NBFF Filmmaker's Five with Jill Carter

By Kelly Strodl
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Q: How did you hear about the Newport Beach Film Festival?
A: I heard about the festival from my good friend and one of my co-producers Elliot Kotek. Elliot has a long-standing relationship with the festival as a journalist. He has often spoken about the quality of the festival and films shown at NBFF. I have also heard from other filmmakers that it was a really friendly and supportive environment. So far I would  agree on all fronts. It has been a great place to have the world premiere of my film ninety-one.

Q: Tell a little about the story of your film and the production of it.
A: ninety-one is about childhood memories and how they shape us as adults. We meet five good friends at a dinner party and hear them share memories, ones they might not have shared before. 

We shot the film in January last year – it was a very cold winter in Toronto. Fortunately there were not a lot of exteriors. We shot over four days, on film….very old school these days. It was a fun shoot but a big undertaking as we had 16 main cast members –many of them were young kids. When you shoot children there are strict restrictions on how many hours you can work with them so sometimes it created tricky situations with filming. Also during the shoot I ended up getting strep throat – that just added to the craziness!

Q: Tell a little about yourself and your story in filmmaking.
A: I work in film production in Toronto, Canada. I have been a script supervisor on many feature films and television series. I founded my own production company Staggeredwheel Productions a number of years ago to start directing and producing my own projects. ninety-one is my second short film. moment my first film screened a number of festivals around the world. I recently completed my third short Little Larry and am in development of my first feature film.

Q: Your take on the performances of the lead actors, (set backs, triumphs, impressions, good surprises, etc.)
A: Working in the film industry has afforded me the perfect opportunity to meet and watch actors perform. Therefore when it came time to cast my film I already had a number of talented people in mind. Toronto has a very gifted pool of actors to draw from. I love my main cast! I am very happy with their performances but knew I would get nothing less, as most of them were people I had worked with before. The biggest surprise for me were the kids, they were amazing, all of them lovely and talented. They took direction well, seemed to understand what was asked of them and the story they were telling. Some of the memories were difficult to play, even for the adults and the kids took it all in stride.

Q: What do you do when not making a smash indie film?
A: Well as mentioned I work in the industry and when I am not working on someone else’s film I am working on my own. I am having a lot of fun developing my feature and am really looking forward to directing it very soon.       

Click here to watch the Q&A from the ninety-one screening which showed right before DRAWING WITH CHALK, who will have their own NBFF FIlmmaker's Five soon. 

Posted by Kelly Strodl
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