Blue-Eyed Mary wins Best of Show

By Wendy Helfenbaum

When first-time filmmaker and Columbia University Masters student Olivia Newman read fellow classmate Ryan McGlone’s screenplay Blue-Eyed Mary, she could literally see it unfolding in her mind at a location that was very close to her heart: the picturesque Catskills Mountains in upstate New York, where her father had built the family cabin 20 years ago.

“Ryan is a beautiful writer, and his screenplay was extremely lyrical. It wasn’t so plot-oriented as much as it was a character study, so I could picture it and the location,” recalls Newman, 30. “I am drawn to locations, and sometimes a story will just develop out of that, so for me to read the script and be able to imagine exactly where I would shoot it was the first thing that drew me in.”

The 13-minute film, which won a coveted 2009 Accolade Best of Show award, tells the story of the child-like Johanna (played by Eilis Cahill), a free-spirited young woman with developmental challenges who learns some painful lessons about life, love and death over the course of one summer afternoon. Newman entered Blue-Eyed Mary after reading about in the prestigious competition in MovieMaker magazine.

Shot over three days in July 2008, with a volunteer crew of 10, the film was part of Columbia’s Masters of Fine Arts in Film program. Classmates were required to write screenplays, and then swap among themselves to become each other’s director or producer.

The film’s locale perfectly captures the intimate tone and natural color palette that reflects the peace and isolation Johanna finds in these woods, where she’s being raised by her grandmother Nan (played by Vivian Meisner).

“I love the dynamic between Johanna and her grandmother, because I was very close to mine as well; it’s a special relationship,” notes Newman, who dedicated Blue-Eyed Mary to her grandmother Edna Fisher, also nicknamed Nan.

Newman praises her actor’s work, noting that Johanna’s love interest, Jimmy (played by Devin Harjes) was the character that evolved the most from the script’s first to final drafts.

“The character of Jimmy was originally written for him to be slow as well, and I wanted to steer away from that,” recalls Newman. “So Ryan and I talked about Jimmy being a social outcast; he’s uncomfortable in his skin and likes Johanna because she doesn’t care that he’s a little bit awkward. She’s finally able to explore her sexuality fully, which she’d been wanting to do.”

For the awkward sex scene between Jimmy and Johanna, Newman appreciated director of photography Hillary Spera’s sensitive approach. “I tend to work with women DPs for that reason,” explains Newman. “It’s hard to say what gives something a female perspective, or a female touch. Hillary’s a professional DP, and I feel that the more women that are behind the camera, the closer you get to that perspective.”

Newman’s long-term support for women in film began when she majored in Women’s Studies at Vassar College, where she received a post-graduate fellowship in Paris to research contemporary French women filmmakers. Afterwards, she worked with Women Make Movies before returning to graduate school. Newman was also one of two fellows named to lead Columbia Women In Film, a student group founded to promote women filmmakers at Columbia and combat gender disparity within the industry.

The film’s title refers to the delicate, bi-colored vivid blue flowers that grow wild in parts the Northeast and Midwest. Throughout the story, Johanna marvels at their beauty, wondering what they’re called.

“Ryan was researching flowers, and he loved the name of the flower,” recalls Newman. “The Blue-Eyed Mary represents what Nan is for Johanna, this keeper of all information who keeps her safe by answering questions and being her guide. So at the end of the film (after Nan dies), Johanna sees the flowers again and they remind her of Nan; she realizes that she never found out what they were called, and now maybe she never will, or she’ll have to figure it out on her own.”

Shooting at Duff’s Hollow, the land owned by Newman’s family, certainly had its advantages, such as not having to pay location rental fees. But the ultra-rustic site also felt like the set of a Survivor-like reality show.

“There’s no electricity in the house; it’s really a cabin in the woods,” explains Newman, who held production meetings by the light of kerosene lamps. “We have a generator that pumps water into the house, and we thought that it would be enough for our lights, but that first day, the generator blew from plugging in one 2K. So we had an emergency run to Home Depot, which was 45 minutes away, to rent a bigger generator.”

