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Photo: Erik Freeland
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Filmmaker Stephanie Slewka discusses the perils and advantages of working in an isolated community, the blind faith of filmmaking and how to bribe island teenagers.
What was it like to go from living in a large city to spending so much time on a tiny, isolated island?
Isolation is not new to me; when I was very small we moved to Europe from the United States, and I grew up in a succession of isolated farmhouses on the Dutch polders and went to school - a perpetual outsider and stranger - in French and then Flemish, languages neither of my parents really spoke. So although I had never been to Maine or its islands before making the film, it felt oddly familiar. Of course, I fell in love with the countryside and the taciturnity of the people.
Did you live there while filming?
Housing is hard to find on North Haven and there is no hotel or motel. Ask the crew! We stayed in one house in the winter that had no heat upstairs. It was on our first shoot when I was still funding the film myself, so I was too nervous to be cold, but they suffered. I rewarded them with lobster dinners and wine. We rented State Senator Chellie Pingree's house once or twice as she was off at the legislature, and we rented a big summer house another time, so we had a sampling of the island's housing. Once, on our way home, all of the hotels around the airport were full, so all three of us slept in the car.
How did the community react to the presence of you and your crew?
When I first met John Wulp to discuss the film, he finished up the discussion by saying, "I look forward to working with you [dramatic pause] - I think." That pretty much summed up our presence on island. But if Barney Hallowell, the school principal, hadn't flung wide open the doors to the school, the film would not have been made, so I owe him a lot. Getting some of the high school kids to talk was like herding cats, but I eventually resorted to bribery: I lent them the digital camera and gave them the keys to my rental car, a giant town car, which they drove all over the island. "You lent Matt Brown your car," one parent said, aghast. "Where's he going to go?" I replied. "It's not as if he can get off the island."
Why did you make this film?
It was a story begging to be told. After covering war zones for years I felt the need to write or make a film about something that wasn't violent or bloody or druggy or edgy, but I wanted to tell a little story about everyday things. That's why I call it a little film.
What do you hope to achieve with this film?
In telling this story, I hope I was fair to everyone involved; if I have succeeded, that will have been my achievement. In a larger context, I would hope that people would agree with John Wulp that art is everywhere, right in front of your eyes, and that you just have to look at your surroundings to find it. And in that vein, that viewers might realize the everyday is the stuff of creation.
The independent film business is a difficult one. What keeps you motivated?
Sheer bloody-mindedness. My nickname is DeeDee and when I'm giving myself the "come on, old girl, speech" I say the two Ds stand for dogged and determined. I embarked on this film after a former colleague put his feet on his desk and told me no one would ever entrust an hour's program to me. It made me so angry I had to go do it. Rejection isn't personal, I've learned.
If a drama were to be made of this story, which actor would you choose to play the role of John Wulp?
John Wulp tells me he will accept no other than Paul Newman. We'll have to ask Amy MacDonald, a Maine writer who worked on the film with me and who is writing a screenplay if she will write it with Newman in mind!
What material was the most difficult to edit out of your film?
The trick is to start at the end of the film and work back to the beginning. Somehow it makes it easier to cut scenes when you don't see them in order. Leaving decisions to the very last moment helps, too. I tried not to be sentimental and leave in something just because I liked it, but it was painful to cut out some of the scenes the kids had shot with the camera I lent them. They were touching, telling and often hilarious, no matter how many times the editor and I saw them, we howled with laughter.
What advice do you have for aspiring filmmakers?
If you're thinking about making a film and you are excited every time you hear yourself telling the story, you're on the right track. If you don't fall in love with your project it will be very hard to finish the film. Also, you have to have blind faith; otherwise the hordes of naysayers will discourage you.
Stephanie Slewka took part in on online chat at Washington Post.com on Feb. 24, 2003. Read the transcript.
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