Jay Stern News

The Bardy Bunch

2011-07-04T11:57:00.001-07:00

I am thrilled to announce that I'll be directing the world premiere of The Bardy Bunch, Stephen Garvey's theatrical mash-up of "The Brady Bunch," "The Partridge Family," and the works of William Shakespeare. There will be singing, dancing, and buckets of blood. The play is part of the the 15th Annual Fringe NYC Festival and will be playing for five performances in August at the Ellen Stewart Theater. I'll post more info as we get closer to opening. For now, off to watch some Partridge Family episodes while reading Titus Andronicus!

For more info go thebardybunch.com.

Kickstarter campaign for "The Adventures of Paul and Marian"

2011-03-02T11:34:00.000-08:00

I am very excited to announce the Kickstarter campaign for my new feature film "The Adventures of Paul and Marian!" You can see and make your pledge at the link below. This is a super low budget project so every single dollar helps. Come join the revolution -- the independent film revolution, not the violent destructive kind!

Mighty Five - Check This Out!

2010-07-15T19:48:00.000-07:00

Here it is -- 15 months in the making, the sci fi funk spectravaganza: Mighty Five's "Check This Out!" This is my first music video, directed with Alan McIntyre Smith, who did all of the video compositing, and written with M. Sweeney Lawless. One of the most fun projects I've ever been part of.

Lincoln Center Directors Lab

2010-07-06T18:11:00.000-07:00

I had the chance to attend the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab again this summer and I couldn't turn it down. The experience is intense and exhausting, but a very rewarding opportunity to meet directors and theater artists from around the world. It's also a great place for sharing ideas and for a rigorous directing workout. This year I had the opportunity to work on a project; in a mere nine hours of rehearsal, I put together a 23-minute piece, including script, design, staging, and performance, with Veronica Wigg, a fellow lab director the lab director chose to work with me, our designer Craig Napoliello, and five highly skilled and experienced actors assigned to the project. I was far less horrified at the start of the lab this year, as is evident in this photograph. I'm in the light green t-shirt in the 5th row, not nearly as freaked-out looking as I was last year.

The Latvia Project

2010-06-21T14:55:00.000-07:00

I'm exploring a project at the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. It revolves around a family photograph taken in Latvia in 1905.

The photo was taken on Herman Friedlander's 19th birthday, right before he left for America. He never saw his family again.

The Latvia Project is an attempt to construct stories about what happened to the other nine people in the photograph through letters, family anecdotes, and archival research. There is no real way for us to get to know these people born two centuries ago, but through collaboration with five actors, a musician, a designer, and Russian-English director Veronica Wigg, we will try to incarnate these people who remain lost in the dark history of the 20th century.

Today, Veronica, our designer Craig Napoliello and I gathered in the large rehearsal room at the Lincoln Center Theater and laid out our primary documents on the floor. We went over some possible narratives to explore and also discussed a structure and ways to use the performance space. Tonight I'll be typing up potential text for the piece from primary sources, and during the week we'll hone our material and our approach. On Saturday we'll meet our actors and begin rehearsal.

The "Spirit Cabinet" Shoot - a feature in five days

2010-04-10T20:37:00.000-07:00

It has been a grueling few weeks, but we did something that is supposed to be impossible: we shot a feature film in five days.

Not just a little relationship movie or an improvised 3-person movie, but an actual feature-length ghost story with an an actual script, an ensemble of 8 actors, real production design, and special effects.

For those of you who are familiar with our work, you know we once shot a feature film in six days. But the main reason that film was possible to shoot in such a short amount of time is that we spent a huge amount of time preparing beforehand. The actors rehearsed on and off for nine months, and the director of photography and I spent time at the location in which we set up each shot and practiced shooting the movie with me standing in for the actors.

Back then, when we decided to shoot a movie in six days, we didn't know any better. Now we're more experienced and too smart to do something like that again. Or are we?

Here's how this project came about: Production designer Robert Eggers told me about a location he had access to, and thought we could shoot a nice creepy movie there. We visited the location, and M. Sweeney Lawless wrote a script around it, also tailored to the skills of a group of actors we work with. The constellations aligned when the cast and crew became available for a few weekends in March and April. We couldn't not take advantage of all of this talent, this interesting location, and this strong script.