The accommodations were pretty unique as well. “The crew all slept at my parents’ house, in tents and in the bunkhouse with lots of people in one room. It was a big slumber party,” she laughs. “The grip and gaffer shared a tent and bathed in the pond every morning.”

In subsequent drafts of the script, Newman and McGlone moved several interior scenes outdoors, to take full advantage of the spectacular vistas at Duff’s Hollow. However, Mother Nature threw them a few curveballs.

“It was completely overcast the first day, then it was sunny the second day, and the third day, we were running in and out because it kept pouring, like a tropical rainstorm. It was pretty nerve-wracking, because I didn’t have any extra time,” recalls Newman, adding that co-producer Veronica Nickel helped keep the production on track.

But don’t get Newman started on the uncooperative frogs.

“The hardest part of the shoot was getting the shots of the frog jumping into the pond. Once they’re traumatized, they just sit there,” she notes. “If you look really closely, there’s a little piece of grass being poked at the frog’s butt! Luckily, my father is an expert frog-catcher, having 60 years of experience.”

Newman’s father wasn’t the only family member corralled into production. Her composer/musician husband Steve Lehman also wrangled frogs, rigged tarps into makeshift cover sets, and most importantly, wrote the film’s haunting score.

“Steve is not a film composer; he’s very much part of the avant-garde, jazz and improvisational music scene, but when you’re married to the filmmaker, you kind of get pulled into doing a lot of things,” explains Newman. “He was part of the production all the way through, and had a real understanding of what kind of tone I was going for in the story.”

With zero-budget for live musicians, Lehman chose instruments that he knew would sound good on Midi, a computerized software program. “We wanted it to sound a little hymnal, church-y, and reminiscent of a plucked music box,” notes Newman. “He came up with plucked acoustic viola and organ; I would never have picked those instruments, but it really worked.”

Newman, who grew up without a television in Hoboken, New Jersey, was “absolutely sure” she was going to be an actress, and did a lot of theatre in middle and high school. “Then at Vassar, I got much more interested in analyzing performance, rather than performing. I took French cinema, women’ cinema and film theory, and it sort of came around full circle,” she recalls. “Working with actors now, having done it myself, that background is very helpful.”

Newman describes the chemistry with McGlone as extremely collaborative.

“We had talked about shooting it elsewhere where we would have had electricity, but Ryan knew that my heart was set on this place because I knew it so well and it meant something to me,” explains Newman. “He said, ‘We’ll make it work. We’ll figure it out.’ So as a producer, he was extremely supportive of my vision.”

Newman was thrilled to win this year’s Best in Show, because “it’s great to be able to say your film won a top prize,” she explains. “I’m certainly proud to be able to list the award in my press kits now, and it always helps to have a stamp of approval. It grabs peoples’ attention.”

Although Newman says she made “a lot of mistakes” on her first film, she wants to encourage emerging filmmakers to trust their instincts. “I feel proud that I had a vision for what I wanted the film to look like and feel like, and that has to do with what I brought to it personally: where I shot it and the relationship that I developed with my actors and DP,” she notes. “It felt like a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I knew it was going to be really difficult, and I was so excited for it. It’s important to give yourself challenges like that. It doesn’t always end up perfect. Always know what your challenges are, and be excited to have the opportunity to face those challenges.”

Next up for the young filmmaker is finishing up post-production on another short film, Sugar Plum. Shot in January, the film recounts the story a dysfunctional family on the eve of a young girl’s appearance in The Nutcracker.

Blue-Eyed Mary will have its North American premiere at Visionfest in New York City in mid-June, and it’s West Coast premiere at Palm Springs International Shortfest Short Film Festival at the end of June.

Wendy Helfenbaum is a Montreal-based writer and television producer at http://www.taketwoproductions.ca

Contact information:

Olivia Newman
OCN Films
612 West 147th Street, Apt. 4
New York, NY 10031
Website: www.OCNFILMS.blogspot.com
Phone: 718-309-3932
Email: ocn.film@gmail.com