Future Weather in the Media

With the launch of the Netflix FIND Your Voice competition, FUTURE WEATHER has been receiving a lot of good attention. As of right now, we're in first place of the ten semifinalists, and we're hoping to stay that way! The support we've been receiving from all of you has been great and we can't thank you enough.

FUTURE WEATHER has also been lucky to receive some attention from media outlets across the country recently. This past Thursday, Dan Gross of the Philadelphia Daily News gave us a shout-out in his column. SAVE THE FUTURE was also the subject of a great article in the Asheville Citizen-Times (look for a great quote from Chusy!). The Philly Goes Solar blog was kind enough to write about the short. And finally, our executive producers, Cora Olson and Jennifer Dubin, were interviewed by IndieGoGo about their film GOOD DICK.

As the Netflix competition keeps going, we're looking forward to getting more people excited about FUTURE WEATHER! The competition doesn't end until July 5, so keep spreading the word and help us rock the vote!

Andy O'Neil: Right-Hand Man

Chusy and Andy (right) looking over some footage

Andy O’Neil was Chusy’s right-hand-man during our shoot in Asheville. Not long after meeting Chusy and Jennifer in 2004, Andy was brought on to serve as co-producer for ANYWHERE, USA in 2005. Andy assisted with just about every aspect of production for the film; he scheduled shoots, rented equipment, worked on lighting, and helped Chusy edit the final cut.

An aspiring filmmaker himself, currently working with Chusy on several documentaries, Andy’s experience was a great asset when we were shooting SAVE THE FUTURE. In addition to lighting and recording most of the sound, he was instrumental in the post-production process, too. He went above and beyond by downloading and compressing our footage every night, so that we could take it back to Philadelphia ready to edit. And in his true-blue Andy fashion, he made himself completely available for any post work-flow questions we had.

Shane Eitner: "The Chest"

Jerry, Andy, and Shane pigging out at the Philly Hoagie Shop

Chusy’s cousin Shane Eitner, a body builder with a heart of gold, was working in “Executive Protection” (read: bodyguard) in L.A. before taking the cross-country road trip that landed him at Jennifer and Chusy's. He fell in love with Asheville, and after only a few months of living and working with Chusy, had picked up a few tricks of the trade. We were very impressed by how well he knew the 5D and the various lenses Chusy had for it.

Like Andy, Shane was a jack-of-all-trades during our shoot, switching off between lighting and sound; he built our telescope and literally shot the moon the day we left Asheville. But perhaps Shane’s most visible contribution to our short was his role as “the chest”. As part of our short, we really needed a faceless hottie for Laduree to bump into but couldn’t find the right person to be our "dude”. And then it dawned on us that Shane was the perfect person for the part. While he was reluctant at first, our persistent questions finally wore him down. And as you might expect, after a stint in executive protection, Shane was a natural.

PA's Help Us Brave the Elements

Our shoot would not have gone nearly as smoothly if we hadn't had the help of two production assistants who did a great job handling the rigors of the shoot. Jerry Ter Horst, an aspiring actor, worked as a volunteer on ANYWHERE, USA before joining Chusy again to work on SAVE THE FUTURE. He was joined by Nathan Lucas, an easy-going high school student who lives a few doors from Chusy, who was simply looking for something to do over the weekend. Whether these two were setting up a shelter from the rain or holding the umbrella over Chusy--and there were was a lot of holding the umbrella over Chusy--these two PAs rounded out our team and helped get things done.

Perla Haney-Jardine: Laduree

Perla goofs on set after a scoop of birthday cake ice cream.

The star of our short, Perla Haney-Jardine, had just turned 12 the week before we arrived in Asheville. An Asheville native, Perla first came to our attention after seeing her as the younger daughter in Michael Winterbottom’s GENOVA (Colin Firth, Catherine Keener). Impressed with her depth, we decided to contact her to see if she would be interested in playing Laduree for our short. Not only did Perla agree, but her family graciously offered to help us arrange shooting in their hometown of Asheville.

Throughout our shoot, Perla amazed us with how grounded she was. Despite the fact that we had interrupted her “regular life” (her last day of school was the day before we began shooting, and the day after we wrapped, she was off to D.C. for a school trip), Perla was never fazed by the occasional chaos that surrounded production. Whether she was working next to a stinky bale of recycled plastic or braving the rain, Perla moved through everything very calm and centered, still very much a real kid at heart.

Jennifer MacDonald: Sensual Mom

If it weren’t for Jennifer MacDonald (Chusy’s wife and Perla’s mother), it’s unlikely that the Asheville shoot would have gone as smoothly as it did. Jennifer volunteered to cast and scout locations. And because we knew of her work on ANYWHERE, U.S.A. with a lot of non-actors and last-minute locations, we decided to write some flexibility into the characters and locations we scripted. That way, it would be easy to change based on what Jennifer found for us.

