Movies You Made: “Come Fly With Me”
March is Movies You Made month at Go Into The Story where we feature the work of independent filmmakers. Today: Come Fly With Me. Some background on the movie from its writer-director Christine Boylen:
What can I say about it? Took us two days (and a bit) to shoot, was put together on a shoestring budget, somehow the writer/director, producer, first AD, DP/operator, Production Designer, Script Supervisor and Sound Mixer were all female. Wasn’t even something we tried to do setting out, it just happened and suddenly we had this team of tough, brilliant women up on a hillside in LA filming our little con story. Spent a good amount of time prepping and so the shoot went relatively smoothly. I love the calm of being on set. It’s like being up in the air. It’s takeoff — prep — that’s the tough part.
Our lead, Alan Smyth and I worked together on LEVERAGE back in 2009, and we currently co-run a Shakespeare group in LA, so I wrote this short play with him in mind, then adapted the short play to the short film script, and we were off to the races. It’s very easy to direct Alan — he learns the entire piece and makes beautiful intuitive choices. You just make sure the camera gets it all.
It was on our one prep day in the space, the day before shooting, that I was offered the job on CONSTANTINE. I remember talking on the phone with David Goyer about Vertigo comics and Swamp Thing and Constantine’s history as a mage and con man all the while I was helping our producer and production designer set up the props for the big reveal at the end of the short. That’s one moment of prep I’ll never forget.
Plot summary: When a con man bluffs his way through the tense, final ten minutes of the biggest con of his life, the recent death of a loved one may trip him up, or be the key to getting away with it all.
Cast and Crew
Alan Smyth — Henry
Johanna Watts — Lily
Christine Boylan — Writer-Director
Liz Vacovec — Producer
Carole McClintock — Cinematography
Nathan Hoeft, Chris A. Peterson — Film Editing
Laila Petrone — First Assistant Director
Whitney Lowdermilk- Production Designer
Joseph Arthur Soria — First Assistant Camera
Liz Fisher — Colorist
Here is the 10 minute drama Come Fly With Me:
I ask each of the Movies You Made participants to answer this question: What is it about this particular story that inspired you to make your movie? Here is Christine’s response:
The script was adapted from one of my own plays, a trio of shorts called “The Taking,” each one about a person getting away with something. I love writing con stories, and each of those plays put the simple con through a prism, with three different results, in three very different worlds. It’s just one of my themes — someone pulling something over on another person, and what are the secret motives behind that? You want to steal money, sure, money’s important, money’s life-changing, but why are you conning this particular mark? What does he or she have that you feel s/he doesn’t deserve? And why do you feel you deserve to take it from them? And when you fold that con in on itself, when does it become vengeance? I guess I also love the idea that there’s no getting away clean. There’s a million different scenarios that could occur after the end of this film. The end of this con really is the set-up for the next one.
Christine on Twitter: @kitmoxie.
Christine is a co-executive producer of the NBC series “Constantine”. To support the show, tweet under the hashtags #Constantine and #SaveConstantine. Christine notes: “Watch and re-watch like crazy on NBC.com, Hulu, Amazon, iTunes. Those numbers really count. “Constantine” is such a huge passion project for those of us who love the character so dearly. The support we have received is overwhelming.”
“Constantine” on Facebook.
Tomorrow I’ll feature a few more Movies You Made as we round out this year’s edition.