FEATURE

The Making Of 0!1: version 3

by Ogi Ogas

Making a low-budget film is plunging a knife into one's gut: the filmmaker's task is to deflect the inexorable blade from vital organs and major arteries. You can discern independent filmmakers by their myriad incisions and scars; like Dustin Hoffman in LITTLE BIG MAN, they have been slowly whittled away.

My film 0!1 (pronounced ZERO-BANG-ONE) was no exception to this slashing inevitability. This twenty minute 35mm black and white psychological portrait of a female robot was produced with a gasp of a budget ‹ and the slimmer the budget, the sharper the dagger.

Artificial intelligence offers novel cinematic opportunities for exploring timeless psychological issues: identity, spirituality, and ethical consciousness. I prepared my creative team for 0!1 by asking them to imagine Bergman's PERSONA crossed with Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. I also laid out the following rules as perforation protection:

No camera movement.
No inserts or establishing shots.
Only in-camera effects (no "fixing it in post").
No set design or set modification.
No more than three lights per shot.

The dynamic Lonnie Farmer (CIDER HOUSE RULES, IN DREAMS) took on the role of the Engineer who builds the robot Miranda, and 16-year old newcomer Inna Livitz played Miranda. Lonnie's understated ability to shade his expressiveness with subtle coloration of warmth and hope deepened his portrayal of the laconic Engineer. Inna, a discovery from my feature film PASSWORD, is a profoundly intuitive actress, able to project both naïve vulnerability and bitter emotional sophistication, expressive bookends framing Miranda's demanding and complex transition from mindlessness to aching solitude.

John "Big Bad John" MacNeil immediately came on as executive, bringing his extensive production experience and unflappable poise to the project. Richard Wurman of Boston Camera generously contributed camera equipment, while Bob Hirsch of High Output armored us with a liberal lighting and grip package.

I worked closely with Russian make-up artist Lena Kaleva (LIQUID SKY), savvy Boston costume designer Mary Cusick, and ingenious production designer and MIT alumna Russ Newman during pre-production to develop the look of each stage of Miranda's development.

Stefan Forbes was my automatic choice for director of photography. His encyclopedic command of cinematographic technique, uncanny gift for sensing the deeper meaning of a scene, and formidable ability to work very fast with very little helped both PASSWORD and 0!1 survive many lacerations. When setting up a shot on the set, Stefan and I follow a rigorous process of dialectical inquiry. That is, we argue like politicians until we uncover the best possible shot.

Our low budget precluded our ability to hire more than a couple of professional crew each day. We augmented this small experienced core with a swarm of enthusiastic production assistants, following Kurosawa's SEVEN SAMURAI, where six experienced samurai fend off forty heavily armed bandits with a carefully managed horde of bamboo-waving farmers.

Day one of our three-day shoot witnessed the usual array of flesh wounds: strong winds delayed makeup an hour; a malfunctioning generator prevented the use of essential fog machines; searing sunlight imposed an inextricable camera shadow in a panning shot; complicated choreography of extras required two additional hours of preparation.

But the day's final scene saw the blade inching toward our heart: the cumulative delays meant we had just twenty minutes to perform five camera set-ups in waist-high grass on uneven terrain without any experienced crew (the 1st AC left early) before losing sunlight. Stefan whipped the 80-pound Arri BL-4 around like a pistol as the actors nailed their lines in one take at each setup, the sun setting as actor John Alex uttered his last line. Nevertheless, we felt the shots would probably not cut together. Since our featherweight budget precluded any possibility of a re-shoot, my sleep was savaged by the conviction that 0!1 had been amputated.

Day two began with two vorpal snicker-snacks: first, an ancient electric board blew out the power for our entire four-floor building, spilling dismayed residents into the hallways; second, the key did not fit the lock to the door of our location. We handled the first problem by lighting using sunlight coming through the windows. Line producer Raul Erdossy handled the second problem by picking the lock, a skill learned in his felonious Venezuelan homeland. Day two hurtled to an end with a perfect metaphor for low-budget filmmaking: as I hauled a precariously unbalanced upright piano across a pock-marked floor, it suddenly tipped over, crashing through a window with a thunderous cacophony of tones.

On the third and final day of shooting, it took an unexpected four hours to perform a tie-in (obtaining power from a building's main circuits), cutting our available shooting time by half. We had also run out of film stock, limiting us to no more than two takes per shot. The final scene, shot on the top floor of the McCormick Building, required us to see both the characters inside the room and the buildings outside through the window, a tricky cinematographic challenge. The sun constantly moved in and out of clouds, placing incessant demands on Stefan and threatening our two take restriction. As we finished the final take, the last foot of film flipped through the camera...

With all our scenes in the can, we were not hemorrhaging too badly, though we remained fearful that our rushed grass scene might prove to be a mortal wound...

John MacNeil supplied me with an Avid for two weeks to cut the film. Unfortunately, a bad video board shut down the machine for a week and a half, leaving just three days and three sleepless nights to cut 0!1. And sure enough, the grass scene would not cut together. But severe limitations inspire severe creativity: we discovered a novel way to cut the scene that worked better than our original intent.

I work closely with sound designer Matthew Davidson from the very first draft of a project, keeping him involved with every stage of the creative process. Matthew is that rare blend of inventive artist and painstaking technician; he constructed an intricate audioscape for 0!1 that works on the periphery of the audience's consciousness, sealing its seamless cinematic universe.

Completing a film is a transcendent act, which stanches the bloodflow of production, and each successful suture prepares the filmmaker for the next act of cinematic hara-kiri.