Last push

Even the cast have joined the last big push on Indiegogo to help get the social justice film 20 Ways out to festivals - on average the cost of submission falls somewhere between 50 and 100 dollars - just 50 dollars enables us to send to another festival. Help us push.http://www.indiegogo.com/20-Ways

Photo Gabriella Marks (c) Triggerfilms

http://www.indiegogo.com/20-Ways

See the film trailer for our 2011 comic satire - 20 Ways.View the film then post, share, network to get the film out there.We'll be using crowdfunding to complete the film and also to teach students in the spring.

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Like '20 Ways' on Facebook to stay up to date with the film's progress.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwzO2Ua7MH8 New! Edit this video

Clip from '20 Ways' goes live.

A social justice comic satire on immigration. Winner State of New Mexico, New Visions & Panavision Awards 2011. Inspired by an article on 20 ways to spot an illegal. A Jewish family flee 1930’s Europe, a story with modern global echoes.
Written & directed by Peter M. Kershaw & produced by Duchy Parade Films.
Clip edited by David Aubrey.
Sound mix Dave Aston.
Music Gerald Fried.
Executive Producer Judy Hennessey.

IMDB page for 20 WAYS

20 Ways (2011)
www.imdb.com
Directed by Peter Kershaw. With Christopher Dempsey, Joe Feldman, Liliana Ashman, Kathryn Phipps, Omar Lux. A comic satire 20 WAYS explores the absurd humor of an article by an Oklahoma lawyer that proposed twenty ways to spot an illegal. An entertaining, intelligent look at immigration using humor to explore this contemporary tale. Check out in IMDB.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2033188

20 Ways review

‘20 Ways’
By Mike Smith
A modern satire.

In the opening frames of ‘20 Ways’, two horses pull a rickety wagon down a dusty dirt road toward the audience – and a pair of stern, stiff, spread, uniformed, and jackbooted legs. This simple image, iconic in nature, introduces the thematic riff that will shape the film’s 16-minute running time: people versus the system. When the image shifts to a lone Nazi officer and owner of said jackboots, he slowly removes a pair of anachronistic police shades before halting the wagon, introducing the story’s key component: timeless absurdity. In a double stroke as visually striking as it is sly and subtle, international award-winning filmmaker, writer/director Peter M. Kershaw has stated his intentions for ’20 Ways’ as a satire before a single line of dialogue reaches the audience’s ears.

Shot in New Mexico on (mostly) black and white film, ‘20 Ways’ is a short comic satire that takes an off-the-wall look at a contemporary and emotionally charged issue of debate – immigration - without ever preaching about it. Instead, the film tackles its subject through its clever plot, offbeat characters, quirky visual style, and original score by legendary film composer Gerald Fried (The Killing, Paths of Glory, and Roots among his classics).

The story unfolds simply enough. A mother (Kathryn Phipps) and her two children sit in uncomfortable silence as Hymie (Joe Feldman), the fully bearded family patriarch, fields the increasingly bizarre and intrusive questioning of nosy border guard Marc (Christopher Dempsey). His investigation becomes an awkward one-man game of good cop/bad cop that leaps from straightforward interrogation, to language confusion, to threats of force, to sly mind tricks, to passive-aggressive harassment – and back again.

But the devil is in the details, and atop his basic narrative foundation, Kershaw has erected a rich and complex web of structural girders – dramatic flourishes that one by one, little by little, bring the story’s subtext into the light. Marc is consistently preoccupied with testing the family’s “Germanness.”, their belonging to the State. While searching their belongings, he happens upon an antique violin. After some finagling, he encourages their young daughter Jessica (Liliana Ashman) to play a brief selection from Bach. “Good German music,” he nods in approval. But Marc’s satisfaction is short-lived. He soon discovers “Uncle” (John Flax) hiding beneath the wagon. Uncle produces a hammer and claims he was fixing a leak. When Marc asks for his name, he blurts out “Isaac!” Simultaneously, Hymie chimes in, “Michael!” Hymie scrambles to clarify, settling on “Isaac von Michael.”

Uncle, wildly uncomfortable, avoids eye contact. Marc smells a rat. Further investigation reveals – wait for it – the size of Uncle’s and Hymie’s noses. Abnormally large for people claiming to be from Frankfurt, in Marc’s opinion. Now he needs to see their papers. It’s a pivotal gem of a moment, and an illuminating one. The story’s humor is driven by the men’s witty and excruciating verbal interplay that constantly beats around the bush. Despite Hymie’s name and appearance, Marc never once asks, “Are you Jewish?” This refusal to cut to the chase contains an unpleasant ring of familiarity; as Marc engages the family, his behavior walks a razor-sharp edge between the gruff, businesslike shakedown tactics of a servant of the Third Reich and the subtle, tortured restraint of a twenty-first century Border Guard, hence the shades.

