SLFS Interview – Chris Grega: Writer and Director of 35 DAYS

35 DAYS screens Thursday, July 21st at 7:00pm at the Tivoli Theater as part of this year’s St. Louis Filmmaker’s Showcase. Ticket information can be found HERE

Veteran Showcase filmmaker Chris Grega is back with his latest feature, which also serves as a tribute to a local actor, Steve Heffernan, who died tragically of a heart attack a few years ago. The film is the story of indie-film director Eric Cutter’s attempt to complete his long-abandoned third feature film, “Gunman,” in time for a local film festival. Spurred on by the recent death of Sam Harrison, his friend and actor in the film, Cutter must reunite his old crew for one last chance to finish the movie that derailed their hopes and dreams a decade earlier.

Chris Grega took the time to answer questions about his film for We Are Movie Geeks in advance of it’s screening at the St. Louis Filmmaker’s Showcase.

We Are Movie Geeks: How did you get the idea to make this mock-documentary about a St. Louis filmmaker?’

Chris Grega: I probably had the original idea around 6 or 7 years ago. At that time, the title of the film was POST, and it was a similar theme, but not quite the same as 35 DAYS turned out to be. In the original idea, the director had to re-unite his old cast to finish shooting the unfinished film, and there was no death involved. Essentially, I wanted to re-purpose footage from my first feature, AMPHETAMINE, and I knew that I would be able to bring together most of the original cast for the project. However, instead of POST, I made the Post-Apocalyptic SOUND OF NOTHING. Sometime around 2013-2014, director Wolfgang Lehmkuhl approached me about a project that he wanted to do with actor Stephen Heffernan that had some similarities to my POST idea. He also wanted to use footage from AMPHETAMINE to represent another film that Steve’s character had acted in previously. I gave Wolfgang my blessing to do so, and figured at that point I would never do POST. When Steve passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack in November of 2014, the idea came to me to do a tribute film to him, based on my original idea, since obviously Wolfgang could no longer make his film. Thus 35 DAYS was born.

WAMG: Who was Steve Heffernan and what was his relationship to you?

CG: I first met Steve in August of 2001 when he auditioned for my first feature film, AMPHETAMINE. All of us at the casting immediately knew that he was right for the lead role the second he walked into the room. We went on to work together in many projects, more than I can easily count, mostly in film, but I directed him in the 7/24 project several times. That was an annual event put on by the Tin Ceiling Theatre Company, similar to the 48hr Film Project, but obviously with theatre instead of film. Steve and I also became friends beyond just filmmaking, however. He was a very upbeat, funny, kind and gentle soul. He ended up moving into my old apartment when I moved out, and I gave him most of my old furniture, including my bed! Heck, I even sold him my old Saturn for $500 bucks!

WAMG: What do you think Steve Heffernan would have thought of 35 DAYS?

CG: I think Steve would have been incredibly embarrassed by it, but I think that he would have loved it. He told me on more than one occasion that the AMPHETAMINE premiere at the Pageant in June of 2003 was the greatest night of his life. It was pretty exciting, with something like 800 people in attendance, and Steve was pretty much center stage! The fact that 35 DAYS is able to tie that film back together into a brand-new story is something that I think Steve, as a cinephile, would really have appreciated.

WAMG: What were some of the challenges of filming in the mock-documentary form?

CG: This is my second Mockumentary, the first being GAME OF THE YEAR which was shot in 2008. I think one of the biggest challenges is how much do you decide to go from the script as opposed to actor’s Improv. Another challenge is in the shooting itself, trying to maintain the documentary feel, but still making it cinematic to an extent. I would say that I learned a lot between making the two films, and 35 DAYS is visually head-and-shoulders above GOTY. But a lot of that is due to the cinematographer for the new film, Ben Vogelsang.

WAMG: Did any of your own films form the basis of what we see in 35 DAYS?

CG: Oh yeah! All of the characters are based on people that I’ve worked with, 99% of the situations are based around real things that happened, all of the “films” in the movie are based off of my own work. The story, of course, is entirely fictional, but the components that make it up are all drawn from real-life experiences.

WAMG: Tell me about Travis Estes, who stars as Eric Cutter in your film. How did you decide to cast him? Had you worked with him before?

