One of the standout films of the Slamdance film festival, Ryan Piotrowicz’s first feature The Project, takes the faux doc to another level with solid performances from actors and non-actors, character-driven cinematography and a story based on the tension between inner city kids and the local police. Escaping the biting cold of Park City, we spoke with Ryan about how a two year dead-end project in Cincinnati can lead to a story idea, how story research can lead to a gun in your face and how being asked to point the finger at the wrong guy can lead to a feature in Slamdance. Events like these are odd enough to make you think you’re in a movie, and in Ryan’s case it turns out he was actually in his own.

How did you get your start in filmmaking?

I started, like most filmmakers, when I was five… I went to college and there I made a short film – the writer was Daniel Schechter the director of Goodbye Baby. So we did that film together in college. I graduated and moved to Connecticut to direct a movie, but the project fell through and I lived there for two years. After that I was kind of bummed out, I thought, “Alright I’ve got to just start from square one.” So I moved to New York and did the whole PA thing. Passing out post cards for other films, working as a boom operator, working as a locations manager… really learning the world of indie film in as many different positions as possible.

Did you find that experience helpful when you started working on your first film?

Yeah… It’s funny because when I came out of college I was so arrogant for some reason. I just had this airs of, “Oh, I’m the best,” blah blah blah. Maybe it was because I won these awards and I thought I’d go direct my first feature right out of college. Then I had this humbling experience for two years. I had always said, “I don’t need to be a PA. I don’t want to PA I’m a Director.” I said that a lot and then once I had that experience I thought, “I need to PA.” I need to do these things because these are the people that really put in the work. So once I really learned the dynamics of the crew and the amount of the work and effort that goes into making a film I think that was such a benefit to me.

You mentioned this film was written out a couple of years ago... What inspired you to write the film?

The idea for the film actually came from multiple things. It started in 2006 when I went on a camping trip with all these kids from the inner city. It wasn’t structured like help out little kids from the inner city. It was more like these thug kids from the inner city. My friend was friends with them and they would say, “These are my soldiers,” and they’d have these kids come up who would set up tents for them and they would roll blunts all day and smoke weed. It was the first time I was really able to talk to these kids. I really found out a lot about them, so I decided I wanted to make a movie about this – just an inner city movie. Then I moved to Brooklyn. I worked for a while and then eventually I started to go out and really try to research the film. I’d go to the projects. I’d go at night. I’d get really drunk sometimes. I’d walk around. I’d say, “What’s going on?” Eventually people said, “Get the fuck out of here!” At one point they pulled a gun on me and put it in my face and said, “You better get the fuck out of here!” Then the guy robbed me. I called the police, they came and they arrested the guy. Then I had to do all this grand jury stuff… It was crazy!

So you were getting in deep! You were walking around in all these places you shouldn’t have been!

Yeah, I was really trying to research! It was funny too because the night that I got the gun pulled on me was the day my girlfriend moved out. So there was this whole relationship dynamic. I was thinking about all that and there were all these things going through my head. Then the next day, after I woke up kind of hung over I thought, “What the hell just happened?” I started to think, “I’m living in this world that I’m trying to document. Maybe if I put myself as a filmmaker going through this process – going through these stories.” That’s how that idea came to me.

Then I saw how the cops handled the criminals and how it was very unjust actually – they arrested the wrong guys and they didn’t even give me a chance to identify them. I said, “Can I please look at these guys to make sure it’s them?” and they just showed me the gun and said, “Is this the gun?” So when it came time to testify, I wouldn’t do it because I couldn’t make a positive ID. But they just said, “It’s fine, it is fine. These guys are bad guys. Take them off the street.” So that’s when I started thinking about the cops…

Did you ever go back to the projects to continue your research?

Well, right after that happened… Dan called me that next day and said he just got money to do Goodbye Baby. I hadn’t spoken to him for a long time because we had a bit of a falling out but he said, “Hey, we’re going to make this movie. I want to come and hang out with you.” So I decided to work on the film and focused a lot of energy working as location manager on his film and that’s where I met Tim Duff.

