I was driving home one night thinking about how to get some money together to shoot a film. I was in film school at the time and thought all I need is a couple of thousand dollars. So I thought about going to Las Vegas to win some money and thought 'how cool would it be if I new which number would win before I made the bet'. Then I thought 'if I could just see what number wins and then call myself with the winning number a few hours in the past, that would do the job'. I started exploring in my mind how, if such a device existed' it would work, and realized it would make for a really cool concept for a film. By the time I was home I had the whole film figured out.
Could you tell something about co-writers Adrien McKechnie and Marcos Soriano, and everyone's role in the writing process?
I knew Marcos from film school and Adrien from work. When I was finally close to doing the film I had a version of Feedback that was written with a real budget in mind and I had to rewrite it in order to fit my limited budget. I rewrote it scene by scene in outline form first. In order to speed up the process ( I am a very slow writer ), then I hired Marcos to write the first draft from my outline. Having a first draft made it a lot easier and faster for me to rewrite, rather than starting from a clean page. I wrote about 5 drafts after the initial one by Marcos before I was happy with it. Not that I wasn't happy with Marcos' initial draft ( it was good actually ) but sometimes it takes a while before something takes shape that you are happy with. In the process of rewriting I bounced a lot of ideas off Adrien before the final shooting-script was there.
How was the cast put together? Did you know any of the actors involved beforehand?
I put an add into Dramalogue, an acting publication, and called in actors from their headshots that they had sent to me. The four leads Joe, Jesse, Melissa and Jerry I cast after I auditioned them several times. The others are all people that I knew, friends from work etc.
Ain't It Cool News gives two figures for Feedback's budget, $35,000 and $37,000; which is correct?
Non of the above. The package that I had sent to Ain't It Cool had some material included that mentioned that I started Feedback with $35,000. I think that's where the misunderstanding started. By the time all was said and done I spent little more than $35,000.
Did most of the budget go to shooting the movie on 35mm film, which is obviously costly?
I spent most of the money in production of the film. Food for the crew was almost the largest cost of the film. Half way through the film I couldn't afford the ARRI BL4 that we were using any more and I found an old ARRI C that was a very loud non sync camera that we then used. That's why I had to ADR most of the dialogue which we did in a closet ( the one Sarah hides in when the bad guy is after her ) in my apartment. We used short ends ( film that is left over in the magazines after big productions don't use it and sell it back to brokers that resell it ) which saved a lot of money. On the post production side I was able to save a lot of money because I am an editor, so I used the AVID that I worked during the day to edit Feedback at night.
How important was it for you to shoot Feedback on film, as opposed to digital video?
When I started shooting Feedback in 1997, High Def was not an option yet. Mini DV would have been an alternative but if you shoot on 35mm people take you more seriously. You can get more deals, you can get better actors, festivals seem to take you more seriously and so do distributors. It is really hard to make Mini DV look good, it's possible but it takes a lot of effort to control the light. The kind of look that I was after was easier achieved with film. Now people have a lot more experience with digital so now it's a very viable alternative, especially HD. If I had to do it again I would probably look into HD. The camera packages are not cheaper to rent and you still have to control the light but you can roll all day. Tape is cheap compared to film stock. And you have the option of rewinding and seeing what you have. Trusting that the film is OK especially if you are using short ends is nerve racking.
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