 |
Prost Amerika Speaks to Richard Gunn, Tim Youd and Jason Freeland of "Garden Party"
"Garden Party" is a new film set to launch in July revolving around the tangled lives of Los Angeles folk. Many are living their dream. Others are searching for it. "Garden Party" screened at the Seattle International Film Festival where Prost Amerika sat down with Director Jason Freeland, Producer Tim Youd and actor Richard Gunn to talk about "Garden Party". It is Freeland's and Youd's first feature film since "Brown's Requiem" in 2000.
Cast of GARDEN PARTY, left to right
Erik Scott Smith, Willa Holland,
Alex Cendese, Vinessa Shaw,
and Richard Gunn
ALL: Thank you. It's nice to be here.
PA: Eight years guys, what’s been happening?
Tim: We’ve been working. Brown’s Requiem was critically acclaimed, we did get distribution. But the movie industry is a funny business. Between Brown’s Requiem and now, the internet happened and that kept us busy. We eventually decided if we’re going to make it happen, we’re going to have to do it ourselves. So we really just boot-strapped it.
Jason: We optioned a couple of novels and did an adaptation of a novel. Just couldn’t pull it together. We just said lets make a really low budget move - there were no trailers
Richard: But it was a professionally run production. There wasn’t really any place to run off to and I wasn’t working anyway!
Jason: We shot in Tim’s garage, my house, my car, Tim’s mother-in-law’s house.
Tim: I’m in the scene towards the end where the 2 art gallerists meet with Todd, the other is Joe Middleton, our casting director. I actually painted the picture myself because I am a painter.
PA: You know someone will read this and enter that on the goofy fun trivia facts section of IMDB.com? The film is about life in Los Angeles. Is it true to say it’s about LA but not for LA?
Richard: I think that’s true to an extent but there’s a lot of people there might appreciate it.
Jason: If you think of a movie like Sunset Boulevard, you’d say that was for LA but Garden party is not for LA as in it’s not a propaganda piece. There are so many people on the periphery in the movie business but also the music business who think they are going to make it, often based on a random comment they heard when they were eight and believed. Maybe the person never says it again and no-one else says it but the recipient holds onto it and carries on their life as if it were true.
Richard: What I like about the film is that it captures what LA is actually like not an idea about the place.
PA: I wanted to ask Richard about his particular character, Todd. When you read the script did you consider playing him as likeable or unlikeable?
Richard: I never really thought about it much. That’s funny coz I liked the character immediately when I read it and played him that way.
Jason: I think the best thing about Todd is that he knows who he is and is happy with it, but his story is that he actually does something in the course of the film which makes you think more positively about him. So at the end of the movie he does these paintings. I mean he’s a pervert and doesn’t care who knows it.
Richard: Yeah, he is a pervert but I never really thought of him that way before now, because he wouldn’t think of himself that way.
Jason: He sits looking at porn on the internet and has this obsessive fantasy about a woman who he doesn’t even know exists.
Tim: But at the end when she asks him what he does with the pictures and tells him he’s a total perv. I think she means it in that friendly way. That he’s a bit kinky.
PA: I have to ask you about perhaps the most outlandish character in the film, music agent Joey Zane. Surely he’s a bit of a caricature you threw in for light relief? Are there people out there like Joey Zane.
Richard: When I think of la, I think of people like that. They exist. There are agents like that.
PA: Is your agent like that?
Richard: (laughs) No. (laughs again) No not at all.
PA: Would you tell me if he was?
Richard: Not in an interview!
Jason: He’s the son of a guy from LA. He’s specific – You say he’s a cliché and he is but there’s plenty of guys like that. There’s a reality show in LA exclusively for the sons of famous people.
Richard: You also only see him doing business.
PA: True, he’s the only character we only see in that one dimension.
Jason: You do see him trying to pick up girls but that’s also work for him!
Tim: He’s a particularly appropriate reflection on LA. LA is full of a lot of clichés. They are parodies of themselves.
Richard: I’ve met people like that.
PA: True, he’s the only character we only see in that one dimension.
Jason: Everything they say is half true.
PA: I did want to mention Erik Scott Smith. I thought he did a fabulous job and at times thought he may have been the lead character. Both as a musician and an actor, did he exceed your expectations?
Jason: Well he’s really talented. In trying to find the character, Joseph Milton (the casting director), Tim and myself wanted not just a singer who can act but Erik was an actor who came in. It was a bit like American idol where all the people that acted would also sing something. He was a really cool singer and said ‘Hey check out my MySpace page’ and I started listening to his stuff and we’re a really small movie. We were lucky he had some songs that just worked for the movie. He wrote those songs when he was in high school.
PA: The name of the film, "Garden Party", where does that come from?
Tim: The name Garden Party comes from the Ricky Nelson song that Erik Scott Smith plays in the movie. It was written in 1972 AND WAS ABOUT Ricky Nelson’s experience in playing Madison Square Garden, and the lyrics are somehow relevant. The Garden party stories is something we thought of after the shooting of the film, and we realized that everybody in LA has a story, what did they to do get by, how did they pay their rent that month. While the film was being made it was Erik and Alex (Cendese) were talking about these stories, and Erik said "Yeah, these are Garden Party stories".
"Garden Party" opens in Seattle on July 11th. You can read Prost Amerika's review here.
May 30, 2008