Monday, October 13, 1997
Low budget doesn’t impede ‘Timeless’
FILM: Director Hart takes a mere $40,000 to make movie with
little help
By Lonnie Harris
Daily Bruin Contributor
When Robert Rodriguez released his film "El Mariachi," which had
been filmed for just over $7,000, he showed the film industry that
large budgets are not needed to make quality films.
Now, Chris Hart is poised to up the ante on Rodriguez. However,
with the release of Hart’s directorial debut, "Timeless," he shows
Hollywood not how easy it is to make a good film with a low budget,
but just how difficult a time low-budget filmmakers often have
getting films made.
Hart, along with producer Patricia Bice and co-producer Joe
Hart, worked for the past five years to make "Timeless." The film
is a very bleak, noir-ish look at a desperate couple in Queens who
escape their difficult lives during a weekend in Long Island.
The "Timeless" script was written over the course of a year,
mainly as a response to the current art house scene, which Hart
feels paints a very cultured and unrealistic picture of modern New
York life.
"Movies like ‘Walking and Talking,’ where everyone in New York
is a middle-class Columbia student, make me want to retch," Hart
says. "The art house film now has to be upper middle-class
conventional people. That’s not how New York is. Those films are
more like an episode of ‘Friends.’"
"Timeless" was completed for a mere $40,000, a sum exponentially
smaller than Hollywood’s average of $27 million.
This $40,000 didn’t provide Hart with any room for error, and
sometimes he felt in danger of being artistically compromised by
having to produce a film for so small a sum.
"At times, I would film something randomly, and then later I
would be forced to put it in the movie," Hart says. "It became a
situation where all the energy I put forth eventually found its way
into the movie."
The task of raising funds to make the movie were even more
difficult than Hart or his producers anticipated. Film stock used
in 16-millimeter cameras alone can add up to thousands of dollars
over the course of several years, and this was money that none of
the filmmakers had.
Raising funds and garnering support for the film would have
proved nearly impossible without producer Bice, Hart’s partner in
film production ever since they produced student films together at
the State University of New York. Bice went on to receive her
master’s degree in dance at UCLA.
"Chris and I have very different personalities, and we do argue
a lot," Bice says. "That’s essential, though, in order to come at
the project and get things done."
Hart had originally intended to write and direct "Timeless," and
leave the editing to a professional. However, several complications
at the end of the film’s shooting led Hart to edit the entire film
himself, an incredibly exhaustive process that involved analyzing
every frame of film shot in a 90 minute film.
"Editing isn’t just cutting shots together," Hart explains.
"It’s a lot of decision-making in order to weave movement together.
It’s a very creative time."
While editing his own film provided Hart with sole control over
its look and tone, it was not always easy. As opposed to doing
everything digitally like they do in Hollywood these days, Hart cut
and pasted "Timeless" by hand. Hart developed Carpal Tunnel
Syndrome from working with his hands on the film so
extensively.
Once "Timeless" was complete, however, the process was not over.
There was still no market for the film and no interested
distributors.
The saving grace for "Timeless" was the Independent Feature Film
Market, a yearly gathering of smaller studios, such as October
Films and Fine Line Features. The event, which has a festival
atmosphere, is where Hart and Bice first got their film
noticed.
Sundance Coordinator Geoffrey Gilmore walked in on the last five
minutes of "Timeless" and saw potential. He later booked the film
to be part of the Sundance Film Festival, the largest independent
film festival in the U.S.
Once "Timeless" played at Sundance, it began to receive
International attention, playing at film festivals in Germany,
Sweden and Ireland. Now, nearly two years after filming ceased and
countless years since it’s original inception, "Timeless" is
opening in the United States, to positive reviews.
"Filming a movie for $40,000 is just about the hardest thing
anyone can do," Hart says. "I knew it would be difficult from the
beginning, but it turned out to be 1,000 more difficult than I
could have imagined."
FILM: "Timeless" opened in Los Angeles and selected cities on
Friday.