I do want to mention that after you've thoroughly enjoyed the interview, you should head over to the site for the film at sexuallyfrank.com. Once there, click on "blog", scroll down a bit and then read the post entitled "Why Sexually Frank Exists". It's a little long, but do yourself a favor and check it out. If you're not motivated to go out and write or shoot a film after reading that, you're never going to be motivated enough to go out and write or shoot a film...
Anyhow, here's our interview with Frankie about his new film, "Sexually Frank".
Tell us about Sexually Frank.
Sexually Frank is a feature length ensemble indie comedy
about a group of friends with unique, sexually political issues they’re dealing
with. It features a gay couple that breaks up, but find how inept they are in
gay culture, a 24 year old virgin who’s going bald and worried about becoming a
“creepy” old man, a nurse who isn’t interested in marrying her first and only
boyfriend of ten years, and my character – a video sketch artist whose most
recent opus is a comedy sketch about a girl who takes a toe up her ass. The themes
of the plots cross and complement one another to make statements on the nooks
and crannies of sex and stigmas.
What have you been doing since A-Bo the Humonkey and I Need to Lose Ten Pounds?
I Need to Lose Ten Pounds was written when I was 14. It took six
years for me to muster the confidence, ability, and resources to complete that
movie. It was an experiment in proving that I could complete something. Some
people love that movie – I’m thankful for them, but that movie was a rite of
passage. A-Bo the Humonkey was an experiment in, “can I do it
again?” It was a more ambitious project, involving special effects,
prosthetics, big set pieces and elaborate location shooting, child actors, all
kinds of crap. It even had a little something to say somewhere amidst all the
cynicism and irony. I was totally delusional, in that I thought that film could
actually act as a calling card in Hollywood. So I moved to LA and quickly
confirmed that I don’t make movies for everyone. In fact, I don’t make movies
for most people. And I learned the most important thing – I make movies
because…I make movies. And that has nothing to do with money, success, or even
a shot at a budgeted, union production. I moved back to the east coast, got my
old crew of freaks together, and asked if they wanted to make another one –
except, let’s really not give a shit what anyone thinks
this time. Let’s shoot for a creatively liberated experience. At the time, I
was exploring how much sexuality informs someone’s identity, and having been
inspired by my friends, the media, Dan Savage, and “To Catch a Predator,” I
wrote Sexually Frank. I
took a job as a Systems Administrator at Emerson College, which, combined with
my nurse practitioner wife’s salary, would more than pay for our modestly
budgeted film. This one was going to be people talking, and not much else. Fuck
doing a Kickstarter or any of that crowd funding shit – that just perpetuates
the idea that you need permission or validation to make a film. Since I worked
at a film school, I was able to get an MFA for free – Sexually Frank acted as my thesis film, but only
as a matter of convenience.
What lessons did you learn from those films that
you’ve applied here?
Well the biggest would be the simple ability to make a
feature length piece for next to no money. When you’ve done this as many times
as I have, you start to really hone in on what corners can be cut and what
can’t be. I don’t remember who said it, but a filmmaker once said “A film can
just be an actor in focus” – point being, your performances are the most
important thing (yes, that’s arguable, but it’s fact in the case of Sexually Frank). In
documentary, if you can make a subject comfortable, you can get an honest,
compelling interview out of them. Actors are very similar – it all comes down
to comfort level, which was crucial in this film, because it needs to be as
honest as possible. And I learned from my last films that personal
relationships with the actors can be everything. So I cast my wife as “Jess”
and one of my closest friends, Keith Sadeck, as “Neil” (who was based on him in
the first place). They’re the most complimented performances in the film. We
have lots of trained actors in the film, and I’m proud of every performance in
that film – but when you don’t have a relationship, you’re more likely to
accept or go lax on your direction, so I tried to hold myself to a higher
standard and really beat on the actors when I didn’t get what I wanted. In the
past, I worried that I didn’t have the right to do that – to beat on my actors
I’m not paying them. But for most actors, the opposite is true – if they’re
doing this shit for free, they want to do it right, and since you’re the idiot
who wrote the lines and who’s standing behind the camera, they’re relying on
you to speak when something’s not working. I established wonderful (and what I
expect to be), long lasting relationships with the actors in this flick.
