Adventures in Filmmaking: Taking “Directing Rye” from Shooting to Screening

First published in the Times Beacon Record Newspapers.

According to the film’s prospectus, “Directing Rye” is a “heartwarming comedy” about a wedding videographer who volunteers to film his son’s school play. Sam, the videographer, is a divorced ex-film student and movie buff who “struggles to make wedding videos works of art, even when it challenges what the customers want.” His son and best friend, Brian, who longs to be part of the “in” crowd, has just been given the lead in the school play.

Filming, which was done almost entirely at Gelinas Junior High School, which its director Jim Cantiello attended, took place over spring break 2003, transforming the cafeteria into a staging area awash with the ebb and flow of cast, crew, extras, parents, photographers, and others eddying and pooling around the waiting, eating, wardrobe, and makeup stations. The auditorium served as the main shooting location, providing a stage on which to produce “The Catcher in the Rye: The Musical.”

Once the cast and crew go home, a new director has to get on with the work of making a living, having a life, and making a movie out of all the film he has just shot. This can be alternately exhausting, exciting, exhilarating, frustrating, and fun. Here’s how it worked for Cantiello.

“By the end of the 11-day shoot, we were like a little family, and it was pretty damn sad to have to wrap. It was [especially] sad for me, because I just adored my cast and crew, and knew that once it was all over, it would just be me in an editing room praying that I could make sense out of all my footage.”

While he might have loved to work exclusively on “Rye,” Cantiello also had to eat, so he got a job working at MTV’s in-house post-production facility, where he had access to an editing studio. “I would work my day job from 10:00 to 6:00, then walk down the hall and edit the film from 6:00 until three or four in the morning. 

“Editing was hell for the first month. [I wondered] ‘Why isn't the film coming together?! Have I forgotten how to edit?!’ The first thing I edited was the scene during [the school play’s ]intermission in which Sam apologizes to his son, for being overbearing. Rich [Romero] and Valentin [Staller], my actors, had acted the scene so well that it brought me to tears while we filmed it. I just couldn't wait to get that bit assembled, and it was lovely. Then I had to go back to the beginning and start assembling the entire film.

“The first cut ran about 30 minutes. It was exactly as it was in the script. Every single line, moment, look, blink was in there. And as a rough assembly, it wasn't that bad. I sat with my rough cut for about a week and watched it religiously. What's working? What's not?

“I kept cutting the film down from thirty minutes to 27, then to 26. I thought I was done. I screened it for my film professor. He sat there stoic for 26 minutes. Not a peep. He told me I had a lot of work to do. ‘It's too sluggish. The pacing is off.’ I took his advice and I chopped off another :25 seconds. (Silly filmmaker in denial, thinking [his professor] was talking about SECONDS!) For the next test screening, [the professor] brought in the head screenwriting professor at NYU, the Chair of the film school, and his wife. They all told me they didn't know it was a comedy.

“THEY DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS A COMEDY?!  That's like telling someone who's dieting they're fat!”

Apparently the major shaping of a film takes place in the editing room, where the director creates the atmosphere and emotional impact he wants. When Cantiello was done, “Directing Rye” was 19 minutes long and it unmistakably a “heartwarming comedy.”

His first public screening was in February 2004. “It was a treat to be able to screen it for the entire cast in Stony Brook.” Then it was on to the NYU Film Festival and the shock of not being nominated for any awards. “Everyone came over to me and treated me as if I had just lost a family member. You see, by this point, "Directing Rye" had a pretty good reputation. Everyone talked about how amazing the shoot was, how great the script was, how great my early films were, how amazing the final result would be, etc., so everyone was SHOCKED that "Directing Rye" was completely snubbed.

“I was understandably upset. NYU tells you that usually industry people come to the fest, but only see the nominated films. So I now realized that only my friends and family would see "Rye" and I'd never get into another film festival and I had wasted two years' worth of a salary on a lame movie.

“Then something neat started to happen. Every year, there's one great film that gets snubbed by NYU, and thus the buzz began. Everyone wanted to see "Rye." The night of our screening, we had a nearly sold-out crowd. People came out of the woodworks! Then the lights dimmed. People were laughing at things that I had forgotten were funny! I could feel it in the air - the audience was HOOKED. It could not have been a better screening. When the end credits rolled, the audience erupted into cheers and applause. I got hugs, handshakes; strangers went out of their way to tell me they liked the film, and so on. It was pretty cool.”

Just prior to press time, another piece of good news arrived. "Directing Rye" has been accepted into the 8th Annual Rhode Island International Film Festival, one of the largest film festivals on the east coast. “Wait...it gets better!” said Cantiello. “Rye” is in consideration for one of the festival awards, which puts it in contention for the 2004 Academy Awards Short Submission. 

If you want to see just how cool “Directing Rye” is, make sure you’re at the Stony Brook Film Festival, on July 25 at 7:00 pm. For details on getting tickets, go to www.stonybrookfilmfestival.com.