On set for DSAM.

Written by Matthew S. Robinson “Death Suspects a Murder” or DSAM for short is a feature length film that the Pepperdine Film Society, my friends and myself are currently working on. DSAM is a neo noir murder mystery surrounding a string of murders taking place at the secluded Chaplin Christian College. Believed to be the work of a serial killer two LAPD detectives and a top level campus safety official must work to find the killer before s/he strikes again. That is just a little background on the film, the main purpose of this post is to blog about the ongoing production of DSAM. This will log my personal efforts and the work of others throughout the roughly 3 month production schedule of “Death Suspects a Murder”. As the writer of the movie and as one of the producers I will stick to mostly talking about what I know. Hopefully within the next few days both the director Jenn Marlis and the Director of Photography Robby DeVillez will join in blogging about their experiences on set. One thing I should make clear: My blog posts will feature NO SPOILERS! I wouldn’t want people to stop reading because they felt I would divulge too much information and I wouldn’t want too many people reading thinking this will spill major secrets. But enough formalities let’s talk DSAM.

On Friday November 18th I was a mess. I was running on just over an hour of sleep, I had work, school, a premiere for a sketch comedy show I work on (“The Randumb Show”), more work and the very next day the first day of shooting for DSAM. Talk about stress headache, it was a wild day and I just wanted to take a breath and sit down, but that was a luxury I could not afford: there was work to be done. DSAM had been in pre-production since basically May and it was now coming down to this. I still remember when Jenn and I had been talking about making a feature length film from the very start we were on the same page with all the major factors. The first being that we wanted to make something that wasn’t a comedy. The reason that is important is because this film was to be a Pepperdine Film Society production and Pepperdine in recent years has a reputation for most films being comedic in nature. There are of course certain exceptions like the beautiful “Eleven Eleven” but in a general sense it’s about the humor not the drama. And even “Eleven Eleven” is something I’d consider somewhat of a dramedy. So I was very happy to hear that we’d be going for more serious subject material than usual.

Andy Bowland (left) and Karl Andrew

There were a few minor things Jenn and I had early differences on. I for example wanted the lead detective to be female or perhaps a male lead detective and female rookie cop for his partner. Jenn wanted two male detectives for the leads and honestly now it’s hard to imagine the same script with different genders for the characters. Everything seems to fit. Robby DeVillez a fellow Randumb Show producer quickly joined onto the project as well. Robby is a craftsman when it comes to cinematography and also has a keen sense of story and acting performances. I felt he was the obvious choice for the film’s director of photography and as a producer. Robby also contributed several key elements into the story including fashioning the killer and certain character motivations. It’s hard to find a director of photography you can truly trust. I’ve directed several short films and even one feature and I find that DPs can sometimes ruin the on set atmosphere. Directors, actors and DPs are by nature at risk for being the biggest divas on set. Maybe it’s a stereotype but you just don’t hear much about the audio master or key grip going on these huge rants/meltdowns on set. Maybe in private but rarely while shooting. So it was important to have a DP I could trust with the script I was writing and with the director. Jenn pretty much right away wanted to direct DSAM, after all it was her concept so it seemed right to have her at the helm. As a producer I have no problem stating that I feel everyone on crew is the right person for the job. The point being that a director and a DP have to work well together, and the DP can’t take over the project from the director and vice versa. DPs find the right shot, they create the image we see as an audience onscreen. The director makes sure the image is worth seeing. DPs can have huge egos at this level of filmmaking, and it’s hard for them not to. To compete at the Indy level you need good camerawork and a DP can supply that. A DP (and I write this with some hesitation) is somewhat indispensable once they have gotten on the project. All DPs have a certain distinct style and or signature. It’s nearly impossible to mimic so once you have your cinematographer you are pretty much stuck with him/her. Sure you can fire the DP and find a new one but that almost always means re shooting everything for consistency purposes. What makes Robby a great DP is his willingness to be a role player, focus on the task at hand and not let his ego get in the way on making a good scene come to life. It also helps that he’s probably one of the best cinematographers I know and a personal friend. Him being easy to work with is almost a bonus.

