QUIET CITY. 78 minutes / 2007 / Color / 16x9 / Stereo / HDCAM

Transcription

1 QUIET CITY 78 minutes / 2007 / Color / 16x9 / Stereo / HDCAM Nominated for the John Cassavetes Award, Film Independent s Spirit Awards 2008 Winner for Best Director and Best Cinematography, Bend Film Festival 2007 Official Selection South by Southwest Film Festival 2007 Official Selection Independent Film Festival of Boston 2007 Official Selection Stockholm International Film Festival 2007 Official Selection Milan Film Festival 2007 Official Selection Sarasota Film Festival 2007 Official Selection Maryland Film Festival 2007 Official Selection Mar Del Plata Film Festival 2008 Contact: Brendan McFadden, Producer Ben Stambler, Producer brendanmcfadden@mac.com Aaron Katz, Director, Writer, Editor aaron.o.katz@gmail.com Website: Myspace:

2 Cast Jamie.. Charlie Adam, Charlie s engaged friend Robin, the girl at the gallery Erin Fisher Cris Lankenau Joe Swanberg Sarah Hellman Kyle, the guy at the gallery. Tucker Stone Michael, the older guy at the party Michael Tully Karrie, Robin s roommate Karrie Crouse Filmmakers Director, Writer, and Editor.. Aaron Katz Producer.. Brendan McFadden Producer.. Ben Stambler Director of Photography Andrew Reed Original Music. Keegan DeWitt Camera Assistant.. Alex Bickel Production Sound.. Alex Lipschultz

3 Synopsis Jamie is lost. She s come to New York to visit her friend Samantha, but Samantha is nowhere to be found, and now Jamie is alone in the city. Charlie just quit his job, and isn t sure where he s going next. Their paths cross late at night on an empty subway platform, and from this chance encounter an unlikely connection is formed. Together they share twenty-four hours drifting from late night diners, to city parks, to abandoned apartments, to a party and art gallery deep in the heart of industrial Brooklyn.

4 About the Cast Erin Fisher (Jamie) Erin Fisher was born and raised in Charlotte, NC. She developed a passion for music at an early age and pursued her musical education at the Northwest School of the Arts. She grew up making films with the family video camera. In 1998 she placed second in the National Children s Film Festival. HBO Family picked up her short film, Don t Look Behind You and commissioned her to make another twenty-minute film. After graduation from high school Erin attended North Carolina School of the Arts where she pursued a directing major. She has worked on a number of independent films including last year s Sundance hit, The Foot Fist Way. Erin currently attends College of Santa Fe, where she is completing a degree in filmmaking. Cris Lankenau (Charlie) Cris Lankenau grew up in Miami where he quickly rose above all of his peers as a talented and gifted musician and DJ. For much of his young life he appeared to be destined for great things. You can now find Cris answering telephones from 4pm-12am at The Maritime Hotel in New York. He resides in a small apartment on the dingy outskirts of the interesting area where all of his richer and more successful friends live. Cris had pretty much given up any sort of personal endeavors and is thankful to Quiet City for finally helping him achieve some of the glory everyone talked about back in little Miami. Sarah Hellman (Robin) Sarah Hellman was born in Pittsburgh. Quiet City is her acting debut. She currently lives in Minneapolis, MN where she is pursuing writing, photography, and painting. Joe Swanberg (Adam) Joe Swanberg studied film production at Southern Illinois University, where he developed an interest in emerging video technology and a crippling addiction to the Internet. His first film, Kissing on the Mouth (2005), is available on DVD from Heretic Films. His second film, LOL (2006), will be available on DVD soon from Benten Films. His most recent feature, Hannah Takes the Stairs (2007) will be distributed by IFC First Take, and he has another, Nights and Weekends (2007), in post-production. His web series, Young American Bodies, can be seen at Nervevideo.com. He lives and works and plays in his band, The Ice Cream Floats, in Chicago. Tucker Stone (Kyle) Tucker Stone is an actor in New York City who began his career in Atlanta, appearing alongside Halle Berry in the television mini-series Queen. He appeared in the Demi Moore produced Now & Then before moving to New York City where he has appeared in many stage productions with the Dirty Feet Theater Company, Johnny Theater, and at 2005 s New York Fringe Festival. His recent film work includes Vermillion, Film One, and the upcoming Goldberg Variations.

