The Bentfootes

Here’s a real rarity for the pages of this blog: notes from an actual film shoot.

The Bentfootes is a “mockumentary” about a fictional American family who, for the past 200 years, has toiled in the margins of American dance, all to no avail.  

Why to no avail?  Well, because each generation of Bentfootes, for one reason or another, just hasn’t gotten the breaks.  Sometimes it’s lack of talent, sometimes it’s being ahead of the times, sometimes it’s cruel twists of fate, sometimes it’s over-reaching.  And sometimes it’s because you get hit by a bus.

The Bentfootes was conceived as a dance piece by Kriota Willberg (Mrs. R. Sikoryak), and is now being expanded into a feature-length film, written and directed by yours truly (toddalcott), with a piece of animation by r_sikoryak and starring none other than James urbaniak, with a cameo appearance by Gary “gazblow” Schwartz.  It’s a regular Livejournal lovefest!

Mr. Urbaniak plays Jim Raritan, the “producer” of the movie you’re watching and the boyfriend of Susan Bentfoote, the “last Bentfoote,” whose tragic death is the catalyst for Jim to make a documentary about Susan and her family.  It’s a funny, bittersweet meditation on art, life, and what it takes to “make it” in American culture.

Today’s work consisted of: watching the music documentary Dig!, in order to remind ourselves just how patchy a movie can be technically and still get by on story and content, and watching a rehearsal of two of the dances to get some ideas for camera placement and how many different takes we’re going to have to do for each dance to cover all the action.

Our schedule is very tight and our budget is, well, nonexistent.  We’re shooting James’s days starting on Saturday, and the big crowd scenes where we need everybody in one spot at one time next Wednesday.  That is, unless James has to shoot an episode of “Kidnapped” that day, in which case I will simply blow my head off and not worry about the movie any more.

Wish us luck!

In projector news, the store I ordered the bulb from said that it would take a week for the new bulb to come in.  That was over two weeks ago, and now I’m in New York for two weeks shooting this movie.  So it will be quite some time before I am reunited with my beloved projector.  But I shall my hands quite fulll with this no-budget film shoot.