We didn't have funding for this project, but we had huge production values with our cast and creative team. We went non-union, and relied on everyone taking deferred salaries in order to get the movie shot. Even with deferred salaries, we couldn't afford more than five shooting days.

Unlike The Changeling, our six-day feature, we didn't have the luxury of rehearsing our cast or trying out our shots at the location before the shoot. Also, unlike The Changeling, a large section of this movie involves scenes with eight people, which, if you've never tried, is a staggeringly difficult thing to shoot so that you can understand what's going on and still have nice-looking shots.

But we went forward, a little frightened by the task ahead of us, but undaunted. I knew in my gut that we could make this work, although to be honest, I had no idea how we'd actually be able to pull it off.

Here's why we were able to pull it off:

M. Sweeney Lawless, our screenwriter and producer, is a supreme organizer and tirelessly focused on details. She worked night and day to prepare for the shoot, and did about seven jobs on set at the same time, without missing a beat.

Our line producer Lin Sorensen spent countless hours planning and finalizing all the necessary details to get the set up and running. He also was the pleasant face of the production fearlessly venturing out into the neighborhood and getting people to turn their music down when we were shooting. No small task in NYC!

Alan McIntrye Smith is the fastest cinematographer I've ever seen on set. He is both an amazing lighter and intuitive camera operator. We shot the entire movie handheld to save time and to be able to cover the action, and Alan always knew where he should be. Since Alan is also a director, he was able to understand the rhythm and subtleties of the acting and shoot accordingly. Alan was on his feet all day every day, so the shoot was physically demanding for him, but he worked quickly and kept his focus. He also brings his own camera team made up of his colleagues and students, and they are all excellent.

Eric Berkal, AD extraordinare, kept a firm hand on the set and kept us moving, helping us schedule 17-22 pages of shooting a day, in spite of his better judgment (normal movies shoot 3-4 pages / day).

Robert Eggers, our production designer, came up with a simple concept for the set which was quick to set up and played to our strengths. And once the house was dressed it could pretty much stay dressed.

After a day on the set when it sunk in to the cast and crew just what they were going to have to do (shoot 20 pages /day; learn lines without ever having heard their acting partners say them; rehearse and shoot at the same time; break scenes down into small chunks which don't make sense out of context), they stepped up their game big time for the rest of the shoot. Without their focus and commitment we would have never completed the shoot in 5 days.

Between shooting days, M. Sweeney Lawless rewrote as necessary to combine scenes and otherwise streamline the rest of the shooting process. All this while working on other projects and going to work during the week, as we all were doing.

Why would this team of people go through this grueling experience without getting paid huge buckets of money? This is where I come in. I have been fortunate to assemble a great team of people together in my many years working in theater and film. And for some reason they trust me. Also, they really enjoy the chance to work together. Plus, M. Sweeney Lawless wrote a script that was both funny and scary with great moments for each character, and gave a chance for each department to do some interesting work. And that doesn't come up very often for actors and technicians on paid jobs.

So we leaped at the chance to do this together. The support team and their effort was herculean, but expected. No one for a second doubted that we would do this (at least not out loud).

The result? Sure you can shoot enough material in five days. You can technically do it in one (see earlier post). But shoot good-looking, compelling material that makes a movie as strong and compelling as if it had an actual shooting schedule? You all can be the judge of that when we're done with post production. But I'll close by saying that the performances were of a very high caliber, and Alan McIntyre Smith can light scenes with just a candle or natural light from a window and make them look as good as any Hollywood production and Robert Eggers and Polina Roytman (our costume designer) can define mood, style, and character with very few resources. On top of this the script was compelling, and better than many many other larger budget projects. I only hope that the work I did as director did justice to everyone's commitment and skill level. Stills from our shoot are below. Actors, in alphabetical order: Marian Brock, Paul Herbig, Joseph Franchini, Marina Franklin, Mary Micari, Jun Naito, Mickey Ryan, Mina Sands.

The Spirit Cabinet

2010-03-08T13:29:00.000-08:00

I've been working on a project, a little secretly, over the past several months.

It's a ghost story, written by M. Sweeney Lawless. It takes place over the course of one night in an old house.

