Directed by Eric Pace
His perspective on the experience:
The Weird, Wonderful, Stressful, and Long Journey of bringing CLASSIFIED to Screen…
Years ago, while visiting my parents, I was up late watching movies. This night, I chose the original "The Day the Earth Stood Still." It got to a scene when the President's secretary came to talk to Klaatu. Through the dialog, we see that time has passed and this is one of many meetings with the alien. While I watched, my mind couldn't help but make an observation of how important a meeting like this would be. Who would be the person assigned to this type of work? How would they decide what to ask? As all these thoughts popped in and out of my head that night, I began forming the skeleton of the story. Thus began a multi-year journey to bring this little idea (then tentatively titled "Interview With an Alien" (because I'm clever like that)) to the screen.
It was time to start sending the script out for feedback.
I had written scripts before. Nothing this fully formed or interesting, though. The response from most people was especially positive and I incorporated their notes as best I could. I brought a friend, Aliki, who produced several projects onboard. The script was constantly on my mind. I don't think I worked on a single project during this time ("Liberals With Doubt," "Verona," "The Ballerina," "Pathogen" etc.) without thinking of ideas, crew members, actors, or locations that could be used in my production. I was done with college, had some money saved up, some crew attached, and everything seemed as though it was progressing nicely. Then I had my car accident, and all that saved-up money needed to be allocated to that. The talks for making “CLASSIFIED” ceased for the time. It was a rough time in my personal life with no idea if this film would ever happen.
This all changed with the making of "The Bust." After we finished production, my friend and director, Matt Burchfield, told me he wanted to help me get something off the ground. I immediately brought up my alien script. Upon reading it, he told me he wanted to produce it. This was the turning point in development. I credit Matt with truly getting the ball rolling. He started giving notes that really challenged me to make the script better and more concise. We started having production meetings and getting more and more people attached. One of the first ones was with our SFX artist, Eric Jewel.
I had worked with Eric a few times before, and we always got along on-set in between takes. Arriving at this meeting, not having any idea how this would go. I had drawn some concept art of how I wanted the alien to look. Almost immediately, he got out his own sketchpad and doodled a more refined version. In addition to some brand new ideas to make the design more unique to us. After that, I met with Glenn Semones and procured his studio. He had an older set he had made that perfectly fit what we needed. I still vividly remember the feeling of sitting in a space created specifically for something that had existed in my mind. Once again, production was proceeding along swimmingly. Even better than the previous attempt. It was also around this time I finally settled on a name for the script, "CLASSIFIED." On to casting.
On to casting.
I knew from day one the best person for the alien would be my cousin, Jaron. Despite sharing a lot of the same interests growing up, he never developed an interest in making movies or acting. Nonetheless, I had used him in a few films growing up and noticed he had a natural talent as a performer. I was almost certain he would say yes. Just in case I had some backups. They were not needed as when I did finally call Jaron, he said "yes" before I even finished asking the question. I also asked Zeke Banks to play Will's wife, who said also yes instantly. Little did I know that this would be the last of the easy casting.
I always knew Agent Moore would be difficult. He was an older man and in this area, for indie filmmaking, the pickings were going to be thinner. I began thinking back to past projects I helped out on and an actor stood out to me. Phillip Martin played a lead role in my friend, Matt Holman's short, "Vagabond." Even before this, I had met him before at different functions. Hence, I felt comfortable asking. He read the script and was not only interested but even put together an audition tape. In addition to blowing me away, it made it very easy to get the producers all in agreement. So there was what I thought would be the hardest role to cast taken care of. When we began seriously looking into whom could play Will, I didn't have a type in mind. Again, looking back on a previous project, I settled on an actor. In the interest of professionalism, I will not use his name and instead refer to him as “Bryan.” He seemed into the script and joined. We had our table reading the same week before the big-budget film, "Arrival" came out. Everything seemed to be going well.
The night before the first day of filming was exciting, to say the least. I wanted this to go perfectly, after all these years waiting for this to take off. My producer Aliki and I were discussing a location that we no longer had and decided we might need to call off the first day of filming. Instead, start on Sunday. We sent out the email, but after discussing it more, we came to the conclusion that there were still other things we could get done that day. We then sent out another email telling the crew to ignore the previous email. This was my mistake, at the time I thought it was just us being prudent. Looking back, it probably had to do with my desire for this to go 100% right. With the benefit of hindsight, I can see how it created an unprofessional look, and we ended up paying for it.
