Speaker 1: Oh Gie is bot it's show time.
Speaker 2: People say, good money to see this movie.
Speaker 1: When they go out to a theater, they want cold sodas,
Speaker 1: pop popcorn, and no monsters in the protection booth.
Speaker 2: Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
Speaker 1: Cut it off.
Speaker 3: So I was kind of surprised to hear that you
Speaker 3: were back in town.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I didn't graduate during the brain florn.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what happened? I uh, what's happened?
Speaker 1: What happened?
Speaker 3: What happens?
Speaker 1: Just what?
Speaker 3: I can't believe you, like, I'm going to finish.
Speaker 6: Why get your stuff?
Speaker 7: Honey, you lucked into being a teenager for the next
Speaker 7: few months.
Speaker 3: You neighborhood dude. You've had a crush on them since
Speaker 3: you were five. I say, go for it. Oh wow,
Speaker 3: you have a kid. Yeah, not a grade of keeping up.
Speaker 4: What are you doing?
Speaker 6: You sure?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Sorry, it's to be.
Speaker 4: My little blue jay.
Speaker 2: Now you're all grown up. What happened?
Speaker 3: I can't fall asleep without checking the lock.
Speaker 5: What if I'm being dramatic and I'll let you sing.
Speaker 1: Me with I mean, it seems like it was more
Speaker 1: than that.
Speaker 3: I don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 2: You don't have to, you know, eighteen to you, Mom
Speaker 2: and Dad and everyone else that I tell or who
Speaker 2: finds out.
Speaker 6: I just I am this same.
Speaker 7: You know, Jane and Will Derazzo and Jamee the Brain
Speaker 7: and Blue Jay and Janey and Jay.
Speaker 3: You're all of that.
Speaker 4: You're not.
Speaker 3: You're not this.
Speaker 2: Heny folks. Welcome to a special episode of the Projection Booth.
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Mike White. On this episode, I am
Speaker 2: talking with Anna Bombgarten. She is the writer and director
Speaker 2: of the new film Disfluency. See new film even though
Speaker 2: it has a twenty twenty one release date on IMDb. Well,
Speaker 2: wouldn't you know, got caught up in some pandemic shenanigans.
Speaker 2: But it is coming out now. We'll be available on
Speaker 2: I Tunes and I believe Amazon Prime, and we'll be
Speaker 2: playing at some local MJR theaters here in Michigan. Hear
Speaker 2: all about that in this interview. I really hope you
Speaker 2: enjoy it. I had a great time talking with miss Baumgarten,
Speaker 2: and it's so nice to help support other Michigan folks.
Speaker 2: Tell me about your journey into making films place.
Speaker 5: I grew up in Commerce Township, Michigan, and when I
Speaker 5: was very young, I fell in love with acting and writing.
Speaker 5: I wanted to be an author when I was a kid.
Speaker 5: I love playing pretend, all the classic symptoms of being
Speaker 5: a storyteller. So when I got to high school, I
Speaker 5: was looking at options and the University of Michigan and
Speaker 5: Ann Arbor has a fantastic screenwrining program, so I went
Speaker 5: there for that, and along the way I fell in
Speaker 5: love with production and so that's how I got into it.
Speaker 5: And I'm sharing all that too, because you're a fellow Michiganders.
Speaker 5: Not a lot of filmmakers necessarily are working and doing
Speaker 5: things in Michigan.
Speaker 2: And a fellow Wolverine as well.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, oh wonderful.
Speaker 5: Yes, I loved talking to a fellow Wolverine. My whole
Speaker 5: family is Wolverin. It's me and my three siblings and
Speaker 5: my parents. I moved out to LA after graduation to
Speaker 5: pursue working in TV. I really wanted to be in
Speaker 5: a TV writer's room, but I also knew how to
Speaker 5: make short films. This story is pulled from a traumatic
Speaker 5: experience I had in college, and I was just dealing
Speaker 5: with it and ended up writing a short script about
Speaker 5: it and wasn't sure if I was going to make it,
Speaker 5: but I had I shared it with a few friends
Speaker 5: and they thought it was great, and they were like,
Speaker 5: you should really pursue this. I set out to make it.