Even some of the character names feel vaguely anachronistic, out of place, modern yet somehow appropriate to the story. It’s as if the events of ‘20 Ways’ could unfold in 1930s Germany or in present day near the Mexican border and there’d be no difference. When UK native Kershaw resettled in New Mexico in early 2010, he left behind a Europe in which the legality of actions taken in France and Italy raged over their treatment of Romaine’s as illegal immigrants. Then, his new neighboring State of Arizona was gearing up for a controversial legislative crackdown on illegal immigration. “I found a piece on the Internet to do with an Oklahoma lawyer who put together twenty different supposed ways to identify an illegal. This formed the basis of the Arizona police forces’ approach to identification – right down to the sandals you wore,” Kershaw explains. “What struck me as humorous was, other than looking Hispanic – that’s the one thing they couldn’t say – I could actually fail all twenty of these things and that seemed an absurd way to profile people and a very dangerous road historically to journey down.”

The clever insertion of these “twenty ways” into Marc’s investigation draws a direct link between past and present, between the tension of prewar Europe and the unceasing headache of the southern U.S. border echoed today across the globe. This link is boldly underlined in the story’s unconventional twist ending, which, without spoiling too much, sees a striking transition to color film.

While social commentary may be a significant component of ‘20 Ways, it’s these gorgeous, humorous, absurd, and emotional visual strokes that tell the story. Such a visual feat proved a major challenge for Kershaw and ace cinematographer Anders Uhl, who collaborated together for a full year prior to shooting in May 2011. “Visual research went into a number of things,” Uhl explains. “Part of it was researching still photography from [Europe in the 1930s] I wanted to take that approach.” Kershaw adds, “Gone are the sharp high definition images we are so used to watching in modern films. Instead we have a much softer period look and feel to the film.” Kershaw explains, “I wanted the audience to feel as if they are looking back at something which is in fact very contemporary.”

Uhl added on the film’s look. “Films about that time period (1930’s) tended to be made later, so I was more interested in stills. We looked at a lot of old black and white portraiture, which had a very specific look in terms of optical qualities and the way it was printed.” Having achieved the darker, heavily contrasted qualities of period portraiture, a whole new visual canvas was unfurled, on which extra special attention was paid to each individual actor through multicolored lighting filtration. For example, “Omar Lux, the boy playing Hymie’s son, had these beautiful blue eyes, and in his close-ups, we used a blue filter to bring those out and give them a silvery sheen and we mixed that very classic kind of approach with a more absurdist one. I think of it as a very high level of comedy, as opposed to just the high-key, flat comedic look that’s frequently done.” Uhl has some very definite opinions on just how fitting his and Kershaw’s chosen method is. “The material is very funny, but it’s also very, very dark. I feel there’s a respect in our approach for the darkness of it, which you never get away from.”

Kershaw concluded, “We wanted the satirical approach of the film to have a definite look and style and I think we achieved that. I wanted the audience to feel they are watching history but are they?” As director, for Kershaw, the power of the sound track and music score and the importance of the cinematographic approach can be summed up thus: “It brings a whole new edge to a comedy. Combining that dark, dramatic look with these absurdist elements in our photographic approach mirrored in our playful and powerful score makes this a unique, complex, original piece.”

We are currently in distribution and booking festival screenings for ’20 Ways’. Produced by Duchy Parade Films LLC you can contact Duchy and Peter M. Kershaw at: duchyfilms@gmail.com.

Michael Smith, ’20 Ways’
August 2011

On the radio - Friday 12th August

TURN ON YOUR RADIO AND LISTEN to CINEMA SCOPE at 6:30 this evening! Stu Goswick's guests include Yoav Potash, producer/director of 'Crime After Crime', award-winning documentary that open is SFe this week AND SFCC Film Dept Head Monique Anair with staff members Peter Kershaw & Gene Maderos and students Marcos Abeta & Mark Gee, discusing the great film classes offered this fall at SFCC....6:30pm on KSFR 101.1FM and live-stream at ksfr.org.

Sound is mixed

Sound mix is now complete

We move a step closer to being able to lauch on the film festival circuit.

Photo by Gabriella Marks

(c) triggerfinger/2011

Steady on that steadicam

Rich Romero about to jump into action as steadicam operator on '20 Ways' one of nearly 40 crew who took part in the filming process north of Santa Fe, New Mexico at Los Luceros in May 2011.

(Ps. If you look carefully you can see he is humming 'Eye of the Tiger' - his signature tune for turning up on set).

Final screen title for film - '20 Ways'

‘20 Ways’ replaces the original working title ‘WHAT? or A road trip to Europe’.

The short comic satire ‘20 Ways’ explores the absurd humor of a newspaper article that proposed twenty ways to spot an illegal. We start in a B&W world, seemingly a period story about Hymie, his family, and their horse - a Jewish family who are stopped by a Nazi border guard as they are fleeing Europe in the 1930s. The film takes an off-the-wall look at the contemporary issue of immigration using humor, music and a quirky visual style to open up the subject. Shot on film in New Mexico by International award winning writer & director Peter M Kershaw with an original score by Emmy winning Oscar nominated composer Gerald Fried.

In 1976, Gerald was nominated for an Oscar for Best Music: Original Score for the 1974 documentary, Birds Do It, Bees Do It. He was nominated for a Grammy, and won the Emmy award for Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition for a Series for the critically acclaimed 1977 miniseries, Roots.

