The Other Side of Paradise - Rogue Cinema
Written by: Josh Samford

Director Justin D. Hilliard is an interesting voice amongst the shouts of the independent film community. I was sent his feature "Wednesday" last year and was really blown away with, an epic tale from a limited budget that took place on two continents. It was really an impressive experience. Hilliard contacted me not too long ago about his most recent feature, The Other Side of Paradise. I'm here to tell you that not only does it reach the standards held by the previous Striped-Socks production - but triumphantly rises above it. Everything that made Wednesday a memorable and fun experience is completely and utterly amplified times ten in this much more natural feeling road-trip drama comedy. A true adventure on film if ever there was one, I can't begin to describe how much fun this film is when it's "on". It's a romantic and entertaining ride through the south, mostly Texas and delivers a touching and beautiful rollercoaster of emotions. Although a sizable two hours in length, Hilliard's opus is such an interesting and emotionally impactful piece that it makes it all certainly seem worthwhile. Although surely not everyone will agree with me, those who do will find an amazing and engaging experience.

Rose is a bit of a free spirit, the kind of girl who says what comes to her mind and doesn't hold back. Alex, her good male friend is just back from Europe and is going to be bunking down with Rose while she goes off to visit her dad and then open her art gallery in Austin Texas. Both Alex and Rose have been friends for years, but have built up a lot of sexual tension over time with each other having been in committed relationships for the past three years. However, the two have both left those relationships and are now free to do what they want - with neither trying to push their relationship to any extreme in too quick of a hurry, they set off on their road trip picking up Jamie the very next day after Alex is in town. Jamie is Rose's brother and just been released from prison. A quiet and rebellious young man who is generally very nice to most - but when pushed or confronted, carries a to-the-point violent streak. Working as the bodyguard for Rose and Alex in many ways, he doesn't shy away from their wild shenanigans. When they arrive at their father's house though, Rose and Jamie have a surprise waiting for them. Their new step-mother, a girl only a few years older than Rose herself, accidentally lets it slip that their real mother actually lives in Texas herself - not in Portugal as their father has always told them. After pushing for the information, they are given an address and are off to see just what their future, and past, has in store for them.

Sometimes when you love a little indie flick, you have to cover your bases and preface all your praise with "as long as you look over this or that, you're bound to have a good time", because sometimes it takes a forgiving audience member to truly see the really great things about a film that might have a couple of bad actors running about in it. With Other Side of Paradise, I don't feel the need for any of that. This excels past the "Indie" film stigma, to something that is so unabashedly cinematic and fun that there are only a handful of films that really stick out in my mind that have affected me in a similar way. Sure, if you're Johnnie Blockbuster Rental, a film about human emotion or simplistic fun might not appeal to you. However, if you're carousing Rogue Cinema or my own site - then you're already a pretty open viewer. The Other Side is everything that the romantic comedy genre ultimately should be, but unfortunately is not. It is a romantic film not to be mistaken, contains a lot of fun comedic elements as well - but it's never sugarcoated, never dumbs it down for the audience and is never without something to say. Don't get me wrong, this isn't some kind of preachy arthouse flick about a couple of lovebirds, it is genuinely funny and such a lighthearted flick - especially during the first hour or so, when we fall in love with these characters as much as those falling in love onscreen.

The growth shown by director Justin D. Hilliard as well as all involved is simply amazing. If you read my glowing review for Wednesday, you know that I was a fan of that film without a doubt. However, with this feature Hilliard makes due on all of the great promise he showed in his first film. The use of music! By god, the use of music in this film. Using a few artist, but peppering the soundtrack with multiple songs from each band all throughout - it's as if the music never stops flowing, but it's all so very well done and beautifully orchestrated along with the visuals. The bands, I really don't know what 'genre' you would define them as. I think whatever one might consider Death Cab For Cutie, the music here would fall in line with along with a little bluegrass tinged country soul at times. Hilliard showed an ear for music that I enjoyed with Wednesday, and even had me searching through websites finding music from the artists who provided music for that soundtrack - and I have a feeling I'll be doing the same thing once again for this film. The quality of the music simply matches up with the great quality of the film, which simply looks like it was shot on a much larger budget than I'm sure it likely had.

Wednesday showed a lot of great visual potency, but in a much more linear film such as this one with so many different sets and locations that vary from bars to cramped cars, he shows a lot of style and imagination in the camera set-ups and shots. Not to mention the beautiful slow motion shots, ahh, I do so ever love them. There are two moments that come to mind in the film that really blow my mind and illustrate the whimsical fun of it all, I'll just go over one of them to conserve some time. As the three members of the cast play Truth or Dare in the car (which becomes a character in itself, as we spend so much time in it), the first one to accept a dare is Jamie - who at this point you wouldn't even expect to play along in such a joke. His dare turns out to be walking up to a random girl and kissing her. When told to do so, his response is simply: "that's all?". He steps out of the car while the music blares, walks right up to this random and beautiful woman who stands smoking a cigarette. He says to her "first I'm going to take a drag off of that cigarette, and then I'm going to kiss you". Then, in slow motion and the music swelling over the soundtrack he does just that and I tell you this: there is NO way to solidify the coolness of a character any more than that. At that point in the film, I cashed in my chips, turned over my cards and just said "that's it, I am SOLD."

At this point, I review sometimes six to seven independent films a month for the magazine - and in my personal time I'm writing about some pretty cheaply made older exploitation films for my own website. Truthfully, I wonder if at this point I've become so used to bad acting that I'd have trouble spotting what other people consider "good" acting. However, if I see anyone talking down on the performances in Other Side, I'll just flip out on them. I'm sorry, everyone is just SO good in this! The characters are so well crafted and the actors are all so perfect for their roles. Frank Mosley, who plays Jamie may be the more quiet member of the main trio, but he sells the character in every single scene. He doesn't have to say much, because he's the epitome of cool. The guy doesn't look like a hardened criminal, but his charisma and the way he carries himself in the film makes you believe it - and the spectacular way that he's written just makes you love this guy from beginning to end. John Elliott who plays Alex brings a professional class to his role and has such great chemistry with Arianne Martin that the two really seem to rift off of one another. His mannerisms and his comfortable style comes off as 100% natural and helps establish this great Alex character. Blown away with his performance. Arianne Martin, who plays Rose, already had a great performance under her belt in a Hilliard film as Lucy in Wednesday. However, this time around with a writing and casting director credit - she really is able to shine. Sultry and sexy, funny and naive - this is a character who is all over the board in the presentation of herself, but doesn't lie about it. Always honest and with a ton of really great lines, she steals the show but she's in really great company the entire way through.

Guys, I was blown away, no lie. I just loved The Other Side of Paradise from start to finish. I'm all about giving independent films a fair shake, but indie or not I know Other Side will remain in my favorite films of this year period. Hilliard makes due on all the promise of his previous film and continues his rise. I just can't wait to see more from this filmmaker and I'm going to do my best to let other people know about this spectacular little flick. You just have to see it to get all of my praise and hype. You can read more about the filmmakers and the movie over at the official Striped Socks website: www.striped-socks.com. Do it now!

The Other Side of Paradise - Mungles on Movies
Written by: Matt Mungle

When I first saw The Other Side of Paradise I truly enjoyed it. But I had a hunch that this film was even better than my initial reaction. Sort of like a great album. One that on first listen you like but find that the more you listen and the more you catch the rhythm and the movement it becomes one of your most soul stirring records. After seeing this film again my theory was confirmed. I adore it. Sort of like life and the main character, Rose; it is far from a perfect film but that does not make it less beautiful.

Rose (Arianne Martin) is on a journey that starts out simple enough but soon turns into something far more complex than she anticipated. Along with her lifelong friend Alex (John Elliott) and recently paroled younger brother Jaime (Frank Mosley) in tow it was to be a drive from Dallas to Austin for a showcase of Rose's photography. As with any road trip there is time to talk, reflect and take a detour if needed. What these three discover is laughter, zany characters, pain coupled with emotional highs and lows that change all of their lives to some degree.

Justin D. Hilliard directed this script in which he, Martin and Ryan Hartsell penned. I am not sure if it is the writing or Arianne's interpretation of Rose or maybe a combination of both but her character's journey is quite moving and emotional to watch. Even for a film filled with comedy and humor. This is a journey of exploration and self discovery for Rose. She is on her own when we first see her. And it is an entirely different Rose that we find at the end. She does something amazing, and that is to find hope and beauty and new life in the midst of confusion, chaos and destruction. Her world isn't perfect but she defines perfection in it. Kudos to you Mrs. Martin. You touched our hearts.

Also, like my favorite album there are moments in this movie that I want to rewind and watch again and again and some scenes that are a bit out of place and distracting that I want to skip over to get to my favorites. Certain scenes are incredibly edited and put together. The timing and music and direction create a rhythm that draws you in. The film contains this frail rope that Rose has tried to keep her emotions tied up in but we see it quickly unravel. There is a sense of dread and I wanted her to find something to hold on to. Something she could anchor herself to until she finds the purpose in it all. Hilliard does a decent job of keeping that focus and allowing the story to move at its own pace without becoming too laborious; giving us time to engage with the characters and their emotions.

As deep and emotional as this film tends to be there is tons if humor. I loved all of the off the wall characters that pop up randomly in this film. It was that sort of unexpectedness that made the comedy work in the mix. Many times I see a film the first time and I laugh really hard and I go see it again and I want that same response but I find that knowing what is coming makes the humor fall flat and it is very disappointing. The fact that I laughed as hard if not harder the second time I saw this, even knowing the lines that were coming, solidified the depth of the humor. It is not shock or content driven but character driven which I think adds longevity to the laugh.

Unfortunately as well as the humor worked in most places there were moments when it was a hindrance. There are times I am emotionally gripped by what is about to happen when a joke or line is delivered that threw me off. By the time I got back in the moment it was over and I felt cheated a little. As if I couldn't be trusted with the full on blunt force trauma that the characters were about to feel. This made the impact of these scenes less than what it could have been. And should have been.

Over all I give "The Other Side of Paradise" a very solid 4 out of 5 mile markers. Sure it isn't perfect, but as a whole, I enjoyed it. The bad moments are rare and do not subtract for the greatness of the package. Plus anyone who has ever driven that stretch of I-35 from Dallas to Austin will love the historical and landmark references used to give this film wonderful Texas heart and soul. This is a truly well written script. Funny, witty and emotional is a nice trifecta. As with real life we truly never know what lies around each turn but with the right attitude and surround by those we love and trust we can certainly survive it.

Wednesday (2005) * * * *

Wednesday Review by: Daniel J. Stasiewski – The Film Chair

What is ' Wednesday ' about? Is it about love? Is it about redemption? Is it, in fact, an exercise in narcissism? To all three I would say yes, but Wednesday , a unique and experimental film, is above all things a work that struggles with its own ambitions. For most films that would be a criticism. For Justin D. Hilliard's feature debut, however, it is anything but.

With those ambitions intact, the film becomes a harrowing journey through four stories. One is about a young man dealing with his family and his past in relation to his current lover. One is about an old man trying to find his
way back to a love that he had lost so long ago. One is about a mother whose dedication to the right things may have not have served its purpose. The third story disintegrates into a final narrative about an artist whose film
begins to take on a shape that he could never have anticipated.

It's that fourth one that matters most. It's that fourth one that takes me from comparing this film to say
'21 Grams' to realizing there are few films that can be honestly put next to ' Wednesday '. While I'm inclined to use Almodovar's 'Bad Education' as a ruler for success, that too, with its own film-within-a-film story, doesn't sit
just right. ' Wednesday ' strikes me as a film with many potential comparisons, none of which seem to be
totally viable.

The uniqueness may be why, in spite of so many things that I could have disliked, I didn't find myself able to turn away from the film. I was intrigued and interested in the stories that initiate an existential discussion of human loss and redemption and floored by a sudden and jarring turn toward the intelligent introspection of an artist with something so bold and so beautiful waiting to escape that it may actually destroy his creation.

The film as we know it is eventually destroyed and from rising from the ashes is a miraculous creature. The original creation, an affecting but at times melodramatic work, could have lead to attacks on the film. What
' Wednesday ' does successfully is it addresses the criticism that would have come in words like 'pretentious' or 'overwrought,' forcing the viewer to engage the film in a different way than they would have otherwise. Most
people don't go into a film with a back-up plan on how to view it, and with that in mind, ' Wednesday ' succeeds.

Had the film progressed as three simple narratives, I would have commented on Ryan Hurst, who plays the young man in the first story I reference above, and his convincing and affecting performance. I would have complimented the editing, which keeps the three narratives appropriately constructed as three interrelating tales. I would have also noted Ryan Hartsell's subtle, but distinct photographic style.

If ' Wednesday ' has a fault it's that I'm not left remembering those things alone, things that should have made me love the film (specifically Hurst's performance). Instead, I'm left to focus primarily on something that is so
successful that, while it may intensify the love I would have felt for one of the earlier stories, it doesn't let me respect them singularly.

I did want to feel for those earlier characters without anything else, but the fourth narrative, this seemingly autobiographical storyline, makes me understand those vignettes as a part of something greater. I'm still
affected by those earlier stories, but on the whole, ' Wednesday ' demands at least a second viewing to fully appreciate what Hilliard has done. With a film like ' Wednesday ', a film that stayed with me for days after first
seeing it, there will be no complaints on having to see it again.

© Daniel J. Stasiewski 2000-2006

Indie Interview with The Film Chair

Interview by: Daniel J. Stasiewski – The Film Chair

I've seen maybe four independent films without distributors that made me wonder what was wrong with the distribution system in America. 'Kwik Stop', 'The Snowflake Crusade' and 'Façade' are the first three. Justin D.
Hilliard's film ' Wednesday ' is the fourth.

Hilliard's ' Wednesday ' is a literate film with the potential to change lives. It's rather professional looking, despite being filmed on Mini-DV and has a grasp of the cinematic process that I don't expect when I'm watching
an indie film. I do enjoy indie film for the ingenuity and ambitions, but ' Wednesday ', which ranks as one of the best indies I've ever seen, is one of the only indies to struggle with its ambitions and win. Justin D. Hilliard discusses his characters from all four storylines and his real life motivation in this month's indie interview. (Note: This interview contains major spoilers.)

The Film Chair: When I watched ' Wednesday ' it was a deeply affecting film and an intellectual film. It shows through the characters. How much do you personally care about these characters when you are writing the film?

Justin Hilliard: Whenever I am writing a film it's almost like I'm writing elements of myself or people that I've known in the past into the story. I get to know them really well and I care about them. Ithink that if you are going to write a character, whatever their flaws, theyare always going to have some good in them. A major part of my process is I have to find that good and find their heart and then that will show mewhichever decisions they make and whatever choices they make in regard to the story.

