From Our Table to Yours
Reprinted by permission of Presley Pahl
FROM TABLE TO TABLE
Presley Pahl, film enthusiast and weekly blogger of everything cinema related, recently got the chance to sit down to talk to the creators of The Secret Ingredient, a new short film that is to be premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival this month. Rashi Bahri Chitnis, the director, and Joe Palladino, the writer, were kind enough to tell me all about this film’s journey from the page to the big screen.
1. What were your personal motivations for making this film? Describe the influence of the Santa Barbara Roundtable.
Joe Palladino: There is a local film network group in Santa Barbara called The Table that grew out of the Hampton’s Roundtable in that started 17 years ago in Hollywood. There, Marc and Elaine Zicree have been holding weekly meetings bringing together great groups of people who share an interest in film and media production. There are beginners and well-established professionals.
We hold weekly meetings to help foster production in town. There is a great mix of beginning film makers to Emmy award winners. We have some members who are starting to work on their first documentary, and we have a member who has written hundreds of hours of produced TV shows, novels, and scripts. We are there to help each other take the next step, for getting things done – from small budget, to no budget, to big dreams. We have moved a few times in the last year but we meet now every Wednesday night at 6:30 at Max’s on State Street. Great pizza Herietta!
The group had been itching to start a production together, so Rashi and I started to look at a short, low budget, character-driven piece to bring to the screen. Food has always been an important part of my family. Both the Irish and Italian sides of my family always meant that there was a busy group of friends and family invited over each week to eat. All of us kids became great cooks on our own. The prospect of looking at family and trying to define a family by its food always interested me. We have these traditions of how we eat; Is it in front of the TV or at the table? Is it an elaborate meal, or simple things that grow out of your own backyard? Every one of my siblings has put their own take on the foods we grew up on, so the idea grew out of that sort of kernel.
Rashi Chitnis: I have a two-year-old son, and it becomes a stretch to drive to Los Angeles for film and television projects. I have wanted to make meaningful cinema with talented artists in Santa Barbara. Much to my delight, a chapter of Santa Barbara Roundtable was started here and through friendships formed there, our film got all the support it needed from writing to production to the big screen.
2. Rashi, how did your past experiences shape the way you directed this film?
RC: I have directed a lot of theatre, television and film in two countries: India and the US. The Secret Ingredient has a cast of three actors, Meredith McMinn, Bob Lesser and Christopher Costanzo, who are all renowned theatre actors. They loved workshops and rehearsals, and having done theatre myself, I thrived as a director in that setting. We also had an ambitious shooting schedule, in which the whole film was shot in two days. And, no matter what the challenges of production presented, the in-depth time spent during rehearsals got me some amazing performances by the extremely talented cast.
3. Joe, describe the script-writing process.
JP: The story oddly started as a short comic bit. The original end twist really split the readers - some loved it, some hated it. It has undergone serious transformation since then to say the least! The character of Uncle Mickey didn’t even appear until the fourth draft. He was just a walk on, and now he is so central to the whole idea of Nanna being able to let go. Writing for Rashi was really helpful in trying to figure out how to write for my audience, because if she didn’t buy it, I knew the audience wouldn’t.
4. Rashi, as the director, describe your personal experience in transferring this script from the page to the screen?
RC: Joe and I worked for two to three months on the script and did about seven or eight drafts. It changed from a comedy to a drama and saw every arc possible. Joe is gifted with writing dialogue, and story structure is my forte. So we worked until we created a script that resonated with both of us. We did draft after draft until it found its core in “two generations coming together over food.” Joe and I both come from big families that love food. We couldn’t have asked for a more personal script for our first film together.
4. In what ways was The Secret Ingredient different than other projects you’ve worked on?
RC: This is the first film that I have done after being a mother, so that was a challenge in itself. In India my work was under studios, and in Hollywood I produced for companies. This was my first work as a director and producer for an independent film so it was much harder, but much more rewarding.
5. What setbacks did you face while making the film? Describe the production days - the location, working with the crew. What did you find to be the biggest challenge in the process of bringing this project to fruition?
JP: One of the challenges ended up being one of the benefits. We didn’t have any money so we really had to turn to the community to get people involved. Henri Bristol, the cinematographer, is an amazing still photographer and is always for an opportunity to light for a film. Bob Lesser and Meredith McMinn, the principal actors, have been dear friends for many years, and we were lucky enough to get them to come on board. They were the only people we cast, the only ones we tried out, but when we got them together we realized we had to rewrite some of the dialogue to better fit their personalities. Originally the parts were written for 80-year-olds, and they are both much, much younger.
RC: Like all independent films, we had our challenges in bringing the whole cast and crew together in a location that we liked, and which fit everyone’s schedule. To find the right location seemed one of the hardest things, but thanks to Perry Lang and his family who let us film in their house, we got a location that became another character in itself.
Then, just two weeks before filming, we lost our DP, at which point our line producer, Karla Shelton, approached Henri Bristol about becoming DP. After meeting him and working with him, I couldn’t have asked for a more talented person. He and I immediately connected, saw eye to eye on things, and the result was an amazing picture.
Then, in post-production, I was scheduled to leave for India and we were struggling with finding the right editor. Joe brought in Erika Pearson, a young, talented student from UCSB and even though she came late in the game, she saw our vision and worked tight schedules to give us the final result.
Sometimes, the hardest of things brings the best of results. The Secret Ingredient definitely saw that.
6. Describe the festival entry process. What are your plans for the film beyond SBIFF?
JP: The important thing about the festival process was that it gave us a definite end point to the film. To an extent you always feel you can keep tweaking, changing the score, trying to bring in other sounds, etc., but the festival made us finish at a definite point, and say that was it. We are very happy with the project, the end result.
The great thing about SBIFF is that it has always highlighted local projects from students and other Santa Barbarians. And it is so nice for us to be premiering at the Lobero Theater! It is such a wonderful venue to share The Secret with all of the community, which helped make the film.
It was important to screen it locally first, we are very excited to celebrate it in its hometown. We’ve started the applications for other shorts festivals across the country, and there has been some talk of trying to turn it into a longer stage play.
7. What, to you, is most compelling about this story? What makes it special?
JP: For me it was the interaction of the actors. We were so happy they actually looked like a family, even down to Mickey and Dimmie wearing similar clothes, which was totally unplanned. We didn’t even see it until we screened the film, and suddenly realized, “They dress alike; they walk alike!”
RC: I think this age is different. Today, if you want a recipe, you go to the Internet, search it, find it and make it. It’s that simple. However, the generations before us did not have it this easy. If they wanted anything, they had to sweat it out to learn it. It was harder to attain a desire and therefore also makes it harder for that generation to “let go.” This is my observation of every culture, no matter how different they might be.
The Secret Ingredient is about coming together by letting go. Once we let go, we accept and we re-connect. That is special.
The Secret Ingredient premieres on February 2, 2:00 PM at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara.