Speaker 5: I wrote and produced the short film, brought on my
Speaker 5: dear friend Laura Holiday, who was a sundancing night fellow.
Speaker 5: We made the short film and then we turned into
Speaker 5: a feature, which is the very brief summary of that experience.
Speaker 2: You've done a lot of different things, costume design, production design,
Speaker 2: you know, obviously writing, shooting, all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: I mean, is that just all from the design to
Speaker 2: learn more? Were you just kind of like filling in
Speaker 2: wherever you possibly could and figuring out what you kind
Speaker 2: of wanted to be more when you grew up? Type
Speaker 2: of thing?
Speaker 5: So I did like a smattering of things in college
Speaker 5: and out here in LA I help out where I can.
Speaker 5: At the University Michigan, I did some production design and
Speaker 5: that kind of covered everything from like hair and makeup
Speaker 5: to wardrobes.
Speaker 3: So I've tapped in in different things.
Speaker 5: I do think when you have a familiarity with all
Speaker 5: the different departments, it makes you a better leader and
Speaker 5: a creative. So that's why I've touched on a lot
Speaker 5: of different things. But my bread and butter. My day
Speaker 5: job out in LA was working in TV development, so
Speaker 5: I was writing TV show pitches, helping sell TV. And
Speaker 5: that's the day job part of it, making your living
Speaker 5: and moving up in your career in one path, and
Speaker 5: then parallel, I've been making my own work and taking
Speaker 5: what I'm making of the day job and investing in
Speaker 5: my career on the filmmaking side.
Speaker 2: So tell me about that journey between Disfluency the short
Speaker 2: and Disfluency the feature film.
Speaker 5: And this is your first feature, Yes, this is my
Speaker 5: first feature, and I'm so glad. I feel so blessed
Speaker 5: and happy that I was able to shoot this in
Speaker 5: Michigan because Michigan is like such a big part of
Speaker 5: my heart. My whole family is here. When we made
Speaker 5: the short, we actually shot in Los Angeles because that's
Speaker 5: where I was based, That's where we had resources.
Speaker 3: But it was I think the.
Speaker 5: Majority of our crew was U of M alumni, So
Speaker 5: we just got together to make a short film. I
Speaker 5: was like twenty three, twenty four, so it was like just.
Speaker 3: Out of college.
Speaker 5: We were doing what we knew how to do, and
Speaker 5: we just started submitting that short to festivals and fellowships
Speaker 5: and all kinds of things. We just wanted to get
Speaker 5: whatever opportunity we could with this film and share it
Speaker 5: with people, so that's what we were doing. And one
Speaker 5: of those opportunities was the Short to Feature Lab, which
Speaker 5: is run by Jim Cummings and Ben Wisner, who are
Speaker 5: two indie filmmakers who came together to make this program
Speaker 5: to help filmmakers you turn their short film into a
Speaker 5: feature film, and a lot of us were first time
Speaker 5: filmmakers and how to go on that journey everything from
Speaker 5: development to financing, to story to casting, through distribution and
Speaker 5: their support and just their mentorship.
Speaker 3: And this is philanthropic for them.
Speaker 5: When I got there, I was like, what is the
Speaker 5: catch and they were like, no, we really just want
Speaker 5: to help you tell your stories. So they were a
Speaker 5: phone call away throughout the process. But I will say
Speaker 5: from the Short to Feature Lab till shooting the film.
Speaker 5: I came out of the Short Feature Lab with a
Speaker 5: short outline and then nine months later we were shooting,
Speaker 5: so very quick. But setting a date as an indie filmmaker,
Speaker 5: setting a date is like a huge factor and if
Speaker 5: it's going to actually happen, people who set dates and
Speaker 5: stick to them when it comes to making shorts, features,
Speaker 5: whatever it is, those are the people that get it done.
Speaker 3: And that was a piece of.
