Above Photo: Robert Presutti (All Rights Reserved- Image not monetized)
Greetings
valued Dan's Movie Report readers. In November of 2020 I had the opportunity to
interview Melissa Mars for my site and found her to be quite
engaging, a link to the interview is provided at the end of the interview. Recently, she has entered her short film 'The Last Touch' in
several film festivals and has garnered awards and accolades. I catch
up with Ms. Mars again and have a chat with her about 'The Last
Touch' and her long-term plans for the film. Sit back, relax and get
ready to take another trip to Mars with Melissa!
DMR:
CHAT ABOUT HOW YOU CAME UP WITH THE CONCEPT FOR THE LAST TOUCH.
MM:
“Our lust to go viral dehumanizes us...”, he said. It was
February 2018. I had just moved to a frozen, wintry New York from
sunny California and was sitting in my acting class, listening to the
legendary Anthony Abeson talk to a bench full of my fellow actors,
“... Now with that theme, create a movie. You can be a Writer,
Director and/or Actor or all three.” That evening I returned home
to my mess of unpacked boxes, feeling excited by the assignment to
create my own movie. As I went through my pre-bed rituals - plugged
in my phone to charge, set up my wake-up alarm, turned on sleep cycle
to track the quality of my sleep – falling into the open arms of
the Dream Lord, Morpheus, seemed unlikely. My mind was racing. I
reached for my phone, feeling guilty for giving into the impulse to
scroll through social media when I knew I should be sleeping. Setting
my phone back on the bedside table, I tried playing a guided
meditation. “Think of three things you are grateful for... let them
fill your mind as you drift off...” I don’t think I ever actually
fell asleep that night. As I lay in the dark, eyes wide open, mind
working on overdrive, I was overwhelmed by visions. I stopped the
guided meditation, staring at my phone. Scenes and images of a dark,
dystopian world whirled around in my head; a world in which humans
were ruled by their lust to go viral, a world in which our attachment
to our devices stripped us of our humanity, a world in which our
desire to connect virtually left us unable to connect physically. I
did the only thing I could think of, I grabbed my smartphone and,
sitting in the pitch black with the light of the screen illuminating
my over-tired face, I typed the idea for the script that would later
become 'The Last Touch'!
DMR:
CHAT ABOUT HOW LONG IT TOOK TO GET THE MOVIE ORGANIZED
MM:
Ironically, it took the power of social media to give me the push I
needed to take my concept and make it into a short film! I wrote a
post
on my blog
that you can read for a full account, but for now I’ll focus on the
highlights!
Social
media can be overwhelming sometimes, but it can also be a powerful
tool for finding connection and support! It can feel like you are on
a deserted island, casting a message in a bottle out to sea; you
don’t know if anyone will ever get it, but sometimes you’re lucky
and not only does someone find the bottle and read the message, but
they provide you the support you need and you find you are no longer
alone. So, after my night of insomnia, during which I wrote the
three-page script for what I originally called Touch Generation, I
decided to post about my idea on social media. That was the first
time I was sharing about my writing journey. When I finally clicked
“post”, I was shaking and blushing. I felt both really shy and
really bold, like I was exposing myself naked, revealing my hidden
dreams for the first time, revealing what I do as an artist when I’m
not in the spotlight and wondering if anyone would really care. I had
no idea how much that one post would change everything. First, I was
overwhelmed by the positive words of encouragement and support I
received from my online community in general. Then, I received a
message from a friend, Eric Mizrahi, who is a fantastic
cinematographer and movie director in Israel, asking if he could read
my short and wondering what I was planning to do with it. Despite the
kind words of encouragement I had received, there was still a small
voice in the back of my mind telling me I couldn’t possibly turn
this idea into a “real” film. I had just moved to NY and still
had very few connections, not to mention little-to-no budget as well
as that nagging voice telling me this was “just” a project for a
class, not something to take any further.