Composer and multi-award winner Gerald Fried has pretty well been, seen and done that, when it comes to film scores.

'20 Ways' marks a return to scoring for film with 10 original pieces of music created for '20 Ways'. This film marks Gerald's 60th year in the business and a landmark in his career.

Having, since 1995 turned down numerous offers to produce a score Gerald said "What appealed with '20 Ways' was the original screenplay and the comic nonsense, absurd and visual quirk of the film". Director Peter M. Kershaw said "The film's score had to reflect the period, give a sense of a European setting, echo the silent B&W world and let the audience know that as a satire it is comical and fine to laugh, Gerald's score does all these things and is a work of beauty in it's own right."

To give the film it's distinct look we spent a deal of time researching B&W photography from the 1930s studying European photography and employ rare lenses like the Cooke 65mm to generate a sense of period. The film was processed at Fotokem Labs, LA and then graded with a colorist at Technicolor NY.

Y Te Lo Pido
by David Olivarez
Ser-Ca Publishing, 2010

'Y te lo pido' means 'I ask of you'. The song is about asking their loved one to return to them, that they have made a mistake and love and miss them very much. So, 'I ask of you to return to me'.

Photo from on film set by Lori R Harris

Mexican music for WHAT? or Road trip to Europe

The film will feature the following track

Y Te Lo Pidoby David Olivarez, ASCAP
Ser-Ca Publishing, 2010

'Y te lo pido' means 'I ask of you'. The song is about asking their loved one to return to them, that they have made a mistake and love and miss them very much. So, 'I ask of you to return to me'.

It's good to work with living musicians.

Composer

Gerald Fried is now busy working on 9 new pieces of music to be recorded in July for What?

First of the last film Lab stages - today

Today, in New York City at Technicolor Labs WHAT? or A road trip to Europe is going through the full scan. We look forward to seeing how it turns out. It is a tense moment.

Photo by Gabriella Marks (c).

Final Goal in sight

With some pledges already on the table I'm pleased to announce that we are now down to needing to only raise the final $6,000.

World class Composer joins WHAT? team

You may know Composer Gerald Fried from Star Trek, Man from Uncle, Gilligan's Island, Dynasty or for his work with film legend Stanley Kubrick.

Gerald won one of his many Emmy's for his Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition for a Series on the critically acclaimed miniseries ROOTS.

Gerald now brings his sense of humor and musical fun to create an original score for WHAT?

"Often a good composer brings the icing to the cake but Gerald is such an amazing talent and creative inspiration I think we just added a whole new layer to our already multi-layered cake. His film work is among my core influences - I'm proud and honored to be collaborating with Gerald - it don't come any better." Peter M. Kershaw, Writer/Director

Character

Joe Feldman as Hymie with the family cast while Cinematographer Anders Uhl frames a shot.

This image says what it is all about - performance and performance caught on camera.

Love it!
Peter

Photo by Gabriella Marks

One interns view of working on WHAT?

What did you enjoy most about working on the production?

"I learned 200 times, and 200 times faster then I ever would have otherwise. I learned: Blocking is critical, every aspect of the shot thereafter depends upon it. Shooting outdoors utilizes natural light, simplifies setups, but locks the schedule to available light and weather. A movie shoot is like mechanical hurricane, at the center is an eye piece and a lens, as a DP, one need only focus on the simple desire and feeling of wanting ‘get the shot.’ “Company moves” can be the biggest bottle neck, so non-sequential shooting coupled with mobility and verbose planning can pay off in large time savings. If you are lucky enough to find a director who creates a creative, collaborative, and open environment, everyone can learn from each other and help one another. Film is fragile, it’s a process in which the chain depends on each link to work. I better understand the many roles that make up a film crew. Each one is essential, and each must come together in focused unity for each and every take to work. The process is like rowing a ship to a distant unseen shore, many oars have to hit the water at the same time. Just as the Captain and the Navigator have a unique relationship, so does the Director and the DP."
Taos based Alex Levy, Video Village on WHAT?

People and process

Filmmaking is all about asking practical questions and answering them in a creative way.

Greg Eichman of Serious Grippage & Lighting Company in Santa Fe brought more than our budget could afford to the set of WHAT?

He also brought experience as Gaffer that added to the look of the film and the final quality.

At his core Greg is a filmmaker of the finest kind. We had a lot of interns on set and Greg was happy to share his experience and knowledge adding a value to their experience beyond what was expected of Greg.

Greg is the kind of person you need on a film set as you know with Greg he has your back - it was a pleasure to work with a Gaffer of such calibre and it won't be the last time. New Mexico's finest.

Photo Gabriella Marks

WHAT? gave an opportunity for a number of new to film people to experience life on a production set. Lori Rohan Mersman Harris a photographer in her own right had the chance to intern as a film stills photographer and observe experienced artist/film set photographer Gabriella Marks at work in the very different arena of a film set.

Phone nail thumb image by Gabriella Marks.