So after that was wrapped… we started a writing club with me, Dan, Tim… Each week we had to do ten pages and if you didn’t get your ten pages you had to pay fifty bucks. So then I started to tell them, “I already did 30 pages,” even though I hadn’t done anything. Then I’d run home and say, “Shit I’ve got to do 30 pages!” So then I’d do it a night or two and hand it in the next day and they would say, “Wow you’re really burning through this thing!” and I would say, “Yeah no problem, no problem,” even though I never slept! So I finished the first draft in maybe a little over a month.

Did you have any reservations about making a faux documentary?

I definitely did. I was always on the fence about it, but once I committed to the idea I said, “I have to live with this… this is what I’m doing.” One main reason I did the faux documentary was because I knew we could keep it under a certain budget and we could get financing. And because of the crew experience I had acquired, I said, “Ok we can get these locations, we can get this person,” and pulling favors from crew members… My first AD is a best friend of mine from high school, so he came on. Everyone on the crew was good on other positions, like lower positions on bigger films that I had worked on. So we hired them for the higher positions and we didn’t have to pay as much. So we really kept the budget down. But I think that just because it was that faux doc style, that’s why I was able to get the funding. I also had a business plan before I really started to write.

So it kept your costs low and made it easier to pull the money together?

Yeah, it was easy to pull the money together. That was one of the reasons why I wanted to do it because I really wanted to make a feature and I wanted to see how I could do it… but then when I started to think about it in the faux doc style… It’s a critique on media. I use that as one of my main themes – the way media covers things. How the kids watch this violent video and they’re disgusted but when they see the turtle, they’re laughing at it. It’s how people watch others…It’s a really common theme but I wanted to do my take on it.

It was interesting how you changed the look of the footage when officer Mora and officer Masterson were receiving an award on TV…

I was so nervous about that because it wasn’t in 16:9. We shot it in a different format, so it had these weird bars on the side. It wasn’t until last week (a week before the festival) when we did color correction that they were punched in and I got a sound designer to make it seem like a TV, because before I thought it looked like crap. Finally last week I thought, “Oh thank god that worked out!” I didn’t want to put TV graphics on it because I think that looks hokey a lot of times when I’ve seen it on other films. Even on big films I’ve never been crazy about the way they do news tickers and stuff.

Since we’re talking about the look of the film, it was interesting that even though the film has a documentary/shaky camera feel, some of the shots sort of “end up” nicely composed – as if by accident.

Well what it was is my director of photography Dan Sharnoff – he was really good. We collaborated quite a bit before we started and we just went over the idea that every time he’s behind the camera as a certain character, he has to embody that character. For example the character of John is much more cinematic, Dana’s footage is more the static… I would actually speak to him after every take almost like I was speaking to an actor. I’d say, “Alright, well right now you’re backing off and you’re feeling kind of nervous at this point…” So speaking to him as if he was one of the actors.

You had a mix of actors and non-actors that did a great job in the film! What was your experience like pulling all of them together? Did you know any of them?

What we did was we looked for a casting director, because I knew it was such an enormous task to do it ourselves. It would be impossible to find this cast ourselves. So we went out and looked for casting directors and Erica Palgon came along, she read the script and said, “I love it. I really want to do it!” She just put in the hours. She worked night and day and got the cast. I was in there doing the audition sessions, but she was the one putting it all together.

The cast’s performances felt really believable too. Was there something you did to help them get in character?

Yeah. It is funny because the cast… everyone was so different. Matt Servitto has years of experience and he brings a totally different style of acting then Michael Stahl-David and he’ll bring a different style then Jaime, so it’s really trying to figure out how to mesh those and make this believable within this world. So what I would do was, the script was completely written but I would take each scene and I’d say, “You guys go and rewrite it and figure it out as a dialogue. You can cut the fat and whatever, but these are the points you have to hit.” Then I would film it… and let them improv. We were shooting video so I could just let it go. I wanted to let it go and get these candid moments where even they didn’t know when we were filming sometimes. What happened was finding it in editing, just like you would do in a real documentary. That really was my goal…. Letting them explore the characters and go deeper.