We will be filming this movie over the course of two weekends this month.

And it's a feature.

A feature shot in four days? Who would do such a thing? Unfortunately we can't afford to shoot longer than that; this is a totally no-budget project, and everyone is donating their time to make it happen. We have the perfect convergence of an amazing cast and crew that are available this month and a script tailored to fit them all. So, as stupid as shooting a feature film in four days sounds, we'd be stupid not to do it.

Watch this space for more updates. We start shooting this weekend. I am 50% excited and 50% horrified. Which is a step up, since for my first feature I was 100% horrified.

The Adventures of Paul and Marian!

2010-01-04T11:42:00.001-08:00

I am thrilled to announce my new feature film, "The Adventures of Paul and Marian."

"The Adventures of Paul and Marian" is a romantic comedy. And a faced-paced romp to be shot in front of a green screen. And a musical.

This is an ultra-low budget movie different from many of the other low-budget movies out there. It's a fun, smart comedy that reminds us about what we love about movies. It will be an amazing, highly enjoyable 84 minutes of your time. Once it's made.

We're currently raising funding for this project. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! More info can be found on www.adventuresofpaulandmarian.com, where I'll also be posting a production diary documenting the process of making the movie.

We plan to shoot in November, 2010.

Shoot a feature film in one day? Why not?

2009-11-22T07:27:00.000-08:00

We successfully got a feature film in the can yesterday.

An entire feature. Shot in one day.

Because of the time constraints it obviously had to be a simple project -- three actors and one location.

But to complicate things, we didn't have a script written going into it. I developed a basic story and characters beforehand with the actors (Marian Brock, Paul Herbig and Mickey Ryan) and the cinematographer (Alan McIntyre Smith). Dialogue was improvised, and we shot the movie in sequence so we could write as we went, stopping before each scene or sequence to figure out what needed to happen next.

We shot at Alan's apartment.

Alan had another self-imposed challenge: he wanted to go the entire day without using a single light. This led him to make some interesting decisions. For example, for the last scene, the sun had set, so in order to illuminate the location enough that we could see the actors' faces, Alan decided to light about 25 candles and use a slow shutter speed on the camera. This gave this scene, our only handheld shot in the movie, a completely magical quality that worked perfectly with the subject matter.

Obviously an entirely improvised movie will be a challenge to edit. And while we have enough footage to make a full feature-length film, I may find that it is better in a 30-40 minute version. We'll see once I start cutting.

I will say that I was really impressed by the willingness of the actors and cinematographer to really throw themselves into such a crazy idea. The actors especially were fearless in putting themselves on the line and making fully committed choices. They really gave up their egos to the service of the project, which is a really rare quality in an actor, even actors as talented and experienced as these.

We had a pretty short day to get everything done. Two of the actors had a job last night and we wanted to complete the shoot before Alan's fiancée came home from work. So we spent 11 hours, from 7am to 6pm, including lunch, to shoot.

Alan and I have a long working relationship, and I've also worked regularly with Mickey and have known Paul and Marian for several years. This was a major element which helped make it possible for us to pull this together in such a short time. Not to mention that my four collaborators are really amazing at what they do.

Stills are below.

Lincoln Center Directors Lab

2009-08-15T08:22:00.000-07:00

I just finished three life-changing weeks at the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. 64 theater directors from around the world gathered to share our experiences and to work together in the basement of Lincoln Center. I met some really fantastic people and made many new friends and future collaborators. I'm still digesting the experience but I'm sure it will affect my creative work and career in an untold number of ways. Here's a picture of us on the first day. I'm the really nervous and intimidated-looking guy in the bottom left of the frame.

Iron Mule at MASS MoCA

2009-08-15T08:15:00.000-07:00

Our film festival was invited to screen at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) in North Adams, Massachusetts. We had an amazing time. The museum is really incredible and the space is fantastic. We screened on a huge screen in an outside courtyard. The photos below are courtesy of photographer Craig A. Swinson.

Mighty Five Music Video shoot

2009-06-04T07:32:00.001-07:00

I just finished shooting a music video for the band Mighty Five, a project I'm making in collaboration with Alan McIntyre Smith and M. Sweeney Lawless. It's a green screen video that takes place in Outer Space so it's going to take a while to finish post production. Watch this space for updates.