Michael Montgomery, unsung hero of an outside shoot.

After the story was plotted out I began work on the script, it took me about 4 days to finish the 90 page script. I was on fire during those few days writing the final 60 pages within one rainy day in Cincinnati. Once the script was fine tuned in August we started looking for more crew members. Most people selected were Pepperdine Film Society members or were made members by their participation. The first additional producer brought onto the project was Michael Montgomery, having worked with him on “The Randumb Show” I know he’s a hard worker and I also value his opinion. Plus Montgomery is one of the few people I know who actually likes doing audio work on sets. And boy did we need audio on our first shoot, but I’ll get to that in a moment. Other producers were added throughout the course of pre production: Matthew Ontiveros who has shown a real passion for the craft and Whitney Coleman who also doubles as the productions’ stunt coordinator. For music the talented Houston Fry who works under Academy award winning composer Hans Zimmer also signed onto the project. Fry is just a joy to work with in every way. For any aspiring film maker you will learn that musicians and composers can be often difficult to deal with, luckily for me most of my recent experiences with composers have been positive. Fry is such a hard worker and his music sounds beautiful, I cannot wait for the complete soundtrack to finished. I’ll probably listen to it on my ipod for the rest of my life, and that’s the honest truth. Several other people joined the team but I’ll mention them at the appropriate times.

Casting was very important, this was actually the first time in my life I had proper auditions for movie roles. Up until this point I generally cast whoever I knew was available and fit the part to some degree in my mind. Now there were actual tryouts and it was a nerve wrecking but ultimately fun experience. Jenn Marlis and Robby DeVillez also led up the audition process. There were several occasions where I was alone with Robby or Jenn during the casting stage and it was interesting to hear their thoughts on each performer. Robby is very curt with his critiques, he rarely dances around what he really wants to say. Sometimes he even tosses diplomacy to the side for honesty, it’s a good trait to have when you are selecting actors. Especially actors that you know on a personal level. This made casting difficult, you have to eventually say “no” to someone you like perhaps even admire and not necessarily because they are bad actors, just not right for the part. But in the end everyone we chose for the characters I felt good about. There isn’t one link in the cast in my opinion and they truly seem to have a command over their performances.

Robby uses me as a human tripod for a tricky shot.

So on Friday I’m sitting there at 10.30 at night with Robby and Jenn mulling over the first scene we will shoot, one of the first scenes of the movie. Without spoiling anything of importance it is the crime scene that is the starting point of the film’s plot. The detectives Chris Michaels and James Summers meet with head of campus security Rachel York and police photographer Jerry (we never gave the character of Jerry a last name feel free to make one up for him) as they try and piece together what happened to the murder victim. I personally wanted this to be one of the first scenes we shot because it sets the mood of the movie so well, it gives the actors and the crew some perspective. I feel in retrospect that it worked and that people have an idea of the movie’s tone. Still it was not an easy shoot, as I said it was 10:30pm and the next morning at 5:45am the crew had to report on set.

Some might say that having such an crack of dawn type shoot so early on in the production might hurt morale but I think the opposite is true. Try and do one of your most demanding sets first, that way your actors when they will probably be at the peak of freshness with the project will be motivated and afterwards any other shoot you do will seem like comparative child’s play. How many crew members or actors are truly going to complain about a 10am call time after a 6am one?

I left Jenn and Robby after discussing the scene a bit around 11:30pm I needed my sleep and I had to be there before anyone else making sure all the equipment was ready, thankfully the resourceful and very helpful Jessica White was there to help me with her big truck. Jessica is playing the role of a college student named Joanna Jordan in the film and was not in this scene but she came to help anyway as our make up woman, and even helped control the set by making sure foot and car traffic disrupted the set as few times as possible. She even got a tour to postpone viewing our area until we were done shooting. Something tells me Jessica could sell snow to an Eskimo if she wanted to. Everyone starts to show up and I learn that Robby and Jenn didn’t even go to sleep until 3am, I did not envy their positions at all. It was at that moment I was very happy to be a producer and not a director.

