Beneath, Between, Behind the Scenes: Starting with my First Film HR
M. Francis Enright is a filmmaker. His first short film, HR, was accepted into zero of the 23 festivals to which it was submitted. His second short film, The Routine, was nominated for Best Dark Comedy at the Georgia Comedy Film Festival. His third short film, Say Your Name, won Best Drama and Best Director at the Top Shorts Films Festival and was selected for the 2024 Boston International Film Festival.
You know what I learned? Stop complicating everything and get to the heart of story.
My first short film, HR, was shot during the summer of 2017. It cost me about $40,000 and it was accepted into zero of the twenty-three festivals it was entered into. One reason might be that it is 24 minutes long, about 10 minutes longer than what festivals are willing to consider from an unknown filmmaker. Or maybe the story didn’t work for them. Or maybe it wasn’t the type of comedy people could relate to. Or maybe they had too many films to consider and didn’t even watch mine. Or maybe because we didn’t use SAG actors. Or maybe because I am a middle aged white man and not part of the diverse demographic festivals are looking for.
Or maybe they just thought it sucked. Maybe they thought it was juvenile and lacked depth. They found it cliche with no pay off.
And while that may be true, I consider it a success. I worked as a grip for five years in New York City. I worked on many low-budget projects and most of them never got finished. I am not criticizing those filmmakers. Things happen. Money runs out. Bad storms. Actors get sick. (Watch the documentary Lost in La Mancha to see how badly it can go, even for experienced filmmakers with lots of money.)
I consider it to be a success because I started it and finished it. And most people don’t do that.
***
I was doing short, comic videos with a small studio in Milton, MA and I needed actors to play off. I went on Boston Casting’s website and saw a video by Maryilyn Johnson, contacted her, and she was good enough to come down and act in about ten of the videos.
The videos centered around a guy named Brian Stigltiz who works in an office doing some bullshit. He is repeatedly called into meetings with the Human Resources administrator or enforcer or whatever it’s called about things he has been doing such as eating from the garbage can, telling ‘Yo Momma’ jokes, carrying an emotional support ventriloquist doll around with him, and stalking his coworkers.
The videos were 2–3 minutes and posted to YouTube where maybe a dozen people watched them and no one thought they were funny. I thought they were funny but I am in the miniscule minority on that.
One night after shooting Maryliyn and I had dinner at an Indian restaurant. I told her that I had a script for a short film and was looking for a studio to shoot with. I liked the guys in Milton, but they were mostly a music production studio who did videos on the side. I needed people who did shorts and feature films as their focus. Maryilyn gave me a card for Jefferson Productions in Brighton MA. She had done some projects with them and said they were very professional and might be interested in producing my project. I checked out their website and liked the work they had produced. They also seemed like the right size and had the right vibe: small, just starting out etc. I sent them an email and we agreed to a meeting at their office in Brockton.
We did not get off to a great start. The appointment was for 11am on Saturday morning. Eleven came and went and they were a no-show.
I thought, “Well, that’s that.”
Part of me was relieved. I was nervous about taking the chance, leaping into the creative void. I was going to have to commit a significant amount of money to get the project moving and then more to get it done. I was also afraid of failure; that I wouldn’t be able to do it; that I would suck as a filmmaker. Where would that leave me in life? I was 45 and trying to do something new with my life.
Them not showing up gave me an excuse to not find out.
You can always find an excuse to not do something. It’s fear. Everyone has it. Fear of failure; fear of success; fear of responsibility. Either you can deal with it, or you can’t. But that would be of small comfort when I am 80 and wondering why I am disappointed with my life.
They got back to me and apologized about the confusion, some scheduling miscommunication and I thought okay. Let’s give it a second chance. I have made plenty of errors in my life.
Moreover, I didn’t want an excuse. I wanted to make a movie.
***
We started pre-production in March, posting ads on casting sights such as Backstage and Boston Casting. Then casting sessions. Then we had to scout locations, get wardrobe together, get props etc. A crew had to be hired to oversee the various tasks.
David Bright is starting a new job at Gold Crest Enterprises LLC. He is nervous because this is a step up in his career. We don’t really know what Gold Crest Enterprises does or what David’s career is; it didn’t matter. (In my view, these types of corporate jobs are all the same anyway: people sit at computers doing a bunch of bullshit all day.)
The story takes place over the course of three days. Each day, David’s girlfriend makes him a special lunch and each day someone steals David’s lunch. He doesn’t know who is doing it, but he has his suspicions. One is the office bully. This guy, who I don’t think had a name, is an asshole and a creep. He takes pictures of a female employee’s ass and, as it is revealed, is using his position to force another female employee to have sex with him.
David has a coworker named Carl, a mature gentleman in the parlance of human resources. Carl is a bit of a sad sack. He has issues with his bowels and is in general old and confused. He doesn’t seem to understand how to use his computer or the copier. Other employees, like the asshole, make fun of Carl, but David is nice to him. He even goes to Carl’s car and gets the inflatable ring that Carl sits on when his hemorrhoids are flaring up. This is because David is a truly nice human being.
Another one of his coworkers, Kathy, is knee-deep in her own pathology. She is an avid scrapbooker who is not shy about bringing it into work and revealing the most personal and painful details of her life. At one point, she grabs David to show him a picture of her and her two boys on the day that she moved out of the house because she and her husband had finalized their divorce. The caption reads: THE DAY DADDY STOPPED LOVING US.
David doesn’t know how to react beyond saying, “Oh, that’s great!”
Because David is a kind person.
All of this is being watched over by surveillance cameras.
The actor playing David is black, but that doesn’t matter either. He was an actor playing a role, which is what he was supposed to do. Other people on set have jobs that they are supposed to do but they are more interested in playing a role than actually doing the work.
David is nervous. He is a young guy starting his first real job, embarking on his career. His girlfriend gives him a little pep talk in the morning as she makes his lunch, which she does every morning for her man.
My idea was to throw a lot of resources at a short film to really make it quality, make it shine. I wanted to throw as many resources as I could at this short film and really make it shine. I wanted to make a film that would be a cut above all the low-budget crap out there. I wanted all the bells and whistles: a dolly, sophisticated lenses, the best camera, the best lighting package.
In a behind the scenes documentary about Goodfellas, Martin Scorsese gets on the wardrobe person because in the scene where the young Henry Hill is dressed up in his gangster suit, the collar to his shirt doesn’t have stays (little triangular pieces of plastic that hold the corners of the collar in place). Who would ever notice that? Would the audience ever say that the scene or the movie didn’t work because two little pieces of plastic were missing from a shirt collar?
Those things do matter. But not if there is no heart.
My story was shallow; the characters didn’t sell. I think people found it amusing but lacking substance. Details matter, but not if you don’t have a solid story and convincing characters. I did not pay enough attention to the focus of the story. To tell the truth, I’m not even sure what the focus was.
What was missing was the heart.
And so in some ways I consider it a success. I finished what I started. And I also learned a ton. I learned to focus on the characters, not all the other stuff. You can have the best lighting, the best shots, the best wardrobe and props and drones and bells and whistles in the world but if people don’t like your characters, if they don’t hate your characters, of they don’t connect or resonate with your characters in some way, all that stuff amounts to nothing.
Keep it simple. Concentrate on what is important. Give your characters depth, give them a core identity that the audience will see and believe.
The same is true in life. Stop complicating everything. Keep it simple. Be grateful for that simplicity. , “A bed, a desk, a chair. What more do I need?”