FC: The fourth narrative in the movie, the one with the filmmaker, it would seem almost too contrived had you written it the way the film is described by the filmmaker in that story. But I still have to ask. How did you come to write the film narratively, the three storylines, leading into that fourth storyline? What inspired you to do that?

JH: Just the process leading up to the final segment?

FC: Yes

JH: Well, actually when conceptualizing began for our first feature, it was going to be just 'Luke and Lucy' (the first story). It was going to be that original story with just a lot more involved backstory and character as the feature. What I decided was to interweave these two other stories with 'Purgatory' and *Lyrics* that I wanted to expand and show how different people deal with death. We shot the first one, 'Luke and Lucy' and then I ended up going to London to prep for 'Purgatory' and as I was over there I started having these confrontations with my ex who I hadn't seen. It was a pretty rough breakup and I ran into her on the subway, just out of nowhere, just like in the film. Then there were a couple meetings after that and it was just one of the situations where she came back into my life as I was in the middle of writing the segment, so things were kind of fresh and evolving and becoming something more than what was originally outlined. She turned to me and said this is your '8 ½' just kind of joking around, but that kind of got stuck in my head because one of my favorite films of all time is Fellini's '8 ½' and that was what was happening. I was writing this film. I was really passionate about the stories. And it was kind of just falling apart. Especially when I got to the Lyrics segment which was supposed to be the paradise of the three stories. Julian (the filmmaker character) or my paradise was lost and that turns into the 'Narcissus' segment. It just evolved through what was happening in real life really.

FC: So that is a personal part of the story, the 'Narcissus' segment, it is very personal to you?

JH: 'Narcissus' is pretty much as close to a documentary or reality that I could get. There are still some things that are different within the story because this is still a film. The basis is still a screenplay, but all the situations that connect to all the different stories are all based on something that happened in real life that is connected to *Narcissus*.

FC: Did I catch a glimpse of you in the 'Narcissus' segment? Where you were interweaving a shot of you with another woman? Did I make a mistake or was that you?

JH: You are actually correct. There are a lot of hidden images in 'Narcissus' and there is a lot of behind the scenes footage from filming the other segments, a lot of small clips within 'Narcissus'. The clip that you caught that kind of holds for just a second longer than some of the others, what you are seeing is me and my ex. For the audio in *Narcissus* I actually on the third meeting in London…I asked her if I could bring over a camera to record some audio because I wanted to do this voiceover. So I took over the script for 'Narcissus' of all these things that were still fresh and we had a nice dinner, sat down, and recorded the audio. That is what you hear. That's the voiceover for *Narcissus* is us repeating these painful things that had happened to us, though it was also something that was very cathartic for both of us. I walked out of there and felt like I had something quite special and real that I hadn't seen in a film or felt before.

FC: In my review of the film, I say, 'If ' Wednesday ' had one fault it's that I'm not left remembering those things, the things that should have made me love the film.' That's not negative criticism, it's just saying that there is this sudden, surprising change, but it works as a stream of consciousness type thing. Did you see it as a problem when you were writing it? Did you see it as possibly distracting from the other stories you were writing too?

JH: You had these segments and you have the hell, the purgatory and the heaven and they all have their ending whether it is redemption or they are stuck in hell or whatever happens. So when it came to deciding how to put in 'Narcissus' it had to be abrupt like it kind of was in real life for the fact that we are working on *Lyrics* and I wasn't personally attached to that segment at all. I mean that it had almost no personal influence. Literally as the film falls apart so does *Lyrics* on screen. It's supposed to be abrupt. That's what's interesting because so many people relate to different segments in the film but forget a lot of that once 'Narcissus' arrives. So on the second viewing, they go back and remember these other characters. The reason it's there is because every emotion that you felt for these past segments whether good or bad, is slammed into this one character. I think that if it was not as abrupt, it would be too long and I think that if you are automatically slammed into this one character it does involve you. That kind of shake up does force the viewer to be more involved.

FC: I completely agree with that statement. That is one of statements I make too, to be a cliché as possible, that it brings it all together.

JH: It takes the entire cinematic story, these film elements and sure it takes the attention off of them, but it focuses on what the whole film is saying. If you have to revisit it, then there are other things that will
connect even more and those segments can come across stronger.

FC: And it's a film that is definitely worth revisiting. I was engaged to whole time, and I've carried it with me for days now. That's one of the biggest compliments I can give to anything that I watch, that this movie has stayed with me, that it has been that affecting.

JH: Well, thank you.

FC: Well, you film this in many locations. Was it something that happened by happenstance, that you were able to film these in different locations or did you plan it out that way? Were you set on making this ambitious project,
like you did? Going from Texas to London, was it planned that way?

JH: As soon as I started writing the other segments, from the moment I started writing 'Purgatory', it really just felt like a London segment. These characters, I really wanted to show that there was this history and
kind of a believable romantic side to a somewhat elderly couple, middle-aged to elderly, that I haven't seen a lot in films. That kind of darkness, that element of where they are at in there lives, that really just felt like
London. I wrote it down and I told my producing partner that we have to do this in London. That was the biggest step. I had just gotten done with school and I managed to get a work visa through that. Even though I graduated
I was able to get a cheap enough work visa to go overseas, have a job that got me room and board, research, finish writing the characters once I got to know the area a lot better, and just cast it, location scout it,
and do everything on my own out there. My producing partner and some of our people here in America came over to help us out too.

FC: Your producing partner, Ryan Hartsell, he was the cinematographer, the director of photography for this film, correct?

JH: He's the director of photography and co-producer.

FC: The vignettes, when you two were discussing the photography, did you film them distinctly for each segment? They seemed like they were. Did you have a plan for filming the differently, stylistically for each segment?

JH: We had a base for the whole thing. There are some color balance elements, whether it is complete desaturation for 'Narcissus' that I had in mind before hand. Then it was really a matter of taking the stories and
saying, 'What do these really remind us of?' 'Where are we at visually and emotionally whenever we see these characters?' We shot them all based on what we were feeling. We always ran multiple cameras. We shot Mini-DV
because with our first feature it is like, we can either shoot film, pay more for it, but get one take out of the actor, or we can shoot Mini-DV and just run the camera then put the focus on the story and the acting first and
embrace our limitations for our first feature. We can improve on the other stuff later, we'll make the visual style connect to the story so we picked an emotional story that is raw, emotional and kind of unsettling and I think
that connects well to Mini-DV. '28 Day Later' they shot most of that on Mini-DV or digital and that really adds to the film. With ' Wednesday ' it brings it more so to the docu-reality feeling that you get with 'Narcissus'.
It was one of those things that we planned and talked about until we were able to just feel it out when we were in the scene. The editing more than anything was kind of the thing, more so than the cinematography, where we
were able to dictate what we were feeling with each story, within the jump cuts. There are just constant reminders throughout the film,especially in 'Luke and Lucy', that you are watching a film and that was intentional.
We have somuch coverage on this film, but we'll go to the close up instead of the wide and reverse the traditional order of things, just hints throughout the film that this is a film. When it comes to the final segment, you are kind of caught off guard, but when you connect it later it makes sense.

(c) Daniel J. Stasiewski 2000-2006

Interview with Justin & Ryan on their film ' Wednesday '

Interview by: Denise Kaminsky 2006

Where did the idea for creating the film ' Wednesday ' originate from?

JUSTIN - Wednesday is based on real, personal events that happened to me. We all go through the same things in life, but it's how we individually deal with them that separates and connects us all. We all encounter love and loss whether directly or indirectly. These are universal themes. The end result may differ, but the pain, heartache, hope, and redemption will always be there.

Did the film idea come from the both of you?

JUSTIN - Ryan always adds his insight and knowledge to whatever story we are talking about. I wrote the story and screenplay because it is such a personal story. Ryan has such a precise eye with the camera for both
aesthetic and emotional/dramatic effect. So, the initial idea is mine, sure…but the end result is both of our collaboration, design, and art.

Tell me something about Striped Socks Productions?

JUSTIN - Striped Socks Productions is true independent filmmaking. We love film and truly believe that film is art. Our goal is to create art that stands the test of time. Striped Socks Productions represents that passion
for art, storytelling, and collaboration. We want everyone involved in one of our projects to be hardworking and passionate about their work. Stephen King said, 'Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented
individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work' My personal motto since I was a kid was, 'MAKE IT HAPPEN!' If you want something bad enough, make it happen.

RYAN - Justin and I have gotten lucky in finding each other. We compliment each other's visual and intellectual abilities. That is Striped Socks Productions.

Are there any upcoming Future projects?

JUSTIN - Things are still pretty hush-hush, but we will be going into pre-production on three different feature films at the end of the year. We are going to shoot PALE HORSE, ENOCH, and BLUE LIKE ISOLATION back to back to back. We're very excited about these projects. These films will cover new ground stylistically and thematically, very exciting!

RYAN - We are going to tackle many different subjects and really surprise people with our ability to jump from genre to genre. Like Kubrick, we plan on redefining these genres as well and making films that are unique and
purposeful.

Will there be screenings? If so, what towns/state/country will they be screening in?

JUSTIN - We'd love to have a London screening by the end of the year; otherwise, the DVD will be available for everyone! Wednesday was shot digitally and is meant to be seen on a home entertainment system. And it is
the type of film that should be watched more than once.

RYAN - Wednesday is very special when viewed in an intimate setting and it requires many viewings to full appreciate it. There is a lot there to be seen and discussed.

What made you both become a team?

JUSTIN - I could not ask for a more talented, intelligent, driven partner in film. We have such similar tastes and styles, but what I can't do or can barely do, he excels at. Ryan is the perfect collaborator, contributor, and
enhances everything I do as a filmmaker. Plus it helps being really good friends. We trust each other and won't throw a fit if the other one rips apart a new idea…it's mutual respect.

RYAN - Like he said, what I can't do, Justin excels at…we fit the puzzle and the pieces fit perfectly.

How many other projects have you both worked on together?

JUSTIN - We've worked on a couple short films together. Wednesday was the first feature film for both of us. Next, we'll work on these three feature films together.

RYAN - This isn't the end of the collaboration. We have so many stories we want to tell and so many goals we want to accomplish. We won't stop until we're six feet under…until then, we'll always be going forward.

Justin: Who inspired you to become a writer/director/producer?

JUSTIN - From a personal standpoint, I'd say my parents. They always encouraged me to think outside the box and pursue any creative endeavor with confidence. From a filmmaker standpoint it was Stanley Kubrick, Peter
Sellers, and Steven Soderbergh. I'll always remember the first time I saw A Clockwork Orange, Dr. Strangelove, and Eyes Wide Shot. Those first viewings of Kubrick films changed me.

And it was Peter Sellers roles that showed me how amazing performances could really be. Steven Soderbergh's work, specifically Out of Sight and Schizopolis really altered my views on the difference between an auteur, a
one-trick pony, and a sell-out. Soderbergh brilliantly manages to make these large-scale crowd-pleasers and small personal statement films with the same drive and quality.

Ryan: Who inspired you to become a director of photography/producer?

RYAN - Stanley Kubrick's ability to attack any genre with precision is the reason I'm a filmmaker. His use of color and light showed me that each frame of a film is like a painting. That is why I'm a filmmaker. I'm an artist first.
I'm not solely into film, I use several different mediums, but a DP does deal with color, light, composition, and the balance of shape which connects to me being an artist first.

Loss and Transition
Article by: A.J. Eaton - The Shorthorn:

Director and writer Ryan Hartsell, left, and director of photography and producer Justin Hilliard created an independent film called Wednesday . Hartsell and Hilliard are UTA alumni. How people individually deal with love
and loss is the connecting theme of the intertwining stories in two alumni's independently produced film.

Writer and director Justin Hilliard, a 2004 graduate of the UTA film program, started his feature film project, Wednesday , after he graduated along with Ryan Hartsell, the film's director of photography and producer.
Wednesday will be shown at three separate release parties this weekend.

The film dives into three story lines portraying the pain and anguish of loss and how people react. A fourth story line ties them all together.

Hilliard chose the actors for the film by simply talking with them instead of holding traditional auditions.

'I put out casting calls and held meetings and mainly just talked to the actors and had to feel something in my gut,' he said.

Hilliard said the first conceptualization of the film was based on real experiences he was having.

'I was going through a lot of the same stuff the characters in the picture do,' he said. 'The film is really about these different people. One loses his father and pushes his girlfriend away. Another loses someone and never
learns to talk about it. Basically, the film deals with loss.'

Filmed in Texas, California and England, the film is close to the hearts of the filmmakers. Hilliard spent a year in London preparing for the film and waiting to shoot. The entire film took two and a half years to shoot.

'I moved to London and got a job at a hotel through a work visa, so I could have free room and board and I could get the film done,' he said. 'We did a series of shoots in some caves north of London, and it was probably the most fun I had on the whole shoot.'

Wednesday 's soundtrack features 'Living a Goodbye,' a melancholy acoustic piece performed by Clint Niosi, who attended UTA from 2003 to 2006. Niosi, who wrote and recorded the song over five years ago, said he was extremely happy to have his music included in the film.

'It's a nice feeling to have a renewed interest in this song after five years,' he said. 'My song is really about my own fear of intimacy I guess, and so it works well in a film with the overreaching theme of loss.'

Hartsell has worked with Hilliard on numerous other projects, including the short film SCHISM and the dark superhero satire Captain Freedom. Hartsell said he just seems to click with Hilliard and will continue to work with
him.

'Justin and I formed a collaboration while attending UTA and after graduating, we really wanted to do a feature,' he said. 'We seem to fill each other's voids. Certain things I'm not good at, he is and the other way around. We bring two nice different aspects to the table, and it works.'

The duo have three feature films planned for next year, which will be shot back-to-back. Hartsell said he is very proud of Wednesday and hopes for only worthwhile film experiences in the future.

'I'm really proud of what we accomplished with a very small budget and minimal crew,' he said. 'We made a feature film just as good — and in some cases better than — a lot of studio pictures.'

User Reviews - IMDB:

'Hope and Love', 26 January 2006 (10/10 stars)
Author: from United States

This film was beautifully written and directed. I was amazed at the different location shots, but more than that, by the complexities of the storyline. If the purpose of the film was to offer hope to the hopeless,
then it succeeded. Bravo!

One of the things I liked best was opportunity. I had the opportunity to feel pain. I had the opportunity to sympathize or feel dislike for a character. Best of all, I had the option to hope.

I cried throughout the film. Hard enough that people turned around with knots in their throats and nodded at me in agreement.

Harold, you're wonderful! Hope you're happy up there.

