Senior Week! Filmmakers Take On the Ocean City Ritual

By Dan Zak
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 25, 2008

Looming on the hazy horizon is a tidal wave of soon-to-be high school upperclassmen who will crash Ocean City as part of June's senior week. But before this annual ritual comes a movie about it: "The Graduates," a buddy picture filmed by two Maryland natives on location in September. An industrious cast and crew led by brothers Ryan and Matt Gielen -- respectively 29 and 25 and born and bred in Columbia -- shot the movie on a $96,000 budget, and they are hosting free sneak previews this weekend before they take the film to festivals in search of distribution. See it Friday at 9:30 p.m. at the Arlington Cinema 'N' Drafthouse (2903 Columbia Pike; seating is first come, first served, and a Q&A with the brothers and the cast follows), Saturday at 4:30 p.m. at the Charles Theatre in Baltimore (1711 N. Charles St.; tickets available to the first 100 people to sign up at http://www.graduatesmovie.com) or sometime in June in Ocean City (check Web site for details).

To get a taste of the film, watch the first four minutes on the site. (It seems potentially similar to the films of Judd Apatow, sire of the wave of comedies prodding the concept of male-pattern insouciance.) Below is an excerpt from a phone conversation we had with Ryan and Matt, both of whom live in New York and, until this project, have focused only on short films.

What made you think you could leap into features?

Ryan: It was never, "Oh, my God, how do we make a feature-length film?" It was, "We know how our group works when we make shorts, and features are the next step." I went to senior week more than once -- before I was a senior, after I was a senior -- and after you go down there a couple times, you realize this chaotic, crazy environment is the perfect setting for a film.

Given that you're brothers and one of you is the director [Ryan] and the other the producer [Matt], there must have been tension between creativity and fiscal responsibility.

Matt: Ryan has also produced short films, and he was instrumentally involved in raising funds and overseeing budgets, so in that sense we never butted heads financially. We have really developed a great relationship with each other, we work very smoothly, and when Ryan needed something as a director, we were able to implement it almost instantly. We had an amazing, flexible cast and crew. Even when outside circumstances forced us to make a change, we were very flexible.

Ryan: Matt's being kind of generous. There are things that brothers can say to each other that no one else can, and that is so crucial for the producer-director relationship, because Matt has no fear of pissing me off and I have no fear of pissing him off. When you're working with a small budget but aiming for something that can compete in a commercial marketplace, you already have handicaps. Everything comes to creative problem solving.

What outside circumstances forced you to make

changes?

Matt: So in our film we have a prop car: the car that the guys drive down to the beach and drive around the beach. During pre-production we went scouting to a lot of used-car places, and we found this absolutely perfect banana-yellow 1987 Cadillac El Dorado. After calling this place trying to get them to work with us, we went in there and said we're going to buy it -- it's that good. . . . I took it for test drive. First thing [the salesman] said to me was, "It can't go very far." But it goes around the block and it's fine. Ten miles back to the production office, the car starts to stall out and smoke comes out. Five weeks later we're at the end of the shoot, and the car at this point had stalled out 20 times. We could drive it for three minutes at a time and then had to let it cool for 20 minutes.

Ryan: We would organize the takes on an individual scene on the three-minute run time of the car. Our lead actor was a car guy, and as the car would crap out as it rolled to home base, he'd leap out, fix the engine, dump a bunch of water on it and get the engine running again.

Matt: One time it ended up stalling on Route 50, so all the actors jumped out and had to push the car off Route 50 into a parking lot.

Ryan: True independent filmmaking. We paid $500 for a 20-year-old car, but in the end it was worth it.

How does one make a coherent, polished, commercially viable feature for under 100 grand?

Ryan: It's about letting go of the pride of "I'm a film director" and saying, "I have no money, but I have something I believe in." . . . From Day One we said, "Okay, we are not a major studio, we don't have a bunch of money, so let's be completely honest. Let's say we have nothing, but it's a really good idea and we have the ability to carry it out." And that's how we were able to convince an amazing cast and crew and Ocean City and equipment-rental places in New York. Everyone we approached with that attitude saw how passionate we were, and they helped us out.

If you could have someone's career in the industry, whose would it be?

Matt: Robert Evans. His early career -- how he rose to the top of Paramount and brought them from No. 9 to No. 1 with films like "Chinatown" and "The Godfather."

Ryan: I think every film guy wants to be Paul Thomas Anderson. And Michael Winterbottom is another one of my favorites. He constantly does different projects, with different tones, style, and has a lot of style and heart, in every frame, with every character interaction.

What will locals recognize in your movie?

Ryan: We filmed at Seacrets, which is the bar in Ocean City. Greene Turtle, where everybody loves to go and drink. Old Pro Golf -- our cast and crew played putt-putt there two to three times a week. Filmed at Dumser's, the famous ice cream shop. Bumper cars, Skee-Ball on the boardwalk. It's an authentic Maryland film because it's our lives. All those locations, they add not just production value, but they add the authenticity.

Matt: We worked with everyone on the boardwalk. The people in restaurants were out watching us, and that was the most pivotal moment for me: being down there. Up until then it didn't feel real, but when we walked out on the boardwalk and started shooting, I was like, "Yes, we're in Ocean City making the movie."

Any advice to people who are trying to produce their own shorts or features on a low budget?

Ryan: Ask questions, ask for help, ask other people who've done this before how they did it. Know what you don't know, admit how much you don't know and seek out people who can fill in those gaps and are as passionate as you.

Matt: Also put fear and insecurities on the back burner. You cannot have that when you go into a project of any scope.

Ryan: You can't stress out about, "Is this going to win any awards?" You have to buckle down and say, "I believe in this," and make the project for the exact same reasons you wanted to initially write or direct it. Make it the best it can be, and don't worry about any of the stuff that comes after.