Winter 2007
“When I was ten, I started playing around with a video camera and making short films at the beach and at home. Each year my films got more elaborate in production. In seventh and eighth grade English classes at Brunswick, a group of us made movies based on books we were reading by Shakespeare. Our first movie, ’Good Guys Wear Togas,’ was based on Julius Caesar. Our next movie was based on As You Like It. We kept the title. “When I was in seventh grade, I met Adam Gibbs, who also graduated in 2004, and is at USC with me. We shared a mutual interest in film. Our great friendship later developed into a great business relationship. Adam produces all of the films that I write and direct, and I produce all of the films that he writes and directs. Along with being best friends, we’re a great team. We launched a production company, In the Can Films, which we just changed to Faraway Films. Ever since Brunswick, we’ve been producing under our umbrella company and entering a number of things in local festivals, like Stamford Film Festival and Greenwich Film Festival. Our screenplay, ‘A Couple of Joe Rooks,’ featured four Brunswick teachers: Dan Moraski, former head of the theater department and one of the supporting characters, played a German loan shark; Doug Burdett, Upper School English teacher and director of college guidance, along with Frank Loverro, Upper School science teacher, were police officers with an exciting chase scene down Greenwich Avenue. Marc Strileckis, head athletic trainer, played a bodyguard. “I was in Dan Moraski’s acting class for four years. Besides being a phenomenal teacher, he gave incredible structure to my acting and writing, which instilled the rules of the craft for writing, directing, and acting. He was definitely my biggest influence and mentor. At USC, I’m still learning the essentials that Mr. Moraski taught me at Brunswick. “Every story begins with a character and there are really only about six stories: boy meets girl and falls in love (or the other way around); overcoming obstacles; finding redemption; defending one’s home; boy rescues girl (or the other way around); and character must prove himself/herself. The point is that every story has already been told. It’s about how you tell it and how the character experiences it. That’s what makes your story different. “My biggest film undertaking thus far is ‘Blame it on my Youth.’ We shot it on Nantucket in ten days with a crew of twenty. Evan Bailey ’04, another great friend, gave us the location. His parents, Dorothy and David Bailey, were so generous to let us do most of the filming in their house. They were incredibly gracious to let the whole film crew come in and basically take over. We tried not to mark up too many walls! “We were a little jinxed during filming though. The weather was so-so and the cinematographer broke his collarbone the first night we were there, and we hadn’t shot a thing yet. As the week went on, the weather hadn’t improved much, so at the first ray of sunshine, we ran to the beach, where a big wave crashed over the camera and destroyed it. We had to call all over the east coast to replace it. Finally, we found the same camera in Boston and had it flown over. “Both of my parents (Nancy and Chris Kristoff) are executive producers of ‘Blame it on my Youth.’ and have been real troopers during production. I’m out there filming, and they’re out there holding an umbrella over the camera. They’re so supportive. I’m really blessed. “As much of an art form as film is, it can be incredibly technical. But this is only secondary. It’s the story and the characters experiencing emotion that really carry the film. From there, you can determine whether to use special effects, but often the high-tech elements are just eye candy. It’s great for a three-minute music video, but for a feature film, you need something to care about. That’s where character and story development come in. The reason we relate to characters in a film is often not because we like that character, or have experienced the same story; it’s because we feel the emotion. Characters represent feelings that we can relate to and that’s what hooks us. “With film, there’s no such thing as ’no.’ You’re told ’no’ to a lot of things, but in movies, literally anything can happen. And there’s nothing like getting an audience to let go and get sucked into a world they’re watching on the big screen in a dark theater. There’s something powerful and mystical about it. Ultimately, I can explore any world or any character through the film medium and literally, anything can happen. I can’t think of anything more fun.” j
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