' Wednesday ', 25 January 2006 (10/10 stars)
Author: terrparkerterr from United States

Wednesday was amazing! I've seen a lot of Dallas and Austin local films and this one ranks at the top for me. As an actor I was completely lost in the performances, incredible realistic performances. After the screening, some
people seemed confused (including friends of mine), but I really was amazed by this film. It worked on so many levels to me. I reminded me of a mixture of Requiem for a Dream, Cold Mountain, and a documentary or reality show. Very intense film-making. The editing was so different and intense, linking into the personal nature of the stories. I'm sure a lot of people won't get this film or ever give it a chance. And that is a shame. I am looking
forward to seeing what Justin D. Hilliard does in the future.

' Wednesday ', 21 January 2006 (10/10 stars)
Author: Austin38 from United States

I caught Wednesday in Dallas a couple of days ago and have been thinking about it ever since. At first, I wasn't sure how I felt, some parts made me feel uneasy and were quite different from other films. I just can't stop
thinking about it. Everything seemed to be connected in it. It may throw some people off, if you're not into shaky hand-held, realistic, documentary type images. The acting was incredible. The segment shot in London had a
very professional cast. The Luke and Lucy stuff was so intense. Lucy was amazing, barely had any lines, but had me in tears. The guy in that section reminds me of early DeNiro. The third segment was short, but the acting was
great. I wanted to know what happened, but without giving a spoiler to the ending, it made sense. And the end is what has kept me thinking. I want to see it a couple more times to get it all, it has a bunch of layers. I recommend it for people that like to think and like alternative stuff.

'See this film', 2 February 2006 (10/10 stars)
Author: IDigglerpta from Dallas, Texas

SEE THIS FILM - If not for the tremendous acting (which it all is) - If not for the tremendous film-making (which it all is) -

SEE THIS FILM for the ingenuity behind it. The realization towards the end hits the viewer like an emotional brick wall. This film is so deftly polarizing in style and statement, slamming the viewer through a cinematic and emotional hell - hypnotically entrancing the viewer through a questionable purgatory - and giving the viewer a glimpse of a possible heaven -

THAT'S THE FILM - then comes the surprise - change the entire perspective -leaving the viewer questioning ideals, purpose, art, and relationships -WOW.

I read the other comments and agree completely with what has been written. Except that not one review has mentioned Frank Mosley as Julian and the subtleties and nuances within his near silent performance. Mr. Mosley's performance and segment was by far my favorite and I see as the most successful. And that makes the entire film successful. I also felt that the actors who portrayed Linda, Lucy, and Virgil were nothing short of
brilliant. Their careful glances and heartfelt reactions lend so much to the respective leads within their segments. (As does Mr. Mosley's performance draw on the eerily realistic voice-over in Narcissus Flower).

WEDNESDAY – DVDTalk Review – ‘Recommended' (3 out of 5 stars)
by Jamie S. Rich

THE MOVIE: Wednesday is a story told in four segments, all about terrible losses suffered on the same day of the week. Hump Day, as it were, the day you have to get over to carry on. There is Luke and Lucy, a troubled couple who can't seem to find a way to share their considerable pain; Harold, an older man who has alienated everyone who has been important to him and who is convinced he is damned to a life in purgatory; Norma, the single mother in a dead-end job who just received word that the father of her children has died; and a final component that brings the rest together.

First-time writer/director Justin D. Hilliard has structured his script so that all the stories happen simultaneously, cutting back and forth between the various narrative scenarios so that as they unspool, the events of each can be juxtaposed against the other. This is particularly effective in the case of Luke and Lucy vs. Harold. Luke (Ryan C. Hurst) seems determined to make the same mistakes Harold (Philip Goldacre) has made, and when the older man tells a random hotel bellhop not to take his love for granted, you wish he could step over and tell the same thing to the younger man. Both men are haunted by something in their past that will not be named. Harold did something to make his daughter, who has just passed, despise him, whereas Luke's father did something to drive Luke away. Luke's father has also just died, and the son returns home to confront what he left behind. Lucy (Arianne Martin) follows to try to support her boyfriend, but the overwhelming negativity couples with her own secret to send her running home. Interestingly, not knowing Luke's secret makes it a lot harder to like him, while being ignorant of Harold's indiscretion allows us to have compassion for him. It's a tricky play on our perceptions. Luke is all raw nerves and anger, and because we aren't sure why, he comes off as a selfish jerk. Harold wants to do right, and so his sins are no longer relevant. This gives both men entirely different walls to climb to find the new beginnings they seek.

Wednesday is shot on digital video, and that fact also has an interesting effect on how the film might be viewed. Shot in natural light, Wednesday has the unpolished look of reality. For me, it often feels like I am watching the raw material, a rough draft, as opposed to the finished product. While this means the film's flaws are right up front, it also softens their impact somehow. Perhaps the fact that I can't forget that there are people behind what I am seeing makes me more willing to look past the errors and see the earnestness that lies on the other side. (If that weren't enough, Hilliard and his producer, Ryan Hartsell, have put a heartfelt intro on the film; truth be told, I'd have much preferred that being exclusively an extra than loading up as I started the main feature.) This is an entirely independent release, and it often shows.

Most of the missteps do come out of the good intentions of first timers. There is a tendency to oversell in Wednesday . Early on, there are too many jump cuts and quick flashes of memory. It makes for a feeling of forced artiness that is only compounded by the ever-present musical score. DV automatically lends a movie the air of cinema verite, and if we're going to talk that style, then we can't avoid Jean-Luc Godard. He teaches some valuable lessons in how to handle sound and, more importantly, silence. Wednesday could use more silent moments.

Even so, there is a hypnotic quality to these first two stories (titled 'Luke & Lucy' and 'Purgatory'). The sense of despair and yearning is hard fought and mostly won. Harold's story is the most successful of the two, as he reconnects with his ex-wife (Adrienne Marks) and seeks actual redemption. Both Goldacre and Marks appear very comfortable on film, and it's a welcome change of pace to see characters of their age having bona fide life experiences. Erich Redman (United 93) plays Virgil, who serves as a guiding chorus for Harold, drawing comparisons between Harold's journey and the poet Dante's expedition through the Inferno. It adds a quirky counterbalance to Harold's heavy emotion. That said, the long shots of Harold walking through a stony labyrinth could probably be dropped. It overstates the allusion.

The acting in 'Luke & Lucy' is a lot less consistent. Martin is strong at playing the put-upon girlfriend, but Hurst is real up and down. When he's brooding quietly, he seems to be straining to feel it. He's much better when the emotion gets bigger, such as when he's having it out with his mother when he first arrives at home.
It's the other half of Wednesday where the real problems start to occur. The story of Norma (Holly Leach) is entitled 'Lyrics of a Lowly Life.' It had the potential to be the best of the stories, or at the very least, a more hopeful counterweight to the other two. It has a different rhythm, signaled by the guitar-based music in its scenes. The death in Norma's life offers a more instantaneous new beginning: the man she considered worthless when he was alive apparently turned out to be worth some cash after he was dead. Packing her two girls into the car, Norma heads off to the funeral.

Only, she never gets there. The fourth story, 'Narcissus Flower,' crashes in, and it stops 'Lyrics of a Lowly Life' in its tracks. There is no resolution for Norma, and for the rest of Wednesday , we follow a new metafictional track. It's the last chapter on the DVD, and so only covers the last fifteen minutes or so of the movie, but it's a colossal misstep. While Hilliard's intentions in taking this left turn are genuine, it ends up selling the rest of his movie short. Beyond leaving the viewer unsatisfied after interrupting Norma's narrative, it leaves a question mark hanging over the entirety of Wednesday . Meta devices in stories are notoriously difficult to pull off; they're no longer new, and so they can appear to be pretentious cheats. Unfortunately, such is the case with 'Narcissus Flower.'

This final segment introduces us to two new lovers, Julian and Maggie. Julian (Frank Mosley) is the one person in the movie more self-absorbed than Luke, and since he controls the narrative flow, we don't get a bead on Maggie. When it's pointed out to him that his behavior is narcissistic, it's meant to be ironic, but the true irony may be that the whole movie has tumbled into its own reflection.

Forgiving that last error in judgment, Wednesday is an interesting glimpse at raw talent blooming. Though very rough in patches, there is enough to warrant a viewing, just maybe with your finger on the stop button so you can get out before the film makes a wrong turn. Hopefully, Justin D. Hilliard has gotten his growing pains all worked out, because I'd like to see his second feature pay off on the promises of the first.

Video: Shot on digital video, Wednesday is shown in full frame with a 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The transfer is well done, catching all the detail of the original footage. It definitely has a raw, lo-fi look, but that's the nature of such an endeavor.

Sound: Wednesday has a stereo sound mix. The filmmakers do their best with the audio, all of which was captured live, but it's far from perfect. The levels change based on the camera position, and sometimes there are obvious noises from the microphone being exposed to the open environment. Know that going in, however, and you'll be fine.

Extras: There are a couple of extras on the DVD. One is the aforementioned filmmaker introduction. Like I said, I wish this hadn't come on automatically when I started the movie, but it's only about 30 seconds long, so it at least goes by quick. The other feature is, unfortunately, painfully long. 'The Real Julian and Maggie' is the script from 'Narcissus Flower' being read by Hilliard and his real-life ex-girlfriend, Nicole Gray (who also receives story credit on Wednesday ). As Hilliard explains, some of the script is based on their relationship, and so when he ran into Gray while they were shooting 'Purgatory' in London, it seemed like some weird twist of fate. This unedited footage is part of some kind of reconciliation, and it's one camera in Gray's apartment, running unmanned as the two read through the screenplay--some scenes several times in a row. It's tough to watch, partially because it's boring and partially because it seems far too personal to be sharing. I can't tell if it's a case of self-flagellation, obsession, or once again, the same narcissism being discussed in the script. How about we lump all three under the umbrella of 'youthful indiscretion'? Rounding out the disc is the trailer for Wednesday .

FINAL THOUGHTS: Wednesday gets a rating just this side of Recommended. It certainly lacks polish, but it's a noble independent effort. Though the filmmakers fly too close to the sun and fall before the closing credits roll, they manage to tap into some honest emotion prior to losing their way. Take it as a glimpse of a director of tomorrow getting his start today, and Wednesday 's flaws stop being a problem and become just the natural byproduct of a do-it-yourself aesthetic. Raw in both methodology and emotion, Wednesday lingers. In this age of disposable entertainment, take that as a high compliment.

Jamie S. Rich is a novelist and comic book writer. His most recent novel is entitled ‘The Everlasting'.

World Traveler

A lesson on making the impossible happen, from local filmmaker Justin Hilliard.

By KRISTIAN LIN

Most filmmakers I interview are quite happy to chatter about their own work. It is, after all, the purpose of our conversation. Not so with Justin Hilliard, the tall, thin UTA graduate whose beard doesn't distract from his boyish facial features and enthusiasm that befits his 24 years. Our conversation winds through a great many film-related topics, like our shared enthusiasm for the Tutto Fellini festival, Talladega Nights, and Asian horror flicks. 'All great horror flicks are either dramas or comedies at their core,' he said. His casual manner and passionate engagement with film (instilled from an early age by his mother, he says) make him agreeable company.

When Hilliard wrote the script for his debut film Wednesday (which is now on sale in DVD form through his production company's web site at www.striped-socks.com), he figured that a portion of the movie featuring an older couple felt like it belonged in London. So instead of trying to make a facsimile of Old Blighty in our area, he moved to England and almost instantly got a job as a hotel porter. The work required him to learn the city's geography as quickly as possible — the better to direct visiting guests to local tourist spots — and it allowed him to rewrite the script for specific London locations. His pay helped fund the project, and the actors he cast were locals. If that wasn't enough to deal with, on his second day in the city he unexpectedly ran into his ex-girlfriend on the tubes. 'A lot of personal events wound up going into the script directly,' he remembered.

Wednesday is a meandering and rather abstract meditation on the lives of various couples, one section involving a young couple in America (Arianne Martin and Ryan C. Hurst), another about an older Englishman (Philip Goldacre) ruminating on the choices he's made in life. The American sections of the film were mostly shot in North Texas, including Haltom City. 'The DFW area is great at giving filmmakers permission to shoot, especially Tarrant County,' he said.

For his next project, he and producing partner Ryan Hartsell (for whom Hilliard has nothing but praise, saying, 'He can tell me when my ideas are bad') are shooting for the moon. He's looking to finance three more feature films that he'll be selling to investors as a package: a horror flick called Pale Horse that he plans to shoot in Denton, a drama called Enoch that he'll look to shoot in Prague and Rome, and a one-character piece he describes as 'my Bergman film' called Blue Like Isolation . He's hoping that the three films and Wednesday will form an aesthetically cohesive four-part story built around questions of masculinity and loneliness. This stunningly ambitious project isn't without its pragmatic elements; he's hoping the package will reduce the risk for investors, and he expects the horror movie, at least, to make out financially. 'Even when horror is crappy, it sells,' he said, 'and we don't plan to make a crappy movie.' In most horror flicks, character development is secondary, but not so in Hilliard's film. Indeed, he's hoping Pale Horse will 'revolutionize' the genre.

It sounds like a lot to handle, but Hilliard seems completely undaunted by the monumental task in front of him. Looking back on his sojourn in England, he said, 'If you want something bad enough, you can make it happen.'

Cinephelia.com Review By Jason Moss

Rating: 8/10

This was probably one of the more interesting experiences I've had in a while.  I'd received a copy of Wednesday a while ago, and upon first getting it in the mail I popped it in.  Unfortunately I had to cut it off pretty early on due to a personal issue, and ended up becoming pretty busy after the fact.  What is going to be hard for me to admit as a so called film viewer, was I wasn't really captivated by the few minutes I had seen, and thus I was having trouble motivating myself to pop it back in.  I eventually did, and in doing so I gave myself a wake up call of sorts.  It was one hell of a film.

Let me start by saying that Wednesday in some ways is a diamond in its own ruff.  It's got potential like I rarely see in independent efforts.  It's got a very well thought out script, and I will admit now that it is the first film in a very long time that has surprised me near or close to the end.  I won't reveal how, but I will admit for that alone this film won me over.  While the film itself has an independent look, the camera angles and cinematography as a whole don't.  With all due respect to the people behind this film, it was like watching a young athlete with little if any financial support. The child has all the potential in the world to become one of the best, but is seemingly held back by the resources and equipment at hand.  Now please don't let that scare you off, this film still looks damn good regardless of budget, but I can't imagine how beautiful it would have been using the same angles, cuts and idea's with a better film stock.  Overall however I really applaud the effort, and outside of the film stock itself potentially bests films with a much greater budget.

I mentioned before this was one of the more interesting experiences I've had of late, and for the most part that can be credited to the acting.  Many indy films live and die by the acting, and often it's easy to see that some of the actors have little if any experience.  Wednesday saw a bit of both worlds.  On one hand I saw some of the best performances I've ever seen in an indy film through the Harold and Linda characters, while I also witnessed some unconvincing acting through the characters of Lucy and Luke.  It was almost like a Ying and Yang.  When cutting from the UK sets to the US, it became very apparent that the actors behind Harold and Lucy were in a completely different league, to their American counterparts.  They were superior in all aspects, and to some extent this distracted me as I found myself wondering how the American casting  Luckily Wednesday was strong enough to look past this shortcoming, regardless of what I thought about the Luke's acting.  In fact, the story surrounding his character captivated me regardless, a testament to the script itself.

