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An Interview with Filmmaker Greg Morgan (Part II)
by Tony Farinella

This is the second part of MatchFlick columnist Tony Farinella's interview with indie film director Greg Morgan, writer and director of the upcoming film, The Substance of Things Hoped For.

You can read Part I here.
You can read Part III here.

TF: Tell us about some of your early work Greg?

GM: Okay. My early work started with 17 & UNDER. It's a drama about a 17-year-old gang member that had been sentenced to live with a family that had lost their son to a violent crime. It sounds complicated, but it's kind of like a fictitious governmental program that assigns these youth offenders to see the aftermath of what their crime was. Of course, the kid didn't kill anybody in the associated family. It's an arbitrarily chosen family that lost their child to crime in some other way. We cast and did everything ourselves in our own place. We begged, pleaded, and got all the people to work on the film. It did pretty well. It sold I think 25,000 videos and for a small budget film, that's pretty good.

A scene from Morgan's upcoming film, THE SUBSTANCE OF THINGS HOPED FOR

My second film was the PLAYAZ COURT. It was produced by a guy named Britton Hein and he hired me to direct it. Britton also helped me associate produce my first film and he knew I could do the job for his. So he hired me and said we were going to take the film around to film festivals around the country. Unfortunately, it was picked up almost immediately by a company called ARTISAN, which is a pretty big company. It was kinda a bummer to me, since I love the film festival circuit. But it was the top selling DVD for the first half of it's release year and that was against much bigger theatrical films. So it did very well, for a tiny, little movie and it's also been shown on cable. Actually, it's still shown on cable and I occasionally run across it. So it did pretty well for itself. After that, I was hired to produce a couple other films. I helped produce a film entitled SOFT TOILET SEATS, which got a theatrical release. I did another comedy called PARTY ANIMALZ. Which was kind of a Latino version of the movie HOUSE PARTY. I also co-write the script on that. My wife, Jeanne, came up with the idea, and I co-write it with another writer, but I felt it was getting a bit too cheeky, for lack of a better word. I thought this is probably not the kind of movie I want to direct, so I ended up selling it to Barnholtz Entertainment, but my contract with my writer was that he was going to get sole credit to write, and because I was going to direct when I signed the contract with him, I didn't care, so I ended up getting a co producer credit and the money for the script.

Then I did another one called MONKEY LOVE, which I believe is out now. It was disturbed nationally on VIDEO and DVD. It's with Jeremy Renner, who was in a bunch of stuff. He's an up and coming actor. It was shot on mini DV. It's done pretty well for itself. After I was done producing that, I moved on to my newest feature, THE SUBSTANCE OF THINGS HOPED FOR. I started writing and making that. Right now I'm actually just finishing music on this it, right now. I'll probably be submitting it to film festivals within a month.

TF: Being a first time director, during your early work, how intimating was it?

GM: *pauses* Wow, that's a pretty good question. Since I been making films since I was 11, I had this strange inner voice in myself that I could do it. Although, that first film was very hard and I learned a lot. I just have this ability to command a group of people to make a film. Maybe because I believe in myself so much. I can see that in other parts of my life, I would probably be much more timid. I kind of just fell into it. I hear a lot of people say that when I'm on the set I really know what I'm doing and control my set. Although when I do control it, I do have a good time and my crew on the last two films have said that they really enjoyed working on the set with me. So I'm not a bastard on the set.(laughs) I'm pretty good to get along with. I know what I'm doing and I know what I want. So I guess with my first film I commanded it pretty well and was able to finish the film. So many filmmakers go onto to make their first films and they don't finish it. Do half of it then need to raise more money. I've worked on other films at different positions, so I knew what I had to do to get this film done in 18 days. So I guess that's the answer to your question. I think I can control it, I'm good at it and I know it.

TF: Were the actors helpful to you, or were they also first time people, so everyone was in it fresh?

GM: Half and half. My director of photography, had done many movies. So he knew he was working with a first time director. He helped me out considerably. His name is Dave Porfiri and he's gone onto to become a film professor at a school in the northeast. There were a lot of people who had done one or two films. Several of the actors in the film had some experience, but mostly in short films.

TF: As we sit here today, doing this interview, looking back on your early work, are you satisfied with it?

GM: Another great question! You're hitting some good ones.

TF: Thank you.

GM: For my latest film, SUBSTANCE, I look back on it and I love it. I think it's a great film. For my first film and I look back on it and I cringe. I see my errors. I see my errors and I say I should have done this, I should have done that. Even though maybe it was the best I could have done with the experience and budget at that time. With my second film, I think I really did a good job for what it was. For it's genre, and for it's screenplay. But honestly, I didn't write the script, and I didn't produce the feature. It's not the type of film I would take as my own. Whereas, my new film, I actually co-wrote the script with another writer from an idea I had. With my third film I can say I'm really coming into my own.