I told
Eric I planned to film it myself, with my own camera and that it
would most likely look like shit because I had no lights and
cinematography is far from being my area of expertise. "What can
I do?" Was Eric’s response when I told him my plans. I had no
idea. Both of us had left our connections back in LA and came up
short for contacts in NY. I was so humbled when Eric said he thought
the idea at the core of my short 3-page script was so exciting, he
would make it his personal mission to find me a cinematographer to
work with in NY. His enthusiasm, support and his encouragement were
unbelievable! He promised he would find someone and he did! Within a
turbulent 48 hours, filled with emails, introductions, scheduling
conflicts and a roller coaster ride of emotions, I was in contact
with the amazing cinematographer, Yaniv Glaser, who had also just
moved to NY and wanted to work on the project! In the course of two
weeks, we met and started exchanging ideas about the mood of the film
and the direction we would take with the limited materials we had
available. With the huge help of James Kacey, my co-star, we went to
stores get some lights for the décor, and I found the light in the
shape of the “@” sign that would come to represent the core idea
of the film. At the time I was not sure if it was going to be too
much, or too tacky, but I took it and I’m glad I did! I really
wanted the movie to be simple and quick to film; it took half a day
to film it. Then the editing is what took me a long time. I love
editing, but I’m not quick. Syncing the sound to the clips was
tedious. Once this chore was done, I could finally get to the
exciting part of putting it together. I got it all together in a
couple of days, adding some music tracks from Hans Zimmer (Batman...)
and Paesano (Daredevil) to give it some darker atmosphere. I showed
it to my class as a rough first draft. When the viewing was over,
they were all quiet for a minute, I was so anxious, then all I kept
hearing was Black Mirror, Black Mirror. At the time, I have to admit,
all I had watched was the first episode while I was having dinner one
night and it had disgusted me so much that I had sworn off the show.
So I wasn’t sure how to take the comparison, but the show was so
successful I felt happy with the comparison. Haha! (Side note: it
took me until the year after to finally watch the show and I have
become a fan!)
After
the positive feedback from my class, I started to look into festivals
but quickly realized I needed original music, more edits, color
correction, a poster... etc.; it was going to be a lot of work to get
my short ready for submission to the festival circuit. I was
overwhelmed with doubts and thought maybe I should just leave it
alone. I accomplished the mission for class, and decided to keep it
quiet as something I could show if someone asked. A few months later,
during the summer, the idea came back. First it was just a tickle in
the back of my mind, then an incessant scratching and then occupied
my waking thoughts. The story wanted more than what I had given it.
What if I developed it? A movie? A series? Something. I was not sure
if the short film was a movie in itself but it could always serve as
a proof of concept. I had a lot more explanation and exposition in
the first edit. And I had never taken any screenwriting class.
In the
summer of 2018, I decided to get into a class and learn the craft.
All I had written in my whole career was short movies, short scripts
for music videos, and songs. But I didn’t have the confidence to go
further and didn’t think I had the chops. I took a class and armed
with new knowledge and support I started brainstorming and expanding
my idea for a pilot. I scribbled probably about 30/40 pages of stream
of consciousness and ideas. James Kacey introduced me to Keith
Armonaitis, a screenwriter he had worked with on the award-winning
and heartbreaking short-movie Missed. I showed him the short and
pitched him my idea; he was in! We started developing the series
together early in 2019, one year after I had filmed the short and one
year before the pandemic happened... I can’t tell you how freaked
out I was when the pandemic hit. For months, I had been imagining a
world where people couldn’t touch, imagining it as some dark
dystopia that could only exist in nightmares, and then, out of
nowhere, we were living it! It was one of the most terrifying times
in my life. I had to take a break. I felt so overwhelmed. Before the
pandemic I felt like I had all my life to develop the series because
it was so far from reality, just a made-up vision of a dark future
that would never be real, but in a blink I was behind the times. I
returned to look at the short I had made for class and decided it was
time to finish it and turn it into a real film.
I
called Steve Sholtes, who I collaborated with previously on different
soundtracks and a song picked up by Coca-Cola music. I sent him the
rough edit of my film and he was in! He scored a “hauntingly
beautiful soundtrack”;) and got two nominations at UVFF, (UK’s
festival Unrestricted View Film Festival), one of which was for the
soundtrack! After Steve said he was in, I re-edited the whole film,
took out some parts and added a character that didn’t exist in the
first script or even the first edit: the voice of Sweet Cherry
Corporation. It changed the feeling of the film and took it up to a
new level. So, to answer your question and to keep a long story long,
it took two and a half years (with a long break in the middle) to
take The Last Touch from those notes scribbled in my phone to the
multiple award-winning short film that it is now!
Above Photo: Melissa Mars Award 2021, for 'The Last Touch' Used for promotional use only
DMR:
CHAT ABOUT WORKING ON A SINGLE SET AND HOW YOU PLAYED FOR THE CAMERA
AS AN ENTITY IN THE ROOM.
MM:
Working on a single set was both easy and challenging. Easy because
we didn’t have to move and change locations. Once we set up in that
bedroom, we were there for the whole shoot. Challenging because we
didn’t have many alternatives. We couldn’t really move things
around due to the size of the bed and the bedroom. Yaniv Glaser did
an amazing job working with what we had and creating a clinical,
dark, isolated atmosphere with the lights and framing. The other
challenge was playing a role both in front of and behind the camera.
