created before we began shooting - and much of it comes across on the screen without words. And as the story progresses, there is a sense that something inside Julie has grown terribly cold, and Martie (despite the warm, loving person she is in real life) took us straight into these dark places with this character.
DARKNESS
Though the character of Julie is at times the victim in this story, she is also the villain – as is William. Neither of these characters can be blamed for their actions, nor can either be praised for their efforts – rather it’s a chain sequence of events that were planted long ago that are now coming to fruition in Julie’s darkening heart. And though she means well, Julie is doing something destructive – the worst one human can do to another. And by doing so, she creates a question in our mind and hearts – how/why could she do this?
Martie delicately keeps this going throughout the film with the character of Julie – depicting the character as often receding into the dark corners of her own consciousness (creating a bubble). There are times when Julie is so in her own world, we feel that she’s in complete denial about what she’s actually doing to her husband. And she is.
CHANGE
Ultimately, Julie is a woman in the desperate need for a change, and Martie brought to Julie a genuine sense of a longing for joy again – a woman that clearly has experienced love in the past, but has found it dying of neglect after so many years. She also truthfully depicted a woman that has given up – that has found any more effort “too late” and is resolved in continuing to destroy simply because it’s not ‘more of the same’.
EXPERIENCE
I recall early on during production, Martie and I were discussing trying to better understand this character, and being able to relate to her through our own personal past – and this was important to the creation of White Knuckles since I personally do not know what it is like to feel stuck in a 40 year marriage, or to want change so bad you can kill.
However, we discussed what it was like feeling helpless in a relationship, and we discussed what it was like being depressed. We explored times when we felt so angry we could wring someone’s neck. Martie was completely open to the process – and we also discussed at length feeling stuck in general, and desperation to get out of something. Relating to our personal past, while imagining Julie’s next thought & motivation was incredibly helpful in finding what kinds of honest beats were needed in the story to ultimately string the improvisation together. Though much of the framework for improv was supplied in the screenplay - the ending was brought about by the character work that Martie and Larry did for the story of Julie and William, and the screenplay was not needed. In many ways, it was for us in this particular film, the process of using the foundation of personal experience to help us tackle the multitude of options that the character could take. And because there is a part of both of us that is in Julie, Martie and I treated the character with extra love and respect (and tried not to judge Julie) throughout the process – all in an effort to play and depict Julie as honestly as possible. Even in those most difficult and remarkable scenes at the hospital.
LIGHT
Martie Ashworth as a human being - separate from the character of Julie, still brought to the soul of Julie something that I couldn’t have planned for, and that wasn’t on the page – she brought a light, a beacon of hope throughout the film. This is all Martie. And the light that Martie provided for this character simply by being who she is (her aura, her presence) helped accentuate the hope that the conflict between her and William will resolve itself peacefully. Larry has a similar illumination. It keeps me watching even in the darkest hour of the film.
Thursday, August 14th, 2008
by Kevin K. Shah
It’s hard to argue against the fact that the process of making a worthwhile interdependent art film begins in the audition. When it comes to the actors that will ultimately play the part for a film by Sabi - we hope that not a moment is wasted for either the filmmaker or the cast, and we hope that the casting process is creative and insightful, and useful to all parties involved.
posted by Christopher Sowers (”Moments”, a film by Sabi) in the Sabi Forum:
Christopher: “I found the audition process at Sabi very intriguing. Auditions can be very uncomfortable experiences but that wasn’t the case here. It was a very warm and welcoming environment. There was no vicious casting assistant staring at me with daggers and I got the sense that I was more than valid as a human being. Ahhhhh…. back to the real world.”
Chris, thanks for posting. It’s nice hearing about what an actor feels and thinks during our auditions at sabi. We try to keep them warm and inviting (and creative) as often as possible - and also we try to keep them useful to both the filmmakers as well as the actors that graciously share their time with us. There are times that this process doesn’t go as planned, and there have been people we have collaborated with that initially didn’t fully understand why auditions at sabi pictures are handled so delicately and carefully.
THE ACTOR:
Often it is our duty to inform them immediately, that quite simply, the Actor is to be regarded as the star from the moment they walk through the door and should be treated with kindness. We let them know that the actor that is ultimately cast — is the guide that holds the key to unlocking the deeper, inner workings of the character.
When Sabi sets out to make a film (and begins the casting process) we’re ultimately not looking for a pre-conceived notion of the character that already resides in our head (if we were satisfied with the depiction in our head, why make a movie?) Rather, I believe at this stage, sabi’s casting process tries to find the actor that can teach us more about the character we’re creating… real, human details and insights into fears, emotions, and hidden qualities that we couldn’t have otherwise known.
These details, and what happens in the casting process (which is really the first rehearsal) often find their way into the film – and every moment during auditions and rehearsals help develop the chemistry of emotions that we will circle around for the duration of production. Most importantly, the audition begins the actor-director relationship.
EXAMPLES:
It was amazing watching how Zak integrated things he saw, tried and learned from the audition process of “Heart of Now” right into the production phase of the film. I too changed scenes to better fit who Julie and William were becoming when I had finally found Martie Ashworth and Larry Strauss for “White Knuckles”. The insights that Kelly and Marion brought to Zak and vice versa during the auditions created a bridge. And to see J. Erik Reese and gang do it once again in Moments with you, Aqua, Mark and Malcolm, was once more - a truly remarkable process to watch*.
All three films were ultimately enhanced because of this attention to an otherwise mundane, and often cold, calculating experience (as you described).
We learned a great deal from the process of a film called “Blue in Green”, which was a feature that Zak and I produced along with 5 others in a collaborative called Unica, and under the auspices of producer Ron Austin and Poet/Journalist Gabriel Meyer. In “Blue in Green”, we didn’t even have auditions – we just staged group meetings where everyone discussed issues personal, social and spiritual - and then six weeks of rehearsals. Both the group sessions and the rehearsals were critical to the telling of the deeply improvised film.
In the cast of “Blue in Green”, Unica had found the story of the film with the actors that stayed - and Unica developed these unique characters in complete collaboration with the actors that would play them. In my opinion, it was a completely successful experiment.
*I want to reiterate that the processes described above may be unique, but are by no means new or original or exclusive to Sabi Pictures or Unica or otherwise.
EXPLORATION:
Really, whenever a filmmaker casts for a project they are deeply passionate about, they intuitively settle on the final actors for the same reasons, using the same techniques involuntarily.
The real fundamental difference lies in the amount of exploration that happens after the casting decisions are made. And the extent to which Sabi intends to explore in our films sets us apart (in my humble opinion) from most projects that are made more ‘conventionally’.
The exploration - going deeper - is something that we try to do from the very beginning. The peeling away at the character, at their emotions, at their deepest source of suffering - is pretty much continuous (and necessary to the success of the experiment) from initial casting to the final edit.
When casting for our films, Sabi filmmakers are often looking for an actor that brings to life the heart and soul of the character by giving us insight (or creating the right questions) which we then filter and translate into the story/characters/dialogue. It’s an organic (or ‘natural’) process in our estimation – and there is never a script that doesn’t change because of auditions and rehearsals. Simply put, it’s about respect.
Respect for one’s fellow artist. Respect for what the actor brings to an art film, and lastly, respect for a process that seeks to uncover fundamental and transcendent truths about the character through a collaboration between the director, all of the rest of the crew, and most importantly - the heart, soul and mind of the artist/actor.
Of course, we sincerely hope that you (the actor/artist) can let us know what we can do better, as all of the above is a constantly evolving, refining process.
And we’re always learning…
