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Competition is fierce in five Dallas International Film Festival movies | www.pegasusnews.com | Dallas/Fort Worth

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Thursday, April 12, 2012

Competition is fierce in five Dallas International Film Festival movies

by Randi Crowder of Dallas International Film Festival

Brooklyn Castle, Qwerty, Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope, First Position, and Thank You for Judging all feature pressure as intense as you'd find anywhere.

In competition, hours of practice, rehearsals, and run-throughs come down to one moment of performance. Five films at the 2012 Dallas International Film Festival revolve around that kind of defining moment — but not how you might think.

Brooklyn Castle (playing April 14 and 15 at Angelika Dallas), Qwerty (playing April 15 and 17 at Angelika Dallas), Comic-Con Scene from Qwerty Episode IV: A Fan's Hope (playing April 15 and 19 at Landmark Magnolia), First Position (playing April 14 at AMC Northpark and April 15 at Angelika Dallas), and Thank You for Judging (playing April 15 and 16 at Landmark Magnolia) all build drama and suspense, in both documentary and narrative form, via not-so-typical combat: board games, comic-book and costume design, classical dance, performance forensics. None are sports, but all are as pressurized and vicious as sports can be, and often the stakes are higher — and not just during competition.

Qwerty revolves around an intense Scrabble tournament patterned after the semi-annual National Scrabble Championship. But unlike the real contest, which features a room full of players and few spectators, director Bill Sebastian took a different approach.

“We went with a [large] live audience,” said Sebastian, who made a crowd of 25-30 people appear like 300 through camera trickery. “We were trying to play off of he way poker is covered on ESPN.” He said the biggest hurdle was editing the footage to present the highly cerebral game as engaging from both the crowd’s and the players’ perspective, even adding play-by-play commentary later.

But Qwerty’s main theme is love and relationships, and the main character, shy and timid Zoe, faces her fear first by entering into a relationship with Marty. That gives her the strength to take an additional step later. “Zoe uses the same leap of faith to jump into competitive Scrabble, which she never had the strength to do,” Sebastian said. http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/2012/apr/12/competition-fierce-five-dallas-film-festival-2012/?framing=print

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Competition is fierce in five Dallas International Film Festival movies | www.pegasusnews.com | Dallas/Fort Worth

7/7/12 2:22 PM

He said competitions are about the experience, and the uncertainty of the end result makes it meaningful — just like a new relationship. “If it were a safe move, it wouldn’t mean much to do it,” he said. “You put yourself out there and you have no idea what the outcome is going to be. It’s the experience of getting there safe or draw.”

Brooklyn junior high school students compete against the odds in Katie Delmaggiore’s documentary Brooklyn Castle, which focuses on the school’s improbably nationally ranked chess team that faces possible extinction in the wake of New York City budget cuts.

“I think most people don’t know this exists -- a room full of middle school kids where you can hear a pin drop for three hours because they are focusing so intensely," Delmaggiore said. “We wanted to show what it’s like for kids to be really good at something and how they handle the pressures around them.”

Traveling with a small budget and crew, filming the quiet game came with a unique set of challenges, though Delmaggiore said that she wanted to focus less on the technicalities of playing and more on making it relatable for audiences.

“We spent more time trying to tap into what it’s like to be that intensely focused at the board,” she said. So most of the time the crew shot footage from far away and pushed in with a telescopic lens, careful not to intrude into the game. “We always checked in with them, and had an open line of communication with the kids. Luckily we got what we needed and they were on board with it.”

Relative calm, however, is not a hallmark of Thank You for Judging, co-directed by Plano native Michael Urie in the Ugly Betty star’s directorial debut. The film features an inside look into the world of competitive high school … acting? Yep: acting.

“While the students aren’t used to performing in front of judges, they’re all hams and love performing in front of anyone Scene from Thank You for Judging else,” said Urie, who also recently made his Broadway debut in How to Succeed in Business Without Even Trying. “We were also as inconspicuous as we could be with a camera crew, and I’m told most of the students were able to forget we were there.”

Urie isn’t the only local product involved with Thank You for Judging; it was filmed at the very same school where he competed on speech and debate teams: Plano Senior High School, where regional and national acting competitions are regularly held.

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Competition is fierce in five Dallas International Film Festival movies | www.pegasusnews.com | Dallas/Fort Worth

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“I met so many other students from around the country who were like me: artsy, goofy and not looking for a party, but rather a place to let artistic energy out,” he said. “The camaraderie was the most exciting part of the competitions for me, and that’s what we were most interested in bringing to the movie.”

Urie’s movie itself is part of a competition: DIFF’s Texas Competition film category, a fitting place in a festival with so many movies about competitive spirit’s affect on people.

“DIFF is a phenomenal festival, and has been on the top of our list since we started this project many years ago,” he said. “It’s my hometown, and it’s where we shot our movie, so the chance to bring it home is extremely special.”

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