Interview: Brooke Buffington and Maddy Curley (“Chalk It Up”)
A few years ago when I was teaching at the University of North Carolina, I met a couple of Carolina alums, Brooke Buffington and Maddy Curley when the duo participated in one of my Quest Writing Workshops. They are talented writers, engaging personalities, and passionate about movies and storytelling. This week is an important one for them as their first independent film project Chalk It Up goes into pre-sales in advance of its official release in mid-September.
In talking with Brooke and Maddy about their experiences making the movie as writers and producers (Brooke and Maddy), and actor (Maddy), I thought their journey through the process is a story GITS readers would both enjoy and benefit from, so I reached out to them for an interview.
Scott: Let’s start at the beginning. Where did you two meet?
Brooke: In college, we were both gymnasts at UNC-Chapel Hill. Maddy came in as a freshman when I was a senior and we instantly became friends. It was like meeting a long lost sister.
Maddy: I remember on my recruiting trip (for gymnastics) that the coach, Derek Galvin, kept saying I had to meet Brooke. I thought he was crazy how much he was pushing this girl on me and then I start college and boom. Instant best friends for life. Derek, thank you.
Scott: What are some of the movies that influenced you when you were growing up?
Brooke: 20 hours in the gym every week, I didn’t have much time to watch movies growing up. I do remember watching Footloose at least a dozen times in one weekend, but that was probably because it had gymnastics in it.
Maddy: I was fascinated with Jim Carrey! I wanted to be the girl Jim Carrey and make people laugh with outlandish pratfalls and laugh out loud comedy. Chalk It Up is certainly influenced by watching him growing up.
Scott: And when did you discover that there were these people known as screenwriters who actually wrote the stories?
Brooke: The day Maddy called me to tell me she wanted to write Chalk It Up. I’d always loved movies before that, but never considered writing one.
Maddy: Ha! That’s a good question. I definitely never knew that the writers were starting all this magic on screen until I did the movie Stick It, where I met Jessica Bendinger, the director and writer, who also wrote one of my other favorite movies growing up: Bring It On.
Scott: How did you go about learning the craft?
Brooke: Luckily theater was one of Maddy’s majors at UNC and after completing Stick It she was reading scripts and going on auditions all the time. We used those scripts to learn. The real learning of the craft happened in the 10-years between our first draft of Chalk It Up and when we started production. During that time wrote 24 Chalk It Up drafts, 12 spec scripts and 6 pilots. We read all of the most common screenwriting books and your blog as well as a couple of others.
Maddy: Like Brooke said, a lot of it just came from reading scripts all the time and auditioning. I also had a mentor named John Ward (that also went to UNC) that would give us lots of books to read about screenwriting and advice. Then I interned for Bobby Moresco, who an Oscar for Crash. Working for him taught me so much, not only about writing, but about how crazy it is to get movies made even after you’ve won an Oscar!
Scott: Any formal training?
Maddy: I’ve been taking classes in LA through a company called the Writing Pad, but that’s been more for TV. I’d like to think my extensive love of watching TV and movies might’ve helped too.
Brooke: No, but I’m a book reader. Always have been. I absolutely love the art of storytelling.
Scott: When did you write your first draft of Chalk It Up?
Brooke: 10 years ago. Gosh, that seems like a long time. Maddy was out in LA going on tons of auditions. She called me one day and said “I want to write a screenplay that’s fun and family friendly and cool.”
Maddy: And Brooke was immediately on board!
Brooke: Except I had no idea how to write a screenplay.
Maddy: Nor did I. So we just started brainstorming what we thought would be a fun story to watch.
Brooke: Our first drafts were entirely different in tone, very campy. Not that Chalk It Up isn’t campy, but our first drafts were even campy-er. If that’s even a word.
Maddy: Pretty sure it is.
John DeLuca and Maddy Curley in Chalk It Up
Scott: So you were both college gymnasts and wrote a movie about college gymnastics. You certainly followed the rule: Write what you know.
Brooke: Exactly. We knew that there was a market for female led films and tons of people who love gymnastics. Just look at what’s happening with the sport right now as the Olympic team preps for Rio.
Maddy: We’ve also written lots of things that we don’t know about, but that we find interesting and want to learn more about! I think it just has to really inspire you. We’re currently working on a partly true, partly fictional take on Michelangelo and his relationship with The Pope at the time of the painting of the Sistine Chapel.
Scott: So 10-years ago you write your first draft, fast forward to producing Chalk It Up yourself. How did that happen?
Maddy: We kept writing and writing. My friend Shantel introduced us a wonderful writing agent who said we had great work, but said he would have trouble selling us since we hadn’t actually ever made anything. Fine then.
Brooke: Once again Maddy called me and said, “If we’re going to do this, we need to do it.” We’d made a couple of short films, won some writing awards and written a couple projects work for hire, but it was time for the next step.
Maddy: It was time to make our first feature film.
Brooke: Which was terrifying.
Sott: It’s my understanding that the making of Chalk It Up began with a Kickstarter campaign?
Maddy: A lot of my friends were successfully funding shorts and business projects around LA through Kickstarter and Indiegogo. I actually went to this class called Actor’s Salon, which is like business school for actors. They encouraged me really put it out there and believe we would make our funding goals.
