Pan African Film Festival (Best Series) 2019 – Fam Club
A docuseries about Drake's nerdy brother and sister he keeps hidden in Canada.
Interview with Writer/Producer/Editor/Actor Muriel Montgomery
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
We love Drake and thought the premise would be really fun to play with. We have a great group of friends who we improvise and do comedy projects with based out of The Ruby LA theater. We thought this project was a perfect fit for our group.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
It's really, really funny and uplifting. The series combines brutal slapstick comedy, nutty characters, big fake eyebrows, improvisation, music and heightened emotional states with joyful, uplifting storylines. This series is a joy!
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
Sam Club is centered around the theme of family. What constitutes a family? How do you build a family of friends? How do we care for one another? How do we maintain relationships and love when we're separated by physical distances?
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
My husband Nick and I are writing partners. We typically work by coming up with the outline and rules of the world together, then we generate drafts separately and hand them over to each other for notes. We'll pass scripts back and forth for notes several times, so the script generally changes dramatically by the end of the process. We also learned Premiere and did all the post-production work on the film. When you're working on a micro-budget its hard to capture every shot perfectly. During the shoot we were all taking turns running sound, checking the monitor, going over lines, pitching ideas - basically everything. Not to mention, when someone had an audition or booked paid work, we had to rewrite our shooting schedule on the fly around their absence. So when we got to logging footage, we realized that that we had captured some amazing stuff and had also lost some stuff. We edited the series based on the best footage we had and that changed the final product sometimes dramatically from the written script. The editing process really produced a whole new version of the series.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
People seem to really enjoy it. Screening at PAFF we so much fun because we got to hear people's reactions in real time in a real theater. Generally we've heard that it's funny, outrageous and "feel-good".
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
I think when you create things, it’s common just to see the flaws in your work and not the accomplishments. The feedback we've gotten has been validating which motivates us to create more work and strengthens our confidence in our creative voice. I think being critical of our work helps us to get better, but this process has taught me the value of positive feedback as well.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
We just want to share it with the world! Thank you for the opportunity!
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
We literally made this ourselves. Our cast and crew are all good friends of ours, we paid for everything on our credit card. We made lunch for the shoot the night before in our apartment, we painted all the artwork in the series, we learned how to glue on fake eyebrows. We also learned how to edit, color correct, and how to mix sound from YouTube videos. So basically, anyone who is excited about getting this series out into the world would be welcome! We would love to bring Fam Club to more festivals! We would love to do a second season (and we have an awesome pitch for it), for that we'd need a budget and all the help we can get! So, in short, we made this series on our own, and we'd welcome anyone who is interested in getting this series in front of people.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
We hope it makes people laugh and feel great for the rest of the day.
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
Muriel and Nick produce a comedy podcast called "Hella in your Thirties" that has been featured by Vulture and the AV Club. Currently Nick and Muriel are developing some web series ideas about mumble rappers, an obnoxious British couple and a series about their lives based off of episodes of their podcast.
Interview: February 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
Fam Club
A docuseries about Drake's nerdy brother and sister he keeps hidden in Canada.
Director: Nick Casalini
Producer: Muriel Montgomery, Nick Casalini
Writer: Muriel Montgomery, Nick Casalini
About the writer, director and producer:
NICK CASALINI spends most nights on stage performing comedy for audiences ranging from zero to 100 people. He co-hosts the podcast Hella In Your Thirties with his wife Muriel Montgomery. He co-created, co-wrote and directed the award winning web series Fam Club with Muriel and is currently putting together their next series.
MURIEL MONTGOMERY and NICK CASALINI grew up in the swamps of Seattle and got married after being together for 10 years. They spent five years doing comedy in Chicago and currently live in Los Angeles where they co-host the podcast Hella In Your Thirties, perform comedy all the time, write scripts, and make films.
Key cast: Randolph Thompson (Dr. Thompson), Tony Tucker (Norman Graham), Muriel Montgomery (Genevieve Graham)
Looking for: producers, film festival directors, distributors, journalists
Facebook: Fam Club
Twitter: @famclubofficial
Instagram: @famclubofficial
Website: www.murielmontgomery.com
Other: YouTube
Funders: self-funded