	A scene from Morgan's upcoming film, THE SUBSTANCE OF THINGS HOPED FOR

TF: Say you were able to go back in time and change some things with your film, what would you do differently?

GM: Oh gosh, about a thousand things differently. It's even hard to pin point one. I could definitely say, there's some acting in the first film I look back on and say, Wow, that was stiff." I would have chose different actors. Not all, some of them were great. But I would have changed some and got one or two names in it. Because now I realize, the business side of filmmaking and you really have to have that. There's probably countless things if I would watch it again, but I can't watch my films again.

TF: How were your films received?

GM: With my first film, it did really well at the film festivals. Then it got picked up, so a lot of people saw it. Then you read comments about it on the Internet. And half of the people loved it and half of them hated it.

TF: I'll be on IMDB.com and read the comments, and there is really no middle ground. It has a lot of supporters and a lot of nay sayers. No in between.

GM: Exactly, Tony. Exactly. There seems to be more people that will comment about it negatively than positively. Same thing with my second film. Although it got reviewed a couple of times and the reviews were positive. But on the Internet a lot of people hated it. Just hated it. That's funny to me.

TF: How can people see your early work, if they are interested in doing so?

GM: 17 & UNDER can still be purchased on Amazon.com, but it's not in many Blockbusters anymore. Some still have it, if you request it. PLAYAZ COURT is still at some Blockbusters, it's still on cable and definitely still for sale, it was an Artisan film. You can buy it pretty much anywhere, Netflix, Amazon, you name it. 17 & UNDER is pretty hard to come by. My other films that I produced are also easy to find. Video stores and on line stores. Soon, I'll be self distributing 17& Under for purchase on the web.

TF: Moving onto to your latest film, THE SUBSTANCE OF THINGS HOPED FOR, tell us about that?

GM: It's my passion. It came from an idea I had and I had written about 20 pages and stopped for a while, then I pitched it to a friend of mine, who did screenplays and is a very talented poet. I thought, well, this is a very artistic film, I'll pass it his way. His name is Duke Addleman. Both of us passed it back and forth to each other while writing it. It became this story that took on a life of it's own. From there, I said, you know what, we can make this low budget. Both of us pitched it to some studios first. I think it's a little too artistic for some studios taste. So we tried to raise the money and I was able to. I went back to some investors from my first films and they invested in it and then I found some other investors and boom, we started shooting it in September. We found some extremely talented actors. Vanessa Lengies whose in the movies STICK IT and WAITING. We found Ray Wise, whose in the movie GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK and now 24. We found Shannon Cochrane, who was in the movie, THE RING amongst many others. Such a wonderfully talented cast. I have never really worked with this level of talent before. All of it turned out great. In December, I started editing. I love to edit, to me, it's like a second chance to direct. I started cutting the film and the sound and right now finishing music on it. Like I said, I hope to be done in about a month.

A scene from Morgan's upcoming film, THE SUBSTANCE OF THINGS HOPED FOR

TF: How did inspiration for the film come about?

GM: It strangely came about when I was in Las Vegas. I was at the Mirage Casion and they have a pool of dolphins there. I was looking through this window and I saw this little video camera shooting these dolphins. The beginning of the story really came about through science. If you can somehow translate the images of the video camera, which is 30 frames per second, and put that into a computer somehow. Somehow match up each frame of what the dolphin is doing with the sound it's making at that particular time. It sounds really weird, but I bet a computer, over years of data, could actually analyze that and come up with a way to decipher dolphin language. A way to decipher language was the beginning of the story. Yet the story took on a life it's own as I said and turned out to barely have anything to do with that. The science become a complete back story to the film and really becasme a story about this girl and her dilemma in life. Her dilemma is she's pregnant and schizophrenic and what does she do about that? Take the drugs and abort the fetus within her? Or not take the drugs and go slowly insane. So that really is what the story is about and the dolphins became a back story and became what her father's profession was. She has to seek out her father to make her decision. So that's where the story came about. It took a completely different road.

TF: How did you go about getting the film made?