It was a small and limited crew so the three of us wore several hats
and had to trust each other wholeheartedly. Yaniv and I had many
discussions before the shoot. He tested lights, moods and shots; it
was so inspiring to collaborate with him. Once we were on set and the
shots locked, I felt confident putting my full trust in Yaniv’s
expertise and we moved quickly from one scene to the next. I didn’t
check on the monitor every take, just the first one of every new
scene. I trusted both him and my co-star James Kacey, with whom I had
worked on multiple other projects before, that I could have felt
comfortable leaving him alone for his own takes! We wanted to have
the shot in the bedroom to show the extreme emotional distance
between the characters. The bedroom is the place where we are often
at our most intimate, our most vulnerable, where we open ourselves up
emotionally and physically with our partners. Having the camera so
close to these two people who are so emotionally distant from each
other in such an intimate setting helped to really show that they had
replaced each other with their devices and drive home the sense of an
emotional and physical connection that had been lost. They are being
watched, being filmed in this most intimate of places but they don’t
even notice or care, they are consumed by their devices. The
trickiest part was the last scene.
There
was a long duo-logue (not dialogue, but duo-logue, I don’t know if
that term exists, if not, I’m making it up to describe the sort of
monologue cut and shared between the two characters) that James and I
shared. We had to keep going, keep the pace up as if it was one
person talking. Then we had to be perfectly synchronized for the
prayer at the end; it took patience! It is interesting how much
editing is close to the writing or rewriting experience; cutting,
piecing together all the parts. I actually ended up cutting out the
duo-logue after all was said and done; it was too much telling and
not showing. I was hesitant to cut the scene because it was the only
one in the whole short during which the two main characters look at
each other. In the end, I made the choice of not having any eye
contact between the couple. For me, it was the metaphor of the touch.
If the eyes are the windows to the soul, as some people believe, then
a look could be as powerful as a touch. If I allowed the characters
to share that look within the intimate setting of the bedroom, it
would be as dangerous as touching and would have taken away from the
feeling of an impenetrable barrier (represented by the “@” sign)
between them. It took a lot out of me to sacrifice that moment, and
make the choice to show no emotional or physical contact with each
other in the whole movie (besides the accidental touch). I’m
actually very “touched” lol and impressed when some viewers at
festivals notice the absence of eye contact and tell me how powerful
and unnerving they find it.
DMR:
DISCUSS IDEAS GOING FORWARD WITH THE FILM, EXPANDING TO A FEATURE OR
A SERIES.
MM:
I’m actually expanding the short film in two different directions.
I’ve been working on prose that started out as a dark short story
but that has since grown to a full-length novel, haha. The story and
the characters keep expanding on their own, torturing me because it’s
hard to keep a handle on it. And, like I mentioned earlier, I’m
also expanding the idea for a series and co-writing the pilot which
we started working on in 2019, developing a fascinating world. When
the pandemic hit, I almost had a breakdown thinking we had to drop
it, reality became too close to what was supposed to be our fantasy
of a dark dystopia. The reactions and feedback I got from festivals
on the short movie, unanimously asking for more, comparing it to
Black Mirror and 1984, gave me so much more confidence and a drive to
continue with this project! :P
DMR:
WHAT ARE SOME LONG-TERM GOALS FROM DOING THIS SHORT FILM, MORE
DIRECTING IN THE FUTURE?
MM: I
actually love directing specific projects that I have a complete
vision for. But there are also scripts I write that I’d rather have
someone else direct because I have no idea how to make them as
exciting as they are in my mind’s eye. I was very proud that the
award-winning and super talented director, Marco Bottiglieri, took on
one of my scripts – Better Late Than Never- to direct it. I’m
always excited to collaborate and have other artists bring their
vision to my stories. But I do have some other projects I would love
to direct, especially in Algeria, in the North of Africa. My mom is
from there. That country is a beauty that is untapped and not
explored enough at the international level and I would love to share
that with the world. I’m actually co-writing an adventure/drama
movie with my mom, lyricist and writer Lilas Klif, a project I am
really excited about. Everything is a process. My main goal is to
stay focused and move forward to complete one project at a time. I am
so excited to see where each unique experience takes me!
Thank
you for taking some time to discuss 'The Last Touch', looking forward
to more in the future.
For
further information on 'The Last touch': www.lasttouchmovie.com
Melissa
Mars Official Website: www.melissamars.com
http://dansmoviereport.blogspot.com/2020/11/actress-melissa-mars-interview-2020.html
