The Secret Ingredient

The Secret Ingredient

An Interview with Director Rashi Bahri Chitnis and Writer Joe Palladino

By Matt Kettmann

Thursday, February 2, 2012

The Secret Ingredient is a 20-minute film about a young filmmaker, his grandmother, and his uncle, who have all come together to make a special dinner so that the grandson can get it on tape. It’s a touching portrait of family ties, memories of the old days, and recipes on how to make life a bit tastier.

Director Rashi Bahri Chitnis and writer Joe Palladino answered a few questions this week over email.

How did this story come about?

Rashi: Joe and I were talking about making a short with local talent on a shoestring budget. We wanted to do a meaningful film in one location with a limited cast. Joe had a idea about family recipes and the moment I heard it, I said let’s do it. The original idea was a comedy and it took us many re-writes to find the story as it stands today in the film.

Joe: And the script gave us a chance to use some of the people from The Santa Barbara Table group to launch a production. We meet every week and there is great talent in this town.

Is it reflective of someone’s background? It seems very personal in content and tone.

Rashi: Not in the direct way but it is surely inspired by our cultures. Joe is Irish/Italian and I am Indian so food and family is a huge element is our personal lives. Both he and I can keep talking about the stories that happen in our families over food and I think that can be seen in this film too.

Joe: Some of the details and of course the names are loosely taken from my mother’s side of the family. I always loved their names and on another level — they all died at fairly young ages around 63 or so. When the actors asked about the “piles of dead bodies” in the script I had to tell them it was what I had seen even if it wasn’t the norm and it helped shape who Nanna and Mickey are.

How did you do the casting?

Rashi: Joe has been friends with Meredith McMinn and he approached her. When she and I met over coffee, we immediately connected. She had earlier some reservations about the age of her character, which was much older than it stands today in the film, so we re-wrote that which made her very comfortable and involved in the story building process. She then referred Bob Lesser. Meeting him was enough. He was immensely insightful of the character that I couldn’t wait to see both of them in their first rehearsal. Christopher is a young student from the Drama school at UCSB so he was referred by Irwin Appel.

When all of them were brought together for their first reading, it was a perfect family put together! I did many rehearsals with them and I loved it all.

Joe: For the roles of Nanna and Mickey, Meredith (Mc Minn) and Bob (Lesser) were our first choices. I have know them both for many years and was surprised to find out they had never acted together before. We sent them an early version of the script realizing the roles were written for a much older actors and they came on board with suggestions on how to bring the dialog more in step with their life experiences and their voices. Chris was a great discovery that came from a recommendation from Irwin Appel. Chris had just played Claudio in Measure for Measure out at UCSB. When we got the three of them together it was amazing how much they looked like a family. We had a few weeks with the actors in rehearsal which allowed us to adapt to their chemistry. We couldn’t have been happier.

And as a side note I think our location became a character on its own. Perry and Sage Lang’s house was this perfect stage to set our little family in. And it gave me huge kitchen envy.

It seems like their might be two secret ingredients here: a pinch of salt at the right time, and the notion of family. Was that the point?

Rashi: A pinch of salt at the right time is reflective of life. Things that come to you at the right time become meaningful and we can relish them for our entire lives. Too early and it spoils the flavor and too late and it has so meaning. And, what would one be without his or her family, irrespective of it’s taste!

Joe: Exactly, I think that the habits and traditions we form about food grow out of who we are. We find comfort in some meals and places and just naturally gravitate to them at critical points in our lives. That’s why there is and end note in the film calling out La Super Rica. It’s always been a place of comfort for me and my family. In many ways the family dinner is probably the most universal although most varied ritual we all still share — even if it is front of the TV or bringing out the fancy china. The secret in the film is the little touches that keep meal, the family, the rituals alive. So salt just that little bit at the end that little bit extra grows out of years of unrealized habits.

I thought the score was fitting. How did you select those songs?

Rashi: It was all Joe. He had the music in his head from day one!

Joe: I had a few of these written into the script as a way of thinking about the tone of the scenes. Once Bob came on to the project he and I talked about the kind of things he listened to growing up and I created a CD for “Mickey” out that style. From it, those three songs rose to the top.

The Secret Ingredient screens as part of Santa Barbara Shorts Program 2 on Thursday, February 2, 2 p.m. at the Lobero Theatre and again on Friday, February 3, 10:40 a.m. at the Metro 4.

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.

On the home planet spring is a verb and it is the way the season confronts its inhabitants. Anytime of unchecked growth means that the new will do its best to bury the old. Rebirth is just a coy metaphor for the struggle to maintain in the face of the onslaught of change or hungry youth. But now glorious summer has raised its harsh rays and those still standing have a moment in the sun.

I will not attempt to apologize for my respite, I will just serve as a clamoring horn to announce that I have returned. I have sorted through the misguided missives in my mailbag and I shall reply to the posted waste in post haste.

If I have learned anything through the glances cast askance at them is that there is reality and there is perception and most of the problems to be dealt with are reflections of those who cannot look upon reality without the skew of their perceptions. In most cases the problems fall in two camps either those that look at a series of unfortunate events and derive some sort of pattern from them or those that look upon patterns but cannot see them.

We will talk of both in the days to come.

Yours,

Ahbnahr

Dear Abhnahr,
A good friend of mine has decided not to tell his new girlfriend that he and I used to date because he thinks it’ll make her unnecessarily uncomfortable around me. I see his point, but the little lies this requires hurt my feelings, as does the fact that (apparently) I can be so easily written out of his history. It’s not like it’s a huge deal - we didn’t last very long and it was clear it was not going anywhere from the beginning - but it’s the principle. Am I being crazy?
Anonymous

Dear Crazy,

The pro-creator of history is the monument of language. Actual occurrences do not have the same power as the reiteration of of the retold tale. Those that cry loudest longest will mark the scrimmage either victory or a massacre. You have in you the power to tell a tale that fits just as conveniently as your ex-mates. He has chosen to tell his tale in silence so that none will ever suspect that perhaps giants roamed the bedsheets. You on the other hand have the power of the hidden history that can be brought up in conspiratorial corners and used to your advantage when needed. But all tales must be kept alive in some way to maintain their power. I suggest the occasional slight confusing but confessional toast at the social event that will remind your past suitor that you have cards yet played. Power can be yours to use as you will.

Yours,

Ahbnahr