We’ve all heard of directors having to adjust to actors’ personal lives bleeding over onto the film set before, but I’ve never heard of writing an actor’s incarceration into the script.
Such was the case for Little Rock director John Schafer, whose debut feature Slumberland will premiere at LRFF at 7:45 p.m. Thursday.
The story, which follows two twenty-somethings as they rediscover their friendship, took a turn when one of the lead actors, Zack “Dirty” Turner, was arrested for a DUI and sentenced to 30 days of house arrest.
Turner’s not proud of the DUI, but he, Schafer and writer/actor Rhett Brinkley are proud of the way the house arrest was worked into the movie.
The film falls into the mumblecore category, which is defined by Wikipedia (that great bastion of truth) as “characterized by ultra-low budget production (often employing digital video cameras), focus on personal relationships between twenty-somethings, improvised scripts and nonprofessional actors.”
Given the film’s format, whether audiences will love or hate it depends on whether they find something that resonates in the two lead characters. Brinkley, coming off a failed relationship, looks to jump into a new one with a girl he’s never met, all the while discouraged by Turner. There’s an episode over a mixed CD, a welcomed source of comic relief after the house-arrest sequence.
Mumblecore is certainly a niche in the film world, but Schafer said he’s hopeful there will be plenty of people at LRFF who will appreciate his work. I’m betting there will be.
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