By Kelly Strodl,
For today’s Filmmaker’s Five we hear from Michael Knowles, director of EAST FIFTH BLISS, the Opening Night film at the 2011 Newport Beach Film Festival. This dramedy follows 35 year-old Morris Bliss who is having trouble prying himself from the jaws of New York City inertia: he wants to travel, but has no money; he needs a job, but has no prospects; he still shares an apartment with his widowed father; and perhaps worst of all, the premature death of his mother still lingers and has left him emotionally walled up. When he finds himself wrapped up in an awkward relationship with the sexually precocious daughter of a former high school classmate, Morris quickly discovers his static life comically unraveling and opening up in ways that are long overdue.
Q: How did you hear about the Newport Beach Film Festival?
It was actually about eight or nine years ago I think. I acted in a film called Walking On the Sky that played there and every since I kind of new about the festival. I didn't attend at the time because I was living in NYC. But recently, Adam Gentry, from the Newport Beach Film Festival called me and asked about East Fifth Bliss and said that Newport would like to check out a screener of it to consider it for the festival this year and so I sent it to him and well... Here we are!
Q: Tell a little about the story of your film and the production of it.
That's a good story. At least how it all started, I enjoy telling. Douglas Light, the writer of the Novel, EAST FIFTH BLISS and I frequented Velvet Cigar Lounge in the East Village of NYC. We knew each other in passing and swapped a copy of his novel for a copy of my first movie, Room 314. I loved his novel and I think he enjoyed Room 314. At least I hope he did, but long story short, I asked him if he wanted to adapt his novel into a screenplay and he said sure. We wrote for about four months or so, smoking cigars and laughing and when it was all done I moved to LA to get some scripts into some hands and met John Will, who loved the script and started shopping it around to everybody and anybody we felt could be a good fit, production company wise. Everyone seemed to really dig the script and the story but no one was ready to pony up some cash with out a "name" actor so we created a nice little list of actors we felt would be a good fit and Michael C. Hall's name was on that list and it just so happened that I had edited a documentary called The Edge Of Things and the director Carolyn Corbett was friends with Michael. In fact Michael was an executive producer on the Edge Of Things. I made a call to Carolyn asking her to ask Michael to read the script and she said of course and I know he will love it and you guys will work great together. And she was right on both counts. Michael loved it and we had a great time making the movie.
It was a very interesting process after that to raise the money because it was at the time of the financial crises, like late 2008 so people weren't too eager to invest in an indie film. So I borrowed some money from my girlfriend and my business partner, John Ramos, threw down some cash to get the ball rolling. Soon afterwards we had raised enough to get us through principal photography so we were set to shoot in spring of 2009 but some scheduling conflicts caused us to push the film until Mid October of 2009 and then when we were 6 weeks away from our start date Michael Hall was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma and he needed to get treatments started right away. This was a very interesting twist because by this time we had raised all the money we needed to get us through shooting and post and we were pretty much all set with the rest of the cast but our lead, Michael C. Hall, was not going to be able to do the film and as you could imagine couldn't even think about doing it in the spring of 2010. My first thought was just push the film to the spring and do it then with Michael but as Michael said, he wasn't sure what kind of condition he would be in by the spring. At that time he wasn't sure if he would take to the treatments, if he would be doing four or six months etc, so we had a tough decision to make. Re-cast our lead or wait and see. For about two weeks we floundered and with the help of Michael's agent and manager we had some suitable replacements read the script but there didn't seem to be a clear fit emerging under the time restraints we had and to be honest the whole time this was going on I was thinking, I don't want to do this with anyone else. two weeks past and the time came for our whole pre-production team to start working full time on the movie or not and I made the call to push the film and roll the dice. As a lot of filmmakers know, lining up your ducks isn't an easy task. That was something Michael Actually said to me, something like, I totally understand if you re-cast it because getting all your ducks in a row isn't easy. And I remember saying to him, Yeah, but your our lead duck. So, to avoid getting all sentimental, I called Michael and just let him know I pushed the film, and would wait to see how things went with treatments and then go from there. We made plans to touch base right after the holidays, so January 2010 and see how it was going. And we did. We chatted on the phone at the beginning of January and he felt that the treatments were going well and he was handling them surprisingly well. He then said let's meet for breakfast tomorrow to talk about it. The next morning we met for breakfast and the first thing he said as he walked up to the table was "I want to do it." I remember being super excited. I knew Michael was the best guy to play Morris Bliss. From there everything pretty much fell into place and we started filming April 18th, 2010, which was one month from Michael's last treatment. He is a real trooper.
