Free Range Film Festival / Woods Hole Film Festival - What Children Do
A comedy about two estranged sisters who are thrust back into each other's lives by the impending death of their grandmother and forced to try to repair their feral relationship.
Interview with Writer/Director Dean Peterson
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
I had been kicking around the idea of writing a script about sisters for a while since it's a complicated relationship dynamic that most films don't do justice to, but I didn't really have a framework to incorporate that idea into. When my grandfather died in 2014 I witnessed the experience of a death in the family bringing all these distant relatives back together for the first time in many years and how the various problems and arguments that had laid dormant for so long immediately come back to life as soon as you're all back together. I figured this was the perfect story to plug these characters into and went from there.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
I spent many years thanklessly editing P-90X infomercials and online golf videos to save the money to make this movie and if you watched it I would feel like it wasn't all in vain.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
Most of the characters in the film are cribbed from various different parts of my personality so the movie is incredibly personal for me. The issues they're struggling with, the conflicts they go through, the insecurities they suffer from were all parts of my life when I was writing the film, so in many ways the process of writing it was very myopic and indulgent. But showing the film to people around the country I've come to find that all these issues and arguments are universal, I haven't been to a single festival yet where somebody didn't tell me they had a similar situation with a sibling or a grandparent or a boyfriend or girlfriend.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
I spent a long time writing the script in a room by myself getting it exactly how I wanted it to be, but once I brought other people in to work on it it became a very collaborative process and everyone involved contributed an enormous amount to the final product, making it better and much different than my original conception of what the story was. The actors made the characters their own, my DP helped define the visual aesthetic of the film, my producers pushed us to find unique locations, so everyone had a hand in shaping the film throughout production.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
Most of the people that I talk to at festivals seem to connect to something in the film. It's interesting to see how people from the middle of Texas connect to different characters and themes than people in New York City do. Certain audiences think certain jokes are funny while others don't laugh at all. It's been an overwhelmingly positive experience so far, although one person did tell me there is too much swearing in the film.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
My main concern was how women would receive the film. A lot of my films are about female characters, and being a man writing stories about women I'm always nervous that it won't ring true or the characters or dialogue or problems they face won't feel honest. But all the feedback I've gotten from female audience members has been incredibly enthusiastic and positive and I've even had a few people tell me that they were surprised to find out that a man wrote the movie which in my view is the highest compliment somebody could give me.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
I make movies to be watched by as many people as possible and will do virtually anything to achieve that.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
We're still playing festivals and exploring our distribution options so anyone that wants to help with either of those holla atcha boy.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
I would like to get as wide of an audience as we can for the film because it's something that I'm incredibly proud of and want to share it with lots of people. I would also like to start laying the groundwork for the next projects that I'm working on as well as keep making movies so I don't have to go back to shooting video reviews of this year's new golf club technology (please see question #2).
Would you like to add anything else?
There was originally a joke about Applebees that we were forced to cut out for time but I felt like it was important to let people know that.
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
I'm writing four new scripts, one stage play, and I've written one sentence of a novel and don't know where to go with it from there.
Interview: July 2017
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We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series and music video. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
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What Children Do
A comedy about two estranged sisters who are thrust back into each other's lives by the impending death of their grandmother and forced to try to repair their feral relationship.
Length: 86 minutes
Director: Dean Peterson
Producer: Ariana Janetakis, Liz Zwiebel
Writer: Dean Peterson
About the writer, director and producer:
Dean Peterson is a filmmaker from Brooklyn, NY. In 2009 he made his debut feature film INCREDIBLY SMALL which premiered at the Raindance Film Festival in London, and went on to play at over 30 festivals across the US and Europe and has been viewed over 64,000 times online. He's also made the short films VING RHAMES, SEA BEACH LOCAL, STOP TELLING WOMEN TO SMILE, and KILLING BALDACCI.
Key cast: Nicole Rodenburg, Grace Rex, Josh Ruben, John Early
Looking for (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists): Distributors & Film festival directors
Social media handles: @whatchildrendomovie
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/whatchildrendo/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/whatchildrendo
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whatchildrendo/
Where can I see it in the next month? Free Range Film Festival, Woods Hole Film Festival, Foot Candle Film Festival, Ellensburg Film Festival