Anything But Quiet

BRAINTRUSTdv interviews Frank V. Ross

---

After spending $12,000 on his first two feature films, Frank V. Ross made a third feature, Quietly on by, for several hundred dollars. He aimed his DV cameras at bright windows and encouraged his actors to talk over each other. This reckless iconoclasm has paid off as one might predict: Quietly on by has gone quietly on by film festival gatekeepers, who have disparaged everything from its sound design to its character development. Despite its shortcomings, Quietly on by is strikingly perceptive and brimming with a high-caliber honesty which is impossible to fake.

---

BRAINTRUSTdv: You made two features before this one, A Story in a Life and Oh, My Dear Desire. Such lofty, grandiose titles. How did those experiences prepare you for the down-to-earth character study of Quietly on by?

Frank V. Ross: Miles Davis said, "Sometimes you have to play for a long time before you can sound like yourself." I fell out of junior college to make A Story in a Life when I was seventeen and easily the smartest guy in the world, so there was a lot I had to work out of my system to get to Quietly.


BTdv: The previous two movies had longer shooting schedules and budgets of six thousand dollars each, but Quietly on by was made, as you say, with "$755 cash in an envelope." What made you strip down your production so drastically?

FR: Because there is a point to prove: all you need is your script, a camera and good actors. Six thousand dollars is a lot of money to me and a majority of the public, and getting a movie shot over the course of a year is not impressive to me—I had done it twice. A challenge was necessary, and it paid off. I noticed in the footage of the previous films that the best stuff was shot when the days were consecutive. So this movie was fifteen long days in a row.


BTdv: Anthony Baker has had a role in all three of your movies, and in this one he's the lead. As I was watching him, I thought he must have been the writer/director because of his total embodiment of the material, his investment. His performance was beyond a matter of knowing lines or being "directed." It felt like he'd lived the character and was re-enacting it. Did you write the role of Aaron with Baker in mind?

FR: I write every character with someone in mind, even if it's not the actor—Baker's in particular since I know him so well. What I wanted to come across was how lovable and frustrating a human being he can be. The total embodiment of the role is something I don't dare understand. I think he's still the latch-key kid playing restaurant. Our working relationship has been whittled down to nearly non-verbal.


BTdv: You've said that your actors "took their character off the page and showed [you] what was sleeping in the screenplay." It's an elegant sentiment and it explains the high degree of naturalistic life in the movie. How did so much trust develop between you and your actors?

FR: When the script goes to the actors, it's theirs. They're great and wonderful people. I want that in my movie. Anyone who meets Danielle [Ostrowski, the female lead] falls in love with her. Why would I, as a director, try and constrict that? When you give an actor trust, they'll trust you. The rest is brainwashing. Actors want to do their best. Let them give it to you.


BTdv: It makes me wonder, though, how much time and energy you put into writing the script in the first place.

FR: Just the outline and elements for the screenplay took about four months to iron out. I like to get everything in order so that when I write the dialogue there is no emphasis needed for story or plot. When it came to writing the dialogue I gave myself four weeks because the screenplay for Psycho was written in that amount of time, and I'll be damned if he thinks he's better than me.


BTdv: You said something remarkable about people's reaction to this movie: "When you're trying hard to keep up to speed with a movie that won't slow down for you, it really gets your imagination working. Several times...people have asked me about scenes that weren't in the movie. They must have made them up." Similarly, I found myself reflexively creating backstory for most of the characters—not because I was bored or because I felt a conspicuous absence of explication, but because I was intrigued by them. Is this an effect you specifically tried to create?

FR: Absolutely. We have instincts and intuition when we meet someone new in life, why not in a film? There are lines in this movie that relate directly and only to specific backstory of the characters. Even if an outside observer doesn't understand, they pick up on the tone, not the words. Tone has greater effect than words anyway. That's why all those movies use sad music.

		BTdv: There's a party scene in the middle of the movie in which Aaron's love interest, Sara, falls for another guy. The scene is so quietly perfect in its painfulness that it reminded me of Rohmer's delicate strokes, specifically a scene in Rayon Vert (Summer). I wonder why you decided to work in understated moods when most low-budget movies go for overstatement wherever possible. FR: Degas. When you come out and say or define what you mean or your intentions, the work is nailed down, mission accomplished, big deal. I'm not a preacher or a math tutor,
	Aaron (Anthony J. Baker) and Sara (Danielle Ostrowski) share an awkward moment.

intellectual dolt or politician. Words make life dull. Mad, sad, jealous, lonely, beautiful, whatever—they're just words. If I knew or understood anything Quietly was about, I wouldn't have made the movie. I would have written it down and hung it on my wall. When an artist works in "overstatement," they think there are smarter than you. You and I both know they're not. Emotions are confused and hidden in life. Day-to-day interaction—that's what I see, that's what we're trying to do.


BTdv: The associations with French filmmakers don't stop with Rohmer. The events are presented pell-mell, with the matter-of-fact amoral tone—you could almost call it an absence of tone—that one would find in Malle or Techine. You've acknowledged that aloof pose by saying, "It's not my job to make sure an audience knows what's going on in a scene, it's our job to be honest." In what way is being honest different from helping an audience interpret a scene or chain of events?