Wednesday 's a film I won't soon forget, nor will I forget the people behind it.  The tagline describes it best.  It's a story of life, love, loss and redemption.  Justin Hilliard is an individual full of potential, and I honestly hope someone with some money recognizes his talent.  While I'd be eager to see his next effort regardless of budget, I truly believe he has the talent to expand into a much bigger market.  I guess only time will tell.  Until then, you might want to check this out.  I'm not sure how easy it'll be to find it in stores, but I believe the director sells them on his website www.striped-socks.com

Fort Worth on Film / Indie filmmakers Justin D. Hilliard and Ryan Hartsell made their big break into Hollywood right here in Fort Worth.

Download Full Article Here

Wednesday Movie Maker Magazine

Interview: Striped Socks Productions - Pegasus News Article
Let's get one thing straight: Erich Redman was in United 93.
By: John P. Meyer

Justin Hilliard and Ryan Hartsell, 2004 graduates of UTA and already (on the basis of their first completed feature film, Wednesday ) established filmmakers, met with me for a late lunch at Roma's, south of Walnut Hill on Greenville. Also joining us were co-producer/actress Arianne Martin (who is, incidentally, Justin's fiancee) and co-producer/actor Frank Mosley.

Ryan, Frank, Arianne and Justin

Justin, Ryan and crew are committed artists. This fact is established beyond dispute as our discussion commences. They proclaim that Wednesday was produced without regard for commercial potential, and - having viewed the two hour long, intensely personal, sometimes uncomfortably dark and, finally, dangerously deconstructed film - I can report that the Striped Socks Productions folks have indeed created a work of epic non-commercial potential.

But I say this in the most complimentary way possible, because what Wednesday ends up being is a filmed document of the thoughts, emotions, philosophies and real/imagined life experiences of serious young filmmakers who succeed in demonstrating a raw talent for the art and craft of cinema. It's just so dang depressing for the first 100 minutes or so. If you order the DVD - and I recommend that you do, because I think you'll want to refer back to it after these folks complete their next series of films - I suggest putting away all sharp objects before popping it into the player. Forewarned is unarmed.

NOTES regarding the interview process and the transcript to follow:

Wednesday plays out in four segments, referred to below as 1) Luke and Lucy, 2) Purgatory, 3) Lyrics for a Lowly Life, and 4) Narcissus Flower.

For purposes of coherence, I changed the order of some of the questions/responses from their original sequence; I also omitted some of the conversation in situations where we diverged from topic. When you see how long this thing is, I doubt anyone will mind.

My editorial remarks are included in parentheses. (Like this.)

John P. Meyer: Are you all North Texans?

Justin Hilliard: Yes, we are all locally bred.

Ryan Hartsell: Well, I was imported at an early age, from Dearborn, Michigan. I was two years old, so…

JM: Tell me about the locations used in Wednesday . Did I recognize White Rock Lake spillway?

JH: Yes, that was White Rock Lake spillway, and we got pretty lucky with that one, because the scene was originally written to take place in a cafe, and Luke was supposed to just wander off into the sunrise, whatever. And Ryan's like, 'you need to check out this White Rock Lake spillway.' That's one of the locations. A lot of 'em are Dallas/Fort Worth area locations, Lewisville, Arlington, North Richland Hills, kind of scattered all around the metroplex.

RH: As far as a location to really isolate those two (Luke and Lucy), in that moment in time, that just came to mind. To see off into the distance and the perspective of that shot…

JH: With the shift of light, to The Divine Comedy, where it's purgatory/paradise, it really put them at the edge of the world, where they were about to make the step before they slipped into Hell, basically.

Frank Mosley: It's one of the things I really like about all the characters in Wednesday , because it's a great use of locations. Every character has their own space, and they completely fill that space. Whether it's the Narcissus or whether it's the Lyric segment, everybody has their own world. I think those locations were wonderfully chosen.

JM: Who did the scouting for the locations?

JH: On Wednesday , we wore so many different hats for that. Ryan and I always do a lot of the scouting. Frank helped out a lot. Arianne helped out a ton on location scouting. A friend of mine, Scott, who was a porter at the hotel I worked at in London, helped a lot with the scouting there. He and I pretty much did all the London scouting.

JM: What about the tunnel for the Purgatory scenes? Where'd you find that?

JH: The Hellfire Caves. Up in High Wickham, England. There's another set of caves, the Chislehurst Caves, and I'd been in contact with them, I'd been back and forth with them, and Ryan's boss gave him the suggestion to check out these Hellfire Caves…

RH: Because he actually grew up not too far from these caves.

JH: It's funny, 'cause at that same exact time I found them on the internet. So I contacted them. I went up there, talked to them, talked down the price just enough…

(LOUD CRASH FROM THE KITCHEN AREA)

JM: Wow, that was impressive! At least no gunfire was involved…

JH: So we just scouted it out, worked that location and, I mean, I'd written that stuff originally and it's one of those situations where I write something and no matter how it's gonna get done, Ryan and I have an understanding that no matter how difficult, it's going to happen, we're going to get it done. And so it's just a matter of spending time up there.

Because I'd moved out there (London, England) without knowing any of the surroundings. I'd just written a script where a segment (Purgatory) took place in London. So, it's just a matter of taking time to find those locations, find the actors, and that was one of the lucky ones that turned out to be a complete blessing. To connect Purgatory (segment) to Dante's Inferno even more.

JM: Oh, yeah. I mean, it was a thread that ran all the way through that story line.

JH: Exactly.

JM: So, you say 'lived in London?' You lived out there for a while?

JH: Yeah, after we shot the Luke and Lucy segment. The funny part of it was I wrote the script, I gave it to Ryan. This Purgatory segment takes place in London, and he's like 'Yeah. So we're gonna shoot in London?' And I said, 'Yeah,' and that was it.

So when I graduated from UTA - we both did, in 2004 - and, while I was still graduating, I was able to get a work visa. So I moved over to London right after we finished shooting the Luke and Lucy segment. I was there a couple days with just a suitcase. Went to a hostel, looked around for a job and decided to take one at this hotel, so I could get free room and board. Forget the pay. Free food, had a place to stay. It had free wireless internet, so if you've been over there, it's not cheap to get internet access. It really worked out perfectly, so I worked 12 hour days and then in my off time I worked on the film. I saved that money just to put towards the film.

And so then Ryan came out eventually and I scheduled everything so that whenever Ryan flew out there with a couple of people that had helped us out before, we had the crew and the cast all set up and we shot.

RH: Right off the plane we went to locations immediately.

JH: That day we'd signed the contracts for the locations in the caves.

RH: No time for jet lag.

JH: Exactly. I ran him around the city for location scouting: 'here's where we're gonna shoot this, here's where we're gonna do that.' Then, 'hey, let's get some rest and next morning we start shooting.'

JM: And how many days did you shoot there?

JH: That segment, I believe, was scheduled out to seven or eight days… it was seven days, the Purgatory segment was seven days.

And then after we finished the seven days, we took a nice little treat for ourselves, a trip to Prague.

JM: Wow!

JH: Me, Ryan and Cecil (Cecil Sparks, Key Grip) all went to Prague. We got to enjoy that before we came back to shoot the Lyric segment.

JM: I hear that's a really freaky place.

RH: It's awesome. It's probably one of the most historically preserved places…

JH: And it's the only place I've ever been to that… it's just fantastical. You can go to other places and they're still kind of rooted in what you're familiar with, but Prague was just a fantasy world. They had the most outstanding doors I've ever seen.

JM: Don't they have a lot of carvings of bones and skeletons?

RH: We went to a chapel that was actually decorated with 40,000 human skeletons.

JH: It's about an hour out of Prague, we took a day trip out there. And Ryan and I got to enjoy it. Cecil was a little bit hung over from Absinthe shots he'd done over the weekend, but… he stayed in the van, so he missed out on that wonderful place.

JM: O.K., let's see… has there been any other means of distribution for the film other than direct marketing via your website?

JH: Other than reviews that we've had, other sites that have included it, other write-ups that we did as far as marketing, the website's been the exclusive deal. We had Amazon and a few select stores in LA and the Dallas area - just independent stores.

But other than that, what we did with Wednesday is we maintained all the distribution rights. 'Cause we have these three films coming out ( Pale Horse , Blue Like Isolation and Elevators ) that are gonna be on a different level. These next three are not only artistic, but they're meant to be also extremely marketable.

So, after that, whenever those start doing well, those Wednesday rights become a lot more valuable. Instead of just selling for cheap and not giving Wednesday its due. We maintain those for later on, it'll be a little bit better investment for us.

RH: Wednesday's the kind of film that, after people see these next three films, they're gonna further appreciate.

JH: That's why it's our first feature. I mean, we could have done something like 'let's make a lot of money,' or 'let's do a cheap, cheesy horror film'… just make some money, sell it quick…

Arianne Martin: I've been in a few of those! (laughs)

JM: Really?

AM: Yeah!

JM: Well, see? You'll be in good shape to carry 'em through Pale Horse . It is gonna be a horror film, right?

JH: Yeah, it's gonna be a horror film. It's horrific. It's a drama at its core. Maybe some of the most intense drama I've ever gotten to direct or see on film. The relationship between the characters, I get thrilled even thinking about it.

But when those horrific moments come in, too, that takes it to its genre place, it's… I mean, we have big plans for Pale Horse . It's not horror in the condescending sense.

RH: It's gonna stand out from most of the stuff that's being made right now.

JH: By acting alone.

RH: We're actually gonna have genuine performances. There's not a camp factor that a lot of the horrors come out with.

JH: The way Kubrick defined genres? That's the way we hope to make it eventually. We have to define genres and kind of redefine them in our own artistic vision, the way we see it. So we're taking a horror genre with a lot of the elements that are throwbacks to these favorite films of ours, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, all these films that we love… it's gonna be something special.

AM: It's gonna have the intensity of like Silence of the Lambs, too, because those are so based on performances. And it's got that drama, but with the blood and guts…

RH: You can still call it a horror film, but there's something very scary when the person you should be fearing in the film is sane. It's easy to kind of write them off whenever they're insane and they're just killing people, maniacal things going on, but whenever it's sane and calculating, and you don't know what the purpose is, and you don't know if it's good or bad, that's pretty horrific. And then you have all these other relationship problems going on.

FM: I think too many horror films nowadays focus so much on getting to the crunch of the action, and the gore, it's so annoying. This is so based on the characters that hopefully the audience will forget if they heard anything about the horror element at all.

JH: I would love this product to be marketed as true drama. Like art house drama first and then to wide release? More people will be shocked. When things start escalating and inevitability sets in? It's gonna shock people because it's… they're gonna be so wrapped up in these characters and they're gonna be so emotionally attached - THEN the horrific elements come in and it's gonna blow 'em away.

RH: And we're talking reality, also. You look at most horror movies, and they're polished. They're too clean. The lighting is artificial - you know, and what we're trying to do is bring a reality to the film that… you know, you're starting to see in a lot of influence in film right now.

JH: Like United 93, that's a great example. Taking something on a real standpoint, making the camera.. you know, the story dictated the camera moves. Like Children of Men. The story dictated everything, and then when you saw the camera work, it just flowed, it's like 'this is what is supposed to happen.'

We've already started talking to actors; we haven't started talking with casting directors yet, but that will be very soon. Like Elias McConnell, he's been in Elephant, he's been in Paris, je t'aime, he's gonna come in for a small role, he's in talks for that, that's a done deal. And he's gonna knock it out of the park.

So it's gonna be exciting to see some of these art house character actors that tend to be sort of a certain genre, into another element, in a horror film. That gives them artistic credibility.

FM: What's great though, for those people that really do love that pure horror genre, we'll have kind of allusions and moments where it'll satisfy those guys.

JH: I was nervous when Frank and Ryan both read the script for the first time because they are horror fanatics, they've studied up on it, they know what they're talking about… Romero and Carpenter? Those are big influences on all of us but them especially, so when they read this thing that's a tip of the hat to the genre and alluding to certain things but kind of turning it on its head, I was nervous when they read it because, like anyone, I cared what they think. But they…

RH: It's gonna be awesome.

FM: It's pure Americana, pure horror.

JH: Like I said, with the dramatic elements, as a director, I can't wait to work with the actors involved.

RH: Might even try to sneak in a cameo of like a horror legend somewhere in there.

JM: Bruce Campbell maybe?

All: Noooo!

JH: Not one of the ones where the whole thing stops when the guy appears and everyone says, 'Oh, there's that guy!', but more like if Romero walked by and tipped his hat at someone - only a few select people are gonna know who that is. But that'll be the extent of that.

Horror sells. Even bad horror. But this is gonna be incredible horror, and we're excited.

JM: I'm excited. It's hard to be around you and not get excited.

JH: Pale Horse is in preproduction. It's going ahead.

JM: Who wrote the script?

JH: Me. On all of these I've written the script. I wrote the script for Wednesday . And Ryan and I've co-written a lot of stuff, Frank's a writer. Arianne's written some stuff. All these next ones are based on scripts I've done.

JM: Super. How have sales been on Wednesday? Satisfactory, as far as you're concerned?

JH: It's recouped our initial out-of-pocket expense; we've had some other investors help with the DVD that we'll be able to pay back soon. But that's not our goal (the money). Ryan and I wanted to create something that would be looked on later as art, when people go back and say, 'Well what was their first feature like?', they'll know that we had artistic integrity from the beginning. And they'll see that we put all that we had with that little budget in there, and were able to do well, so I think, the marketing, the exposure we've gotten, has exceeded our expectations. I expected it would be a couple of years before people would get… you know, it was a very personal story, I'll never be able to make something so personal again, so it's kinda nice.

JM: Sure. You probably don't want to.

JH: Well, there's personal elements in everything…

AM: Yeah, let's hope there's not a Thursday.

JH: Exactly.

JM: That's what my wife said. My wife said, 'is there gonna be a Thursday?'

(General laughter)

JH: Oh, I've heard so many different things on that score, it's like, 'the next one will be called Weekend, it won't be a remake of the Goddard film but it'll be…'

RH: I don't know how many Abbott and Costello moments I've had with the title.

JM: Speaking of the title – and speaking of my wife - she suggested that one of the determinants for using it might be the little ditty that goes, ' Wednesday's child is full of woe.'

JH: Uh… I mean, there's some elements from everything.

RH: Hump day.

JH: It's basically just hump day and this is about love.

AM: Whoa! (laughter)

JH: But I think that's just Ryan's interpretation. But as the writer, it's really just the actual day that a lot of these real events happened.