THE AWKWARD COMEDY SHOW PREMIERE

2009-06-03T20:36:00.001-07:00

On Saturday we celebrated the World Premiere screening of a movie I produced: The Awkward Comedy Show, a comedy concert documentary featuring five alternative African-American comedians. Look for it on TV in 2010 (more on that soon)! www.awkwardcomedy.com.

First Sundays Screenings in Tallin, Estonia

2008-09-30T15:16:00.000-07:00

First Sundays has been invited to screen an evening of short comedy films at the Non Grata Art Container in a former Soviet military installation in Tallin, Estonia. Victor Varnado and I are traveling there tomorrow (October 1st) and will be presenting films on October 3rd, running a low-budget filmmaking workshop on October 4th, and writing and directing a short film starring a member of our audience to be premiered on October 5th. This is First Sundays' European premiere, and our first screening outside of New York City. We're really looking forward to the trip and seeing the other work at the festival. You can find more info here.

The Awkward Comedy Show Shoots September 23rd

2008-09-18T13:10:00.001-07:00

I am producing a feature with Victor Varnado called The Awkward Comedy Show. The film showcases four African-American comics who don't fit into the typical mold of what is marketed as "black" comedy. We'll be taping these four nerdy comics as they perform in front of a live audience on September 23rd. There are two shows, one at 6:00 and one at 8:30. You can make reservations via the movie's website.

I am exceptionally proud of this project and the message of empowerment it makes for smart, funny comedians everywhere who don't fit into an easily marketed category.

The film also includes interviews and animation by NYC cartoonists. We hope to have a festival run and sell the finished project to television and on DVD. Watch this space for updates.

Incredible Voyage to Another Dimension at Dragon*Con

2008-08-04T11:23:00.001-07:00

Incredible Voyage to Another Dimension, a short film I made with M. Sweeney Lawless and Kevin Maher has been accepted to the 2008 Dragon*Con Film Festival in Atlanta! Dragon*Con is a pretty amazing sci-fi / fantasy convention which I attended last year to screen our movie The Ring of Ultimate Power. It's a real honor to be asked back, although I won't be able to attend this year.

For those of you who would like to see our film, you can watch it here.

Two Videos by Jay and Meg on Undergroundfilm.com

2008-05-26T08:45:00.000-07:00

The folks at undergroundfilm.com asked us if they could post two of our shorts on their website. We said "sure!"

You can check them out here:

Portrait of the Artist at 16
Incredible Voyage to Another Dimension

Make sure to watch them and rate them!

"You Make the Call" is playing in Denver

2008-05-24T05:58:00.000-07:00

Apparently You Make the Call, a short movie I made with Kevin Maher, is playing this weekend at the brainboxCREATIVE 5 min film fest in Denver, Colorado. I am so pleased whenever a film of mine plays somewhere and I have no idea how it got there!

Jocasta at New Filmmakers

2008-04-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

I am thrilled to announce that a movie I worked on as associate producer and post-production supervisor was accepted into the New Filmmakers' summer screening here in NYC. You can see the entire lineup here.

The film is Elise Kermani's experimental feature film Jocasta, an adaptation of Euripides' Phoenician Women. This screening will mark Jocasta's New York premiere.

For those of you who can't wait, you can purchase a DVD on Amazon.com.

Roboto Supremo

2008-04-10T13:20:00.000-07:00

I'm producing Victor Varnado's latest project-- "Roboto Supremo," a sci-fi comedy with lots of special effects and comic book and anime-inspired fun! You can see an early version of the project here. We're in preproduction now and plan to shoot in mid-June. Stay tuned for updates!

Jay and Victor interview online!

2008-04-02T19:07:00.000-07:00

Victor Varnado and I had a video interview with the folks from the New Roots Project to promote First Sundays' 6th anniversary show coming up on April 6th. You can see the interview here.

RING OF ULTIMATE POWER at DRAGON*CON

2007-08-20T20:03:00.000-07:00

Jay's latest short film, "The Ring of Ultimate Power," written by M. Sweeney Lawless, with camerawork by Alan McIntyre Smith is having its world premiere at the prestigious Dragon*Con Film Festival in Atlanta on August 31st!