The following article appeared in Filmmaker Magazine in Spring 2009.
The Wonder of it All
By Shari Carpenter
It’s 4 o’clock in the morning and my d.p. turns to me and asks, “What’s next?” We’ve already been shooting almost 12 hours. We got a late start and the actors have been here since around noon the previous day. They will all need to be at their day jobs in five hours. They are exhausted and sweating under the china ball light. (You‘d never guess something that gives off such a soft glow would produce such intense heat). The male lead, legs hidden beneath the set’s tablecloth, has his pants off and is wearing only his boxers. My PA/boom person has dozed off in the corner, leaning on the boom pole.
I know I should call wrap. I should let these wonderful people who are busting their butts for me, for free, go home. But instead I say, “Let’s do the steadicam shot.” (“Just two takes,“ the d.p. assures us. But of course we end up doing four because we are striving for perfection.) And everyone rallies and we continue to shoot for another hour.
Hey, I’m an independent filmmaker and I’m on the set (a.k.a. my apartment) of “Eye Wonder,” the story of a preoccupied young man with a wandering eye, who is unexpectedly confronted with both the women in his life at a tarot card reading; it is my installment of The Wonder Project.
What do you get when you cross Mumblecore with elements of Dogme 95 and Paris, je t’aime? Perhaps something resembling The Wonder Project.
Born out of DnA (short for Directors n Actors)– a weekly directing workshop founded by Sarah Tuft – and the brainchild of New Canaan, Connecticut-based filmmaker Dutch Doscher, The Wonder Project is a feature-length film made up of ten shorts. What sets it apart from other collaborative features such as Paris je t’aime and its sister project, New York, I Love You, is the fact that each Wonder Project film is comprised of the exact same lines of dialogue. Read more »
The Wonder Project screens on Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010 at 8:40 pm. Location: Tribeca Film Center, 54 Varick Street at Canal. (A couple of shorts will screen before the film). Tickets are $20.