matt gershowitz
UPDATE: The film ended up winning Best Screenplay and a special jury award for Best Social Awareness.
We’re so honored to have “Affliction” nominated in 4 categories by Revolution Me Film Festival Best Drama, Best Director Short Film (Christina Raia), Best Screenplay (Kelsey Rauber), Best Editing (Matt Gershowitz) and Best Acting (Nabil Viñas) - congrats team! Our film screens at 7pm tonight, we hope you can catch it and join us for the zoom Q&A after!
Last night we wrapped production on my new short film, "Arm Bar."
Logline: A young, aspiring MMA fighter visits her local boxing gym to settle a dispute with the owner.
The screenplay for "Arm Bar" came to fruition in the first few months of our CongestedCat writing group. Christina Raia, Kelsey Rauber, and I, had all been talking about how we wanted to meet once a week to keep the creative, right side of our brain's in motion. I knew I wanted to move into pre-production on a new short, but I didn't know which would be the right script to move forward with. I initially wanted to tackle one of my other short stories, "Magic Mountain," with DoP Peter Westervelt, but it proved to be a bit too ambitious for the time. After Christina and Kelsey gave me their thoughts on Arm Bar, I knew it was the one. I was soon after introduced to Jeanette Sears at one of our IndieWorks events and knew she would be a great fit to DP the film. I loved the fact that we had representation and inclusivity not only in front of, but behind the camera as well.
Christina expressed her interest in producing the project and we immediately moved into pre-production, which proved to be a lot to take on. At first, the plan was to crowdfund on Seed&Spark, but after talking with Christina, we decided it'd be best to fund this one out-of-pocket. She helped me solidify the budget and we realized it would be attainable. Still, we made the decision to shoot promotional and behind the scenes videos to draw some attention to the project before moving into principal photography. You can watch the promo here:
Casting the project was a bumpy road, but when I auditioned Latresa Baker is when it all really started to come together. She walked into that room prepared and ready to take the role that was rightfully hers. The training process was one one of the aspects of pre-pro that I was most scared about. We bounced around from class, to individual trainer, to fight choreographer, and I was worried that all the different types of blocking and direction would make it more confusing than helpful. In the end, Latresa absorbed all the information like a sponge and we created a simple, cohesive, and hopefully exciting fight that I can't wait to share with you all.
In hindsight, everything about this project was almost just as ambitious as Magic Mountain. FedUp was the last short I directed over two years ago... a six-and-a-half minute short in my apartment with a small cast and crew. Arm Bar is a fifteen page screenplay that takes place in a boxing gym with a decent-sized supporting cast, extras, and fight scene choreography. It was a lot to take on, but with the help of Christina, Jeanette, AD Matt Gershowitz, and the rest of the amazing cast and crew that I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with... we did it.
Check out some raw stills from what we shot below:
See BTS photos from the day:
I really can't thank my cast and crew enough. They were all my rock, and helped me keep it together in the production's most heightened points of anxiety. Can't wait to collaborate with these wonderful people again in the future.
Some of the cast and crew after we wrapped production on the film.
-Ryan
We've finished the post-production effects for SUMMIT! It's been a long road with this film. Post-Production for a no-budget feature is expected to take long, but we're almost at the 2 year mark! When everyone's working for almost or literally nothing, while also working at their real pays-the-bills jobs, things take a long time. I'd be lying if I said the wait hasn't been frustrating, but I'm just so grateful for the team of people sticking with this film and bringing it to completion, and of course for the audience that has been patiently awaiting it.
My biggest thank you goes out to my Assistant Director, Editor & Visual Effects tech Matt Gershowitz, who is the only person who has been living & breathing this film as much as I have since the start of production in January 2013. He had a big task on his hands with the effects, in particular, because there were a lot of little things that revealed our shooting location was not nearly as deserted as the setting within the film. For instance, our gas station was a wonderful gift, completely free to us thanks to my to-be mother-in-law's acquaintance who owned it; but it did come with its drawbacks. The biggest one being that it was on a main road. So Matt had to put his post skills to work. Check out the before and after below.
BEFORE
AFTER
Notice the billboard?
On top of that, for daylight scenes in the back of our picture house, because of the shooting style of part of the film, we were often forced to see the space from every possible angle, which meant revealing houses in the distance. These quick shots, though easy to miss, could pull the audience completely out of the world of the film. So Matt had the somewhat tedious job of hiding them when they popped up in the final cut. As seen below.
BEFORE
AFTER
As anyone who does effects knows, it's not an easy or quick task with a moving image.
Now that it's all out of the way though, we're able to put the final touches on the film. The generous & talented Steven Smith is animating our title sequence for us, which is finishing final tweaks this week.
Opening Title
Lastly is the score and sound mix, which has been a long road in itself. Colin Harrington, our on-location sound recorder, did a great job on set, but had a lot of wind and crunchy snow to contend with. He has spent a long time cleaning up the audio to the best of his ability and my non-existent budget combined, acting as every sound department (foley, edit, mix) all himself. I'm proud of and grateful for the end product, but it still has some flaws that we're hoping to work out further before a festival premiere. He's also the score composer, and I'm just overwhelmed with excitement over what he's done with it. He really brought out and enhanced the feel of the film.
As of right now, we're 2-3 weeks away from submitting to our first few festivals, and about two months away from our final polished cut. We have a cast & crew premiere planned for the 2 year anniversary in January, and I'm incredibly excited and anxious for that. We're hoping to release our official full-length trailer around that time as well. I'll be sure to keep you updated as we progress further.
In the meantime, feel free to go back and read some past updates through the Post-Production process:
Thanks for your patience & support!
-Christina
