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Zoje, tell us about your background in filmmaking and screenwriting.
I am primarily a self-taught writer and filmmaker - although I did take a screenwriting class and a couple of Super-8 filmmaking classes at Pittsburgh Filmmakers in the late 80's. I knew as a teenager that I wanted to be a filmmaker - it was an art form that seemed to encompass all of my creative interests. However, my path has been very circuitous, which has allowed me to pick up a diverse set of skills along the way. I've been a very disciplined writer for a long time, and my method and style has evolved in a very intuitive way. Also, I have a deep background in theatre. Theatre was accessible in a way that filmmaking opportunities often weren't (especially before digital video became ubiquitous) - so via theatre I had the chance to work in a collaborative environment, get my writing up on its feet, and experience the art of "live production" both behind the scenes and on stage. (The one area where I am trained is as an actor.) All of these things have contributed to my ability to be an effective storyteller as a filmmaker. Once I got my own DV equipment I had a chance to experiment and refine my skills, and learning to edit was a vital step in understanding the complete process of filmmaking = preproduction (writing), production (directing), post-production (editing).
What's it like trying to attach creatives to a script in production?
I am glad this is not my main responsibility! But seriously, this is where an experienced producer can make a big difference. I'm in the process of getting my award-winning script "The Machine Who Loved" into production, and after more than a year of false starts former-Rochesterian Richard Bosner has come on board as producer. Rick lives and works in California and is very experienced . I've said for a long time that the key person on any set is the Production Manager, because that's the person who knows everything about the logistics of getting a film made, and that's Rick's background - and in the last two years he's produced two other feature films. He has developed relationships with people in many different areas of the business and we're drawing on his contacts to attract our initial key people. A project like this builds incrementally, and given the enthusiasm that people have shown for the script we anticipate being able to put together a great, professional crew and cast. Getting people attached, especially to a low-budget film, is a matter of having a project that people get excited about and believe in - and this script has dynamic roles for actors so, in addition to Rick's contacts, we know we'll be able to attract great talent.
What's your take on the filmmaking community here in Rochester?
On the one hand it seems obvious that Rochester has a very active indie filmmaking community, since it is the home of Eastman Kodak. But on the other hand, when non-artists ask me what the filmmaking community here is like they seem shocked when I say that it is thriving - so obviously there is not great awareness about what's going on. Not to kiss your ass or anything, but I think to have a blog like this affiliated with the Little Theatre is a great idea, because the people here who love and support independent film might not be aware that there are a ton of filmmakers here, dashing around with their cameras, cooped up in their rooms editing, and screening their stuff around the country - and locally at Emerging Filmmakers and other fests. To a lot of people, a "film" is a multi-million dollar extravaganza - but long before any filmmaker is allowed to helm something with that big of a budget, she makes what she can with almost no money, honing her skills until she gets a bigger opportunity. There are a lot of people here working toward that bigger opportunity.
What is it like having a screenplay staged compared to what it would be like watching a film?
After winning the 2009 Screenplay Live! screenwriting competition, I had the opportunity to direct my script "The Machine Who Loved" as a staged reading for the High Falls Films Festival (now the 360/365 George Eastman House Film Festival). The short answer to your question is a staged reading bears absolutely no resemblance to a film. I was well aware of this while I was directing the reading, and my singular goal was to keep the audience engaged: in a film, you are surrounded by dynamic moving images; at a reading, you see actors sitting on a stage, reading from a script for ninety minutes. And all the descriptive stuff - what should be imagery - is read aloud by a narrator. It's a pretty boring proposition. As part of my work with the actors I continually found myself explaining how their intention might be rendered on film in one simple close-up, whereas on the stage you need to create something broader that a live audience can see, while still trying to maintain realism and naturalism. It was a really great experience getting the script on its feet, and the audience enjoyed it - it's a chance for them to appreciate a movie's unheralded origins: the screenplay. But ultimately, a screenplay fulfills its purpose only when it becomes a film.
What's the most difficult part of being an indie filmmaker? The most rewarding?
