The two filmmakers at the center of Starz’ first original unscripted series The Chair never met until the show’s summer publicity tour, even though they worked in the same building. First-time feature film directors Shane Dawson and Anna Martemucci were both given the same budget and worked off of the same script as they competed to see who could make the best film. At stake: a $250,000 prize.
Chris Moore (Project Greenlight‘s executive producer) created the series, and Heroes‘ Zachary Quinto is on board as a co-executive producer and mentor.
Here’s the details, courtesy of Starz:
The Chair is a 10-part documentary that follows two first-time directors through the process of bringing their debut feature to the big screen. The up-and-coming directors, who have unique backgrounds and skill sets, were provided with an identical screenplay and challenged to craft their own film. The series documents the creation, marketing, and theatrical release of both adaptations, which will also air on STARZ. Both directors were given the same budget, and the productions used locations in the same city – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Through multiplatform voting, viewers will ultimately determine which director will be awarded $250,000.
Filmmakers Shane Dawson and Anna Martemucci adapted How Soon Is Now, a coming-of-age feature-length comedy written by Dan Schoffer that chronicles the first homecoming on Thanksgiving weekend by a handful of college freshman who are stumbling towards adulthood. Both directors were given creative leeway to develop their respective films using their own ingenuity and distinct experience. Screenplay rewrites, the casting of actors, hiring of crewmembers – even the name of the film – was ultimately at the discretion of the directors and documented in the series.
In support of the series’ premiere on Saturday, September 6, 2014 at 11pm ET/PT, I spoke with Shane Dawson about making his first feature film and what it’s been like working on The Chair.
What’s the movie about?
Shane Dawson: “The movie’s about these college kids who come back home for Thanksgiving break, just for one weekend. They’re kind of realizing different things. My character, Scott, realizes that he was really cool in high school and now nobody cares about him. And then Tory, the main character, she’s realizing how much everybody in her hometown has stayed exactly the same. She’s changed. She’s cool; she’s more mature, but everybody at home is still stuck in the same place.
So, it’s just about that weekend. They kind of form a relationship. She takes him on a journey and helps him realize that maybe him not being cool any more is a good thing because he can let go of all of his inhibitions. They go on this crazy adventure.
The main message of the movie, which is why I wanted to do it in the first place, was it’s about not living in the past. One of the lines from the movie that I love is, ‘If you have one foot in the past, then you’re missing a foot.’ I connect with that a lot.”
I remember coming home from college and how it didn’t feel like home anymore. Have you had that experience to relate to?
Shane Dawson: “I didn’t go to college unfortunately. I tried, but I just couldn’t afford it. But I did go away – I moved to LA after high school. I brought my mom with me and stuff but whenever I would go back to my hometown, it was very bizarre. It didn’t feel like home. I felt like I was trapped. It just made me appreciate even more the fact that I had moved away. If you stay somewhere you can get caught in that weird ‘time has stopped’ zone, if that makes sense.”
What are some interesting things that happened while you were shooting? Were there any mishaps on the set?
Shane Dawson: “Oh my god, the one thing that really is crazy and I hope they do a whole episode about it is one of our locations was a tattoo shop and the woman who owned it was totally down for us filming it that night. Then I guess she went home that night and watched some of my videos, disagreed with them – understandably – and came back the next day and wanted to kill me. [She] brought her gangster friends and had a huge blowup with my crew, basically saying that when they saw me, they were going to stab my eyes out with one of their tattoo needles or something. It was really intense. She was screaming. She was running up and down the block. It’s going to be amazing. By the time I got there I think she was gone. And then later we found out that she’s a stripper. I guess she’s a religious stripper.”
Do you know which video of yours she saw that offended her so much?
Shane Dawson: “No. That’s the thing too is, you know, I definitely do comedy… I talk about stuff people don’t talk about. Whatever. I make fun of everything. It could have been anything. Maybe it was a joke about rape or a joke about abortion or a joke about cancer. Could have been anything that struck a cord, but I also think she just wanted to be on TV and she wanted to have a storyline. She really milked it. She came back two days later. She did another big thing. She signed the paper; she let us film there. It was weird.”
Were you contractually obligated to deliver an R rating?
Shane Dawson: “No. They basically said you can do whatever you want, as long as it’s not X-rated or whatever. That was the thing too was I wanted to do PG-13 because it makes sense for my audience. They actually could see it and buy it. But then I looked at my videos and I’m like, ‘These are all R-rated and I can’t tone it down.’ The original script was R. I think [Anna’s] movie’s R, too. It’s hard to do a movie about teenagers and make it realistic and have them not saying f*ck every other word.”
Have you not submitted to the MPAA yet?
Shane Dawson: “I think we’re doing that in a couple of weeks. […]I’m going for Unrated. Obviously we have to get rated but I hope that when we release it we can do unrated because then more people can actually buy it. It’s easier to get into movies if they’re unrated. But, yeah, it’s going to be R. There’s nothing I can cut. I’ve cut out everything that was really over the top, I think.”
It’s the simple things when you’re making your first movie that people don’t think of in advance. What were the most surprising of those minute details?
Shane Dawson: “Things I hadn’t had to worry about doing my own stuff, like catering or having a location scout or having to deal with SAG and all the rules. That stuff was confusing and I did not want to deal with it, but I had to. There’s a lot of things like that.”
I was surprised you hadn’t heard of Writers Guild arbitrations.
Shane Dawson: “I’ve written everything I’ve ever done and then when this came along I said, ‘Oh, can I rewrite it?’ and they said yes. I liked the writer and so I worked with him a lot, and so I just kind of figuring, ‘Oh, I’ll get a little credit.’ I didn’t know that was a big no-no. Of course I was fine with it. When you see the show they’ll make it a big thing, probably. But I had no idea. All the guilds, all the SAGs – I think I’m in SAG – there’s a lot of thing about that I don’t understand.”
The movie’s going to be available before the show starts. Should people watch the movie and then see The Chair or wait until the end of The Chair to see the movie?
Shane Dawson: “It’s hard to say because everybody… Back when I watched DVDs…back when there was DVDs…I would watch a movie and then watch behind the scenes. And then again it is interesting to see the journey and then at the end see whether the movie was actually any good.”
You have a lot of energy in your Youtube videos. When you do 300 in one pop, how exhausting is that?
Shane Dawson: “It’s pretty exhausting. It’s intense; I don’t have that much help. I have my producing partner but she was busy with the movie so I was kind of doing all that stuff alone. It just even more made me realize that I need to take the lead and try and make movies. I’d keep doing Youtube but maybe not do it every day anymore because I’m getting too old for that. I’m getting tired.”
Production work is also draining. How did you find the stamina for that?
Shane Dawson: “The movie was great because I had help and if I was ever stressed there was always someone there to help me, to talk to about it. Surprisingly enough, it was pretty smooth. The actual production of the movie, it was smooth. It was fun, it was fast paced. I didn’t ever pass out or throw up or poop my pants. Post-production was a little more intense.”
Did you enjoy the post-production process?
Shane Dawson: “Still in it. I mean, I’ve always edited everything myself so it was nice to have someone help me assemble it, so that was good. But all the legal stuff makes me want to kill myself…I mean, trying to get releases for every song and trying to get quotes for the songs, trying to get the special effects done – all of that is not my passion. Luckily I have people to help me with that.”