(clockwise) Jessica White admires her make up job on Samantha Smith while Jamye Grant, Mitchell Snow and myself joke around.

We had one problem that set us back when we started setting up the scene: the parking spaces. See I had reserved 3 parking spaces by the set because in the film the two detectives step out and then get back into their car. We needed those spots and despite campus safety clearly placing signs in front of the spots saying they were reserved for the film society some jerks still parked there. Thankfully the matter was resolved rather quickly but it still put us about an hour behind schedule. Which was fine as it allowed Whitney and Matthew to run and grab the coffee and food for the actors. Which they didn’t even get to eat until midway through the shoot. Oh well I suppose, next time they’ll have piping hot coffee not just the luke warm stuff.

The shoot went very well, Jessie Jolliff and Genevieve Smith were our set design team and worked hard to erase all tire marks and footprints on the muddy set for consistency reasons. You should have seen them go, they had a bucket, a push broom, a rake and they made miracles with them. I had to double as the assistant director/script supervisor on this particular shoot as our AD was already scheduled in advance to be out of town for this week, it wasn’t a big deal I had fun and I think I would have been bored just sitting around watching things happen. Though in a weird sense I’m looking forward to a shooting day where I get to do more of that. But of course that won’t happen I am naturally too concerned with every detail of the project to get lazy like that.

Producer Matthew Ontiveros

The actors all did a great job on set, I don’t want to mess with their game by making any comments too particular so I’ll just make a blanket statement and say they all acted with sincerity and really brought the characters to life. Two things I will say Mitchell Snow was directed brilliantly by Marlis to portray a sense of near fanboy nerdom towards Karl Andrews who plays Chris Michaels something when I wrote the script was not in mind, but it was such a good acting note that made an impactful difference in the character I much enjoyed. Poor Sam Smith had to lay on the cold ground on a 54 degree morning with a wind chill, it wasn’t like her clothes were very warming either. On top of that she had to deal with your literal garden variety of insects crawling around her and even a bee managed to pass away inside one of her shoes. Jessica did a fantastic job with her makeup, she truly looked dead and it’s harder than it sounds to play dead. The detectives especially when looking back at the dailies look like detectives and that is so important they blend so well together, Robby’s use of a color scheme makes a beautiful effect and he did it all while fighting the sun and with the help of Whitney compensated for the near constant lighting changes.

The only real major problem we kept running into was planes. I had gone out to this location the week before and written down all the times a plane would fly over. I figured it would be the same the next week give or take but I didn’t take into account that it was now the weekend leading into thanksgiving week or that when I first recorded the times it was on a particularly rainy day. Montgomery did his best but I know as one of the editors of this project I’m in for a real nightmare in the editing booth.

In the end everything worked out, we ended about an hour behind schedule, but since we didn’t get started until an hour behind schedule I’d almost consider it a wash, plus it was the 1st shoot things will get better and faster as time goes along and most of the shoots will be indoors which allows better control over the invariables. This is the A-team of Pepperdine, I am so excited to be working with all of them and I think DSAM will be a movie all of us will be proud of when complete. Stay tuned to this blog for further updates on production in the meantime you can see more pictures on the official facebook page of “Death Suspects a Murder”

November 21, 2011
Categories: Commentary, Company News, Movie News, Red Flag Movies . Tags: andy bowland, blog, campus safety, chaplin christian college, death suspects a murder, detectives, dsam, feature length, genevive smith, houston fry, jamye grant, jenn marlis, jessica white, jessie jolliff, just marvelous entertainment, karl andrew, lapd, matthew ontiveros, matthew s. robinson, michael montgomery, mitchell snow, murder, mystery, neo noir, notes, pepperdine film society, pepperdine university, production, red flag movie productions, rfmp, robby devillez, samantha smith, set design, whitney coleman . Author: iconmatthew1 . Comments: Leave a Comment