Casting Continues…
I went to bed excited with my alarm set. I awoke to my phone going off. It hadn't felt like a full night's sleep, and the sound wasn't the alarm it was Aliki. She said we received an email from Bryan explaining he had decided to back out of the film as he no longer had any confidence in our ability to capture the script. Words fail to accurately describe the pit in my stomach feeling I had. Will is in every single scene, we couldn't film around him. I attempted to reach out to Bryan to try and see what could be done. Maybe we'd end up only losing the first day or even just half of it. Anything would be better than losing my star literally hours before filming was to begin. However, Bryan was unresponsive and to this day, I have not heard so much as a peep out of him. Not even secondhand. The entire first weekend of production was gone. We all had regular jobs. Due to mine, I wouldn't have a weekend off again for another month. Maybe it was good that a snowstorm had come that night. I was able to redirect my frustration at shoveling our driveway for the day.
In the following days, Matt, Aliki, and I scrambled to restart the casting process. Time went on, and my next weekend off was one week away. Matt suggested an actor by the name of Ricky D'Alonzo. I quickly checked out a few of his previous performances, and while he was a bit different from what I imagined for Will, I thought I could make it work. He agreed and it looked as though we were again off to the races. A few days later, he had to drop out for personal reasons. While disappointing, it was completely understandable and we parted on good terms.
We still didn't have a lead actor, and the weekend was looming. I thought back to how easy it had been to cast Agent Moore with Phillip. From there, my mind went back to "Vagabond" and I thought about the co-lead of the short, Garrett Barnes. I asked Matt Holman for Garrett's contact info and sent the script to him. Days passed, and it looked like this film was going to fall apart. Finally, we got the response, he was in! So the day before filming was to resume, we had a lead actor again. Garrett, while being younger than what I had envisioned, still brought the everyman quality, as well as a nebbish charm that made up for his youth. And I will always give him all the credit in the world for saying yes to the question, "hey you want to agree to be the lead in a script made by a guy you briefly met several months ago?"
A Blow to the Ego.
After all of that with casting, filming had to go smoothly, right? Yes and no. My goal as a filmmaker is to make sure the set is fun and people are taken care of. I like to think we were able to accomplish that. Still, throughout the entire production, our crew was small. A lot of the people I 'd like to have worked on the film just weren't able to come. We filmed one weekend per month, maybe two if we were lucky. Aliki tried to get me an assistant director, but she dropped out on her way to set. She hadn't gotten accurate directions nor a script and thought our production seemed unprofessional. A bit of a blow to the ego. But I literally had to get off the phone with her, and back onto the set and film the next scene. While these were disappointments, they didn't stop this small but dedicated team.
The actors always came to set knowing their lines. Phillip did something different than what I was used to, which was to confront me with the script itself. Most actors come in and do their lines. Zeke is great at that and is often why I say one of my biggest regrets is not giving her a bigger role, as she's quite a talented actress. Phillip had is own way. He would flat out tell me a line didn't make sense. In discussing things with him, it usually would come out that the disputed line was referencing an earlier draft. He would often ask if he could change a line or combine different ones together. Now I don't want to give the wrong impression because I'm NOT complaining. I know that dialog is not my strongest suit in writing. Honestly, everything Phillip came to me about actually did make the script better. I greatly appreciated the back-and-forth we had. I've never been the type to insist the actors follow my scripts to a T. I know when I've acted before, I often feel to need to slightly alter lines to make it easier for me to say naturally. So having an actor who was that engaged with the process, was for me, one of the most artistically satisfying things about the production. I'd gladly work with this cast again. In addition to the actors, a good friend of mine who often ran sound, Sam Winters, also worked on "Vagabond." So we, of course, had to all get a picture together and send it to Matt Holman with the caption, "Hey, I STOLE your cast!"