Not only was Jennifer the heart of our connection to Asheville (introducing us to her friends at the Sweet Biscuit B&B, hooking us up with a fantastic caterer) but she also appeared in the short herself as the “sensual mom" (above). She's also one of the smartest people you'll ever meet. Jennifer speaks over four languages and is planning to go to Morocco for intensive study of the Arabic so that she can help women filmmakers in Middle Eastern countries produce and distribute their work.

Chusy Haney-Jardine: Straight Shooter

As if producing a short in four weeks wasn’t daunting enough, we had no idea how we were going to build a camera department from 600 miles away. Luckily, Perla’s father, Chusy Haney-Jardine, generously offered to serve as our Director of Photography and loan us his equipment for the shoot. Chusy, a multi-talented artist who might best be described as a Venezuelan Sean Connery, is actually an accomplished filmmaker himself. His film ANYWHERE, U.S.A. (co-written with his wife Jennifer MacDonald and featuring Perla) received a Special Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

We originally planned to shoot on an HVX camera with a 35mm lens adapter to give our footage a film look; however, we couldn't get our hands on an adapter that would match Chusy's lenses. But when we arrived at Chusy's little bungalow-studio, he had another trick up his sleeve: the Canon 5D, a 35mm still camera that also shoots 1080i-HD video. After watching some of his footage, we couldn't resist. While using it meant we had to record sound separately (and synch it up later), it was fantastic in low-light situations and made our images pop in an exciting way. In the end, it gave SAVE THE FUTURE a more “commercial” look befitting the style of a PSA and was well-worth the extra hassle.

Making the Netflix Short

From "Save the Future" Titles by Jia Lia

Being selected as a semi-finalist for the Netflix FIND Your Voice Competition was kind of easy compared to the challenge that came next: create a 2-3 minute short that "powerfully conveys your vision for the [feature-length] film". This could be anything, the contest admins maintained - a scene from the feature, a trailer, or "a self-contained short with thematic ties to the feature." In four weeks. For public voting on a website with 8+ million subscribers. Not intimidating at all.

We assigned ourselves the task of creating a provocative short that would grab your attention and leave you with a sense of mystery. SAVE THE FUTURE was finished last Friday and will premiere June 5 at www.netflixfindyourvoice.com. But what the hell is it about, and how did we get it done in four weeks?

Kristin, Cora, Jen and I decided to limit the script to one character from the feature, in order to cut down on casting time. Luckily, Perla Haney-Jardine, a 12-year-old actress we'd been in talks with for playing Laduree, was interested in coming on board for the short, and her family (filmmakers Jennifer MacDonald and Chusy Haney-Jardine) graciously invited us to shoot it in their hometown of Asheville, North Carolina. FUTURE WEATHER takes place in a rural setting, so after researching Asheville (a small, eclectic city tucked in the Blue Ridge Mountains) and watching scenes from Perla's parent's feature, ANYWHERE U.S.A., I knew this area would provide the right milieu for our short.

With one week for prep + shooting and one week for editing, I had one week to develop a script. I started with two basic sketches - both exploring Laduree's life before the feature begins - and we picked one to develop. It was the more high-concept of the two, so I went through eight drafts before shooting and also rewrote it a bit during shooting and editing. It's called SAVE THE FUTURE, and while it contains a few motifs you'll find in the feature, it's a slightly more stylized, and frankly, commercial (in service of the concept, you'll see) depiction of Laduree's crux: her fear of environmental apocalypse as a stand-in for her absentee mom.

With our two central characters (Laduree and Asheville) established, Kristin and I drove down to North Carolina on May 13 for two days of pre-production and two days of production. The photos that follow are highlights from our trip, location scout and shoot. It was an experience we'll never forget. We hope you enjoy the show!

And don't forget: your votes can propel FUTURE WEATHER to the big screen. Slap us five stars June 5th at www.netflixfindyourvoice.com.

Pleasantville for Real

Tucked in the indigo foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Asheville, North Carolina has a unique flavor of Southern hospitality, hippie charm and artsy sophistication that felt like the magic ingredient in making our short for Netflix. Not only was the area gorgeous and temperate, the people we met instantly warmed to our project, whether they were volunteering their homes for a location or assisting with the shoot itself. Plus they were all attractive without being annoying, had well-behaved children and baked well. They even had a Philly Hoagie Shop! Was it all a figment of our imaginations...??


Check out our album, Asheville Shoot: Behind the Scenes

Kristin's Farm Photos

Whenever you visit a new town, there is always the dream of being embraced as one of their own. And during our recent trip to Asheville, this was exactly the case. We visited so many unique, inviting locations that it is difficult to select just one as a favorite. But one of the most memorable places we were welcomed would have to be the home of Jen Ramming and her lovely family. We all had a blast visiting their barn full of chickens, witnessing a real live cock fight and petting their sheep. Perla showed us her basketball skills by shooting some hoops before we left. The setting was idyllic and the company could not have been sweeter.