Speaker 5: Advice told to me early on by Ben Weisner, and
Speaker 5: I did that.
Speaker 3: I was like, September, we're.
Speaker 5: Shooting this early September, the perfect time in Michigan. I'll
Speaker 5: have a script by then, I'll have a cast, we'll
Speaker 5: be out there, we'll have money. And I just set
Speaker 5: my heart on it and went to work nine to
Speaker 5: five and all my other time was spent working towards this.
Speaker 2: How did you put your crew together out here?
Speaker 5: My producer Danny Mooney came on first, and between me
Speaker 5: and him, we knew so many you of m alumni
Speaker 5: and so many Michigan locals. Danny's shot more in Michigan
Speaker 5: than I have, So we had people come out from
Speaker 5: Grand Rapids and we flew some crew to Michigan. Again,
Speaker 5: all you have m alumni that we were working with
Speaker 5: for the most part, and that's how we crewed up.
Speaker 5: And our DP was somebody that I had gone to
Speaker 5: school with and worked closely with, so we already had rapport.
Speaker 3: But it was really a lot of our big first project.
Speaker 3: Most of the crew was under thirty and.
Speaker 2: You talked about you came out there with your cast.
Speaker 2: How did you find your cast, especially how did you
Speaker 2: find that person that was going to represent you.
Speaker 5: When we were casting the short, the only character that
Speaker 5: is also in the feature is Jane.
Speaker 3: So Jane is.
Speaker 5: A little bit of a different iteration of Jane, but
Speaker 5: it's still the character. And Libe Berrera plays Jane and
Speaker 5: Liebe has a sister, Ariella Berrer, who plays her sister
Speaker 5: in the film, Lacy. So I wrote the script for
Speaker 5: those two actresses and we cast around them. So Chelsea
Speaker 5: plays Amber is a friend of Libe's, and Kimmy Koe
Speaker 5: Singer who plays Kennedy, is a good friend of Mariella's.
Speaker 5: We had a lot of agents managers that we were
Speaker 5: working with send us tapes and things, and we were
Speaker 5: just looking at all our resources around us. We did
Speaker 5: not have a casting director, so this was largely me
Speaker 5: and Danny. But the first domino to fall circling back
Speaker 5: to Libay, Me and Laura were looking to cast somebody
Speaker 5: in the short and we had a big list of
Speaker 5: people we weren't sure who it was. I was watching
Speaker 5: Sneaky Peete on Amazon and I saw Liba for the
Speaker 5: first time, and I had this just gut instinct of
Speaker 5: that's Jane, and I reached out to her manager and
Speaker 5: I was like, Hey, would she be interested in talking
Speaker 5: to us out a short? And she came on board
Speaker 5: and she's been such a champion of this project. She's
Speaker 5: so talented. I want everyone to see Lebay.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I just think she's such a magnetic actress. I want
Speaker 5: to watch her do anything, honestly.
Speaker 2: And how is that working with actress? Was this your
Speaker 2: first time really directing them?
Speaker 5: So my thesis in college was a directing thesis. I
Speaker 5: made another short film after school called line Drive, but
Speaker 5: the first time I professionally stepped into a directoring role
Speaker 5: really was this film. And my backgrounds in acting like
Speaker 5: I do stage acting, I do community theater.
Speaker 3: I love being on stage.
Speaker 5: I have no interest in being friend of a camera,
Speaker 5: but knowing the language of actors is so helpful. I
Speaker 5: think all directors, even if they don't want to be
Speaker 5: on camera, should take a class or something where they
Speaker 5: act a little bit so they just get a feeling
Speaker 5: for it.
Speaker 3: Because my job as a director.
Speaker 5: Is to cast great talent and then give them the
Speaker 5: tools to feel the most comfortable and confident to do
Speaker 5: their work and then just tap it just a little bit.
Speaker 5: But this whole past, I love them so much. They
Speaker 5: all brought so much to the table. And I knew
Speaker 5: these characters so well, and because I wrote the script,
Speaker 5: I really think a lot of what they were the
Speaker 5: script is what they pulled from.
