FEATURE

It's DV to THE BITTER END
by Carl Hansen

You need the valley and peaks of emotions. That's great storytelling," says Mike Timm, director of the feature THE BITTER END that is currently in production on Cape Cod. "Human emotions, and getting that on screen. That's the best gift you can give to an audience," he says from his home in Hyannis, Massachusetts, right above The Prodigal Son, the coffee shop that plays prominently in the story. Which is where the whole film came to be in the first place.

The film's writer, David Thompson, owns The Prodigal Son, a quaint coffeehouse off of Main St. in Hyannis. You can frequently hear the horns blasting from the island ferries. This is the main location of THE BITTER END, a week-in-the-life story of a group of friends in their thirties, each facing differing crossroads and culminating in a huge blow-out costume party on Halloween night. The two lead characters, David the novelist, and Dave the pilot, are based on real life characters, the novelist being the writer himself. In fact the whole movie is based loosely on Thompson's life. Dave the pilot, is played by real life aerial navigator Dave O'Connor, and Shelley Thompson (the writer's wife), plays a character based on herself as well. "The screenplay's a lot neater than my life," says the writer, especially since he's lived the depicted events for the past few years. "You take the inspiration of events over the last five or six years and massage them into a story," he says. And considering Thompson once swore that he'd never do anything related to film, it's not surprising that the feature is being shot on DV rather than celluloid.

While he was likely talking more about the development and production processes than the medium, it has turned into a challenge shooting in the digital format. "We learned where digital can really work for you," says Thompson, also mentioning the name Lars Von Trier, the Danish filmmaker and a founder of Dogme95, as having done a similar thing. Dogme95 was founded in Copenhagen in 1995 by a group of directors responding to and countering "certain tendencies" in current films. Speaking to Thompson, one almost gets the sense he wants to start Dogme2001. The production itself resembles the Dogme95 prescribed Vow of Chastity by using very simplistic lighting and shooting all the coffeehouse scenes handheld. "I don't know if it'll work," admits Timm, but in experimentation comes great art.

And the whole piece is being made for under a grand. "We're taking it the next step," says Thompson, trying to "push the envelope at that budget level." By utilizing the $20 membership fee for joining the local access cable station, C3TV, the crew gets to use a Canon XL1 camera, lighting equipment, and editing facilities. With most of the monies going to tape stock - in the case of the XL1, they are using MiniDV tapes which are smaller than a standard audio cassette - and copying scripts, the budget is pretty lean. The filmmakers are proving that it's possible to make a film for under $1,000. To pay the cast, a case of beer goes a long way. Bartering is common practice for small indie productions, especially when the filmmakers are financing the whole production themselves.

For those who might question the quality of the image on such a small miniDV tape and comparatively small, medium-priced "camcorder," don't fret. According to Timm, "Everything we shoot is beautiful." Canon, which makes the camera, even touts the ability of the camera to shoot professional commercials. The miniDV format allots more than 500 lines of horizontal resolution, which means that even in locations such as the coffeehouse, details are very important. And for Timm, an RIT grad who has experience with 35mm and super 8, to shoot digitally probably means a higher shooting ratio, too. DV is a medium, unto itself. "Digital is digital. Don't try to force film into digital," notes Thompson of the common malpractice of people over or under exposing shots when using DV for the first time.

The production is shooting mostly on the weekends and around people's work schedules. The cast and crew all have jobs, but it's The Prodigal Son that's the cornerstone of all the real and on-screen characters. It's the location of the genesis of Timm and Thompson's collaboration as well. After seeing Timm's director's reel - with Bank commercials and two 35mm shorts under his belt, he's far from inexperienced - Thompson tapped him to direct THE BITTER END. Thompson, a Connecticut native, had written the script to express his frustrations with where he was in his life, or as he says, it gave him a chance to "rant." He also penned the piece in order to be shot on a limited budget, unlike the other screenplays he has written which are period pieces. If THE BITTER END takes off, perhaps he'll be able to get his script about the discovery of anesthesia (it was discovered in New England) produced.

For Timm, END marks his first full-length feature. The Bank spots he shot won a Citation of Excellence at the Addy's in 1996, and his two shorts were shot while living in Salt Lake City, Utah. He also helped start the New Century Writer Awards (www.newcenturywriter.org) with founder Jason J. Marchi. "It's a whole new challenge," says Timm of tackling END. "It's definitely a good script."

Thompson is impressed with the way the project has come together. "There's nobody without talent," he says one late night from the coffeehouse of everyone involved. "Sychronicity," he says. While Timm sees a production as a military operation, Thompson uses that S word. It's a word that he describes about marriage, and which he likens to making a film. "That's what life is all about." And if everything is as synchronous as he'd like it to be, THE BITTER END will connect with audiences and make them visit those peaks and valleys of emotions that is essential to all great stories.