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| Olivia Nikkanen and Michael Gandolfini in Tea |
Asking somebody out is always a bit nerve-racking, especially if you’ve never done it before. In Oscar-qualifying short film Tea, Nicholaus (Michael Gandolfini) is determined to get it right, so he practises in front of a camera – but just as he’s preparing to take the big step and go into the shop where she works, he’s stung by a hornet and has an allergic reaction. Communicating with her then becomes a matter of life and death.
Short comedies are rarely this successful, so when I connected with director Blake Rice, as he was preparing for a festival party, I asked him if he’s surprised by the way that things have worked out.
“Man, I never expected any of the success of this,” he says, grinning. “It's such a complex kind of system, that festival system. As you're growing as a filmmaker, I think at least recently, I was more concentrated on getting the work to be better and the festivals were kind of just the icing, which is why I’m so grateful for the success of Tea right now. Premiering at Cannes and then being bounced around to these other ones and then qualifying. It's been totally unexpected. I'm really proud of the work and proud of the movie. But even before the festival success, I was really proud of just getting a little bit stronger as a filmmaker with myself and the team.”
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| Tea Photo: Festival de Cannes |
So what was it that drew him to this story?
“It's a short so you’ve got to put a kicker in there quickly, you know? So to have the device of a medical emergency, it makes you peel back the layers instantaneously on these characters and find out who they really are, which gives you a lot of opportunities for not only tension and stress and plot points being driven at the viewer, but also a lot of comedy in there too.”
He has some great young actors to tell the story. How did he find them?
“Our great producer, Gabriella Piazza, she had acted in the movie The Many Saints Of Newark, and so she became great friends with Michael Gandolfini, and so did I. And so when we had the idea for the short, Michael is a dear friend, and we said ‘Hey, man, you might be great for this.’ And he jumped on and he totally trusted us and he brought everything to the story. And the same with Olivia Nikkanen. She auditioned, she came in for a tape, she came in for a call-back, and together they had instant chemistry like that. These two are magic. Let's go have some fun with it.”
It's quite a challenging role for Michael in that he has a big tonal shift halfway through.
“Yeah, absolutely. I mean, kind of landing on that tone, switching up the tone, was a real goal of ours. We wanted to be able to get you to laugh, get you to be nervous in these perilous moments, but also feel something at the core. The score, I think, really helps nuance those moments in between and the characters, grounding that performance and being able to connect those things storywise for us.”
There's an initial nervousness as well, before the medical emergency. We've all seen scenes where people rehearse like that before, but it's interesting to have it done to camera.
“Yeah, and I think what really helped that performance in our prep, which is really fun, is that Michael could set up that and do that by himself. Doing those tapes alone and setting it up to camera, I think, was very cathartic and very effective as a form of preparation for the role because that was an isolated experience. So not only are you learning about the character and prepping the lines, but you're also rehearsing the blocking and the whole emotional arc of that little first act.”
He's not only rehearsing what he wants to say, but he's rehearsing what he's going to say if he gets rejected, too, which to me seemed quite important – and quite sweet – because it's moving away from the whole pick-up lines approach.
“Oh, it's so sad, isn't it? He's just used to it. And part of that prepping for the worst is, to me, sadly admirable on his behalf. It's like, who doesn't admire someone who's trying to better themselves against all odds? He's a lost cause, and there's something about the bravery behind that character that I was really drawn to and I'm hoping audiences are connecting with too.”
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| Tea |
We talk about the challenges of blocking out the frantic scenes in which Nicholaus, finding it harder and harder to breathe, is trying to get help.
“Honestly, we had a killer first AD, Callum Stembridge, and a killer cinematographer, Matheus Bastos,” says Blake. “We really had the opportunity because we had great access to the space. We were able to block it, shotlist it, storyboard it, every inch. When you're swirling around all that stuff and especially cutting to separate players in different parts of the space, you need to know every inch. And with natural light, you need to be able to time every inch of that with the sun. The movie happens in 11 minutes in real time, but we're jumping time a bunch in it, so chasing that light and shooting chronologically was something we just had to do.
“We just rattled through it. I mean, it wasn't a terribly long script. About a 12, 13 page script, so not too much time, really about a day and a half. So kudos to the cast and crew on being so focused, so dialled in. You can feel that in the crew too.”
Going back to the make-up, who handled that?
“The incredible Mackenzie Brooks, she did our SFX. And honestly, it's just old school. It's all practical. There's no VFX in there. We had three applications. We shoot his first look, clean, and then his first application of makeup. And then we go shoot Olivia's coverage while we apply him in the chair. Then each one, it gets worse and worse. And honestly, like just old school film movie making. When we cut back to him, it would be phase two. When we cut back to him after a little bit longer, it'd be phase three. You can't go back. He was in the chair for about like an hour and 30 per application.”
Was there a chance to rehearse beforehand with the actors together?
“Yeah, we'd have a little time beforehand, but in that third look, that third application there, he basically couldn't see. So you're holding his hand, walking him out there. I can't speak high enough about Michael Gandolfini in this. He was so trusting with me. And I haven't directed a bigger scale project, only shorts before. In between takes he would be like, ‘Hey, Blake, I trust you. This is a blast. Thanks so much for bringing me on, I'm so honoured.’ And I'm thinking ‘Man, I'm honoured to have you on this,’ you know? So it was a project that I'm really proud of to help usher in the beginning of my next level in my career with.”
It's always difficult, when making comedy, to know if it's going to succeed or not. Did he have a feeling, since it was so much fun on set, that that would carry over?
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| Tea |
He smiles. “I swear by having fun on set. I mean, filmmaking can get so intense and so heavy and seem like life or death, but if you're able to pull that back, you're playing and pretending with your friends, and that's the kind of environment I love to cultivate. That our producers love to cultivate because we think it really translates. There's a time to really bust ass and do our thing and work really hard in this. But we also, I believe that if you're having fun on set, it translates. The movies I want to make, they can talk about anything, but you have to be having fun out there. It drives the work. It drives the energy, and I think that kind of translates. So doing a comedy where it's really fun and hits all those checklists, I'm really proud of that, and I think part of that is what is relating to audiences right now.
“We're so thrilled for the success of Tea right now. We have a couple more film festivals coming up. We are going for the short list as well, and then I have a great new short that I directed already with Jim Cummings and Victoria Ratermanis coming out. And then the next big thing is my first feature, and that's called The Empty Lot. That's my baby. Making my feature début, that's definitely what we’re targeting on the most right now, and it seems like it's getting close.”