JM: O.K.

JH: And other than that, there's a second death in each segment. I mean, in the first three segments. There's an initial death, and then there's a second death. With Luke and Lucy, it's the death of their unborn child. In Purgatory, it's Harold. So there's an initial death and then there's a second one, and that second death always takes place on Wednesday . And so it connects on that level.

And Wednesday … it's full of woe! But, really, it just connects to a personal day, as far as some things that happened to me.

JM: So, how in heck did you fund this thing? Are you all independently wealthy to begin with?

(General head shaking, nervous laughter)

JH: We're all… you know, low to middle class upbringing. Probably as middle class as it gets. We've all had amazing support from parents. The parents have been supporting our art, emotionally… and I think that's just something special with this group is that the family has just been incredibly supportive. I mean every one of ours. I think of all our parents and how supportive they are.

Financially, Wednesday started out, it was all out of pocket. Stuff I'd saved, what I saved in London, some family members, uncle, grandparents, things like that, were able to invest as much as they could. To just help me to survive and get these films going. But so much of it was just everything we had, everything I earned…

JM: Did you max out your credit cards?

JH: Didn't max out my credit cards. Put some debt on there that I would rather not have had, but no, really it was just whatever I could save, whatever dvds I could sell went towards it.

RH: He was making pounds while he was over there so it kinda helped out a little bit.

JM: Exchange rate?

JH: A little bit. Slight. I spent them while I was over there, I didn't bring them back to the states, but… it woulda been cool if I'd earned all those and brought them back and used it here.

JM: Let's see here…

(Justin takes over the interview as I search for my place in the notes:)

JH: How long have you and your wife been married?

JM: Ten years, it'll be eleven on Feb. 12.

JH: Congratulations! You have somebody you can watch films with, too!

JM: Yeah, although she tends to have a short attention span. You know, character-driven films, Anne tends to go off and play mah jongg on the computer or something. And I'll still be there, and she'll come back in later and say, 'well, what happened?' It's like…

(general laughter)

JH: The next film is gonna be called Mah Jongg.

JM: I'll tell her that.

JH: It'll just be someone playing mah jongg for two hours straight.

JM: Well, I've got the perfect actress for you. Because, you know, the verisimmilitude there is just unbeatable.

(I take back control of the interview before this can get further out of hand:)

O.K., this question, after seeing the final segment of Wednesday , is kind of moot in regard to Luke and Lucy, but as far as the Harold and Norma episodes, were you drawing on personal experience? How did you come up with those story lines?

JH: Really, what I wanted to do was show just the different elements of love and loss, how people deal with death and how it affects love and relationships, regardless of how new, or old, or painful the relationship had been. I just wanted to show different age groups, so when I decided to write about this older couple, which I was really passionate about writing about an older couple and showing a real connection there, because you don't see that in a lot of films these days. And there's such a passionate part that's connected with these people. You know, if it's not young these days, people don't buy into it. So I really wanted to show that there's such a connection between this older couple: this pain at being left behind. So really it's drawn on the same themes that the Luke and Lucy… pain is pain. I think writers should be able to apply any experiece, and adapt it toward other things. I mean, if I was in this certain situation and felt this pain, that's applicable to all these things to me now. So it draws on that personal experience. Everything about the story that connects to Narcissus Flower (the final segment of Wednesday ) draws on a personal event.

While writing Purgatory, my ex-fiance and I kind of started having these random meetups. While she was over there (London) for school, I ran into her in the underground. The odds are just ridiculous: she's standing there - this was my second or third day in London - and suddenly like, 'wow, in this huge city we've already run into each other.' And of course this sinking feeling comes into play, O.K., I'm motivated to write again, I've got a lot more motivation. I'll apply this story to the Harold and Linda story. And, so, what was weird about Purgatory was I'd start writing these events, and the next day, I'd meet up with her, somehow, and they'd happen. Identical. The bus scene, the bed scene with the crying - all those are identical to what had just happened. I mean I'd write 'em and then suddenly they'd just happen. It was a really odd experience.

And that's what kind of bore Narcissus Flower. We were walking down Leicester Square, and she just goes, 'I finally saw 8 1/2,' which is one of my favorite films of all time, and she goes, 'I was finally able to see it in class, and this is your 8 1/2.' And I said, 'how so?', and she said, 'well, you're trying to make this film and stuff's coming to life, and it's kind of falling apart.' And it wasn't, I mean the film wasn't literally falling apart, but within the story of Wednesday that's what it became. Out of this grew Narcissus Flower. All these self-involved moments of pain became this other element that I didn't even know was there. It's trying to put my artistic vision into it and maintain a realism and then bring these characters into it - it's like this is crying out to be made, and it evolved into that.

I mean, Narcissus was not part of the original plan. There was gonna be three stories that you know slightly were connected, and just kind of wrapped up. Norma reached paradise, that element, and suddenly paradise wasn't an option at that point, and suddenly it transcended and became Narcissus Flower.

JM: Art imitates life.

JH: Yeah, art imitates life, life imitates art, just kept going one against the other, and eventually Wednesday became what it was.

FM: And what's neat about Narcissus Flower is it transcends genre - you can't really tell it's a documentary, but you can? It blends fiction with reality…

JH: There's so many real elements in it.

RH: There's a lot of real elements in it. You'll see Justin and hear my voice in there. There's certain elements that are real.

JM: Oh, it's disorienting! I mean, it shakes you up, because you don't know where it's coming from.

JH: Right. I mean, really what it should hopefully say - and this is what's great about Wednesday - from looking that people who view it - people may not like one segment, but it seems like most people always connect to one. Something in one of the segments, someone will connect to emotionally, and they'll talk about it. And whether someone likes the film or not, they'll talk about it afterward - that's kind of exciting, because it's just easier than writing it off. They're thinking about it…

JM: That means it made an impression on them.

JH: Yeah. I mean, if it's even slight, if they're talking about it, thinking about it, it makes them look at their own relationships, or makes them look at love that they had… that's great!

RH: There've actually been breakups, and people getting together over it.

JH: Couples that have split up - got back together. And there was a couple that were together at the premiere, broke up. They got in a massive fight afterwards. So it affects people, it gets people thinking.

FM: Talk about a personal element too, like Justin's situation: I went in to do Narcissus Flower - the woman who's playing my ex-girlfriend is actually my ex-girlfriend.

JH: I cast them together to…

FM: And the man who plays my cameraman/confidante, my friend, is actually my friend, and I was coming to terms with my own heartbreak just as Justin did the writing. I was able to come through it with the acting and basically playing a version of him.

AM: And my scene, I was going through a big breakup at the time, with somebody I'd been with for three and a half years… we were all kind of going through the…

JH: Her mother had just died.

JM: So you're all putting these genuine emotions…

AM: Yeah, it's all very real.

JH: And that lets you adapt the script. When it came to these things coming, I'd give them (the actors) an option - you know, if you're not in a place emotionally to do this, let me know - and almost everyone said, 'Use it.' You know. 'Push these buttons when it comes time.' And what registers is a lot of real emotions. There's so much of Frank's heart, so much of Arianne's heart, so much of mine. Phil Goldacre, who plays Harold? - I mean, he had been - he WAS Harold. He'd lived a lot of that pain. And a lot of that heartache was him. Erich Redman, who was also in United 93, brought a real personal level to Virgil, with just experieces he's had with acting: he's a German guy who normally gets cast as Nazis. And him just being able to play this different character, this almost spiritual guide to Harold, he was able to put certain personal levels into it and substitute those into what he's experiencing, and as the character. Linda (actress Adrienne Marks), her mom had just died, and again she said, 'no, use it.' I gave her options like, if you can't do this, let me know. And she said, 'no, USE it!'

JM: Method acting at its…

JH: Yeah, it transcends that, it was just a cathartic experience for everyone.

JM: Well, it shows onscreen, I mean everything is really genuine. Sometimes it goes so deep that it's uncomfortable. But, you know, that's what art does.

(Nodding heads, general agreement with the wise sayings of the gray-haired interviewer.)

JM: Your UTA contacts: did you make use of them when you were putting the production together?

JH: I'll start by answering that one. There's a lot of amazing, wonderful people that have helped us at UTA. Andy Anderson, Bart Weiss were some of our best friends while we were going there. But what's interesting is while we were graduating a lot of those ties were cut off for no reason. And so there's not bad blood there, we love them to death, I mean they were like family to us, But there was a certain kind of connection and emotional support that was just suddenly gone.

JM: How sad.

JH: Yeah. I mean, it hurt. It still hurts when I think about it 'cause I'll send an email to them updating it, won't even get a response. And we were close. And that's kind of odd.

JM: What'd you do? Short-sheet their beds?

JH: Exactly. You would think so. I mean, up until graduation… maybe when someone gets tenure they stop really caring. But that's a whole other story. But there's Ryan and I with our connection, Frank's a connection from UTA, I met him my last semester there; Arianne, she came in on a student project that I directed my senior year, my last semester, we met there. My ex, who's the basis for a lot of the stuff in Wednesday , I met that semester. So - this film, there's so many UTA elements in there.

And the last film we did at UTA was Confessions, it was a thesis project where they hire out of the class, and we had this great opportunity. I was director, Ryan was DP (Dir. of Photography), and it was just… talk about a downward spiral. I mean it taught me everything I don't want to do in this profession. It's like getting a studio hack - and getting told everything you have to do. Rip the art out of it - rip the heart out of it, not make it personal and just do as you're told. And I learned some great things there, but what I learned the most is what I don't want to do, and that was a great experience.

RH: Justin and I, we had spent all night one night making story boards for the shots, and they were like - we were really excited about it - and they just scrapped them all.

JH: Just to teach a lesson, and so what that did is that led into Wednesday , which is like, 'no, this is never gonna happen again,' we're gonna do a personal project rather than do a big money project where someone's gonna tell you to… you know, 'I'm a businessman, I know what art is.' Instead, it's gonna let the artist create the art, and it was a great experience for that.

UTA was an incredible school. I went to UT Austin originally and then transferred up to UTA because of how great a school it is. It's just a shame that some of those contacts of some of those people that, you know, were very dear to us didn't happen. But we learned a lot from them.

RH: I agree with so much at that school. But then, going into film - I mean, I've been an artist since I've been in diapers, and to me, not to pursue art in my life is an insult to my maker.

JH: It was a perfect last-semester step, to take that class and know exactly what we don't want to do. I'll work any job to make our art, it doesn't matter, it'll get made.

RH: To me, film is the ultimate expression of art, because it culminates all aspects of art. And it actually has one of the best feedback systems with art. You actually get people to watch what you've done for a period of time that's longer than any art museum, and you get instant feedback. Which is amazing.

JH: It's such a great medium, to be able to be analyzed and affect people.

AM: Yeah, and it influences people so heavily. Because how many times have you watched a movie, and you just change with that feeling…

JM: Oh, yeah, it just changes your entire personality, going out the door.

AM: …and your opinion and whatever, and you may not believe in a single thing that that film was like all about, but if they put it in the right way all of a sudden you're like 'Yeah, wow…'

RH: Exactly. Like Rumble in the Bronx. I just came out like wanting to hit things and kick things.

FM: I think like what Ryan said, how it combines all these different forms of art into one. It's amazing when you think about it how even in the depression - how films… people spent their money and their pennies on films so they could get out of their lives.

JH: It's escapism, but what's great is that escapism doesn't have to be entrapment… it can actually be intelligent.

FM: It's like people go to see a scary movie because they want to have that feeling. They want to have that different range of emotions. I mean most people in life don't have to deal with - at least most people in the United States - they don't have to deal with a horrific element all the time.

RH: The thing about films is you have to collaborate…

JH: In order to have a happy production.

RH: Yeah, and not only that but it really also culminates all of the professions you can think of. Between law, carpentry, electrician… I mean, you could go down the list. A film almost takes every profession in the world and puts it together.

JH: And if you have passionate collaborators, there's no tension on the set. Our film shoots have just been very blessed for that. Ryan and I have a film shoot where everyone's involved, everyone is collaborating, everyone's creating art. Everyone knows their role and they're doing an incredible job at it, and there's no hiccups.

FM: They're there for the right reasons.

RH: And everyone respects each others' roles, and I think that's a lot of problems that businesses have, when anybody's led to be under a superiority complex and like put down on a different pedestal - we're all equals on these things.

JH: They're getting hired because they're gonna do something I can't do. Everyone complements everyone. I mean, Ryan and I have been collaborating on student films, other things - I mean we complement each other - we complement each other really well. I mean he does things I wish I could do. And hopefully vice-versa.

RH: Yeah.

JH: I mean, hopefully it's one of those relationships that just… whenever you get artists together that are friends and passionate about what they do, and have a goal that they're both working towards, and just a slightly different eye and perspectives - it's exciting. Whether it's a financial success, whether it gets out to everyone, it becomes a personal success. There's just something special about being able to create that kind of art with someone.

RH: And personally, as an artist, I'm more interested in leaving a legacy, that I actually contributed something that I can be proud of. You know, instead of making Scooby Do III or something that really has no substantial meaning…

JM: But fills your pockets.

RH: But fills your pockets. That stuff is forgotten the day after. I'm really interested in making something that's gonna last. Stick around for the next generation.

JM: I found one perhaps unintentionally humorous element to the otherwise bleak initial portion of the Harold/Purgatory storyline: it's where the fella's on the bus and hears the guitar music playing, and he wanders back to the back of the bus and finds the guy actually with the guitar, playing the guitar music - very similar to the Woody Allen episode from Love and Death, where we hear the string music accompanying the scene's action and he pulls aside a curtain to reveal an actual string quartet.

(Brief but total silence)

JH: Well, I mean… as far as comedic elements, that's a character that I always saw… there's gotta be a certain over-the-top absurdity: there's the fantastical elements, there's the serious elements that he has, connecting to Virgil and the Divine Comedy, and then there's the comical elements.

The first time you meet this guy (the guitar player) is in a bathroom. He's singing in a bathroom stall up on the top floor of a hotel. That's the character introduction. Then he's suddenly on a bus. This guy just shows up in these different elements, he's kind of a… well, he's very serious but dryly played like a kind of spiritual guide.

But as far as like influence on that, I mean, Woody Allen has been an influence on so many things I've done. Chaplin. Elevators , which is one of the next films we're shooting, has loads of British influence from a comedic standpoint. Blake Edwards. I mean, Fawlty Towers is one of my favorite shows of all time. So I mean, I think some of those absurd moments just sneak their way in.

And I always thought of this guy as kind of a slight escape. I mean he's singing about all this woe, in a different language (French), telling this guy exactly what he needs to get through his thick skull. But through the language and communication it's not quite there. He's not ready to learn it yet, until he gets to that point. Where he is ready to learn it.