Brooke: On Kickstarter we raised over $30,000 dollars on a $100,000 campaign, which was pretty amazing. We were excited to see that kind of interest in the film.
Maddy: So many of our friends and family donated! On that note, thank you to anyone and everyone who contributed to either or both of our campaigns. I often didn’t get the notifications as they were happening so I feel bad I never thanked everyone individually.
Brooke: It’s through that Kickstarter campaign that we met the businessman who would end up being one of our executive producers.
Maddy: And our other executive producer had heard me talk about Chalk It Up for years at his camp (International Gymnastics Camp). So when he heard about the Kickstarter and that we were finally doing it, he agreed to come on board. We even filmed half the movie at his camp!
Brooke: To have it all come together so quickly, we were amazed. We put our dream out there and people responded.
Scott: So you obtain the financing, what happens next?
Brooke: After we finished all of the legal obligations of setting up the film’s LLC, operating agreement, etc… we reached out to anyone and everyone who knew anything about independent filmmaking.
Maddy: Luckily, I live in LA, and at the time, was working at two CrossFit gyms. The majority of the members (like the majority of LA) were in the entertainment business so they were AMAZING at either providing the services we needed to make the film directly or knowing someone who could help. My mentors at Actor’s Salon were also extremely knowledgeable about who to reach out to for support.
Brooke: It was a crazy time. For writers who are looking to make their own film, I cannot say enough about having a support group in place. The other piece of advice I’d have is to love your film, because you’re going to live with it for at least 3 years. Independent filmmaking is typically not a short process.
The first competition in Chalk It Up
Scott: What’s it like to produce a film you’ve written?
Maddy: Really surreal, but also REALLY HARD. I can’t tell you how thankful I am that Brooke and I did this together.
Brooke: When our line producer broke down the script for the first time we were already over budget and she hadn’t even taken into account post-production.
Maddy: Make sure you save for post-production. HALF your budget.
Brooke: We got on the phone with our director and he told us that we were going to have to cut 10 pgs from a 100 pg script. It seemed impossible at the time from a writer’s perspective, but was absolutely necessary from a producing standpoint. So we did it.
Maddy: It helped to have all extraneous scenes and characters taken out, and lines that don’t contribute to furthering the story.
Brooke: Producing a film you’ve written is a great way to learn what’s absolutely necessary in your story and what you can let go.
Scott: And how did production go?
Maddy: It was an adventure.
Brooke: Crazy! There was a problem every day.
Maddy: More than one problem every day.
Brooke: But we were committed to the film and had a team that was as well so we tackled each problem that came at us, with persistence and prayer. Lots and lots of prayer.
Maddy: We even dealt with things like racism! Stuff you could never predict.
Brooke: It was the longest 12 days of my life. Totally worth it, but there were times…
Maddy: Like Brooke said, lots of prayer.
Brooke: It made all of the difference to have a producing partner. We were in it together.
Maddy: Absolutely!
Scott: And what more did you learn about the writing process during production?
Brooke: We were rewriting pages every night. We were on a tight budget and an even tighter production timeline; we had to consider coverage of every single character. If there was coverage that we could cut or give to another character, who was already being covered, we, unfortunately, had to make changes.
Maddy: At the same time it really once again tested our story. It made us cut it down to the bare bones of what the film was about. I learned that the film is never done, from a writing perspective; this is true of post-production as well.
Scott: Let’s talk about that. How did the film end up different in post-production than you expected it to be?
Brooke: It has an entirely different opening sequence. That was something we shot in pick-up.
Maddy: Our wonderful actors did so much more with their characters than I expected. They bring it to life; it’s amazing to watch your words take shape.
Brooke: Things that people responded to in our screenings were always different than what I thought they would respond to. It’s really interesting to see how scenes you didn’t think were that emotionally poignant, can become the heart of the film when they’re shot and acted a certain way. I also learned what a difference music makes and the importance of finding the right songs and composer.
Maddy: We had a great team working with us on all of post-production. If you’re looking for recommendations we’re happy to pass along names!
Scott: So the film is being distributed by Gravitas?
Maddy: Yes, and again, a wonderful friend of ours introduced us to Gravitas Ventures.
Brooke: Pre-sales begin in August and the film will be released by Gravitas in September. Right now the date is September 13th. We can’t wait!
Scott: So how can people find out more about Chalk It Up?
Brooke: We just released our trailer, which you can see here. If you know you want to watch Chalk It Up, we’d love for you to pre-order the film in iTunes. That will help us a great deal.
Maddy: You can also follow the film’s release on our Facebook page: CHALK IT UP MOVIE and our website: www.chalkitupmovie.com. It’s a film that the entire family can enjoy.
Here is a trailer for Chalk It Up:
You can see Brooke and Maddy wearing their producer’s hat by bringing out the movie amidst this year’s Olympics. Imagine the tens of thousands of young girls inspired by the amazing gymnastic performances of athletes like Simone Biles, and now those girls — Brooke and Maddy’s target audience — have a movie they can watch to further fuel their curiosity and interest in the sport, as well as enjoy a fun story.
Congratulations, Brooke and Maddy!
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