GM: Since I know what I'm doing at this point, finally, I was able to raise the funding through old and new investors and some companies. With that money in the bank, it's just a matter of producing. I know what I'm doing there and getting all the cast and crew. Figuring out how can we shoot this, can we shoot it at this location. Location is a big problem with low budget filmmaking. There should be very few of them. You should have no more than three at the most. It's just a lot of planning. It's just you, working on it with the help of a couple of other people. I had me, Jeanne, Duke, and that's it. We had to find locations and beg and plead. It takes a long time, but if you really put your pre production into it, you can really make your shoot go well.

TF: How long did it take to make the film and what was the film making process like?

GM: 18 days and the filmmaking process was remarkably smooth. Everything really flowed well. The crew was just wonderful. The cast as well. These are pretty well known actors in their field and we had one little honey wagon, which is a tiny dressing room, and that's all they had. A lot of times wouldn't even go in there, they would just hang out with everybody on set. It was like a big family, it was really great. Only one day, we had some problems with the camera, which set us back a couple of days. Luckily, with a great crew, we were able to catch up and get ahead of schedule at the end.

	A scene from Morgan's upcoming film, THE SUBSTANCE OF THINGS HOPED FOR

TF: How do you convince name actors to be a part of an Indy film?

GM: Great question and what it is, is simply the script. It really comes down to that. In a couple of other cases, it came down to both the script and me. Because they loved the script and then they want to know if this director knows what he is doing. In my case, luckily, they checked out my previous films and they said, "Okay, he knows what he is doing.". They would not risk their career on a trashy script. To any future filmmakers out there, write and write a lot. I don't care if the first scripts are terrible, toss 'em. Just keep writing until you write one that people love. But don't be scared of throwing it away.

TF: I'm sure these actors get a lot of scripts, how do you get it into their hands?

GM: I lucked out this time since I was able to get a casting director involved. Another way is to find a low budget producer to help you produce the script. Let me just go through some of the ways ... You can get a casting director like I did, I got Geno Havens, who had done a ton of films. I sent him the script and he loved it. If he didn't like the script, he would not have become involved. But he loved the script and because of him, we got it to agents who would take the time to read it. If you send the script directly to agents, you're going to get rejected. Because there are so many lawsuits out there, thee agents are just not going to take it. They need it come through a lawyer or another agent. A different way is to go through managers of some of these people. Managers will sometimes accept them. Another way to do it is through something called the "break downs." Breakdowns go through all the agents and managers in Hollywood. I dunno what the rules are for getting in the break downs, but I'm sure it's easier then most people think. Yet, another way is placing an ad in magazines for actors. One is called Backstage West. You can advertise in the back of that. That's what I did my first film. Because I did it outside the union, non-SAG.

TF: How did you get Ray and Vanessa on board?

GM: Vanessa was a different story. I knew and met Vanessa through another actor, Arlen Escarpeta, who starred in my second film. Through Arlen, I got Vanessa's agent's telephone number and I called him and I told him who I was and I told him I directed Arlen. He liked me and I was lucky. For Ray Wise and the others, all came through my casting director, Geno Havens. His name was on those break downs, so the agents take it more seriously. For Ray Wise, I knew his work.. So I gave it directly to him, if he wanted the part, he had it. He read the script and loved it.

TF: With about 100 to 200 Indy films out a year, how do you make yours stand out?

GM: Luck. My first film had an all Latino cast, which really helped it, since there were not too many minority roled films. It helped it to get distribution. My second film was all African American cast, which I'm sure it helped it. SUBSTANCE is a more mainstream film. It does have a wide range of races within the actors. I'd say this one is much more of a Christian / spiritual type film. I'm not saying I wrote or directed it that way to go into a certain market. With this film I said, "I'm going to write what I want to write and screw it, let's see what happens." Where as my other films they had a market and I knew they were aiming at certain markets. I do, however, see a market for this one. A Christian and spiritual type market, but I didn't start out that way.

TF: Someone has their 9 or 10 bucks in their hand, why should they see your movie Greg?

GM: How can I find an answer for that? If you like the trailer, which is on my website or my myspace site, go see the film. If you like a film with a spiritual element, go and see my film. My film is very artistic and very poetic in some sense. If that's the type of film for you, you'll want to see my movie. If you like Vanessa Lengies , which I know you do, Tony, you'll really want to see my movie.

TF: Oh boy (laughs)

GM: If you like Ray Wise, you'll want to see my movie. If you read reviews about my movie, you'll want to see my movie. That's really all I can say, I think what my film will do is start out playing film festivals. I'm positive that my film will raise enough word of mouth that it will be one of the darlings of the film festival circuit. Whereas I really couldn't say that with my other films. I didn't know what was going to happen with them. I believe in this film enough where I can I'm pretty that's how it going to happen with this one. I think it has a lot of potential.

You can read Part III here.