We were also able to improve our techniques,
mechanically. We shot 110 pages in 16 days – so we shot with two cinematographers
simultaneously, with two 7Ds. We shot non-sync sound so we weren’t bogged down
by cables or wires. We also knew to focus on shooting at the actors’ eye lines,
both for performance reasons and for the audience’s comfort (something we
failed at pretty hard in A-Bo).
I had never worked with the two cinematographers before – one was a freelance
videographer and the other was an interactive media developer. But we worked
together at Emerson, and like with actors, having a working relationship
informed the cinematography, and I think it’s by far my best looking film,
thanks to those guys.
What was the budget for Sexually Frank?
Depends who you ask. When you have a dual-income, no
kids (dinc) financial situation like my wife and I, a movie that has very few
production expenses, a crew who owns and operates all of their own equipment,
and software bought by your college, there’s really no reason to budget for the
film. You just kinda pay for shit as it comes up. So I’d say we spent about
three thousand dollars or so – that’s a guess, but that’s probably the amount
we wouldn’t have spent if we didn’t make a movie
(gas, food, hard drives). However, if we made the movie from scratch, and
bought every piece of equipment we ultimately used, and accounted for
everything (excluding salaries, I’m just talking about raw, necessary
expenses), it would have cost $17,000. That doesn’t include festival
submissions or DVD/Blu-ray dupes and mailers, which I’ve already spent a few
hundred dollars on. But you get the idea. Check out the blog post on expenses
at the Sexually Frank website to see the budget
breakdown.
What are your goals for the film and what’s your plan
to accomplish those goals?
I’m in the same boat as anyone who makes a movie like
this. I think there’s an audience at festivals for this, but only niche
festivals. I’m really leaning on the LGBT audience to come out for this movie –
so far, it’s been playing great for gay audiences, since the movie goes to
great lengths to naturalize gay men and their relationship to gay culture. So
I’m chiefly interested in just playing the film at various venues and seeing
where that takes me. If it doesn’t lead to distribution (which, I’m not holding
my breath, who buys DVDs anymore?), I’m going to explore online video-on-demand
and Netflix Watch Instantly. I’ve also built a DVD and Blu-ray that I’m happy
to self-distribute, both of which have commentaries, feature length
documentaries on the film, and the Blu-ray (which looks amazing) has over 9 hours
of special features. Contact me if you want one of those, they’re badass. But
yeah, I just want people to see it, and most of all, I want to talk to people
about it – I made it to say something, and I just want to have that
conversation.
Where can people find out more about Sexually Frank?
www.sexuallyfrank.com is obviously the aggregate for all Sexually Frank news, blogs, videos, info,
screenings, etc., and they can follow my ass (just the ass) on Twitter
@frankiefrain, or on Facebook (production still of me and my wife from the
movie). Subscribe to the website blog if you want to know when a screening is
coming up. On the Sexually Frank website, you can read an epic blog post called
“Why Sexually Frank Exists,” which is a touching look
at the events that lead to making this film, and how much it and the people
involved mean to me.
You can also see most of the special features from the
DVD/Blu-ray, including a feature length blooper reel. And as always, anyone can
feel free to e-mail me at JVCFelix@yahoo.com.
Any other projects in the works?
I just produced and co-directed a short film called Vibes, which we can talk a
little about a couple of months from now when that goes out to festivals. It’s
a script by Ingrid Stobbe about a group of girls who buy a vibrator for their
friend for her birthday. I’m also interested in developing my visual sense, which
I may work on in a short I want to direct titled The Talking Cure, a
psychological horror about a gay reparative therapist, and his work with a
homosexual Ugandan man. I’d also like to make a documentary about
cyber-bullying and social media amongst pre-teens. And of course, most people
know me from my animated lampoon of George Lucas, “Lord of the Rings by George
Lucas” and I’d like to get
back to satirizing directors and egotists in animated form. So I’m spinning a
bunch of plates right now.
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