The Text
Channeling what it’s like to be a slacker who works as little as she can — the premise for the latest Columbia-based movie — doesn’t come naturally for the cast and crew of 10 Hours a Week. In fact, they’ve often been toiling in cramped locations for 12 or more hours a day to film a feature-length movie in less than a month.
On a recent day of filming at a Ninth Street home, a cameraman tucked into the kitchen corner adjusts his shot of the
refrigerator, which holds only two six-packs of beer and a jar of pickles. In the hallway, five or six crew members crowd around a screen displaying the shot. A director keeps standing up and sitting down so others can squeeze past her to use the bathroom.
10 Hours a Week is an independent, low-budget film being produced in Columbia and filmed at locations including Shakespeare’s Pizza, Ernie’s Cafe & Steakhouse and the Columbia Public Library.
About 80 percent of the crew lives in Columbia, says Kim Sherman, vice president of film production for Arable Entertainment.
Although most of the cast was brought in from Los Angeles and New York, Sherman, who is also the film’s producer, doesn’t think the production is similar to Hollywood’s style.
“What we’re trying to [do is] make it more of a community effort and more collaborative in that sense,” Sherman says.
Arable was created as an offshoot of Pure Marketing and Media about a year ago. They have done other projects, but 10 Hours a Week is their first feature-length film.
The script paints a portrait of Columbia and the lives of 20-somethings. Especially those who don’t have the ambition to go to college and pursue a professional career, as writer and director Josh Slates describes.
“A lot of the characters in the movie are perfectly happy to be working 10 hours a week, to be enjoying the freedom to have spare time to pursue their artistic pursuits or to spend time with their friends or to discover what life has in store with them,” says Slates, a Columbia native who went to film school at Rochester Institute of Technology.
Slates has worked on crews of major productions such as Ladder 49 and The Wire; however, this is his first time directing a feature-length film.
10 Hours a Week provides a townie perspective of Columbia. (The life of local college students had already been examined in the 2008 film Box Elder.)
The main character in 10 Hours a Week (Kirsten, played by Hari Leigh) sees Columbia “as big city living” because she grew up in New Franklin, Slates says.
“Before we meet Kirsten, she has gotten a DUI, has gotten her car taken away and is $30,000 in debt,” says Leigh, who works in Los Angeles as a stand-up comedian. “And all that aside, she still only takes on 10 hours a week at Shakespeare’s. She’s sort of just coasting.”
Shakespeare’s became the centerpiece of the film because Slates says even though he always plans to go out for the night when he’s in town, he ends up at Shakespeare’s with his friends.
Kurt Mirtsching, Shakespeare’s general manager, says the director and several actors and crew members visited Shakespeare’s frequently. He says the atmosphere at the renowned restaurant is different for everyone. “They’re going to get one of the stories of Shakespeare’s.”
The comedic-yet-sensitive film will debut in 2010 or early 2011.
On a recent day of filming at a Ninth Street home, a cameraman tucked into the kitchen corner adjusts his shot of the
refrigerator, which holds only two six-packs of beer and a jar of pickles. In the hallway, five or six crew members crowd around a screen displaying the shot. A director keeps standing up and sitting down so others can squeeze past her to use the bathroom.
10 Hours a Week is an independent, low-budget film being produced in Columbia and filmed at locations including Shakespeare’s Pizza, Ernie’s Cafe & Steakhouse and the Columbia Public Library.
About 80 percent of the crew lives in Columbia, says Kim Sherman, vice president of film production for Arable Entertainment.
Although most of the cast was brought in from Los Angeles and New York, Sherman, who is also the film’s producer, doesn’t think the production is similar to Hollywood’s style.
“What we’re trying to [do is] make it more of a community effort and more collaborative in that sense,” Sherman says.
Arable was created as an offshoot of Pure Marketing and Media about a year ago. They have done other projects, but 10 Hours a Week is their first feature-length film.
The script paints a portrait of Columbia and the lives of 20-somethings. Especially those who don’t have the ambition to go to college and pursue a professional career, as writer and director Josh Slates describes.
“A lot of the characters in the movie are perfectly happy to be working 10 hours a week, to be enjoying the freedom to have spare time to pursue their artistic pursuits or to spend time with their friends or to discover what life has in store with them,” says Slates, a Columbia native who went to film school at Rochester Institute of Technology.
Slates has worked on crews of major productions such as Ladder 49 and The Wire; however, this is his first time directing a feature-length film.
10 Hours a Week provides a townie perspective of Columbia. (The life of local college students had already been examined in the 2008 film Box Elder.)
The main character in 10 Hours a Week (Kirsten, played by Hari Leigh) sees Columbia “as big city living” because she grew up in New Franklin, Slates says.
“Before we meet Kirsten, she has gotten a DUI, has gotten her car taken away and is $30,000 in debt,” says Leigh, who works in Los Angeles as a stand-up comedian. “And all that aside, she still only takes on 10 hours a week at Shakespeare’s. She’s sort of just coasting.”
Shakespeare’s became the centerpiece of the film because Slates says even though he always plans to go out for the night when he’s in town, he ends up at Shakespeare’s with his friends.
Kurt Mirtsching, Shakespeare’s general manager, says the director and several actors and crew members visited Shakespeare’s frequently. He says the atmosphere at the renowned restaurant is different for everyone. “They’re going to get one of the stories of Shakespeare’s.”
The comedic-yet-sensitive film will debut in 2010 or early 2011.