Speaker 2: How is it seeing someone interpret what's on the page
Speaker 2: maybe a little differently than how it actually happened for you.
Speaker 5: So I'll say this first, All of this is fiction.
Speaker 5: Disfluency is very much like pulled from emotions that I
Speaker 5: hack going through an experience. But Jane is very much
Speaker 5: her own character. All of these people are very much
Speaker 5: their own people. They are influenced by people for my life,
Speaker 5: especially growing up in Michigan, like this neighborhood crew, all
Speaker 5: of these it's like composites of people.
Speaker 3: That I know, knew growing up and loved.
Speaker 5: And my dad watched the film and the first thing
Speaker 5: he said he was like, I like the dad.
Speaker 3: I think he did a great job. Like, okay, because
Speaker 3: my dad is I love my dad.
Speaker 5: We have a very close relationship, but we don't agree
Speaker 5: on everything, including politics or what have you. But he's
Speaker 5: such a you can tell he loves Jane and he's
Speaker 5: like there for her. So there are those things. But
Speaker 5: because these characters are fictional, it was really nice to
Speaker 5: see them all bring what they could to them and
Speaker 5: humanize them in their own unique way. One of the
Speaker 5: things I look for as a director what I'm casting
Speaker 5: is I want somebody who comes in the room and
Speaker 5: brings something that I didn't even think of. Whether it
Speaker 5: could be a tone of mannerism, just an attitude, just
Speaker 5: something to the character that makes me go, oh, you
Speaker 5: like rounded that out because I get eighty to ninety
Speaker 5: percent there in my head on the page or what
Speaker 5: I'm looking at a script as a director. But them
Speaker 5: coming in and bringing that last percentage to like round
Speaker 5: that character out, is that's the magic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm curious, how is the shooting in Commerce Township?
Speaker 5: Yeah, shooting in Commerce Toundship was super fun. We had
Speaker 5: a lot of people stop and be like, what's going on.
Speaker 5: It's not common to see film cruise and this part
Speaker 5: of Michigan for sure, but the community was so welcoming.
Speaker 5: Penny Lake Market let us come in and use their
Speaker 5: space as the grocery store, the creamy, freezing Commerce Township,
Speaker 5: let us come in and use their space. We hung
Speaker 5: a sign on the Veterinarians office across the street. Everyone
Speaker 5: was so welcoming, and even Pinelake Country Club where the
Speaker 5: pine tree was. We're like a movie that's so cool,
Speaker 5: Like we'd love to hear more about it. You can
Speaker 5: be on the course from these times. It was really
Speaker 5: a joy. And also being out on the lake with
Speaker 5: the camera was fun. Fifteen people on a pontoon but
Speaker 5: with a big camera at the end was something to say.
Speaker 2: Were there any big challenges or roadblocks for you?
Speaker 5: There always are with production, but there was. We always
Speaker 5: talk about the fourth of July night was way colder
Speaker 5: than we thought it would. Every other night in our
Speaker 5: shooting schedule was like warm, like we're out in t shirts, shorts,
Speaker 5: hanging out. We were like bundled up, so the hectors
Speaker 5: are like half in wet suits. Any they were such troopers.
Speaker 5: They did such a great job. We had to be flexible.
Speaker 5: We had to move around days a little bit. Whether
Speaker 5: it's always a factory in Michigan, but also being from Michigan,
Speaker 5: you get cloudbursts in the summer and then later in
Speaker 5: the day it's gorgeous again, so you can flip flop things,
Speaker 5: So we worked with what we had and we were
Speaker 5: scrappy and it was a blast.
Speaker 2: You talked about shooting this in August and September, but.