Many years ago I spent a couple of months in Los Angeles and when people found out I wanted to be an independent filmmaker they looked at me with pity and asked "Why?" Their idea of success in filmmaking had everything to do with money and power. My only vision for success is as an independent filmmaker, because at heart I am a person who thinks too much, dreams too much, feels too much, and likes to make stuff. I think it's fine that there's an avenue of cinema that's just about entertainment, but the body of work I hope to make has more to say.
At some level, the difference between a studio film and an independent film begins to blur, because the films are seeking the same exposure and distribution opportunities. Let's face it, whether you make a feature for $1 million or $100 million, your goal is for people to see it. Things get difficult for someone shopping around an indie project when their work is perceived as being not commercial enough - for whatever reasons. The real challenge is to get the exposure opportunities, because I fervently believe that humans are moved by things in a similar way - whether they are laughing, crying, hiding in fright, or cheering on a protagonist. I think smaller budget films tend to actually be better at connecting human beings with other human beings, precisely because there are fewer whistles-and-bells. But in a world where big studio films can make $200 million dollars, people don't appreciate that the profit margin for a smaller film can be just as great. So in part, being an independent filmmaker is a battle of perceptions. I think the ultimate reward is being able to say "I did it my way" - because of course artistically, I'm not functioning as part of a corporate committee.
Oct. 26, 2009
New York Foundation for the Arts (New York, NY)
Meet a NYFA Artist: Zoje Stage, 2008 Playwrighting/Screenwriting Fellow
Hi Zoje, what are you working on at the moment?
My main push for the last year has been to get my feature script "The Machine Who Loved" into production. I've been gradually attracting people to the project, and my co-producer and I hope to shoot it in western New York in spring/summer 2010 on a budget of about $2m. The story is about a woman who is forced into early retirement, who consoles herself by purchasing an artificial life form tailored to her every specification. The science fiction elements are completely secondary: it is really a chance to examine how men and woman communicate (and miscommunicate), and how we define humanity - all through the device of having a character who is not "natural born."
It has been my goal since I was 18 to make thought-provoking yet entertaining art films that could compete on an international level. I'm now 40, and "The Machine Who Loved" will mark my debut as a professional writer/director, so this is really my burning passion. It's been a circuitous path, but everything I've done has been leading to this. I'm also still creating new feature-length scripts, because, in spite of also being a serious writer in other areas (like poetry) I really love the screenplay format. I'm also getting into spreading my little digital films around, via YouTube, etc. - it's instant sharing in a way that the major filmmaking process is not.
What were some of your early artistic influences?
I am very fortunate in that I grew up in a family that did not relegate children to the stultifying world of children's entertainment. The first film I remember seeing was "The Day the Earth Stood Still" - I couldn't have been older than four. As a child in Pittsburgh there was still a grand Cinemascope theatre, where I saw huge sci-fi films like "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." As a teenager I was captivated by Scandinavian films like "The Emigrants" and "Pelle the Conqueror." So, my cinematic influences are rooted both in fantasy and hard-knock reality.
Do you notice any recurring themes in your work?
I've always been attracted to the idea of redemption - of the possibility for a terribly flawed character to reach a better place. I don't think I could ever write a true tragedy. This isn't to say I create rosy endings - self-realization is often incremental.
What place or location have you gained inspiration from?
I always like to have my desk in front of a window. I have seen extraordinary things happen in the parking lot.
What did your family think of your decision to be an artist? What does your family think of your work?
I think my parents are somewhat confused about my profession and my work. We live in a world where most people have either time or money - rarely both. I have chosen time as the infinitely more valuable of the two. I am alive when I am creating. Someday, I hope to own a couch. Until then, my sister is endlessly supportive of me and my work... and, unlike other family members, she has never asked why I haven't written a "summer blockbuster."
What is your favorite thing that anyone has said or written about your work?
When I was 17 I took a college writing class (one of the only college classes I have ever taken). The instructor, a professional writer, commented on an essay that I had "sensibilities that are entirely your own". I got an A+ on the paper, and in the class. In reality, my "sensibilities" have butted heads with the greater, money-driven world - but it meant a lot that this teacher saw something in me.