Our usual makeup person Jan was on another production where she was getting paid. So I wasn't about to stand in her way. On the first day of filming, we got by with Eric doing a basic foundation on Garrett. After that, I was prepared to go without makeup for the actors. But Aliki insisted and called up a friend of her's who did makeup, Maria Comas. This was the same day as my cameo. As a result, I had the normal pressures of directing while also acting. This young woman with silver-colored hair and purple lipstick came onto location. I was so busy because we only had the space until a certain time, one of the actors was only available for half the day, and if we went over it would come out of my pocket. Consequentially, I didn't pay much attention to Maria at first. When she had to leave a little early, I assumed this was the last I'd see of her.
Jan was set to return when we resumed filming. Instead, in the following days, Maria kept emailing me talking about how much fun she had on the set and how excited she was to work on it again. This was a problem. She was so wide-eyed and full of excitement, I didn't want to crush her enthusiasm. So I talked to Matt about the idea of letting her stay on for the rest of the shoot since Jan hadn't done any work on it yet. And thus, we gained another dedicated member to the crew.
That's how I would describe this crew and actors of this production. From our script supervisor Jessica who kept us on task and worked great with the actors. To myself, since I'm so used to being a gofer on other people's sets. I can't help but roll up my sleeves and immediately jump into other responsibilities beyond directing to help out. Given how much our schedule had to change pretty much daily, it was a lot. We had actors who often had to leave early. Garrett was particularly good about giving us as much time as we needed before leaving. One night we got as many of his shots as we possibly could. He left, and Zeke had to act opposite a piece of paper.
Speaking of that night, that's when our cinematographer Paul's kid had a 100-degree temperature and couldn't make it to the set. Matt Burchfield, who often acted as our backup cinematographer, was also unavailable. Leaving me to take this Blackmagic camera that I had never used myself, and the only tripod we had onset, which was the one I brought as a precaution. It was built for cameras the size of DSLRs. No matter how much I tightened the tripod, the weight of the Blackmagic would inevitably cause it slowly tilt downward. This is why in the final film, when Will is having his "aha" moment watching TV, the camera is slightly bouncing.
I'll be honest, cameras are not my specialty. It was the year AFTER I left that my college hired a more experienced person to head the department and got much better equipment. Needless to say, I was in awe of Paul when he brought his "toys" to set. We had a rig of cables to pan the camera from the second-floor walkway of the Goode Theatre down to the bottom floor. All with the idea that it could help the dialog scenes stay engaging. It was incredibly fun to film and see in action, but the footage we got back was bumpy and obvious we were filming inside a ticket office. We also made several mistakes, such as breaking the 180-degree rule. In general, all I can say for that sequence is that it allowed me to prank the set with an old recording from years earlier. Again, I always want the atmosphere on set to be light. We laughed and joked, and never had any meltdowns. People like Justin Kosch helped me so much just by being there and offering up well-timed jokes to break the tension.
Production Moves Forward
Which brings me to the alien scenes. I imagined the first weekend could be dedicated to the holding cell scenes. The first day would be ALL of the shots with the alien. We'd get every conceivable angle since the alien doesn't say anything until the end. Then the next day would be devoted to all the other scenes that didn't involve the alien itself. I was actually a bit worried about us ending early. First, we had our delay with the "Bryan" debacle. Then, Eric informed me that he could have the makeup ready by the weekend, but the puppet would need some more time. I was now even more worried about us finishing early, but as the day showed me, we had plenty to get through. First was getting the make-up on Jaron which proved difficult with the stress it was bringing him. Jaron was attempting to quit smoking this day and despite me being as anti-smoking as one can possibly be, I actually offered to run to the store and get him a pack to help him get through. Instead, he powered through like a champ and we got everything that we needed.
Fast forward to later in the production when the puppet was finished, we had the entire day of filming booked to focus on it. First, we waited. Eric said he needed a little more time. So, we began working on any shots that didn't involve the alien. We eventually ran out angles to work on, and Eric said he still needed more time. Later, when he finally arrived, we had our large-scale puppet. I'd be lying if I said I was 100% happy with it. Mostly in the hands and feet areas, but I knew the plan was not to show those that much. So I still knew we could make it work. Before this, I had gotten some advice from a co-worker of mine whose previous job was as a puppeteer. She advised me that we should slow down our movements to better control them. Looking back, the ideal way to have done this would be to schedule a day to get us all used to working with the puppet. Instead, we had to learn as we went along. Through trial and error, we learned the puppet's limitations, what light levels worked best, etc. By the end of the day, we were all exhausted and unsure of how it would cut together.