I mean, I loved that character just because there's such an absurdity to it. I mean, Harold's just sitting there on the bus kind of going through the city like, 'woe is me, woe is me,' and here's his friend with the guitar that he doesn't have any kind of connection with except that they happen to be in the same places, and he recognizes a few words in this lovely language of French - I mean, there's an absurdity to it as he's guiding himself through Purgatory - there's a slight relief for those who can pick up on it, and for others it translates a different way, maybe 'oh, wow, they're really connected,' that's some of their favorite moments from that standpoint.

RH: Erich Redman was such a joy to work with.

JH: Yeah, exactly, he was cracking us up. He's like this British/German Christopher Walken. He's like you'd expect him to be in person. I mean, the bathroom scene - it's like the only time in my career as a filmmaker that I can remember just not being able to compose myself. Period. Except for my very first time directing.

RH: He's like peeking out of the bathroom stall, poking his head out saying…

JH: I mean, he'd poke his head out at the most inopportune times and Ryan and I'd just lose it, and that was actually the last stuff we shot for the film. In Purgatory. It was a great little going out sequence that it took forever to get because he's hilarious in person.

I mean, up on those scenes, whenever he's playing the guitar, some of the conversations we had, he's like 'Oh, I'd never date fat women.' We're just cracking up, 'what'd you say?', he's like 'I'd never date fat women. Sure, they're good to you, and they'll treat you well, but ahh, you're gonna have to deal with that…' and we're 'what are you saying?' The guy is just…

RH: And he's a determined text messager, because he'd always interrupt us when he got a 'textie.'

JH: He's gonna be a joy to work with again.

JM: Oh, are you gonna work with him again?

JH: Absolutely, I wanna put him in a comedic role. The guy actually has a lot of great comedic timing. I mean obviously, he gets cast as a lot of Nazis, so that should show… his comedic timing (laugh).

RH: And he was hilarious in United 93.

JH: Not at all! No, he's a terrific dramatic actor and I can't wait to see some of his comedic work.

JM: Yeah, he's very dry - you can tell he would be funny if he intended to be funny.

JH: Going through the casting process that role had some of the greatest range of talent, and widest variety of interpretations of the character. That was a joy casting that because you'd get these different interpretations of what people thought the character was, and what it came down to was we have this lyrical romantic language of French, and you cast a German to play that character. I mean, quoting Fawlty Towers, Germans don't have a sense of humor. And I'm part German. But you take that and give him a beautiful language like French and this serious quality and this dryness the character has, he was perfect for the role, and he was such a professional.

RH: And you all actually wrote the music together, didn't you?

JH: Yeah. I wrote the lyrics and we translated it, and we translated it again and then came up with the music. I came up with some selections of the ones I wanted to steer towards as far as sound, and then we wrote that together.

RH: And you can hear him playing the accordion at the end.

JH: Yeah, that song at the end is his song, but with him performing it with the accordion. A couple months after we finished wrapping Wednesday , he sent me that in an email saying 'hey I got this recording of me playing the theme song on an accordion,' and you can tell it's in a room somewhere and he's playing it and I was like 'O.K., great, that's going in there.'

RH: He's still kept contact and that's cool. He's been working on big movies like The Illusionist and stuff, but he still actually sends us emails.

JH: Yeah, he was in United 93. He does… I mean, he was in Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List… so he does a lot of work.

JM: I'll have to go look for him in those, 'cause I didn't make the connection.

JH: I think in Schindler's List he has a smaller role. I mean in Saving Private Ryan he has a decent-sized role. And in United 93 he's really apparent. It'll be an Oscar-nominated film, probably (Ed. note: it received a Best Director nom for Paul Greengrass.)

RH: And he's in a few scenes in The Illusionist, you can spot him out.

JM: Justin, are you a fan of Ingmar Bergman films? I found some suggestive influences there.

JH: I love Ingmar Bergman. I mean, as far as directly influencing Wednesday … he's an influence on me as a filmmaker, absolutely, on Wednesday , directly you know, I can't cite a specific example…

(Insightful interviewer going down in flames…)

FM: Scenes from a Marriage - like I was watching it just recently and it reminded me a lot of the Harold and Linda story…

(A parachute! Frank to the rescue! God love him.)

JH: Well that's what you said, and that was such a great compliment the first time you saw it… and that was a terrific compliment. As far as a direct influence - he's just an influence because he's a master.

RH: Justin and I, we watch everything. We've gone through this… this is part of our subconscious.

JH: Blue Like Isolation , which is another film coming up… really minimalist, almost single character story. I call that my Bergman film.

AM: We're really excited about that.

JH: It's Persona. Obviously there's some elements of Persona, montage and things like that, they do like Bergman…

RH: Like Isolation, I've been really getting into Werner Herzog right now, and just going through his library, it's just phenomenal.

JH: Isolation will take place in Alaska, it's supposed to be isolated kind of up on the woods/forests/mountains…

RH: So we'll have to deal with some bears.

JM: You're gonna need a 7mm magnum, then.

JH: That's Frank's department.

(laughter)

JH: Then Elevators , we're gonna film that in Fort Worth. Dallas is too big. I wrote it with like Olympia, Washington in mind, but Fort Worth should work even better. It takes place in a hotel. It's a hotel comedy, a dark crime comedy - a lot of absurdity, Hal Ashby, throw in a little Wes Anderson in there, a lot of Fawlty Towers, a lot of British comedy in general… I mean, Peter Sellers is my favorite actor, hands down, period. I adore Peter Sellers. And if he were alive, this is the film I'd want him to be a part of.

But of course he'd say, 'no, who are you?'

JM: Yeah, he probably would now. But not after these three films come out.

JH: Heh. After this we'll be able to CGI Peter Sellers.

(Ed. note: it's along about here that the food arrives, along with more beers, and the train of thought frequently jumps the tracks as tomato sauce and feta cheese compete for the attention of the participants. So I've edited some stuff out.)

FM: That's what's gonna be great about these next three films. Not only are they completely different genres - just when the audience is like, 'oh it's those guys that make those type of films' - then there's the next one and they're like 'oh, I get it, it still has some drama' and then we do a comedy. And they'll think, 'what is this?'

JH: One of the joys of these next ones is, people are gonna think 'hey, I've seen Wednesday ,' and they know what we can do. Everything, every camera move that's in there was calculated, every closeup, every editing choice was calculated to fit the story. It's meant to be a very intimate story with a realistic setting. The reason we shot mini dv, we took our limitations, embraced them, and shot this real personal story that could've been shot on a low budget.

And then these other ones, when people see them they'll say, 'wait, the camera movements and the action - it all suits that story, too! These guys know what they're doing.

JM: Speaking of equipment, is it all stuff you guys own? Did you lease it?

RH: For Wednesday , I own a professional mini dv camera, and I bought lenses for it specifically to shoot with.

JH: We'd planned on using mini dv from the beginning because it was something that would allow us to shoot these caves, in low lighting, and would allow us to shoot in all these situations and roll multiple cameras so we could capture these elements and really just let the actors go. For this film, it would not have been possible to shoot on film. At all. I mean, the cave stuff wouldn't have happened, so much of it wouldn't have happened, and a lot of the acting moments wouldn't have happened. All of Narcissus Flower wouldn't have happened. It's one of those situations where the story… the necessity was mini dv, and we didn't try to make it something else that it wasn't.

RH: And also, video has the quality of personal space, and your home videos? The frame rate alone makes you think of home movies. Having that look brings it to an intimate, personal setting.

JH: There was other equipment that we rented. There were situations when I had to go back into my 12-hour day job in London because it… Frank came over to be in the Narcissus Flower part of the film, and he had to go return the equipment in the rain while I returned to my porter job in the hotel… and he was so dedicated and completely selfless and helped me out with the production. I mean, he's an associate producer, and that segment wouldn't have been possible if he hadn't been part of it.

And there's a lot of those moments where everyone's wearing these different hats, everyone's doing these different jobs, but they don't care because everyone's passionate about it. Otherwise, if you don't have that passion, you have people griping in the background, saying 'when do we eat, when do we go home.' You don't have it with a film like Wednesday because everyone's passionate, and everyone's personally connected.

RH: And it's all about your intention going into it: why are we making this, you know. And that comes across. Certain people do things, but at the end of the day they're home - out of sight, out of mind. We do this, regardless. So I think that's a big difference right there.

JM: I know you guys are passionate about it. No doubt.

(Food being cleared from the table; clattering of plates and forks.)

JH: Wow, now I feel like going running.

JM: Or if you're like me, you feel like sleeping.

JH: For purposes of the interview, I'll say I feel like running.

JM: You have a three-film shooting schedule for 2007. Are you insane?

JH: Ambitious. We know our limits and we know what we can do. We're prepped. We know what to do. Whenever people invest, and put a little bit more money in it, what's gonna be created is gonna be exciting, because for three films for the price of one, we're gonna make three films that look like they're $10 million each. It's exciting. Knowing the frugality, the discipline, the artistic vision and kind of knowing how to be innovative, is gonna let these films kind of grow and become something else.

JM: Any takers on your website offer for investors?

JH: Actually we're in the middle of talking to a lot of people right now. Pale Horse is going, it's off the ground, that one's in pre-production. We'll start the others in pre-production while all that's going on. So it's a matter of meeting with people right now to just continue and get this going. I mean, there will be takers. There's a lot of people that'll invest in real estate, they'll invest in stocks… I mean, there's less risk and higher reward for films. And, you know, three films for the price of one.

In order to keep talent local, we need local money to support us. We need local people to say, 'hey, wait, let's keep these kids home grown, let's see what they can do, let's give them a chance, let's be part of a legacy, and let's make a hell of a lot of money.' And for people that are actually educated and know what this is about, it's gonna be hard for a lot of 'em to resist. That's where we're at right now is getting these people, and really seeing… this is a kind of chance to open people's eyes.

RH: Films help the local economy. Not just obviously the short term, the making of the movie, but after. Like horror movies, like Dawn of the Dead, for instance. That mall? That shopping mall gets visited by thousands of people specifically because the film was shot there.

JH: Initially, you have it plugged directly back into the economy creating jobs, not only in the film, but hotel use, car rentals, catering - everything helps the economy. For investors, you're gonna make your money back with this horror film, this drama - every one of them is so marketable, and then you get to put the money back and create jobs and help the economy out immediately.

RH: And not only that, if we make a film here it's gonna attract other filmmakers to come here and do the same thing.

AM: But the neat thing is that Texas is getting on the map for film and television. Cause we have like Friday Night Lights here, Prison Break… and I mean Austin already has a big name but Dallas is just beginning. Right now like the Film Commission is pushing really hard to get films to come here.

JM: Yeah, they lost out on a lot of money over the last few years.

AM: Yeah! They're like going off to Louisiana and places like that. This is a great place to make films, because you have everything here.

JM: Are there limitations here that you might not face somewhere else?

AM: We need tax incentives.

JH: We just did this article in Fort Worth Magazine, and the main thing I tried to emphasize is they spend a lot of time preserving the old but they're not too concerned about the new. We know about the history of Fort Worth, I mean Dallas and Fort Worth could bring in so many different generations of artists. It could easily be, 'Dallas is a great place to make a film', or 'Texas is a great place to make a film,' and then 'well, who else is there?' That's the position we're anxious to be in.

AM: There's a bunch of great acting talent here. But Louisiana is getting all the great Texas actors - you have to drive 3 1/2 hours to go to Louisiana. Or Oklahoma.

JH: It was New Mexico until they changed things there.

AM: It's like, if you bring it here we already have the talent, we already have the crews, we just need the extra incentives.

JH: Because if we go through a studio in LA, we're forced to relocate there. You can't expect them to pay for it and keep us here. And then suddenly you're working under someone else.

AM: Unless you're Robert Rodriguez.

JH: Yeah, but he went to Sundance and paid for it. But he started out by getting a nice contract, and he was able to do that for six films in a row, and he was able to sit back and do what he wanted to do and made a lot of money doing it.

And that's really the key is local investors, to just work up an idea. This is the next real estate, the next stock. There's such high reward, I mean ten years from now it'll be up there, it'll be considered that. It's only gonna continue to grow.

RH: And it's something you're gonna keep and enjoy, and you've actually contributed to something that's gonna be around, part of a legacy: a slight sliver of immortality, if you will.

JM: Post-production of the three films you're gonna spread out, I guess.

JH: We'll be doing some post-production while in pre-production on the other films…

RH: Pale Horse , there's some digital effects I'm gonna be working on.

JH: There's gonna be a lot of great makeup and a lot of digital effects in Pale Horse .

JH: Pale Horse and Blue Like Isolation we're gonna finish in time to get them to Sundance, and then Elevators we're hopefully gonna have in time for Tribeca. 'Cause those are kinda right up their alleys.

JM: Elevators isn't gonna be like The Lift, right? You've seen The Lift? About an elevator that eats people?

(Uproarious laughter)

All: No, no!

JH: Think Out of Sight… it's (like) an Elmore Leonard novel. I mean, Elmore Leonard, I love his novels. It's that type of script. It's a pulp-type character, and then you throw into it some of the old romantic comedy. There's a little of the screwball comedies, that type of thing, a throwback to those… a little bit of What's Up, Doc? in there. Fawlty Towers… a whole lot of British comedy influence in there. Peter Sellers in general, Blake Edwards collaborations with him. There's no horror involved, it's just a dark crime comedy with a lot of comedy.

FM: Except for the ending when the elevator eats them all.

JH: Yeah, except for that.

(Laughter all around)

JM: I love the quote from the I Ching you've associated with the Blue Like Isolation web page.

JH: What's great about choosing that quote is that it brings on this idea that hermits aren't necessarily scared of other things, there's just a superiority that goes into them, where they keep the inferior at a distance with their reserve.

So you have this element of, O.K., this is a superior man, but he's anything but. So it's a study of the character of masculinity, it's a study of the past and what we're gonna pay for, and what lines will eventually converge, and it's all gonna add up, and you will answer for your sins, you will answer for what you did, and man is man, and will be judged. There's certain things in a man's heart that they let go for years, and eventually it's gonna catch up to 'em, it's gonna kick 'em in the ass. And that's kinda what it deals with: this man has led a life, we don't necessarily know what it is, but there's certain elements of it that're gonna come back that he's gonna have to answer for.

JM: Hm. So this is the darkest of the next three.

JH: It is. And we're hoping to get someone like a Walken, a Christopher Walken, a Keitel - a name actor in there - it's just a two week shoot.

JM: That would be a coup, wouldn't it.

JH: That's the theme of what makes a man, and what we think makes a man. It's just a fascinating study, because we'll have this representation of this guy being something but… I mean, if we had to answer for everything we did, it would be a tough day of judgement.

RH: I'm really excited about showing nature. And just getting into the essence of, you know, cycles of life, and time passing.