How do you feel about the industry in which your work operates? Anything you would you change?
My work operates in an industry that exists in a world in which women have never been truly valued. The great (and small) contributions of women throughout history have been erased from the collective conscience. What would a building look like, how would a government be run, how would we tell a story if the history of humanity had evolved with true gender equality?
How has the Fellowship affected you?
It gave me validation at a point in my efforts when I really needed it. Long-term rejection is hard core. I have been incredibly focused since winning the Fellowship. I have made concrete decisions about who I am as an artist and what I want to achieve.
November 12, 2008
Rochester City Newspaper (Rochester, NY)
Best of Rochester 2008 - Critics' Choices
Best Hollywood Hopeful: Zoje Stage
Rochester has been home to some pretty famous people: Garth Fagan, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Teddy Geiger, Taye Diggs. And soon, we'll be able to add one more name to our proud list: Zoje Stage. While not yet a household name, the local filmmaker recently won the prestigious New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship for screenwriting, placing her in the ranks of previous winners like Spike Lee, Mira Nair, Todd Haynes, and Julie Taymor. Many NYFA Fellows have gone on to win Tonys, Oscars, Pulitzers, and MacArthur Fellowships.
Stage is currently trying to secure funding for her award-winning script, "The Machine Who Loved," which she also plans to direct. The story defies categorization: it's part science fiction, part romance, and part drama. It's artsy and accessible at the same time. It combines familiar story arcs, yet it's like nothing you've ever read. So keep your eyes open because it's a project that has a very high chance of lifting off - and soon. It's already been compared to the work of Ingmar Bergman by someone in the biz, and Stage is in the process of attracting Viggo Mortensen for one of the leads.
So, Rochester, next time you brag about how your city often fosters some of Tinseltown's biggest talents, throw out the name Zoje Stage. Once she makes it big, you can pretend you knew her when. - BY SUSIE HUME
March 8, 2007
Pittsburgh City Paper (Pittsburgh, PA)
Movie Reviews and Features
A mockumentary about a famous artist and the children he left behind highlights the next Film Kitchen.
With the right inspiration, it's true: A script really can almost write itself.
So Zoje Stage learned while watching the documentary Bukowski: Born Into This shortly after viewing another portrait of "an asshole genius": Tell Them Who You Are, Mark Wexler's film about his relationship with his father, famed cinematographer Haskell Wexler.
In Tell Them, Stage recalls, Wexler asks his son, "Are you going to stand there and shoot it? I thought you wanted to make a good documentary."
"Oh, my god, you could not do this in a fiction film," Stage thought.
But later, she did. Stage's mockumentary Happy Walter premieres at the March 13 installment of the Film Kitchen screening series (a CP-sponsored event). The Rochester, N.Y.-based artist herself plays Happy Walter IV, one of 13 children of a famous and goofily smug artist who made his name with ephemeral sculptures no one was permitted to document, most of them constructed of toilet paper.
The satiric indie feature, shot on video, is both a bio of the dubiously talented Happy Walter and the story of Walter IV's struggle to know the father who failed to raise any of his children, despite naming them all after himself.
Walter is portrayed by a friend of Stage's named Hal Weaver, an artist and graphic designer who lives in Virginia Beach, Va. His Walter -- the son of a Pittsburgh steelworker -- is a goateed, greasy-haired, earringed guy in a T-shirt reading "Half Man, Half Horse."
Most of Stage's actors are untrained -- resulting, for instance, in possible audience uncertainty over whether Weaver is a good if unpolished actor who knows Happy Walter doesn't believe his own bullshit, or simply someone who doesn't buy it himself, and who eventually starts channeling Dennis Hopper. But Stage's witty writing compensates for any confusion.
Indeed, by movie's end Stage has even convincingly introduced a few notes of sadness into the story. Other key characters include Happy Walter's eccentric former assistant and the embittered ex-wife who is Happy Walter, Jr.'s mother.
