Archive for category: Actor Promo/Interviews

It feels a little bit like a dream that I never knew I had has come true!

Suicide Kale, which I have only mentioned here before briefly, is a feature film that me and my friends made a couple of years ago, and as of this week it is now available for rent on both Amazon and Vimeo!

To celebrate this huge milestone, I wanted to share a little backstory with you about how the film came to be.

After recently moving to Los Angeles and having very few close friends in our new city, Claire (my wife) started following Brittani Nichols on twitter. Claire said to me, “Honey, you should follow this girl, she is so funny.” I said “OK.”
And I started following Brittani.
She was so funny.
She is also a QWOC, so she was like, RELATABLE TO MY INTERESTS. I said to Claire, “I wish we could hang out with her.” Claire replied, “why don’t you send her a DM?”

And I was like

But I did it anyways, because what did I have to lose? The only thing worse than not having Brittani Nichols as a friend was following her twitter account and liking her posts all the time in quiet desperation. And I was already doing that.

I sent her a message basically saying “Hi, I’m new here”, and she graciously agreed to meet up with me and Claire at a hotspot in Silverlake that served frozen popsicle Micheladas (#blessed). The deal was sealed and within a couple of months, Brittani had introduced us to her whole group of friends in LA that included loads of smart, talented, and very funny women. As we all started hanging out and getting to know each other better, we created a safe space amongst ourselves, complaining about the industry jobs we worked on (always rooted in patriarchal BS) and discussing what would make them better (dealing with less patriarchal BS). We joked about what a dream it would be to all get together and make something fun for ourselves, but I never actually thought it would happen, because Hollywood doesn’t normally work that way, not unless you’re in a room with (rich, usually white) men that you’re trying to vet. But then, a couple of summers ago, Brittani sent out a group email insisting that we should “just MAKE something already.”

San Francisco. June 18th at 3:45pm. Frameline Film Festival. Stoked. #suicidekale

A post shared by Nichols & Dimes Entertainment (@suicidekale) on May 24, 2016 at 10:21am PDT

She had a script- it was bare, but it had a solid plot. She thought the scene meat (ew) could be filled in with improvising from the actors, and she had someone in mind for most of the roles. She wanted to know if we could film it at my house so that we could save on location costs since there wasn’t enough money in the budget. Because there was no budget. I had never before been trycurious about producing a film, but I couldn’t say no- I was in capable company and I knew that if ever I was going to push myself out of my comfort zone, these were the people to do it with. After a couple of false starts where Director Extraordinaire™ suddenly had to fly to Iceland for work and Brianna the Babe™ booked a big gig, we finally found some days in August that stayed available for all of us, and filming began.

Carly, our loveable magician-slash-director, her wife, Robin, our blonde bombshell DoP, and Brittani paid the minimal upfront costs for things like iPhone lav mics, camera equipment rental and craft services. The actors provided our own wardrobe and I wore a favorite dress of mine made the previous year from one of Gertie’s books. I supplied Rosie the dog, the lunch meal prepared in one of the scenes, and props from around my house. Lindsey made sure our spiritual needs were accounted for and kept us on our toes by forgetting to wear her necklace in certain scenes. Briana was late every day because she never knew what the actual call time was and no one wanted to be the one to tell her. Unsurprisingly, I had the time of my life. Our cast and crew was comprised completely of women, mostly queer (jury is still out on Rosie’s sexuality), all adept at their jobs and interested in a full collaboration with one another. Five days and several Zankou lunches later, we had completed our first feature film, and we could not have felt more proud of what we had accomplished.

#suicidekale

A post shared by Nichols & Dimes Entertainment (@suicidekale) on Dec 16, 2015 at 2:35am PST

Our goal from the start was simply to conceive of and implement an original project, from start to finish, with our own knowledge and resources. But once Carly took on the arduous task of editing our film and she and Brittani came to the realization that it might be good enough to…gulp…screen it for actual people, our goals began to change. Submitting to a festival seemed like a bit of a stretch. Being accepted by a festival even more so. And winning a film festival, let alone several?? Practically unfathomable! But that has been exactly the trajectory for Suicide Kale, the little film that could. With a grand total of $4000, most of which was directed towards post production costs like color correction and sound mixing, a group of friends got together and made a film that has become an important addition to the world of queer indie cinema. Our film features WoC in the leading roles, prominent queer relationships, and a cute pit bull; it represents us because it looks and feels like our lives.

We are so excited for all the wonderful festivals the world over that have welcomed our film with open arms, and thankful to Frameline for distributing Suicide Kale to make it available to viewers everywhere. You can keep up with news about Suicide Kale at www.suicidekale.com: where the film will be screening next, what VOD platforms we will be available on, lots of great clips, and reviews, and of course, what will be coming up next for the Suicide Kale production team. If you have a chance to watch our film and like it, feel free to leave us a review and tell your friends about it! The more this film gets shared with audiences, the better chance we have of creating even better cinema in the future…think healthy thoughts 😉