At first, it might seem like a typical indie film shoot. Four days in New York City, with a small cast and a mostly volunteer crew. But “The Sea is All I Know” is far from typical. The short, from writer/director Jordan Bayne, stars two time Oscar nominee Melissa Leo (“Frozen River,” “The Fighter”), and took Bayne the better part of four years to write, find financing, and finally, shoot and finish the film.
Bayne, whose first short film was “Argo,” starring Jordana Spiro (TBS’ “My Boys”), recently took “The Sea” into post production, with plans of hitting the festival circuit. She has goals to write and direct features, even as she’s prepping another short and producing other people’s films.
“The Sea” tells the story of an estranged couple (Leo and veteran character actor Peter Gerety), who come to the aid of their dying daughter Angelina, played by Kelly Hutchinson. The impending death of their daughter—and what she asks of her parents—forces the entire family to question their faith, deal with complex emotions, and face mortality in a way they had not envisioned.
Bayne began as an actor; her theater credits include “Summerwinds,” with James Gandolfini and Marisa Tomei, and a stint as Juliet in Shakespeare and Company’s production of “Romeo and Juliet.” She transitioned into TV roles (“Poltergeist: The Legacy,” “Silk Stalkings” and a guest spot on “Law and Order”) and then film. It was on the set of her last movie, “One Night,” directed by Michael Knowles, where she met Leo.
While her first passion was acting, she began to notice that quality roles for women were few and far between. This led her to start writing. After all, who better to come up with compelling female characters than a woman?
“When I started out as an actor, I was so green. I was just so passionate and earnest, and all I wanted to do was act, and it seemed like just the greatest possible expression for me aside from perhaps music (Bayne is a musician as well, and also provided some original music for “The Sea”),” she said. “I was absolutely obsessed with that. I was lucky, actually, because I worked almost immediately and then I got hit with the sense that there are 10 roles for guys out there but there's only one for a girl and then I got very frustrated because those roles were very limited and I felt like why? Because women--and I'm sure men will agree with me--women are very complex.”
Her initial plan to combat the lack of complex female roles was to write material for herself; but she says that it wasn’t a hard choice as an actor to forgo any ego she may have had as she realized that the films she was writing could turn into something else entirely.
“Why are there only these very one dimensional roles? So I decided to start writing, fully with the intention to act in my own stuff, but then as I got closer to doing ‘Argo’ and ‘The Sea,’ and it was more important for me to serve the story and make sure the story is done really well, and I don’t want to compromise that by being in front of the camera and behind the camera as I I'm learning and growing and exploring as a filmmaker.”
After meeting Leo, the two became friends and kept in touch. Following the completion of "One Night," Leo, who has been working steadily for nearly twenty-five years, went on to do “Frozen River,” and her performance as Ray Eddy garnered an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Always in demand, Leo has been doing two to three films a year for the past decade or so. And recently, with “The Fighter,” her amazing skills were on display again, and was nominated for another Academy Award, this time for Best Supporting Actress. Bayne had written “The Sea” with Leo in mind and contacted her to see if she wanted to be in the film.
“I was like, ‘I wrote this for you,’ and she said, ‘well, you know I'm busy, I gotta work where there's money.’ And I was like, ‘well just read it, and about four months later I got an e-mail from her and she's like, ‘okay honey I'm going to start reading your script now,’” Bayne said with a laugh. “Then about 15 minutes later I got another e-mail and she said, ‘I'm on page nine. I have to do this.’ It’s pretty mind blowing.”
As anybody working in indie film right now will say, trying to find money for a film in this economy is a daunting task indeed. And as the technology to shoot, edit and distribute movies has become more accessible than ever, it’s led to an increase in do it yourself filmmakers. With more people making films, there’s less of an ever dwindling financial pie to go around than ever before.
Bayne was facing a dilemma. She had the cornerstone of a great cast, and now she and her co-producers had to go out and find the money to produce “The Sea.” And the honest reality is that few people want to finance a film that deals with death and mortality in the forthright, emotionally wrenching way that Bayne had scripted it.
It was time for a bit of unconventional marketing.
“I have this powerful little script and Melissa's on board, and she's been nominated for an Oscar and still we can’t get people on board,” she said. “So I was like, ‘what is it that you do to get interest in advertising?’ And I was like, ‘sex.’ Sex. People are interested in sex.”
Bayne and the producers enlisted the help of model Jenny Meister (a close friend of Bayne’s), and made a short, sexy promo video featuring Meister with various props, including the works of Ernest Hemingway, some fishing gear, and Meister wearing a T-shirt with “I Love the Sea” printed on the front while wearing a sailor’s hat. After showing the video, and holding a benefit for the film, the money was soon raised.
Shooting “The Sea” was a different experience than “Argo” for Bayne. The crew for “Argo” consisted of three people (“It was me and the producers running around Joshua Tree with two actors,” she said), while the crew for “The Sea” numbered 37. Her cinematographer was Eun-ah Lee, and they shot the film using the Red camera.
“She is an amazing cinematographer. She just really, really understood exactly what I wanted,” she said.
She marvels at the contribution that the crew made, working at breakneck speed, and many of them for little or no pay, and especially after the first day, when she had to redo the shot list in order to finish the film on time.
“We had a tiny crew; they were an amazing group,” Bayne said. “They worked so hard and they put so much of their heart into this and they blew me away every day. Every day they made me cry, because if I needed something from them, like to go over time without pay they would do it because they love the film and they love being a part of it.”
And of course, a film like “The Sea,” which is predicated on the raw emotions of its characters and how they interpret the script, had the good fortune of having Leo and Gerety in the cast. In indie film, read-throughs and rehearsals are a luxury. Bayne had time to talk with each of the actors individually just once, but ultimately she trusted what they brought to the set.
“I sat down with each of them once separately,” Bayne said. “With Melissa, you don’t have to and Peter also, my God, they knew exactly what they were bringing, and Kelly probably had the hardest role in a way because she had very little dialogue. She is so sublime in this. She so understood her relationship to her parents and all that came from just sitting down and going through the script with them and they just got to the set and they were phenomenal. It's a joy to direct actors like that because you can give them the slightest little adjustment and they do it.”
After “The Sea” emerges from post production, Bayne and her co-producers will decide where to take the film. But even if they hit the festival circuit, she understands that a short film’s life may extend well beyond a conventional distribution deal, thanks to the Internet. And connecting with the right audience—either with festival goers or through social media—is the most important thing.
“To me, it is just a matter of commitment,” she said. “You don't make a film and throw it out there. You have to really find people, talk to people all over. Get someone to introduce you to a programmer and hope that somebody sees your film and hopefully the film is good enough for people to start talking about it, and then you can reach your audience, which to me is so important.”
Bayne and other indie filmmakers have to find new ways to connect with those audiences. And just as technology has changed the way that films are made and edited, it will be the directors who best utilize other new technologies who make lasting impressions with people.
“I think it's a strange and exciting time. I love what’s happening online. I love that you can reach people that you might not have been able to reach before. I like the way that you can curate, in a way, your own database. I just think that's really, really exciting. If I like this filmmaker out there I can follow them on Facebook or Twitter. The whole social media thing to me is fascinating.”