Q: Tell a little about yourself and your story in filmmaking.
Hm. Let's see. I started out acting, which I still enjoy but not nearly as much as I enjoy directing and writing. I did some day player roles on soaps and Law & Order SVU and did a pretty memorable role on Sex & the City as Marathon Man. My character hooked up with Cynthia Nixon's character and licks her ass and she gets freaked out when I try to get her to reciprocate. As I was studying acting I was also studying writing in NYC and I got good at it and wrote a lot. My first play, called Room 314, which I later turned into a movie, was such and amazing training ground for me as a writer/director. I learned quickly that it was super important to work at communicating clearly with each person individually, taking in account where they are, emotionally and mentally and possibly skill level wise and support and encourage them to move in the direction that was going to give them and the audience the best performance. I'm sure that being an actor myself gave me a little advantage since I could speak the actor language, so to speak. Ultimately I felt a need to start creating movies, so, as with pretty much everything I do, I just started doing it and learning as I went. My first short, Nick and Stacey, which was one of the stories from Room 314, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2005. Not bad for my first time out of the gate huh? I loved it. I shot the short with me, a camera with a shotgun mic and two actors in a hotel room. No extra lighting. I edited it myself, which I had been teaching myself slowly over the years on final cut pro. Learning how to edit and actually editing has helped me tremendously with writing, directing and shooting. After Nick and Stacey I shot the rest of the stories for Room 314 and made them into a feature film. A year later I wrote, directed and edited my second feature film, One Night, which starred Oscar Winner Melissa Leo among others and then I slowed down and took a little break before putting East Fifth Bliss together.
Q: Your take on the performances of the lead actors, (set backs, triumphs, impressions, good surprises, etc.)
Oh jeez. What can I say? Everyone and I mean everyone was amazing to work with. Everyone was so professional and prepared. I had such enjoyable conversations in rehearsals and during production with all of the actors. I think the one thing that was interesting was when we came to shoot the.... Oh I can't say that... it would be giving away too much. Peter Fonda is extremely funny in the movie, which was a little surprising because you probably wouldn't think of him as a comedic actor from the bulk of his work.
Q: What do you do when not making a smash indie film?
I just started training in martial arts again. I trained in my 20's for about 8 years and I have missed it every since I moved to NYC to persue acting. I train at Hollywood Soo Bahk Do in Hollywood now and I love being back. It is so centering. My training in martial arts in my 20's is a big reason I have been able to do what I am doing now. It helped me tap into a deep sense of confidence that is helpful because most people in hollywood ted to want to shake your confidence any chance they get.
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EAST FIFTH BLISS screens Thursday, April 28 at 7:30 PM at the Edwards Big Newport Theater. *SPECIAL NOTE: Actors Michael C. Hall, Peter Fonda, Brad William Henke and writer/director Michael Knowles along with many other crew members will be in attendance for the screening and a Q&A after the film.
Following the film will be the premier Opening Night Gala presented by Esquire Magazine, The outdoor reception at the Bloomingdales courtyard in Fashion Island will feature a specialty cuisine from more than 30 of Newport Beaches finest eateries, a bar hosted by Absolut, Stella Artois, and Perrier, plus a fashion show by top international designers produced by Fashion Island. Price: $125 Film and Gala/$80 Gala Only. Dress: Black Tie Optional. Age: 21+
To purchase tickets for either or both the film and the Opening Night Gala visit:
http://newportbeach.slated.com/2011/films/eastfifthbliss_michaelknowles_newportbeach2011
Watch the trailer for the film here:
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