'And the Wind Falls's is a short film by He Shuming that was nominated for Best Cinematography in the recent Singapore Short Film Awards. But really, this film deserved awards in other categories as well, including script and performance. We catch up with He Shuming on the making of this short film.
Synopsis
Millie, a housekeeper in a
small-town motel, spends thankless days cleaning up after others as she dreams
of overcoming her past and regaining custody of her estranged daughter. When
Millie discovers a large sum of money in one of the motel rooms, her apparent
good fortune forces her to question the true meaning of redemption.
And The Wind Falls - OFFICIAL TRAILER #2 from And The Wind Falls on Vimeo.
And The Wind Falls - OFFICIAL TRAILER #2 from And The Wind Falls on Vimeo.
To find out more about 'And the Wind Falls', please check out the following links:
Instagram: www.instagram.com/andthewindfalls
Your film presented a very interesting study of social
demographics in the US. What inspired the story?
I had a conversation with
a friend about finding yourself in a situation where you’re caught in a
victimless crime and trying to get around it. What are the moral implications,
what would one do, etc. Also, I had to start writing a script for my thesis but
I was going nowhere. All I knew was I wanted to make a film fronted by a female
protagonist.
One weekend, I drove to
Joshua Tree, trying to write and had some time to myself. The housekeeper at
the motel was the only person I chatted with, and we talked briefly about our
lives, about what we do for a living and about our families. She’s around my
age, a first generation Mexican-American who grew up in in Los Angeles. I would
say all these little details formed a basis in my head to make this film, and
it sort of evolved from there.
There’s a lot of talk of
late, about having more diversity in film and television. Being a non-white
filmmaker residing in the States, I tend to lean towards creating lead
characters that present a more normal representation of who we see on screen.
Are housekeepers are a treasure trove of stories? How
close to reality is your story in the film?
Oh yes, they certainly
are. There’re all sorts of people going in and out of motels, and housekeepers clean
up after them. Housekeepers always seem invisible but they have such
interesting observations. I find that the one person that no one really thinks
about is often the center of the
universe.
The story in the film is
completely fictional, and developed over the course of a year before we started
pre-production.
What was the casting process like? How did you find
your actors?
We worked with our casting
director, Jennifer Ricchiazzi for this film. When we met for the first time
before hiring her, we talked about the script and the actors we were looking
at; we had a dream list of actors that we think are suited for the roles,
basically actors I imagined to be the characters when I wrote the script and
Jennifer went out and short list actors for the auditions.
The casting process took
about over slightly a month. We had callbacks for actors we liked and they did
scenes together. Actors who came to read for the lead role of the housekeeper
had to do chemistry reads with actors who were called back to play her daughter
and mother-in-law. We went straight into rehearsal about 2 weeks before
shooting. It was the shortest amount of time I had working with actors before
shooting.
How did you work with your actors? Especially in your
position as a foreigner directing a film rooted in localised issues.
Because of the short
amount of time we had before the final cast were attached to the film, I
workshopped in class with actors I had worked previously. I’ve learned so much
from these actors, who were so giving and intelligent. The sessions were
intense, but it helped with rewrites and allowed me to think of what I needed
to talk about during actual rehearsals, which we didn’t have a lot of.
We had our first table
read after our main cast were locked and had a discussion about the story and
the characters. Leana Chavez, who played Millie, was such a giving and
dedicated actor. We spent plenty of time talking during our rehearsal sessions,
sharing experiences that they’ve heard, what would you do if you were the
character, etc. I’ve learned so much from all my actors on this film and I
think it’s important to look at the roots of what these characters are going
through as human beings and realizing how universal the experiences can be.
Is this your first short film made in the US? How
different is it making a film in the US as compared to Singapore?
This is my fourth short
film made here. With And The Wind Falls,
I felt like we had an army of people working together, like a well-oiled
machine. There are definitely more rules designed to protect everyone working
on a production. It’s just the way the industry is set up over decades of
filmmaking, especially in Los Angeles. The permits, union rules, labour laws,
etc. It’s very admirable, to be honest.
Also, this is the first
time I budgeted reshoots for a film! We did pick up shots, added scenes and
reshot an entire scene over the course of 2 days. It was such a luxury.
But other than that, I
think the fascinating thing about filmmaking is wherever you shoot, cinema is
our common language.
What were the greatest challenges you faced in making
this film?
Before coming here, I was
used to a certain kind of storytelling. Maybe it’s the sensibilities in cinema
that I was accustomed to. I was used to taking my time with a scene, not
wanting to rush anything and being a little too passive with my characters. I
think with this film I wanted to be less passive, and I don’t know if I’ve
succeeded completely.
Writing the script was a
challenge, too. From the very first drafts, we had to decide if she was going
to return the money or keep it for herself. Whatever she chose to do in the end
poses all sorts of questions about why she did it in the first place, so it was
really digging deep into the truth about her motivation and realizing there
really isn’t a right or wrong answer, but I still need to decide her course of
action and justify it.
We had a test audience
when we had our first director’s cut, which helped us decide what made sense
and what didn’t. It helped because we were so involved through the course of
development and production that sometimes we lose track of whether the film
told the story we really wanted to tell. And sitting through the honest
critiques from a theatre of test audience can be one of the most gut-wrenching experiences
a filmmaker can have. But it helped because their notes confirmed what we
needed to work on for the reshoot and in our edit.
All the hell we go through
as filmmakers only helped to serve the film.