POINTING FINGERS (2010, 15 min)
POINTING FINGERS – Cover
“When a theft is reported, family members quickly point fingers of blame at each other. As buried angers erupt and words fly, suddenly no one knows what’s true and what’s not.”
HISTORY: POINTING FINGERS was the third film Brooklyn Young Filmmakers produced, and the second film we developed from one of our own student’s script. We shoot the film as part of our first official MAKE A FILM Class Series (Fall 2009 / Winter 2010). This time though we developed it into a longer and more complex story in the class. We advertised in the community for a location to shoot and found one. Tina Flemmerer, a college student from Germany volunteered her services as Cinematographer and Editor for the second time, and again borrowed camera equipment from the school where she worked. A light kit was loaned by a local filmmaker – but we were only able to get the lights on the Friday evening that we were setting up from the other filmmakers who were borrowing it before us. We discovered that only one of the lights was actually working. The Location where we were shooting was a private art gallery with small overhead spot lights, which we aimed and used.
HOW LONG WE HAD TO PREP & SHOOT: 2 ½ Days: On A Weekend Our Shoot Location, ShopTalk & Art Gallery, was available to us from 3:30pm to 9:00pm on a Friday. A small crew put up the Set and Behind-the-Scenes department areas (including Craft Services/Catering). The Film Shoot was on that Saturday and Sunday, 9:00am – 9:00pm. We went overtime Sunday by an hour, finishing the breakdown and clearing out of the location by 10:00pm. Since it was the end of the weekend and we had no access to the BYFC office in the Whitman Community Center, all the prop, set, catering, and borrowed lighting equipment was stored in the hallway and apartment of the BYFC Director. Because we had no budget for transportation, it took many little trips over a period of a couple of weeks (in the small car of a volunteer – the car you see used as an Action Prop in POINTING FINGERS) to return all the items to the BYFC office and our various lenders.
Weather Conditions: Cold, banks of frozen snow on the streets. (BYFC paid $10 for a car wash of the volunteer car used as an action prop, so it would look bright and enviable rather than muddy and salt stained.)
THEMES IN POINTING FINGERS include: rivalry and anger between siblings, bitterness and misunderstanding between parent and child; impact of drug addiction on a family; impact of death on a family; the difficulties of developing as an artist in a working class family, and the problems of aging.
CAST: We advertised with the New York City Housing Authority and recruited one actor, who had no acting experience, from the Willoughby Senior Center, and an actor from a NYCHA Theatrical Arts project. The actress was a professional actress referred by an actor friend of the BYFC Director.
POINTING FINGERS
POINTING FINGERS from Trayce Gardner on Vimeo
ORIGINAL STUDENT SCRIPT PDF
INSTRUCTOR’S SCRIPT CRITIQUE PDF
FINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT PDF
DISCUSSION GUIDE PDF