There was one more part to contend with. From the first draft, I had a particular shot in my mind. When Will hears the footsteps, we cut to the alien walking. We'd cut back to a close-up of Will as he turns around. The camera would then move past him as it turned into a medium shot of the glass as the alien walked out of the shadows. It was so clear, the image still sticks in my brain. However, we couldn't make the shot work. One problem was with the glass in the set, it only worked in one direction. We considered removing the glass, but another problem was the lighting. Our lighting setup was based around only being able to effectively light either side of the glass. This is why despite Garrett and Jaron being onset together the entire time, the film is cut in a way that we never get a good shot of the two of them on screen at the same time. Lastly, we had the issue of the puppet itself, and every time we tried to make it look like it was walking into the light, it looked ridiculous and the puppeteer could often be seen, giving away the effect.
So knowing my dream shot couldn't be realized, I had to think of a different way it could be filmed on-the-spot. This meant breaking up this tracking shot into cuts of static setups. It works fine in the finished film, and it's an important lesson for any filmmaker. No matter how much you plan, things are going to change when you get on set and you have to be able to come up with solutions. Never get married to a particular scene or shot because you may end up having to cut it. Despite it all, I actually really enjoyed the experience. There was something about it that appealed to my brain about working on each individual shot until it was 100% right and then making all these different shots fit together, like one piece in a large puzzle. As I've often said, if the Jim Henson Company called me up today to offer me a job, I'd be on a plane ready to move to London tomorrow! Needless to say, I wouldn't mind doing something with a large-scale puppet like this again.
Creative Spark
As we continued working together, my thoughts kept turning to our make-up person, Maria. We frequently chatted between setups. One night, after helping her get her stuff to the car and we hugged good-bye, there was a spark between us. She even said, "I feel like you were going to kiss me." To this day, I don't know how much of that was true or not. But as she left the set feeling somewhat embarrassed, I knew one thing, this woman liked me. She texted me every single day. Every time I thought the conversation had reached an endpoint, it somehow continued. I felt something I normally haven't throughout my entire life, confidence in the dating department. I wanted to ask her out and waited for a good opening. Through a misunderstanding in our back and forths, I got her to agree to go see the movie "Arrival" with me. I had promised myself I wouldn't see the movie until after production ended as it touched on a lot of the same ground as "CLASSIFIED." I was nervous about going on a date for the normal reasons. But also equally because I didn't want to find out that we had spent all this time and energy making a movie only for a big-budget version to beat us to the punch at the last minute. Luckily, the films were different enough that I felt OK about moving forward. The date itself went so well that we kept seeing each other. By the time we came back for pickups, Maria and I were a full-blown couple.
Pickups were fairly uneventful. The biggest challenge was literally shooting around Phillip's beard. In the time between principal photography ending and the pickups, he had joined a play that required him to grow out his beard. Fortunately for us, all of his important scenes had been taken care of earlier. So it was easy to change the shots around and only show the lower half of him. There was one sequence of Phillip and Garrett walking down the hallway together that had to be completely rethought. I imagined an Aaron Sorkin type of shot but knew that this wasn't going to work now. It wasn't an incredibly important scene. Still, I felt the film needed a moment of levity during the beginning, where so much information and mystery was being established. It was one of those cases where again, you have to come up with a whole new plan on your feet. We filmed, and it became one of my favorite little moments and an example of how circumstances can force you to change something for the better. The sequence later had to be cut.
Post-Production Begins…
Speaking of the editing, that's where the next chapter begins. Towards the beginning, I knew I wanted my friend, R Jay, as the cinematographer. His videos consistently looked the best in class. However, early on he told me he wouldn't be able to commit to the film for the time it needed from him if he was the cinematographer. He offered his services as an editor. Not wanting to lose him on the project plus knowing he could still contribute to the visual look of the film, I gave him the OK for the switch. Which now meant having to take the footage from Hampton Roads up to Northern Virginia multiple times throughout production and after. Once R Jay had all the footage, it was a matter of playing the waiting game for edits.