FR: When you're honest, you're putting yourself on the line to be judged, to be embarrassed. A character in a movie should be more than a device to tell a story, or as fat-ass puts it, "moving props." The story is already there and you can't get away from it, so why bother acting a certain way to fit a scene? Haven't you ever been bored or sad and you don't want anyone to know? That's what we hide everyday, so hide it in the film. Our moods are all over the place, especially if we're hungry or it's hot outside. I wanted these feelings in the scenes to help set a tone. Look at Lonnie [Phillips] in the tire swing sequence. His mood is all over the map: playful, annoyed, kind, snippy. Why? He's bored with this tire swing thing. It was fun for a second, but he's humoring his friend. So it's not Lonnie's job to make sure the audience knows he feels that way. His job is just to feel that way.


BTdv: Beyond the consistent energy and pace of the movie is a technique of staging incidental action in the foreground or background so that we have to concentrate in order to digest the main action. This tends to amplify the sense of directionless hysteria which suffuses the movie, and it also allows the characters to become fuller-bodied. Most importantly it works as a sort of antidote to sentimentality, eradicating the typical "handicap" applied to plot elements which should have emotional impact: close-ups, pregnant pauses, commentative music. What inspired such a daring departure from these conventions?

FR: "In my younger and more vulnerable years," reading film books and texts, listening to DVD commentary, watching every movie I could get me mitts on, I would get depressed when directors or writers I admire didn't work in the same manner as I did. And, while it seems obvious now, that's what makes me a filmmaker. To split from conventions is to be yourself, not what is expected. I wanted this movie to look how I see things, what I see. In my previous films there is a lot of sitting and talking between characters. I rarely sit and talk, and when I do it ain't worth putting in a movie. We always have our hands full, life demands it, and I want that in a movie.


BTdv: Though the movie is, finally, anti-sentimental, it does begin with a hyperkinetic scene of Aaron breaking down, which is followed by "serious" music and opening credits. That whole opening sequence—its sensibility and execution—seems incongruous with the rest of the movie. Why did you decide to open with that?

FR: To throw off expectation, keep you searching for something to grab onto for comfort. That all goes back to making an aggressive experience. Why bother making a feature-length movie if you get the gist in a half-hour or less?


BTdv: It seemed that there were at least two cameras of differing image-quality to cover several scenes. One was slightly soft, the other was a little sharper, brighter, more "video." It was noticeable but not distracting, and I actually admired the moxie. What was the rationale behind having conflicting image quality in a single scene?

FR: Mainly a byproduct of how we work. Perfection makes me uncomfortable, and imperfection scares the hell out of me. For example, the party scene you mentioned earlier was shot by a professional news photographer and a completely inexperienced film student who had no idea she'd be shooting. We just threw the camera at her and said, "Do good." The rationale is there is too much emphasis on technical quality these days. My picture looks how I want it to look.


BTdv: What cameras were you using?

FR: We used two Sony VX-2000s, which I had to turn around and sell to buy a G5 with Final Cut Pro. I had a G4 that wouldn't behave, so I sold that too, along with my Schwinn. Those products are pretty up there. I like to use good equipment as much as possible. You get what you pay for. Nice mics, flags, gels, lights, all that stuff you have to have.


BTdv: You include windows in a lot of interior daytime shots. It's another point of bravery, and it seems to defy the logic of most people working in DV.

FR: Rebellion for the sake of rebellion. The windows in a typical DV feature are blown out. Don't get me wrong, it looks great, but I think it's video-induced shame that leads someone to that choice. Windows are pretty. Come on, that's where the outside is.


BTdv: In another interview you said you wanted a strong "video asethetic."

FR: My generation's lives are scattered across video tapes. That is how we see ourselves.


BTdv: The audio in Quietly is technically "poor," and festivals have rejected you on grounds of poor sound design (characters talking over each other, for instance), but I found that element in keeping with the structure, the tone, the sense of character, the overall vision. In a more clinically executed movie it might have been distracting, but in this one it worked to great effect.

FR: Yeah, I think I should've made a list of influences and thrown Altman or Cassavetes on there—you know, to let folks know it's on purpose. But it's funny because this is the first picture that has a soundtrack I am happy with. The previous two features are difficult to hear. This time around we even had people to hold both boom mics.


BTdv: Despite that advancement, the sound is quite a jumble.

FR: Location audio works the same way we shoot: work around the actor, work for the actor. They're trying to be natural and that includes never letting anybody finish their thought.


BTdv: No matter how far-fetched, tell us what you see as the ultimate long-term goal for digital video technology in terms of production, distribution, exhibition, and public reception.

FR: I want a digital video camera that works and records like the human eye sees—in terms of iris, focus. Imagine no more lighting or color balance, black level or white balance. Just perfectly natural images all the time. The HOMOPTIC-FX12, that's what I call it.

As far as distribution, exhibition and public reception, there's a lot of us working with this DV stuff. We'll roll with the punches. And I'll keep doing what I do.