Florida Film Festival 2019 – Ant
Police brutality protests boil in South Central Los Angeles as four teens plan a robbery and find themselves in a comic book store.
Interview with Writer/Director/Producer/Editor Mischa Meyer
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
Thank you! I wanted to make movies since I'm eight years old, so this is my first short film and step in that direction. As far as the story goes, I made a lot of friends in South Central Los Angeles and seeing and hearing a lot of the racial problems they encounter with law enforcement and the lack of opportunity and violence in their communities, made me wanna talk about all that.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
It's a truly original and thrilling film with genuine, fresh characters. I guess I'm trying to make films that I'd like to see myself, that are unique and resonate with our times. Something that's not recycled...as much as I love the latest Blade Runner.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
There are certain personal elements that I channel through some of the characters. For instance, I was always a very shy and quiet kid with a big stutter, so I never spoke much, as does the main character Ant. But at the same time, the older kids in school always hung out with me. Maybe I had more balls than I thought haha. Also, as a kid, I had a few stop and frisk run-ins with police where the only guy that was taken to the station or searched had a darker skin color than the rest of us. Something I never forgot. And coming to America, I saw the same thing, just on steroids. Which brings us to the universal themes of people being afraid of what they don't know. So it was important to me for the audience to get to know these kids from the get-go. And although they're doing something wrong, I want the audience to understand why they might be doing it in the first place. So that in the end, although they shouldn't have done what they did, none of them deserve the kind of tragedy that awaits them.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
The script evolved quite dramatically. I had never written anything before in my life, so I kinda had to learn that from scratch. At its core, the story always stayed the same though. I wrote about eighteen endings I guess and the final script was revisioned twenty-four. That being said, it probably took me to about revision twenty to get the hang of it. One thing that was always clear to me though was, I had to figure out the film on paper and not on set. So that once principal photography started, all I had to do is execute and work with my actors and be able to be aware of all the details, instead of having to figure out how that next scene is going to work. Especially when you're on a super tight budget and overtime isn't an option. Economically speaking as well as nighttime hours, given this was mid-June. So the final result is pretty close to the script. I only lost one scene, which, to be honest, I actually miss in the final piece. But it simply didn't work out the way I wanted, so I cut it.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
I guess my anxiety levels of showing this to other people were as big as The Rock. But once I did, the feedback so far has been overwhelming and left me speechless for the most of it. From professionals in the business who loved the originality and quality of it, to friends in the community of South LA who immediately wanted to see more and couldn't wait to find out what happens to the characters next, all the way to the first two screenings, which got huge applause, it has been great. I'm very grateful for that and everyone who helped me bring this to life!
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
It definitely has been received much better than I had ever expected. So that certainly was surprising, but also very calming at the same time. As you're trying to do your very best and pour your heart and soul into this, once completed, one can get the feeling of absolute failure. You sit there and watch it and think "Oh shit, am I the only one who likes this? Does anyone besides me actually care about seeing any of this?" And you just start to lose all faith in it, so the feedback definitely helps change your perspective. But not only that. A lot of the feedback also made me see the characters in a new light. I guess being so deep down in the rabbit hole, the dynamics that developed between them evolved rather unconscious to me during the entire process. In the beginning, to me, this whole film was about this one kid and his experience in this story. But seeing it through other people, I later realized the four boys together kinda became the main character in a way.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
Definitely to get more people to see it! A film without an audience would kinda defeat the purpose of making a film in the first place.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
At this stage, film festival directors are really the ones to be of the biggest help. Just getting this film out there and seen by as many people as possible. They're the ones who can really help with that, giving new filmmakers a platform to tell their stories! After that, I guess producers who would be interested in developing this with me into something longer, to get the message out to a bigger audience, which is something I'm already working on.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
I'm hoping that it can open people's eyes, to what a lot of kids in America's inner cities have to go through from a young age on. And that by getting to know these kids better, you might look at some of the inner city youth from a different point of view.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
Why are so many unarmed black people shot and killed by police in America?
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
My cinematographer Maz Makhani is prepping a film with director Antoine Fuqua in New Orleans right now. My production designer Dylan Kahn is working – as always – on a few big commercials with directors like Wally Pfister and Ian Pons Jewell. My colorist in crime Tom Poole last year colored films like BlacKkKlansman, Halloween, Widows, Disney's Nutcracker and is probably right now coloring more dope films than I have fingers on my hands. And myself, I just finished editing two commercials for Lexus, working on a commercial with Metallica, helping director Sam Bayer developing some feature film ideas and developing a longer version of Ant, as well as putting together a photo documentary in South LA.
Interview: April 2019
We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. 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
Ant
Police brutality protests boil in South Central Los Angeles as four teens plan a robbery and find themselves in a comic book store.
Length: 13:27
Director: Mischa Meyer
Producer: Mischa Meyer
Writer: Mischa Meyer
About the writer, director and producer:
MISCHA MEYER is a commercial, music video, and film editor originally from Stuttgart, Germany, living in Los Angeles, California. Starting out in his hometown in the Post Production Department of a local Production Company, he soon moved to Berlin to become a Freelance Editor. After building a successful career in the field of high-end commercials in Germany and throughout Europe, he moved to the U.S. First to New York City but eventually moving to Los Angeles to pursue his childhood dreams of making feature films himself. Continuing to work on award-winning international commercials for clients like Nike, PlayStation, Mercedes- Benz and videos for bands like 30 Seconds to Mars and Metallica, he started writing and producing his own first short film Ant, with principal photography wrapping in June 2018 and post-production completing in August of the same year. Alongside getting into directing, he took on photography more seriously as well, documenting former gang members, urban dance culture and street racing in the streets of South Central Los Angeles.
Key cast: Diezel Braxton-Lewis (Ant), Lamel Dixon (Rocco), Tyrin Niles (Maurice), John Woods (Kobe)
Looking for: producers, film festival directors, sales agents, buyers
Instagram: @mischameyer
Hashtags used: #ant #southcentral
Other: IMDb
Made in association with: Optimist Studios
Funders: Self-funded