The wait for the first edit was the longest, not only because of general excitement for it but also because R Jay had a lot on his plate around this time. Still, my mantra in independent filmmaking is if I'm paying someone, you do it on MY schedule. If I'm not paying someone, (which I wasn't with this production) then I wait on YOUR schedule. We got our first edit back, and while it was exciting to finally see it cut together, I knew we had some serious work to do. For the first two edits, the front half of the film was a slog to get through, and no matter what we did, we couldn't get around that. For the 3rd edit, R Jay told me, "I'm going to try something really radical."
We got it back and I knew “CLASSIFIED” was saved. He severely trimmed the first half of the film down. Cutting entire sequences and even rearranging certain bits of dialog and information into almost a montage form. It's a solution that never would have occurred to me. I'd have had a short film that had an interminably slow beginning, thus bringing the entire experience down. The following edits were just a matter of getting little audio, visual and minor cuts finalized. For a while, there seemed to be no end with suggested edits. Being a natural mediator, I felt extra pressure to make sure everyone's concerns were heard and accounted for, even if we didn't ultimately follow them all. During this time, Maria and I got engaged and married. I used my connections to get back into my old college's library and record the actor's ADR with the old recording booth. It turns out not a moment too soon as Garrett was about to move out of the state. The most interesting aspect of the ADR recording was it was the first time all 3 of the main actors were present at the same time. After that, we had a locked picture.
Festival Run
Whenever someone would ask me what I intended to do with this movie, my answer was always the same. We'll see what we end up with before we made any firm decisions. Now we had a locked picture and in my opinion a pretty good one. I discussed with R Jay and another fellow student, JoMartin Yumul, the idea of organizing a screening of all of our recent films. Everyone seemed into the idea. We submitted to festivals in as smart of a way as possible. I'm still learning as I do it. Our producer, Matt, entered us into a small festival he had been to before called MystiCon. Heading to MystiCon with my wife Maria, was like going on a quest into a brave new world. I had no idea what to expect.
Our first surprise was "CLASSIFIED" being shown in the horror block. My first thought was that this was some sort of error. Maybe it was the only available option due to overbooking? While those both could be true, our screening time was 9pm on a Saturday night. It could actually have been the opposite, that they believed in the film so much that they deliberately gave us one of the best premiere times. All that I can say is that in the lead up to our film, I watched many excellent shorts. The feeling while watching something I created, hearing the audience react as I intended was exhilarating. The only thing to top it was the sound of the applause being louder than any of the other films up that point. Then, when all of us directors were brought up to the front and I introduced myself as the director of "CLASSIFIED" the applause was again, the loudest of the group. The questions of the audience being things like, "will you continue this story?" Something any storyteller wants to hear. We even had a director of another festival specifically come up to me to ask me to please submit to his. "This short has got legs" is what he told me. The night couldn't have gone better. The only thing I'd change was on our return to the hotel, a cop pulled us over for expired tags.
On the final day of the festival, needing to pick up our daughter, we decided to leave early, totally unaware of awards being given out. A week later, we found that "CLASSIFIED" had won Best Sci-Fi. Perhaps through vanity or a lack of previous awards, I contacted the festival director and organized the award being mailed to my home. Which brings me to the present. Some of the festivals I've submitted to have rejected "CLASSIFIED." Most we're still waiting for responses. This quarantine has made the future of "CLASSIFIED" uncertain. Even if I get into more festivals, the pandemic may still be around. The screening with R Jay and JoMartin is postponed for the foreseeable future.
Well, best wrap this up before I start to ramble. All I do know is this, I am incredibly proud of this film and eternally thankful to everyone who helped along the way. I have an endpoint planned for "CLASSIFIED" and even another, very different follow-up short currently in pre-production. And of course, for the story that started this all, a man hired by the government to interview an alien in captivity, may still see more of its story told.
Pace Films Productions
Eric and Maria are now a husband and wife team that love to create, based out of Virginia. Find more of their work here: https://pacefilmsproductions.wordpress.com/