Stage shot Happy Walter in both her hometown, Pittsburgh, and Rochester, where she's lived since 2004. "Why do I keep doing things based on Pittsburgh?" she asks rhetorically. "I don't even know." - BY BILL O'DRISCOLL
February 19, 2006
The New York Times
Sunday Arts & Leisure / Directions
Don't Call. We Won't Either: On the taxonomy of the brushoff.
Zoje Stage submitted her writing - screenplays, fiction and plays - to studios, publishers and others nearly 1,000 times between 1993 and 2003, but she never once hit the jackpot. Undeterred, Ms. Stage, 37, saved every rejection letter and turned them into a 25-minute documentary, "Best of Luck," in which the camera pans across hundreds of the missives, rapid-fire, while she reads from them. It's an amusing take on the travails of aspiring writers, but in an unhappy twist the documentary itself was rejected by six film festivals. Ms. Stage persevered, however, tasting success with a screening in a Pittsburgh forum for local filmmakers (she has since moved to Rochester) and another on Wednesday in New York as part of the Anthology Film Archives' NewFilmmakers series. Savoring a rare breakthrough, she offered a lesson on the taxonomy of a brushoff.
A) "Production companies say they'll only look at material that's represented by an agent," Ms. Stage said. "The Catch-22 is that agents like this one [article includes graphic] won't look at material that's unsolicited." Kevin Dezain, a publicist at William Morris, confirmed that. His advice to writers is to approach smaller agencies.
B) The paper rejection letters are a relic. Today, queries and responses are largely consigned to email.
C) This screenplay, about a young woman starting a job in a haunted office building, was never sold.
D) Ms. Stage said: "Once upon a time they assumed that the people pursuing scriptwriting were only men. I have not been referred to as Mr. Stage in years, though it used to happen all the time."
E) Like sending this letter by certified mail, this language may have been prompted by the legal department, Ms. Stage said. "They really want me to walk away thinking that no one looked at this, so that if one of their clients makes a million down the line, I can't claim they stole my idea."
F) She estimates that "best of luck" appears in 60 percent of her rejections, hence the film title. Now that she has a production company she has turned down aspiring filmmakers: "I just cringe at all of my closing lines - sometimes I do say something frighteningly similar." - BY ANDREW ADAM NEWMAN
February 19, 2006
New York Post (New York, NY)
Cine File
Zoje Stage is a struggling writer and filmmaker in Rochester, NY, who reckons that over a 10-year period she's received nearly 1,000 rejections. Not to let all that work go to waste, she's made the movie "Best of Luck" (2003), which features sound bites from many of the rejection letters. On Wednesday, "Best of Luck" and an autobiographical feature "Bewilderness" (2002), in which the multi-tattooed woman stars under the name Zenovia, will screen at Anthology Film Archives (Second Avenue and Second Street) as part of the weekly NewFilmmakers series. Program kicks off at 6 p.m.; newfilmmakers.com - BY V.A. MUSETTO
January 5, 2006
Pittsburgh City Paper (Pittsburgh, PA)
Film Reviews
Zoje Stage likes planning things. "I am a very very organized person by nature," says the writer and moviemaker. But she realizes planning isn't the only way, especially when it comes to art. Inspired by Dogma 95, Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier's credo of no-frills cinema, Stage conceived of a story idea one day and shot it, scriptless, the next. She gave her actresses a premise -- one's dealing with a death in the family, one with divorce, and both are on the road -- and shot their improvised encounter on the fly.
The Pittsburgh native, who moved to Rochester, N.Y., in 2004, did the rest in the editing room. "I wanted a sense of more of their quiet space and their not knowing each other very well," says Stage. "Mt. Hope," whose creation Stage likens to "writing with images," was also influenced by Elephant and Last Days, recent Gus Van Sant films with an improvised quality and ambiguous meanings. "The audience has to participate in those kinds of movies," she says. "I really like how reality can be explored in that way."
Conversely, planning can be fun, too. Stage's short, creepy drama "Against Her Skin" required her longest pre-production ever. It was shot in Pittsburgh, at the shadowy old Point Breeze home of friends she stays with when she visits. "I really wanted to make a film that had a mood to it," says Stage. "That house begged to have some kind of haunted-house story." - BY BILL O'DRISCOLL
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