Speaker 5: Which we year was us, So we shot it in
Speaker 5: twenty nineteen and then COVID hit and we were stopped
Speaker 5: down for a while. We ended up doing pickup shoots
Speaker 5: during COVID and we started playing film festivals. We were
Speaker 5: at the Calgary Film Festival, Heartland and Austin Film Festival
Speaker 5: a very end of twenty twenty one, so we've been
Speaker 5: on the circuit for a minute. But we had the pandemic,
Speaker 5: we had strikes, we're releasing now that la fires are
Speaker 5: going on. All of these things are bigger than all
Speaker 5: of us, so we've been rolling with the punches and
Speaker 5: we're getting the film out now. It's going to be
Speaker 5: out on January twenty fe which is Friday on Amazon
Speaker 5: Prime and Apple TV for rent and purchase. So it's
Speaker 5: been a long time coming, but so excited to be here.
Speaker 2: When was the first time you saw with an audience
Speaker 2: and what did you think?
Speaker 5: We did a test rereading early on and that was
Speaker 5: really nerve wracking, but so delightful.
Speaker 3: I love watching this movie. In a room.
Speaker 5: I love to see people laugh, like where they laugh,
Speaker 5: and I will say I step out of the room
Speaker 5: a lot towards, like halfway through, I step out because I.
Speaker 3: Don't need to rewatch that every time.
Speaker 5: But the first time I watched it, it was such a relief,
Speaker 5: Like when we got the first little giggle the parents
Speaker 5: in the drive through. I know it's a drama, but
Speaker 5: there's jokes in here, and there's seeing the audience really
Speaker 5: engaged and feeling. It is unlike anything in my life,
Speaker 5: and life is so much more complex than black and
Speaker 5: white good and bad things.
Speaker 3: That happened to us.
Speaker 5: I made this film largely because I hadn't seen the
Speaker 5: nuanced experience that I had gone through and am still
Speaker 5: going through. I still wake up and have imposter syndrome
Speaker 5: and feel like, oh my gosh, I lied about this
Speaker 5: thing that happened to me. I made a movie and
Speaker 5: now I'm like being interviewed about it. That is how
Speaker 5: deep it goes. Being a survivor is like you second
Speaker 5: guess yourself all the time. You get angry, there's mania
Speaker 5: you're apologizing to.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: I was so afraid of hurting my friends and family
Speaker 5: around me, just by them having to carry this with
Speaker 5: me that I wanted to share that part of my
Speaker 5: story with people because that and meeting fellow survivors are
Speaker 5: the two things that have.
Speaker 3: Brought me peace.
Speaker 5: Not scary TV episodes in courtrooms and whatnot. That's just
Speaker 5: not what a lot of these experiences are actually, truly, Like,
Speaker 5: I wanted people to feel seen, and I wanted to
Speaker 5: feel seen.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we always talk about how important representation is,
Speaker 2: and to see yourself up on screen, I mean it
Speaker 2: must have been great for you, well great and probably
Speaker 2: scary for audiences to come up to you and tell
Speaker 2: you how much they connected with it.
Speaker 5: And after almost every single screening I get somebody who
Speaker 5: shares an experience, discloses, tells me that a loved one
Speaker 5: has gone through this. And something I didn't set out
Speaker 5: to do or fully realize was what a tool that
Speaker 5: this can be to give to somebody else. If you've
Speaker 5: been through an experience, maybe you can say, hey, watch
Speaker 5: this movie disfluency. This is some of the feelings I'm
Speaker 5: going through right now. People kind of sharing that and like, oh,
Speaker 5: I really want to share this with somebody because I
Speaker 5: want them to know or this is so accurate to
Speaker 5: how I've been feeling all of those things. That has
Speaker 5: been this little surprise. Yeah, and knowing that I've made
Speaker 5: that impact. It's also strange like I've imposter cinem around
Speaker 5: being a creative too. I think most artists do at
Speaker 5: some point.
Speaker 2: So I know you made this in twenty nineteen, it
Speaker 2: comes out to festivals twenty twenty one, after getting sidelined
Speaker 2: by the pandemic and all of the other things that
Speaker 2: you mentioned. But in the meantime, what if you've been.