JH: And with Blue Like Isolation, it's gonna be in a location where this man has isolated himself in nature, and really he doesn't even have to answer to nature, it's just man vs. himself. And if he believes in God, then God plays in the equation, too. And if he doesn't, then his conscience - whatever he considers it is - is what he's gonna have to answer to. Blue Like Isolation is extremely dark. It looks like the least marketable, but it has the potential to be…

RH: It has a lot of potential. Take a name actor that hasn't actually shown for a while, into something different - and it could be a really award-winning type of position.

JM: I'd love to see Walken.

JH: For this picture? Can you imagine him with a beard?

FM: And get him not to be Walken?

JH: I mean spend some time talking to him about getting away from some of the vocal patterns that he's now turned into caricature, and see him go back to something, you know, like The Dead Zone, Deer Hunter, something like that… I would love to see that.

 

Subconscious Wanderings In Themes of Love & Loss - Short End Magazine
Written by: Noralil Ryan Fores

In each mind active, thoughts travel in labyrinthine patterning, conducting daily discourses of emotion versus action, juxtaposing reality against daydream, writing and
re-writing storylines of a life that is until the moment of actualization merely a mystery. What these emotions and dreams are, how they derive and the whereabouts of their hiding places in moments of absence are to logic secrets carefully stored in places of only subconscious recognition. It's in this exact place that Justin Hilliard found himself sheltered while crafting the feature Wednesday.

An intensely personal film for Hilliard and one completed in a creative safe space with University of Texas at Arlington classmate alum and the film's cinematographer and
co-producer Ryan Hartsell, Wednesday drew directly from Hilliard's own trials and tribulations. The production sprang from a break-up with Hilliard's fiancé and ended in a meeting with his future wife, actress Arianne Martin. Its production and post traversed throughout the United States, England and Spain. It is on the one hand a film emotionally epic and yet its moments explore the minute. As Hilliard would have it, it was a challenge not only to make but is also one to watch play out.

"I'm a filmmaker, but I prefer to think of myself as an artist," he says. "Artists have always been throughout societies the innovators, the ones that push the envelope, push thinking. They're the ones that are laughed at immediately whenever they come up with ideas, but then years down the road, it's what has shaped the norm. So, they are constantly pushing, changing and bringing up new ideas, being the innovators.

"That goes into the sense of artists needing to create poetry. Vladimir Mayakovsky said something like, "There's a part of the mind that can only be changed by poetry and that poetry always has to be changing." I think of that connection with film, how there are some parts of the mind, whether someone likes your film or doesn't like your film, that will be effected. Some parts can only be touched by something that's changing, something that's new, something that they don't feel comfortable with. That's how I approached especially Wednesday but how I approach film in general though. There always has to be a sense of change whether it works or not. That's an important thing."

This sense of change as imparted by Wednesday is one that works on an entirely emotional level. In terms of its narrative the film delves into the ever-agitated and heartbroken mind of artist and filmmaker Julian as he seeks to complete his own film project. While simply stated here this binding narrative thread, referred to as the "Narcissus Flower" segment of the film, wraps itself around three intersecting stories of love and loss. These three sections, all which represent storylines that Julian creates and sometimes abandons throughout the macro-framework of the film, speak on a micro-scale to the three layers of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. In other words, Hilliard's shaped three worlds within one overarching world, that of an artist's mind, and through these three worlds, he allows Julian to study hell, purgatory and paradise.

"It basically just started with the idea that everyone's the same. Everyone goes through the same things. There's very little that's new. It's just about how we deal with the emotions of love and loss, how we get over them or how we don't get over them that separates us. The basic idea was just having these three different main stories from different points of society, different points of age, different cultures and just show how people deal with the same issues but in different ways," he explains.

By far the most naturalistic segment, "Luke & Lucy" takes full advantage of digital grittiness and aesthetic, using these to enhance the acute depression and anger that cries through each of the segment's frames. The lovers battle between frustration and understanding, Luke continually preoccupied with his perception of fatalism regarding the question of what it is to be a man and his confusion about his father's death and Lucy meanwhile struggling to break through his omnipresent hopelessness. It's a harrowing section of shouts and silences. "It's not supposed to be pleasant. It's supposed to be raw and kind of unnerving and not just settled and relaxing," Hilliard confirms.

"It's tough. Luke is completely selfish. He's in hell, and he's not afraid to scream out the emotions about where he is coming from. He's probably the most polarizing figure in the film as far as people either loving him or hating him…Some people cannot even relate to him. They don't think that person even exists. They think he's bipolar, over-the-top and that no one would react with those exaggerated emotions.

"Then you have someone like my mom who sees it and goes, "Wow, that reminds me of you,'" Hilliard says, breaking into a laugh. "Not in a bad sense, but whenever her and my sister watch the trailer and see his arms flying up, they're like, "Wow, that was you as a teen.

"That's been one of the greatest things [about sharing the film.] Some people completely and utterly hate Luke, and then somebody else watches it, and they're like, "Yeah, I enjoyed it. The acting was great, and man, I really connected to Luke." Or you can get a sense that someone watches this, and especially if I know them too personally and know what they're like and know that they have that same raw emotion, it's not fun to see something like that, that you kind of connect to, even if it's on a subconscious level, so you kind of despise that character.

"[The audience members] forget that there's a wall there, that it is an actor portraying a character and it is just a character. You see something in yourself that's not necessarily a good characteristic on film, or you see some bad qualities, whether you're a good person or not, and you're not going to react very well to it. So, it's been fun from a sociological standpoint, just studying how people react to it."

Although Luke (Ryan Hurst) does rant and rave, lashing out against invisible barriers and filling this part of the story with emotional heaviness, it's the quiet moments of reaction from Lucy (Arianne Martin) that sell the sadness. When asked to explain how with so few lines and so few real moments of her own Lucy should do this, Hilliard admits, not at all shyly, that it's his female characters that he most often connects with. The questions about masculinity that Luke rages against are still very much points of confusion for Hilliard himself, and so somehow, his empathy goes out to these quiet and seemingly wiser characters, the characters who he crafts with a definite vulnerability but the underlying strength of understanding.

Cutting into "Purgatory," the story flows on a lyrical and experimental thread with Harold (Philip Goldacre) contending with the dissociation from his former wife Linda (Adrienne Marks). The older couple, separated for reasons unexplained in the film, dance a battle of blame and failed compromise. The enigmatic Virgil (Erich Redman) traces his lonely songs in and out of scenes, attempting to teach Harold, who we come to find is at fault for the separation, about love. There's a classic feel and distinct surrealistic stylism to the segment. It's almost as if it's a hybrid of allegory and photo album realism.

"When it came to "Purgatory," I would describe it as the most Hollywood segment, even though it's not, but it's supposed to be the most soothing. It's supposed to be the most likeable, and not surprisingly, it's the one most people relate to the most, or like the most," Hilliard says.

Shot throughout England, and particularly throughout London, "Purgatory" presented a very tangible hurdle for an independent film in terms of financing, yet Hilliard saw so clearly Harold and Linda's emotional landscapes defined by the location that he settled definitely on shooting there. "For some reason, for whatever influence that came as a young kid from literature and film, it was always going to be London, and I'd never even been there," he says. "It's just cold, stark and had this feeling that there's warmth that's got to be between these two characters, even though they've been separated for so long."

Specifically significant in terms of location was the use of West Wycombe's Hellfire Caves to represent Harold's maze of emotion. "There's all this history and folklore when it comes to the Hellfire Caves. It's a man-made tunnel with all these secret rooms and caverns, and these guys used to go there to do awful things," he says. "There's talk that they sacrificed virgins, and there were these statutes scattered throughout the land around the caves so that these gentlemen in the secret societies could just go around, and if they got bored, they could relate physically to a statue."

"It's exactly what I was looking for visually when I wrote it, but then there's this history to it to, which made it a lot of fun to shoot at."

While conversation about the relationship between "Luke & Lucy" and "Purgatory" is ample, the final segment of Julian's trilogy "Lyrics of a Lowly Life" is a bit odd man out. "Whenever I talk about these segments, I really talk about it like a separate film. I never wanted "Lyrics" to fit in with the others," Hilliard says. "From the beginning, that's supposed to be the one that I am the least connected to from a filmmaker's standpoint, or Julian that he's connected to from a filmmaker's standpoint."

The segment follows Norma, who when informed of her former husband's death, rallies her children for a road trip cross-country. It's the section least connected to personal experience and the one thereby most open-ended. "You have these two other segments that are based on direct events. Something would happen in my personal life, or I'd write it say on the page, and then it would happen in real life. It was so personally connected whereas for "Lyrics," it's a segment that's supposed to be separate from the film. It's never supposed to be completed. It's not my heart. It's not Julian's heart."

All this begs the question: Why include the segment then? "It all leads up to this struggle of an artist to complete this film, and in the film, he doesn't necessarily finish," Hilliard answers. "You've just watched Luke leading into this hell, and Harold stuck in purgatory floating along, looking for answers but not quite there. So, here's going to be hope. There's got to be hope, but the hope doesn't necessarily lie in that segment. By the end of the film you realize the hope is just continuing as an artist."

And, it's on this note that Hilliard offers his hand out to the audience to welcome them back to the primary storyline, that of artist Julian (Frank Mosley, voice-over Hilliard) searching for the film he's going to make. Although Julian's conceived all the stories we've just read about, he's too bewildered, too lost and too lovesick to follow through with any of them. His story, very simply, deals with losing Maggie (Erin Wilcox, voice-over Nicole Gray).

"The focus of "Narcissus," is going to be more on the Julian character because most of the previous characters are a reflection of Maggie. There's a lot of Julian and Maggie throughout all the other segments, so you get a sense of where Maggie's coming from early on even though that may not connect to her directly at the end," Hilliard reveals.

So, that all of the sadness, confusion and need for forgiveness in Luke, Harold and Norma are merely reflections of Julian's own consciousness as regards his separation from Maggie. It's a glimpse into a mind, and like all of these should rightly be, it leaves quite a bit unsolved.

"That's one of the words I've used to describe Wednesday several times. It's nebulous. There's so much to it that I wanted to leave so open-ended. There are so many story lines and the backgrounds to the characters that you really don't know: what happened to them, why they're reacting this certain way, why they haven't been able to get over their issues, and I like that. It lets the viewer completely connect to one segment more than the others and fill-in-the-blanks their own way, completely hate one segment but love another and question why that other one is there," he says. "Then with "Narcissus," you have this one character that it's all thrown on, and you realize it's all connected to this artist and what he's gone through."

As Hilliard preps for three upcoming films with Striped Socks Productions, the company both he and Hartsell founded, he's honest about his artistic intentions and the evolutions of his work. "Wednesday is not a film that I always want to make forever, and an artist always is changing. So with what I've said as far as the personal connections and links, and creating change that way or effecting someone's mind or heart that way, that's just Wednesday."

Rogue Cinema Review - Rogue Cinema Review
Written by: Josh Samford

My immediate first thoughts after a few minutes into Wednesday were "wow, so somebody likes the work of David Lynch". Don't ask me exactly what had me thinking that, because after the film was over and done with, I look back and don't see it as a film that was directly influenced by Lynch's work to the point of it resembling his work. I suppose any time a film is overtly "arty" in style I tend to go back to my obsession with Lynch; but Wednesday seems to harken back more in my opinion to films of the French New Wave. I would be very surprised to find that the filmmakers were not familiar with the works of Godard, Truffaut or Fellini. Wednesday packs a lot of the angst that some of those works did. Imagine the youthful questioning of love, the world and everything else of any meaning that Godard seemed to invoke along with the visual expressionism (though in a more subtle and less "cinematic", earthier style) of Fellini's work. Add to this a all or nothing attitude from the filmmakers that they would express everything within themselves with nothing held back; in such a deeply personal manner that we the audience become voyeurs into another life without even intending to. Justin D. Hilliard puts himself on the page in Wednesday in a manner so deeply personal, it is unlike anything I have ever seen. There are going to be critics who view Wednesday, and are going to feel that the metafiction twist of the ending might be too much and that this nullifies what came before it or might simply be turned off by how personal the film grows to be and I can already imagine those who might label this as "cheap". Well, opinions are certainly relative and I like to keep myself thinking on both sides of the coin and for my spin: I feel Wednesday is the expression of a young person who felt he had to tell a story, had to get something across and had to let others know that they may not be alone in similar feelings and he did just that in the most effective and clearest way possible and in dramatic fashion. Wednesday is without doubt one of the most ambitious independent films I have ever seen.

Wednesday is a film of multiple stories interwined together in a loose manner, they are tied together through the similar themes of love lost and self examination. The first story is Luke & Lucy, a story about a young couple in a relationship where the two are at a rocky period. Luke is angry with himself, his family and the turns his life has taken. Lucy tries to help him out and console him, but he is wrapped up in his own anger to the point where he barely notices. After his father passes away, he is forced to travel back home and confront his mother and sister who both despise him. Luke must find salvation, but all he manages to do is boil his own anger and self loathing to a boiling point beyond his own ability to control. As his own life begins to spiral downward in a path of self destruction, he slowly brings Lucy down with him. The second story, Purgatory, deals with an older gentleman in England, Harold, who is dealing with the mistakes made in his own past. Dealing with his leaving the only woman he ever truly loved, and the death of their daughter who he saw as the only truly great or positive thing he had to hold onto in his life. Harold must deal with the passing and find redemption with his lost love Linda, to pull himself out of his own Purgatory.

Justin D. Hilliard and his team helped to create one of the most professional and intelligent first time features that come to my mind right off the top of my head, especially within the independent system. The film is a raw and emotional powerhouse that could have only been developed amongst artists. Even a small community of artists, but Wednesday holds true the feeling of being let into a small gathering of great minds and I feel appreciative to have been entertained in such a way. That sounds like I am being flattering, but I simply respect the truth that these filmmakers brought to their project and enjoy imagining the lives that such characters may live. Yeah, I'm a little crazy. No film can truly reach its own peak without a great cast of actors and Wednesday presents several very strong performances. At times it is obvious that some are first time actors or at least slightly inexperienced; but in my opinion for the most part everyone excuses themselves well if not superbly. Arianne Martin stands out in the film especially in her turn as Lucy in the opening segments, as a woman torn apart by her manic boyfriend who doesn't seem to truly appreciate how much she loves him. She performs in her role pitch perfect, from subtle and endearing to abrasive and free. I am glad to hear that she will be working with Striped Socks Production on their future projects, because in my opinion she helped to form my understanding for the film and helped to bond all stories into one. Jack Hurst as Luke was given a very tough part and does very well with it, as a character who is incredibly frustrating in his approach to life. This would be a very easy character to make so bitter and angry that the audience would simply grow tired of and not feel the urge to ever sympathize with at any point. I feel that Hurst helped deliver a slightly immature quality to the role, and although that sounds bad I assure you it is not. Since Luke is a direct represenation of complete and utter youthful alienation, angst and anger - having a slightly childlike delivery helped me to find some common range with the character as a twenty-something myself now looking back at my own immaturity in my first relationships and the way I looked at life just a few years back as compared to now. Adrienne Marks and Philip Goldacre as Linda and Harold (respectively) are both played picture perfect in representation. The characters are almost diametrically opposed to Luke and Lucy in that they are both at the end of a very different relationship that is coming full circle but in a more mature and understanding manner. Harold is played lovingly by Goldacre, who shows his maturity from the youthful fool that he once was. Linda, played by Marks, plays her part in a very hurt and wounded manner and wins the audience over in short time. Even when she is shutting down the loveable Harold, the anger in her eyes that burns is always evidently there for a reason and when the two finally begin to look towards possibly reconciling their differences - the audience feels relief. Although opposites, both characters have warmth to them and the audience never feels particular towards one or the other. Which is the way I think it should have been.