That seems to have worked well with the kids too…

It was really funny when we would see kids come in to audition for the role of Devon. Most of them were theatre kids and they would get that big smile and I was thinking, “What, is he going to do a show tune next?” It was pretty ridiculous… Then he (Clifford Lee Dickenson) came in and was nervous and shy but I had a good sense about him. My casting director really loved him. Then when we got him on set I’d do improv with him all the time. He would do a lot of improv and I would just say, “What would you say to your brother if he was picking on you like this?” I’d have Jaime (Proctor) do an interview. That interview on the camel is all improvised. So it’s just him answering questions and when I watched the interviews in full, he knew more about the characters than I ever imagined.

Was getting locations like the office, the bar or the jail very difficult?

We had a locations manager that worked on it. We hired Dan Choy Boyar and he had never done it before… but he took all these crazy photos. He called it urban exploration and he goes to all these crazy places. I said, “This kid has not worked on any films, but I think he can do a good job!” He was crazy but he just got all these crazy places and a lot of last minute things. Some of the stuff we had locked down before, like the filmmaker’s apartment was my friend’s apartment and certain interiors but a lot of the exteriors he went out and found them… there was another guy that worked on it too and they just really hustled to get all that stuff.

So there weren’t any issues getting into that jail?

Well the jail came through the last day. They shot a lot of stuff from the Departed there. It was an actual working facility and we were on the bottom level that was not working. It’s a full jail up in Queens. In the middle of takes they were ushering out huge lines of prisoners who would be yelling at us as the cops put them on the bus… everyone said, “What the hell are we doing here?” We had to go through crazy security… but I think it looked great. We had our art department really dress it up and make it look a lot better. So I think all that stuff really added to it.

What’s the thing that became the biggest challenge in making the film?

Editing. We did our first cut and we’d watch it and then we had to go through the experience of having people sit through the test screening, and then all these arguments with Tim, and Dan Schechter and Adam Der Aris (the editor). After awhile it drained us… So we took a couple weeks off. Going through that process, a lot of it is long hours… editing completely all the way through – going a little crazy – and no one is really there anymore. You’re by yourself a lot of that time. That was the toughest part. Before it was such a collaborative effort and then when you get to the editing, it’s just the director and the editor and you are just sitting there like, “What are we going to do?” You’re just figuring it out, putting the puzzle together. But once it actually happened, we were very happy with what we got. So that was definitely tough.

I know you’ve done shorts before, was the length an issue at all?

No. I know to always cut the fat. I think I learned that from my short because it was sixteen minutes and it should have been twelve. I watch shorts at festivals now and some of them just feel too long. It’s just trying to cut out the fat as much as possible and still being able to tell the story. I always wanted to keep it under ninety minutes. I never wanted to make a movie longer than that for my first film. I didn’t feel I needed that much time to tell the story.

How has your whole festival experience been?

I’ve really enjoyed being at Slamdance. Having the opportunity to show the film and be here with Goodbye Baby and also with The Project. Just having that experience with my friends… I think it’s sort of surreal. Then once I got here it’s tiring just to go up and down the street and to try and get the press. We got here on the 16th or 17th and people were just going crazy with the postcards, hanging up stuff and saying, “Come to my movie!” Now no one’s on the street. I think people get exhausted or they have to go back to work or whatever. Yeah, we’re here for the long haul and I can definitely see a lot of people sleeping on my couch in the condo today. (Laughs)

Yeah that altitude can get to you a little bit!

Yes and the alcohol as well! (Laughs)

Are there any thoughts or advice you’d like to share with other new filmmakers out there?

I would say once you get your idea definitely stick to it. I’ve seen a lot people start scripts and not finish them and think, “I don’t want to do that anymore.” But really try to flush it out in your head and believe that this is what you want to do. And make sure you’re going to see it through because this could take four years, maybe more. I was fortunate that it took less than a year, from writing to the actual thing. But conceptually, just always be thinking of the idea. Once it starts to become an obsession I think that’s when you realize, “Ok, I’ve got to write this!” I think for other filmmakers too, work on as many films as possible, meet as many other filmmakers as possible because this is not a one-man show. It’s really a collaboration with all the artists, the actors, the cinematographers, the art people, the producers – everybody has a major part in your film, even craft services. If the craft service is bad people on your film are going to be mad. So always be friendly and understand that your crew, your cast and all the people that are working with you are the most important.