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SYNOPSIS The Pain of the Macho is a short film about a Latin lover (starring Matias Stevens), struggling to find his true companion in life. After years of meaningless sex and one night stands, Macho finally finds the girl (starring Leilani Wyatt) of his dreams. Broken hearted he opens up to a stranger in the bar and tells the tale of how he met and lost the perfect girl in one day...
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To download a PRESS KIT for The Pain of the Macho in Word Document, please click on the link bellow. If you wish to have it emailed or posted to you in a different format i.e. PDF, please email us. View DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT here.
THE PAIN OF THE MACHO PRESS KIT - 2 MB - You can download high resolution stills from the film here, just follow the links bellow. The photos are in TIFF format and are each about 6MB in size.
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You can download behind the scenes stills here, just follow the links bellow. The photos are in JPEG format and are each between 1MB and 400KB in size.
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DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
(written after the production): The Pain of the Macho is a short film about a Latin lover, struggling to find love in the today’s society. Originally written and published as a 90 minute theatre play by Rick Najera, it was performed all over America starring the author himself. I had decided to adapt the original publication into a short film screenplay with the lead actor Matias Stevens, who introduced me to the text when he performed a scene from the original publication as part of his graduation performance at NIDA – National Institute of Dramatic Arts. We wanted to remain true to much of Rick’s humour, but at the same time, make the film punchier in its 5 minute duration and turn it towards the world (not just American) audience. This involved changing some of the dialogue, setting the scenes in different place as well as giving it a final punch line/twist. From the very start there was no question on who would play the lead role of the Macho, as I had believed that Matias Stevens was the perfect choice for it from the day I had first heard him read the part for his NIDA graduation performance. I also knew that I wanted to set the film in a posh bar, surrounded with blues music, with Macho wearing a tuxedo, giving it a somewhat of a “James Bond” look – which I felt would work great towards the end punch line – deceiving the audience further for a bigger reveal. I wanted to make this short film appear like a television commercial more then a drama, adding the ‘posh’ element to the set, costume design as well as the film’s cinematography. Our pallet was set right then and there, and the crew easily understood my sense of direction when “James Bond style” was mentioned. (Of course only certain scenes from certain JB films were quoted to the crew and cast) The James Bond look was also a reason why it was essential to set the restaurant and the luxury 22nd floor apartment bedroom scene in locations with the views of Brisbane city and Story Bridge in the background.
view from the 22nd floor balcony - 1st location for The Pain of the Macho The reality check in making of this film was that we had no budget for it – not only were we low on money, but the funds we had (private funds) were not even able to cover the basics of film processing yet alone anything else i.e. renting of the gear, locations, insurances, catering etc…
Pain of the Macho was shot on 35mm film with Lemac's AATON 35 III & Super Speed MK2 prime lenses kit. None the less, for the story to work we knew we had to shoot this film on 35mm film gauge in the ‘fancy’ (even if fake) locations mentioned above. From as early as 1st draft script stage, I knew I had many favours to ask from my colleagues and that we would have to move incredibly quickly, to fit the shots imagined in the impossibly tight shooting schedule. On the contrary to many advices given, I had decided that a small skeleton crew would be the best for the job, allowing us to move quickly and re-locate in matter of minutes rather the hours. Of course, that also meant that many of the crew would double up on positions and would work without ‘standard’ break times. As a director I feared that this tight schedule and limited shooting ratio would influence the acting itself, so the motto quickly became “rehearsal, rehearsal, rehearsal”. We filmed number of the performances with the DVCAM camera, even editing some of it to the music of Tom Waits, to see what our end result might be like. Going into the production, I had rehearsed the actors to a degree that I knew that they had become the characters I wanted them to be and could let them go on their own if need be (much like a theatre play). Of course, there was still a huge matter of blocking and pace to worry about on the day, but if the actors (in particular Matias Stevens) would decide to improvise a section of the script, I wouldn’t fear the limited 35mm film stock burning through the gates of the camera, as Matias had become Macho long ago, and whatever he was saying, were in fact the words of the lead character. I must admit, it was absolutely marvellous to see this type of performance unfold before me. As mentioned above, the pace and the blocking were still a major factor in pulling this film off, especially since I didn’t want it to exceed the 5 minute duration (including titles). I felt that the story had to be told quickly and clearly, as we were working towards one punch line - we could not allow ourselves to take too long with it, as we might loose the attention of the audience. Chopping some of the lines in the edit was easy, because we had structured the screenplay in a flash back mode, allowing us to interrupt the main monologue with the visuals of the flashback and vice versa. The film opens up in a posh bar, with three beautiful girls judging the lead character based on the stereotype that he portrays within his physical appearance – rather shallow thinking. For this reason I wanted this introducing to be B-grade, TV soap like – both in its performance and writing. Once the lead actor was introduced however, I wanted the film to become a serious drama (even tho it is comical), an emotional journey of the Macho, told in flashbacks. The flashbacks however did not require any special visual symbols to be understood as such, because the structure of the script and the dialogue were enough to guide the viewer through it. I wanted the shots from these flashbacks to be beautiful, each frame's composition to be designed carefully with as much detail in it as possible, to set a high production value for the film – even if our budget in reality did not reflect that. The post production of this short film followed the same principles of the production – many favours needed to be cashed in on and large amount of time needed to be invested into it. I had decided to edit the film before we had even shot it, and due to the limited budget, much of it was done in camera – more precisely, I cut some of the monologue on the day, without recording it onto the neg, knowing I won’t use it in the final cut. This enabled me to save a lot of money but it had reduced the amount of decisions being able to be made in the edit. The coverage was there, but not in the amount that an editor would appreciate. None the less this worked for the film, for I did not change my opinion on any of it between the pre-production and the post-production stage. The music was the key to the style of the film and as mentioned in the earlier paragraphs, we had rehearsed the script to the music of Tom Waits from the very start. Therefore, I was very set on the style and the mood the sound design had to achieve; it was just a matter of good producing in finding the right composer/performer with the music we required, on a none-existent budget. Once Pugsley Buzzard came on board of the project as a composer, we knew we hit the jackpot and the script was changed to suit the track that was chosen, to match the pace of the song as well as its duration. I wanted The Pain of the Macho to start and finish with this one track, much like a video clip really. Looking back on it now, a budget of any kind would have been an enormous help in making this film better (and easier) but just as well, I feel that a skeleton crew of 8 did as well as it could, in bringing The Pain of the Macho alive. Lav Bodnaruk (director/producer) |
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THANK
YOU
photographs by Michael Mier |
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Copyright |
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2007