Behind the Scenes

Getting rid of the shadows

Assistant director, Julia Perez, is lying on the floor in a UC Irvine dorm room, three big spotlights pointing down at her. She is looking up at the crane camera that the director, Kevin Shirka, has built using his fridge, a wooden box and his coffee table. The two producers, Sabrina Yunus and Marinthia Gutierrez, are standing around Perez trying to get rid of the shadows that are cast from the spotlights.

It is 7.30 p.m. on a Thursday night and 15 members of UC Irvine FADA (Film Art Drama Alliance) is shooting a scene in a campus dorm room for the 10-minute short-film Forgive Me I’m Dying. The crew has been working on the film since January and in exactly two weeks it will be shown at the Zotfilm Premiere Winter Gala.

Photo by Gry Arendse Voss

FADA is an organization that promotes collaborative filmmaking through UCI clubs. This includes both Zotfilm and Zotfest, the filmmaking subdivisions. In addition, FADA also sponsors weekly Zotfilm productions meetings, where club members can produce short-films with other members of the UCI film community. At the Zotfilm Premiere, all the FADA teams’ short-films will be screened, followed by a brief Q&A with the film crew members.

The buzzing studio

At the set, the majority of the crew has now arrived and the noise of the 15 people gathered in the small studio is intense. “Quiet on the set!” yells Shirka, followed by an apologetic smile. The noise volume goes down insignificantly. “QUIET,“ Perez now yells. This time the command has more effect on the crowd, but it only lasts for a short while, and the studio is soon buzzing again.

In the corner of the couch, the two actresses, Lar Gulvartian and Sarah Brown are rehearsing lines. “No, I know this one!” says Gulvartian, the lead actress, and continues with her line after a short moment of silence: I’m going to die. The Grim Reaper is coming for me and he’s going to slice my throat, my beautiful tanned throat. What should I do? She remarks, “I’m not saying tanned throat. My throat is not tanned!” she laughs.

A dark comedy

Errol Manarang, one of the manuscript writers, says: “I was there for one audition for the main character, played by Lar. I was completely blown away by her portrayal of the character.” The character Emily (Gulvartian) is a self-absorbed, young woman, who has spent most of her life being mean to other people. She gets her life turned upside down when she goes to see a tarot reader, who predicts that she will die in the near future. The manuscript was created in the Zotfilm group with Manarang as the main writer out of the three co-writers working on the film. In the group, they came up with a bunch of ideas and landed on one about a tarot card reader who predicts a death. “So I just expanded on the idea,” says Manarang.

Forgive Me I’m Dying is a dark comedy, a genre also known as black comedy, where a film takes on heavy, controversial, disturbing, or generally off-limits subject matter and treats it in a humorous manner. While writing Forgive Me I’m Dying, Manarang was inspired by the dark comedy films American Psycho (2000) starring Christian Bale as the lead role and Shaun of the Dead (2004), about a man who decides to turn his moribund life around by winning back his ex-girlfriend, reconciling his relationship with his mother, and dealing with an entire community that has returned from the dead to eat the living.

Shooting

On the set, it is now 8 p.m. and the crew is still working on getting rid of the shadows in the picture. Perez walks over to Gulvartian and Brown “Sorry guys, I think we are doing your positions now.” They get off the couch immediately to get into positions. The crew finally succeeds in removing the shadows from the frame. “We have an hour, we need to start now,” says Perez. “Quiet on set,” she yells.

Photo by Anna Chung

While the scene is being shot, everyone on the set is dead silent, and tension and anticipation fills the room. In the scene, Emily (Gulvartian) is lying on her bed thinking about the tarot reader’s prediction. Her friend Alexis (Brown) walks into her room and offers her a list of things she should change in her life before she dies. “Cut!” yells Shirka. “I think I did quite good on this one,” says Gulvartian after the second take and laughs. Everybody laughs along with her. A third take is done.

At 9.17 p.m., the first scene is done, and the energy in the small studio is gradually fading. People are starting to leave and the hectic buzzing that dominated the room two hours ago has disappeared. At 9.26 p.m., the shooting of the second and final scene of the night begins. In the first take, Brown is out of frame. “I just want to do it one more time,” says Shirka. The scene is shot again. It is now 9.31 p.m. “Okay we are done,” says Shirka. Everybody claps. “Thank you guys.”

Forgive Me I’m Dying

Directors: Kevin Shirka and Victoria Marie Gilleland-Hendersen.

Writers: Errol Manarang, Alan Ariel Carlos and Demitri Angelo Fierro.

Producers: Sabrina Yunus and Marinthia Gutierrez.

Zotfilm Premiere Winter Gala, March 12, 6:30pm – 10:00pm at the Crystal Cove Auditorium, UCI.