CG: I met Travis on the exact same day that I met Steve, as he was at the same AMPHETAMINE audition. The same as with Steve, when Travis walked into the room, we all knew that we had our co-star of the film. A number of people that I still work with today came from that original talent pool, actually. Travis had a strong film and theatre background, and like Steve, we went on to work together on many projects. In 2005, I had decided that the follow-up film to AMPHETAMINE was going to be SHUFFLE, which was a film about unlicensed boxing and bar shuffleboard. That was a film that featured Travis in the lead role. We shot a teaser trailer for that film, in anticipation of raising funding for it, but ultimately, the next project was the WW2 feature RHINELAND. The interesting thing about SHUFFLE and 35 DAYS is that they essentially share the same theme, which is basically being at a certain point in your life, but not being anywhere close to where you thought that you would be. I think that both Travis and I had to go through a lot of crap and difficulty in our respective personal lives before we really understood what that meant. When I approached Travis about the role of Eric Cutter, he hadn’t acted in at least five years. He told me later that it was at the memorial for Steve when he made up his mind to get ‘back into the game’ with the first project that came his way. It just so happens that project was 35 DAYS. When I re-imagined my original concept for the film, I immediately pictured Travis as Cutter. I think everything turned out rather well!

WAMG: How did you come up with Randy Manning’s speech about “cross-collateralization”?

CG: It was pretty simple, really. Everything that his character says is 100% true. Those are actual practices that distributors use to rip off filmmakers. There are countless horror stories by filmmakers about not making a dime off of their films, while the distributor makes money hand-over-fist. Cross-collateralization is an incredibly nasty and deceptive accounting trick that underhanded distributors use to cheat filmmakers from their deserved earnings. Unfortunately, it’s all too common. I’d like to say that I sugar-coated it for comedic effect, but sadly that’s not the case.

WAMG: Were the actors starring in GUNMAN based on actors that had been in your previous films?

CG: They were, but in a more general sense. The character of Todd Fuller is based on an amalgamation of two separate people, but neither one of them is as unpleasant as Todd!

WAMG: What’s the biggest disaster you’ve had on the set of one of your films?

CG: On RHINELAND we had one of our sets catch on fire during a battle scene, that was pretty unfortunate! On one of the 48hr Film Projects that we did, perhaps in 2007, we had our sound person robbed at gunpoint, so that pretty much shut down the whole show. Every project has it’s own little ups and downs, but we’ve pretty much been able to overcome them and keep pushing forward.

WAMG: How long did it take to shoot 35 DAYS?

CG: I think it was about ten days, give or take. Not including interviews, of course.

WAMG: Have you ever almost missed a deadline for a film festival like Cutter does?

CG: No, but I’ve come damn close!

WAMG: What St. Louis locations did you use for 35 DAYS?

CG: Well, the big ones are Blueberry Hill and the Tivoli. We also shot at the offices of Cinema St. Louis, and a few local bars and restaurants such as Foam, The Way-out Club, and Feraro’s Jersey-style pizza.

WAMG: What’s it like watching one of your own films with an audience for the first time?

CG: Nerve-wracking! You hope that they jump at the scary parts, laugh at the funny parts, and cry at the sad parts. When people react the way that you’d hoped that they would, it’s a pretty incredible experience.

WAMG: Tell me about recreating the SLFS Awards at Blueberry Hill. I spotted a lot of people I knew in that sequence.

CG: That was a lot of fun to do! I was able to pull in a number of St. Louis filmmakers/directors for that scene, and I think everyone had a blast doing it. That scene, along with so many others in the film, had this surreal quality about it while we were shooting it. There were a lot of moments of Deja vu working on this film! Honestly, 35 DAYS is not a “movie about making a movie.” The tagline of the film is “A post-production odyssey,” so the film really deals with some of the lesser-known or thought about aspects of Indie filmmaking: post-production, festivals, screenings and award shows, and what happens with a film after you’ve made it. Making the thing is just the tip of the iceberg!

WAMG: What are your distribution plans for 35 DAYS?

CG: As of right now, we’re going to focus on festivals. I think this can be a great festival film, but I’ve been wrong about that before!

WAMG: What’s next for Chris Grega?

CG: I have a couple of things in the pipeline that I’m not really at liberty to discuss, and beyond that, as usual I am writing. However, some of the cast have been after me to make a third mockumentary in order to have a trilogy of sorts, so you just never know…