Speaker 5: Working on I've been writing, I've got some new projects
Speaker 5: that I'm hoping to get off the ground. I'm attached
Speaker 5: to a friend's script to direct it, which hopefully we'll
Speaker 5: do soon. Here we were planning on releasing, and then
Speaker 5: the strikes happened. I didn't want to sit on my
Speaker 5: hands with the film. I knew I wanted to continue
Speaker 5: sharing it, So I started doing a school tour, a
Speaker 5: college tour, and I just started reaching out to Total
Speaker 5: nine at schools and sexual self prevention programs and being like, Hey,
Speaker 5: do you want to bring this film in? Do you
Speaker 5: want to bring me in as a speaker to talk
Speaker 5: about this? Can this be used as a tool for you.
Speaker 5: So I personally visited thirteen colleges as a speaker in
Speaker 5: April and then three to five other colleges later in
Speaker 5: the year.
Speaker 3: And we're doing it again this April.
Speaker 5: Anyone out there wants to book as fluency and have
Speaker 5: a conversation about sexual violence prevention and the ins and
Speaker 5: outs of it, by standard inner mention, being a survivor,
Speaker 5: how to support survivors, all of those. It's been so
Speaker 5: cool to connect with college students across the whole country.
Speaker 5: We've been east coast, Middle America, West coast, Midwest South.
Speaker 3: It's been incredible taxing but very rewarding.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, it sounds like that would take a lot out
Speaker 2: of you, not just the travel, but just the emotional
Speaker 2: experience of going through all that, especially with all these
Speaker 2: new people every single time.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, it's a combination of after long screening and a
Speaker 5: lot of talks, I'll be exhausted, but it's also fuel
Speaker 5: in the tank to keep sharing the movie and to
Speaker 5: keep going out. So it's what little both, do you
Speaker 5: mind if I share one more thing?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Please.
Speaker 5: Something really exciting that is like Michigan specific, is that
Speaker 5: we're playing at MJR, which is huge for me, people
Speaker 5: who know MJR. You know, like it's more fun at MJR.
Speaker 5: That theme song, the clapping my childhood.
Speaker 3: I love MJR. I'm so excited to be there.
Speaker 5: So we will be at MJR this weekend Friday, Saturday, Sunday,
Speaker 5: and then Tuesday at MJR Troy and j R Brighton and.
Speaker 3: M j R Waterford, which m j R. Waterford is
Speaker 3: my hometown. I'm JR.
Speaker 5: So I just wanted to share that in case any
Speaker 5: Michigan news out there can come see it this weekend
Speaker 5: and we'll post on social media at.
Speaker 3: The Dirty Word too.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I want to share that with you, Mike,
Speaker 5: because again you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, definitely, and yeah, I'll definitely share that out.
Speaker 2: I want more people to see this, So that's fantastic.
Speaker 2: Is there a good place for people to keep up
Speaker 2: with you and your work online with the movie.
Speaker 5: We're at Disfluency Movie on Instagram and if you want
Speaker 5: to follow my Instagram, I keep it updated with all
Speaker 5: my film going zoms. I'm at Annabella Baum so a
Speaker 5: nna b E l l A b A U m anna.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for your time. This is great
Speaker 2: connecting with you. I really appreciate this.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 7: Every time in sell myself to you, I feel a
Speaker 7: lot of a shape and need. I would tell pantols
Speaker 7: off bucket, the girls read, I will ba cue, tell
Speaker 7: my truth. What's she asking?
Speaker 6: What was she asking? If she was asking for real?
Speaker 3: Did she ask you to.
Speaker 6: Every time that a very dusting my rassas comes up?
Speaker 1: Never had.
Speaker 3: M unless she was kid for rad.
Speaker 6: Unlest she asked him the time.
Speaker 4: She was asking for did she ask you twice this? Well?
Speaker 1: Then you and then you live through this week, so
Speaker 1: that loves two years?
Speaker 4: She excuse.
Speaker 7: You?
Speaker 4: Scared nice, she said, arid, and she has to try.
Speaker 1: Who I see I'm getting all round?
Speaker 6: Who I see I'm getting nice?
Speaker 1: You see what that's getting around?
Speaker 4: See I'm used