LA ShortsFest / DC Shorts - Youth
Wasted on the young? A sci-fi film about growing old in a world of perpetual youth.
Interview with Director Brett Marty
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
I had spent the better part of a decade as a commercial director — making the things you have to wait five seconds to skip on YouTube. So, on the surface, the film started as just a means to show folks what my narrative work might look like, in hopes of kickstarting a couple of feature projects I'm developing.
It started off simple, but with a ton of locations and a giant cast, Youth grew into a bit of a bete noire that ended up consuming my life for over a year. It was a great experience and felt like my version of graduate school. I think, ultimately, I wanted to make YOUTH to see for myself what my narrative work would look like. Sometimes it's a lot of work just to figure out who you are.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
Despite being kind of high-concept, it's a small character story about an older couple people trying to navigate what love means in a word where you can stay young almost indefinitely. When you can live forever, nothing feels permanent. Hopefully it's a good exercise in facing one's own mortality.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
Love, aging, and loss are about as universal as it gets. In a culture like ours – one that seems to get more youth-obsessed by the year – aging is something we do our best to collectively deny. We huddle our old people out of sight or in nursing homes. Botox and plastic surgery are more common than ever. But life seems like it'd get pretty trite if there were no ending.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development and production?
YOUTH began as a 30-minute featurette, and after a few hard lessons – and a rough start on the festival circuit – I ended up cutting it down to 18 minutes. It was a painful decision, but it’s a lesson I’m pretty grateful for. Now, in its first few months back on the circuit, it’s won a handful of awards and screened at more than twenty film festivals, including Cannes.
Being ultimately interested in longer-form storytelling, I wanted to spend more time developing our characters, with a full plot arc, etc. However, I realized that most short films are in the ~15 minute range for a damn good reason. Any longer and, as a member of the audience, you expect a bigger, more fulfilling ending.
With a feature, you get that more satisfying, complete feeling at the end because you've spend a lot more time with the characters. I'm sure it can be done well in a short format, but it's incredibly difficult to pull off, especially w/o feeling cheap or cliche. I realized with the 30-minute cut, I was kind of fighting against the medium. Cutting it down was a pretty painful decision – all that "wasted" time and money – but it felt like the mature decision, and the film itself ended up being much, much stronger for it. Everything finally just clicked.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
It's all been pretty positive, especially with the new shorter cut. We got a lot of laments from festival programmers to the effect that they liked the film but that it's just really hard to find a time slot for a 30-minute short. It's such a wonky length.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
When you get a film off the ground w/o any institutional support, you really just want to get it out there, to give people a chance to see it.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
With the newer cut we got a sales rep and distributor. We're really happy to see where it'll go after it's done with festivals. It'll be fun to see in some it on some in-flight programming or European TV, etc.
What are the key creatives developing or working on now?
I'm working on a couple feature projects, both speculative fiction pieces. CANADA, which was short-listed for the Sundance Screenwriter's Lab last year, is fully written and getting ready to move into packaging and fundraising. The other, DEARBORN, is just in initial drafts, but we've gotten a lot of encouragement about it already. I'm hoping to get one of them ground sometime in late 2017.
Interview: September 2016
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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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Youth
Wasted on the young? A sci-fi film about growing old in a world of perpetual youth.
Length: 18-minutes
Director: Brett Marty
Producer: Josh Izenberg
Writers: Amelia Whitcomb, Brett Marty, Josh Izenberg
About the writer, director and producer:
Key cast: Jessica Stroup, George Maguire
Made in association with: Speculative Films
Release date: July, 2016
Where can I watch it in the next month?
LA Shorts Fest, San Diego FF, Catalina FF, Napa Valley, La Ville de Quebec IFF, DC Shorts, Chelsea FF, San Jose International Short FF, Alameda IFF, Driftless FF.