10/13/2005

UpClose & Personal

Meet Movie Maker Jason Sherry...

By: Alicia Grega-Pikul

A familiar presence on the region's community stages since moving with his family to Mountaintop at age 5, Jason Sherry grew up to study film for two years at Ithaca College before ultimately earning his B.A. in theatre. He returned to Northeast Pennsylvania to marry fellow actor Ellen O'Brien only a month after graduation and few years later he landed a job teaching English and drama at Wyoming Seminary. After sitting in on a few rehearsals for the premiere of Mark Zdancewicz's dark office comedy Cubes in 2001, Sherry was inspired to adapt the play to feature film.

He and a small, rotating crew captured 40 raw hours of footage of digital video on weekends over about six months, shooting in an empty office generously donated by Zdancewicz's employer, Clifford Melberger and Diversified Technologies. Now after 18 months in the editing room, Sherry has emerged to send the results to Sundance and share the film (per the festival's stipulation) in a private screening next week.

You and Mark worked together on the screenplay?
Mark did all the writing and then we would meet and have story note sessions. I would come up with things to bring visuals out more for film or find motifs that could occur in each scene. Like there's this character Paul, the IT guy, who just shows up to utter an expletive occasionally. (The characters in Cubes) talk more like people actually do talk. You're not going to hear talk like this on "The Office," but it's what the workplace is really like. There's always the person who is inappropriately vulgar - the foul-mouthed person that curses all the time - that's Charlene. Then there's the dope that everyone giggles about and can't stand - the butt-of-the-jokes character. There's the cocky new guy. It's these archetypal office characters. Even though the movie is not a satire of the workplace, I think it does satirize the workplace.

The workplace satirizes itself.
Somebody commented to me while viewing part of an early cut, "Wow. Nobody does any work in this office." And I thought, "Have you ever worked in an office where (people worked)?" You fill your day with banter and games you play with co-workers and that becomes kind of the backdrop of the movie. Occasionally those people who want to work find the other people really annoying. It boils down to schadenfreude - that's a German term, something like 'taking glee in another's suffering' is the translation; we don't have an American word for it - but I think that's what that's what happens with some of the characters in Cubes. And it's the opposite, too. When you see people happy and you're not, you want to make them miserable, too.

Some would say you've spent an indulgent amount of time editing?
What I've told people is, "Next time you go to the movies, watch the credits roll by and for every one of those names put in mine or (editor) Craig (Cirelli)'s." You need two of three things to be successful in most art forms: money, time, talent. And I think if you have any two of those you can make it work. We had talent and we had time. We had very little money. I had to buy sound equipment because I really felt the biggest problem with most of the independent films I see is sound quality. And so I did a lot of research, bought a new microphone, good headphones, boom pole, all that stuff to make sure we had as good sound as we could. And that was like $1500 in sound equipment. Beyond that, the movie cost probably $500 maximum.

Only half the cast was in the original play?
About that - Ellen (O'Brien Sherry), Jack (Evans), and (Steve Stylinski). Connie (Sinavage) is new, Jess (Chorey) is new and also Conor (McGuigan). Greg (Korin) was in the play, but his character was kind of this Star Trek geek and I really felt that I've seen that in way too many independent films. So we made him more of an eBay addict. I consider the seven actors I had in this film amongst the 10 best actors in the Wyoming Valley easily. These are actors that - I will write parts into projects for them. I like the idea of being in a small area and having this ensemble of actors. I like to think more like French filmmakers like Jean Renoir than Speilberg or Hollywood filmmakers who don't have a choice. That's the beauty of (working) at this level. I can take Conor McGuigan - who is one of the most in-demand people in the Scranton area - and put him at the bottom of a stairwell, stick a chair on top of him and make him say the line, "Oh, my god" for 10 minutes while we capture different angles. And he will do that gladly.

Sounds like 'Cubes' is more intense than most local films.
Our goal was to play the festival circuit and our lofty goal was Sundance. We're realistic about that. Do we believe we have a film that's as good as some of the things we've seen at Sundance? Yes. Do we think we're necessarily right for Sundance's philosophy? That depends on the year. Comedies don't always traditionally do well at Sundance. Usually, they're looking for coming of age pictures, dramas, and documentaries. They don't actually have a comedy competition. And there are other festivals - Slamdance is almost a lateral move from Sundance these days and that's another one we have hopes for.

How involved is the process of submitting a film?
It's about as involved as making a movie. I have filled out 25-page applications online. There are press kits to put together. And this is just applying to the festivals, never mind getting in. At some of the festivals, you've got to go promote yourself and drag people in to see your screening. Some people hire publicists at that point. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

What's are you working on at Sem?
We're (rehearsing) Urinetown the musical right now. There were definitely a few turned heads. You say Urinetown and people react as if you had just pissed on them. And the show itself is actually rated PG - there's nothing you couldn't say on 8 O'clock television. One of the great things about theatre and film is they deal with these taboo areas that people are uncomfortable with. Nobody wants to talk about pee. "You're onstage, you shouldn't be singing about pee. For god's sake, you should be singing about Maria."

What first attracted you to the theatre?
As a kid it's always fun to get to be something you're not. And for me it was the extension of playing cops and robbers with my friends or whatever TV show or movie was popular - "Hey wait, people will watch us play cops and robbers?" And that was probably the first instinct. Then you realize people actually remember stuff you do. You do well in anything in life and how quickly is it forgotten? You do great on a math test and it goes on the refrigerator for a day. But there's something about theatre and films and other art forms that has a way of staying with people. So I could say that's the reason I do it, but it's more. It's like, when you're hungry you eat.

You can't not do it.
I have spent hundreds of hours, maybe thousands, sitting at a computer screen (editing this movie) and yet at no point did I ever think, "Oh man, when is this going to end? Man, I'm bored." Every time I'm up until four in the morning working I'm still that excited about it. It's just a passion that's there and (it's best to) get out of its way. You don't have a choice and it's something you can't explain. That's why theatre people and film people have to marry someone who gets it. Somebody who doesn't understand that passion will never understand why you can't just feel that passionate about them. Every time you feel passionate about the art, they're going to feel left out unless they get it too.

For more information visit communityfilmproject.org/cubes.