Wednesday is a beautiful and poignant film that I hope can get some of the recognition that it deserves, and I personally cannot wait to see more from these filmmakers. Wednesday looks to be the start of a long and beautiful career, and having your first film being an emotional epic such as this - things can only get bigger and better. For more information on Wednesday and the Striped Socks production group, visit their website at Striped-Socks.com and pick up the DVD. At $10 for two hours or so of entertainment, it's a steal. Check it out ASAP.

 

Rogue Cinema Interview - Interview

An Interview with Justin Hilliard - By Joshua Samford

Posted on Saturday, December 01 @ Mountain Standard Time by Duane

Last month I was given the opportunity to review a beautiful little independent film called Wednesday, and have since kept in contact with the director Justin Hilliard. He's a very smart and passionate guy, and I enjoyed his film immensly. To the point that I hope more and more of our audience can have the chance to enjoy it, because it truly is a magical little film. For anyone looking for more information on Justin and his future works, as well as Wednesday, please visit the Striped-Socks Productions website at http://www.striped-socks.com.

Q: To introduce you to the audience, can you tell the readers a little about yourself? Where you're from, how you got into film, etc.

A: I was born and raised in Fort Worth, TX. From an early age, my parents have always been supportive of my choices and nurtured my development as an artist. My mother was always the one showing me films when I was a kid. She'd show me a wide range, everything from popular films in the theaters to classics and foreign films at home…always insisting that we watch the 'widescreen' version of the films, or make sure that it was the original aspect ratio, to preserve the director's vision. This film education, paired well with my already growing love of storytelling. Starting in 2nd/3rd grade or so, I would write short stories & journals/gazettes (usually satirical), and sell them to the other kids in my classes for their lunch money. Eventually, my parents let me borrow their video camera and allow me to take it out with my friends. This is when I began shooting some of these short stories. Somewhere around 7th or 8th grade, we actually started to form these into intelligible narratives. We'd shoot all sorts of films, usually overly goofy and explicitly gory (or at least as gory as my homemade FX makeup would allow). I love storytelling and I've never wanted to be anything but an artist, specifically a filmmaker. I graduated from the University of Texas in Arlington in the spring of 2004 and set out to make 'Wednesday' soon after.

Q: When reviewing the film myself, I felt a lot of European influences (and not just from the English locale) within the film. Was I heading in the right direction with that assumption?

A: There is absolutely a European influence over 'Wednesday'. When deciding what Striped Socks Production's first feature film should be, I studied a lot of debut features. The ones that I related the most to were a lot of those with a European sensibility. Those films tend to have an intellectual backbone without sparing any of the artist's passion. Equal parts passion and logic. This allows so much more depth, references, allegories and allusions to be layered throughout the film without sacrificing the passion and emotional resonance. As a filmmaker I'm absolutely influenced by European filmmakers like Godard, Truffaut, and especially Fellini. I mean, when filming the 'Narcissus Flower' segment, I pretty much had Nino Rota's 'La Passerella Di Addio' playing through my head every other scene or so. Other than Mike Leigh, I can't think of another British filmmaker that heavily influenced my directorial style. The influences over 'Wednesday' and myself tend to be a lot of the filmmakers from Spain, France, and Italy. Of course, having said all that, my favorite filmmaker is Stanley Kubrick.

Q: As the DVD for Wednesday showed, a lot of the film is drawn from a very personal place. How have you felt about that? The reactions from people I mean, not only is it a piece of your artwork on the screen - but a piece of you; and it is a very self-analyzing piece.

A: There is an extra feature on the DVD that sheds more light on the deeply personal nature of the film. That experience was probably the most cathartic throughout the making of 'Wednesday'. In fact, the whole film was practically written in a state of catharsis and necessity. There were several times when it would have been easy to let some of the pain and emotions get the best of me and take me to a dark place, but I never let. Instead, everything seemed to feed the story, the film, and all those involved. This is a film that cried out to be made. I had to make it at that point in my life. I'll never be able to make that type of film again. I wouldn't want to. It was the exact artistic expression that my heart and mind needed to share at that moment. I think that will make it timeless in the long run. It will always be relatable and affecting to someone. There will always be someone in those 'dark' places at one point in their life. Hopefully, 'Wednesday' shows them just that…hope. As far as the critics or audiences reaction to such a personal art piece, I really don't take that too personally. Since 'Wednesday' is so self-analyzing, it really addresses any question, concern, or dislike that someone might have with it. Within the film, the artist 'Julian' is forced to answer all sorts of questions about failure, insignificance, loneliness, masculinity, artistic integrity, exploitation, and narcissism. 'Wednesday' is self-analyzing sure, but it's also honestly self-critical as well. Love it or hate it, it's the truth. It's my heart. That means that the themes in the film will always be there to affect or provoke thought in someone, because those will never change. They will always be true real emotions…truth is eternally relatable.

Q: How did the section of the film that takes place in England come about? Was it originally written with
English actors in mind?

A: The segment 'Purgatory' developed from my personal goal to portray a believable, once passionate relationship between an older couple. I wanted to watch this couple feel the same emotions that I felt in my past relationships. I felt that love and loss were themes that have no bias against age. Sure, experience and life lessons alter future choices, but that pain, the burning of passion and love is still there. I can't remember seeing my grandparents particularly intimate or passionate, but I always knew there had to be a love, honesty, and complete vulnerability within them that had kept them together in love, through the good and bad. I wanted the 'Purgatory' segment to give the audience a chance to see that universal range of emotions, and with that idea of being 'universal', I guess my pen just skipped over to the other side of the Atlantic. For some reason (I suppose between past literature I'd read and films I'd seen), I always visualized this older couple in London. I wrote it that way from the first draft, despite never actually visiting the UK before. My producing partner, Ryan Hartsell read the script for the first time and said, "London, really?" I nodded my head without hesitation and he responded, "Okay."

Q: What was casting like? Were you already familiar with most of the
cast or were there official casting sessions?

A: The only role that was cast without an audition was Arianne Martin (now my wife of almost six months!). We had previously worked together on a student project of mine at UTA. I wrote the role of 'Lucy' specifically for her, with characterizations of my ex-fiancée and me combined throughout the character. I then started an extensive casting search for the rest of the 'Luke & Lucy' segment cast. I interviewed several Dallas/Fort Worth actors and eventually found what I was looking for. I cast Carol Anne Gordon and Sara Radle as Luke's family members. The role of 'Luke' went to Ryan Hurst (now Jack Hurst). He had been in an acting class with Arianne Martin, and she referred him to me for an interview. As soon as I met him, I knew he would be the perfect (imperfect) 'Luke'. After we shot the 'Luke & Lucy' segment, I moved to London and got a job at hotel, so I could get free room & board, food, and internet access. After finishing up the 'Purgatory' segment of the script and tailoring for specific areas in London, I started holding interviews with London-based actors. I contacted agents, firms, and put out several casting calls. I was overwhelmed by the amount of responses I received. After holding several meetings/interviews, I held a couple callbacks and cast all of the roles. I knew Philip Goldacre would be 'Harold' after only about minute of conversation, while sitting at a Starbucks in Leicester Square. I felt the same way about Adrienne Marks in the role of 'Linda'. After shooting this segment, I returned to Texas to shoot the 'Lyrics' segment. Arianne also referred Holly Leach, who depicted 'Norma'. I shot part of the 'Narcissus' segment before we shot 'Purgatory' and the rest after we shot 'Lyrics'. When it came to casting Frank Mosley as 'Julian', I called him long distance from London and said, "You have to do it. You have no choice. If you don't do it, then I'll have to, and I can't act. You have to Frank." Frank arranged the trip. And just like Fellini had his 'Guido', Truffaut had 'Antoine', and Kieslowski had his 'Filip', Frank was my 'Julian'.

Q: Anything about the film or the process behind it that you would have done differently if possible?

A: Not at all. It was all well planned and intentional while still be so organic and ever changing. There is honestly nothing that I would want to change about 'Wednesday'. It is the film that I had to make at that point in my life. It's not perfect. It's flawed. It's human. It's my heart and I hope that it continues to affect and provoke thought in people for years to come.

Q: If there's any filmmaker's career you would be happy with having a comparison made to, down the line
mind you, who would that be?

A: Well, any comparison in relation to Kubrick will always be a pleasing thing to hear or read. And while comparisons to the likes Kubrick, Fellini, Almodovar, Bergman, Godard, Cassavetes, Truffaut, Scorsese, Chaplin, Lynch, Romero, Carpenter, Van Sant, Soderbergh, and many more, will always be appreciated, my long term goal would be to make a specific name of my own. As an artist, I hope I don't create work that only retreads on themes, thoughts, and works of the past. I aspire to create my own individual brand of cinema and art. Sure, some influences will be evident in future films, but I'd like for them to have my own personal touch and perspective.

Q: Going back to Wednesday itself, what started the process for you? Was there a sample of music that made your mind start turning, just life experiences, etc.?

A: Oddly enough, it was Brian Hyland's 'Sealed With A Kiss' and Elliott Smith's 'Between the Bars'. I was already brainstorming what is now the 'Luke & Lucy' segment, but was planning on writing it as a full feature. My ex-fiancée Nicole Gray telling me about one of her favorite books 'The Giver' sparked the initial idea, and how after rereading it, it took on a whole new meaning from how she remembered it as a young girl. It was still very affecting, but in a much deeper and darker way. This got the Luke revisiting his family segment started. While thinking about that, the song 'Sealed With A Kiss' came on the radio, and I just had this image of Luke telling Lucy why he had to go, why she couldn't go with him, and him just standing and walking away. So, as I was already toying with all the ideas of love and loss and how they affect this estranged son and his significant other, I just never felt like it stretched the film as universally relatable. It was important to expand it and add other people in different places and points in life. So, what got my mind turning? I guess it was a mix of a little Brian Hyland, a lot of Elliott Smith, and mostly a relationship seriously on the rocks.

Q: One thing I liked was the usage of extreme closeups of the actors within the film, any particular symbolism therein - or are you just as big of a Sergio Leone fan as I, hehe.

A: Well, definitely a Sergio Leone fan, but not as a direct influence on this film. The use of extreme close-ups was planned from early on. I even had little sketches on my original script of expressions, focusing on the characters' eyes, mouths, etc. Ryan Hartsell (Director of Photography) and I always wanted this for a couple different reasons. First, there is a certain forced intimacy that happens with an extreme close-up. They may be off-putting to some, but that's part of the point. We start the film with the 'Luke & Lucy' segment, what I call the 'hell' segment (in reference to 'The Divine Comedy'). This is a couple going through a lot of issues and they are stuck in their own moments of forced intimacy. The initial conversation isn't necessarily a pleasant exchange, but 'the audience' is forced to sit there, closer than normal and watch and share in the expressions, glances, and reactions. The second reason for the close-ups, was to allude to the final segment. We have a filmmaker putting close examination from pen and paper to camera on these different characters. The irony is that the closer he gets, trying to examine their problems, faults, characterizations, moving closer with the camera, the more he finds out about himself and his film that is falling apart. Because the artist and his own love and loss is scattered throughout all of these different characters. As far as the close-ups away from the face, they were there to enhance more intimate moments within the characters. Also, that's how personally some of my artistic, stream of consciousness thoughts are translated in my mind. They come across as close little glimpses of something, much like a memory. Within the conscious and the subconscious, a memory tends to be a flicker focusing on certain details to me, and in Julian's case in the film, those memories aren't only translated, but adapted and depicted. Art imitates life, life imitates art…back and forth until the two combine and the memory becomes a hybrid of the two. So, as you can see, we had plenty of reasons for deciding on extreme close-ups being scattered throughout the film. To us it fit the personal nature of the story and the forced intimacy needed to get the viewers in a certain mindset at certain times.

Q: What is next for you, and can you tell us a little bit about your next features such as Pale Horse, Elevators, etc.? Am I correct that all three films will be shot back to back?

A: Yes, we are going to shoot 'Pale Horse', 'Blue Like Isolation', and 'Elevators' back to back to back. We've got big plans for these films. We are currently in the development phase on these films. It's going really well, and we will hopefully be going into production in January/February 2008. We can't wait to shoot these very different films. These are going to be extremely different from 'Wednesday' in both style and theme. I do continue with an underlying theme of masculinity, loneliness, and isolation throughout the films though. 'Pale Horse' is a horrific drama that is going to revolutionize the horror genre and the way people think about horror films. It's going to be an incredible piece that is going to take drama, art-house, mainstream, and horror fans by storm. 'Blue Like Isolation' is an intense character-driven contemplative drama. It's Bergmanesque in nature and theme and will feature some incredible roles for actors to really shine in. 'Elevators' is a dark crime ensemble comedy with roots in a lot of my comedic influences, like the following: Blake Edwards, Fawlty Towers, Charlie Chaplin, Peter Sellers, Elmore Leonard, and many more. It's going be darkly hilarious and at times surprisingly emotional and dramatic. After these we also plan on shooting my passion project 'Enoch', which I can only refer to as the film I hope will one day be regarded to as my 'A Clockwork Orange'. We also have an experimental character drama called 'Absolution of Europa', which is currently being written. I'd like to have these all completed by the end of 2010.

Q: What is the future like for Justin D. Hillard, and what kind of goals are you setting for yourself?

A: Well, in the immediate future, I'd like to complete all of the films listed above. I will always want to make films as long as we are able to make them the way that we want to make them. Our goal with 'Wednesday' was to create a debut feature that would not only serve as a calling card for all the talent involved, but also would be a film that would resonate and only garner more attention after we've completed a few more films. We wanted something that would be revisited and would hold up under that critical examination, a debut piece that truly represented those behind Striped Socks Productions as artists. As far as the distant future, I'd love to be a position to nurture young talent (in school or not), and give those talented people, who may not have access to the best connections or resources, a chance to make films of their own. There is so much talent out there, so many passionate artists who only need that one chance or break to make a name for themselves. I would absolutely love to be in that position one day.