5 About the Filmmakers Aaron Katz (Writer, Director, Editor) Aaron Katz was born in rainy Portland, OR. In high school he became interested in film and acting. When he realized that he wasn t a very good actor he decided to go to film school at North Carolina School of the Arts. Immediately after graduation he and two of his college roommates drove a 1963 Chevy Nova from North Carolina to Portland in order to make Dance Party, USA, his first feature. Dance Party, USA premiered at SXSW Subsequently it played at several other festivals and had a critically praised run in New York. Quiet City is his second feature. Brendan McFadden (Producer) Born in Boise, Brendan moved to Pittsburgh at the age of three. As a child he often wrote stories and plays and liked to draw. He began pursuing filmmaking at the age of thirteen, enrolling in a class at the Pittsburgh Filmmakers. He acted in both high school productions and shows for Act One Theatre School. In 1998 he attended North Carolina School of the Arts, School of Filmmaking Summer Session. He later enrolled in college there, and graduated in the class of 2004 with a degree in filmmaking and a concentration in film directing. He produced both Quiet City and Katz s first feature Dance Party, USA. Ben Stambler (Producer) After attending North Carolina School of the Arts and earning his B.A. from Emerson College, Ben assisted in Acquisitions and Development at Samuel Goldwyn Films in Los Angeles, worked in documentary production at Two Tone Productions in New York and served as Manager of Acquisitions at Magnolia Pictures for 3 years where he was instrumental in acquiring The Signal, Exiled, Severance, Jesus Camp, The Host and Crazy Love. Currently Ben Stambler is the Director of Acquisitions at THINKFilm. The company's recent acquisitions include Taxi to The Dark Side, In The Shadow of The Moon, The Ten and The Walker. Andrew Reed (Director of Photography) Andrew Reed was raised in upstate New York, where school was sometimes called off because it was too damn cold. After a distinguished high school career of competitive running and practical academic study, he enrolled at Amherst College, a practical choice, and yet another bastion of interminably inclement weather. Two years later, however, he could be found wandering south to the calmer climes of NC, where he put his considerable lack of filmmaking experience to work on David Gordon Green s All the Real Girls. He has since served as director of photography, camera operator, gaffer, and you-name-it on a number of student, independent, and commercial projects. He is also the rare member of the Quiet City team to graduate from the North Carolina School of the Arts with an actual degree, despite what some bios might imply. Reed currently resides in Los Angeles, CA, where he sorely misses fall foliage, snow days, and all things Northeast. Keegan DeWitt (Original Music) Keegan DeWitt comes from a musical family that includes V2 Records stand-outs and Garageband success stories Roman Candle. He left his birthplace of Portland, OR at the ripe age of 17 and broke out to travel the world, finally settling in Brooklyn, NY. In the fall of last year, he traveled to Triple Cove Studios in North Carolina and in eleven days, quickly shaped his debut LP & The Sparrows. Upon hearing them, Chris Stamey (producer of Whiskeytown, Thad Cockrell, REM, and member of The Db s) volunteered to mix the tracks. Quickly, and emphatically, people began to step forward in support of the album and the artist.

6 Director s Statement In August of 2006 I was sitting in the Cincinnati airport on a layover. I was reflecting on how much trouble I was having with a script I had been trying to write for the previous three months. It had become a bigger and bigger mess the more I worked on it. At that point it was over 180 pages of disconnected characters and story threads. It was daunting to throw away three months of work, but I decided I to abandon that script and start from scratch. I purchased a blank notebook from the airport Borders, and began to write something new. I made some rules for myself. I wouldn't allow myself to write any less than ten pages at a time, I had to write every day, and I couldn't look back at what I had written until I came to what felt like an end. Over the next week and a half I stuck to these rules and wrote the first draft of Quiet City. After I made a few revisions I took the script to Brendan McFadden and Ben Stambler. They agreed to produce the film. Together we put together about $2000 and set about trying to figure out how to make it work with borrowed equipment and the help of a few friends. I knew as I was writing the script that I wanted to cast Erin Fisher, who I knew from college, as Jamie, the female lead. The rest of the casting decisions came later on. Everyone who ended up in the movie was a friend or a friend of a friend. Many of them, including Cris Lankenau, who plays Charlie, and Sarah Hellman, who plays Robin, had never acted before. I wanted to cast people from life who I thought had something interesting about them. I wanted to see what they would bring from their own personality. Two months later, with five crewmembers and eight days, we started shooting. We all stayed in an apartment in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Each day we made our way, via subway, to whatever location we were supposed to be shooting at. At the end of each day Brendan and I would adjust the schedule, call extras, call locations, pick up equipment, and do everything else that had to be done. One of the most important things to me was to show New York in a different way than it's usually seen. I wanted to show a side of New York that is still and beautiful. It's a New York that I see all the time in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, but that I rarely see in films. Another thing that was important to me was to create an environment where the actors felt at ease. I wanted them to feel that they could respond truthfully in each moment without fear of seeming silly or having to worry about their lines. What we did was use the script as a blueprint. Each scene in the film exists in the script, but the actors put everything into their own words. At first the actors were a little nervous, but soon after we started shooting they began to relax and really react to each other. Erin and Cris hadn't met each other prior to shooting. They ended up getting to know each other as the characters did. At the end of the week, on our last day, we started shooting around midnight and shot until 7pm the next day, when Erin had to go to the airport. As I, and some of the crew, rode with her in the taxi out to the airport we sat there dead tired. I was both relieved and saddened by the shoot being over. Quiet City was an intense and draining experience, but it felt like the cast and crew had become a sort of family. For me the film exists as both a record of our time together and as an exploration of the potential for connection in a city that's easy to get lost in.