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