'Test;' is the new film by Chris Mason Johnson (The New Twenty) that has a little of 'Jeffery' meets a little of 'live and Kicking' set in the 1980's. I had a chance speak with Johnson this past June during SIFF 2013 and now it SLGFF screens it tomorrow at NWFF.
MK: First, Chris, tell me a little bit about this new film.
CMJ: So TEST is set in 1985 San Francisco, in a dance company, contemporary ballet or modern company, and in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, just before and just as the first test was becoming available. And it follows a young dancer, Frankie, who is very frightened about what’s happening. And it’s set in a world where none of these guys are really talking about it. You know, they’re just avoiding it. You know?
MK: And then also I noticed, one thing I really enjoyed about it was the fact was just the agonizing of the waiting of the test. You know, I’ve been in that position, especially my very first test, wait for those two weeks to go on, and on and on, and then hear the little thing in my mind saying; oh, you’re positive. Oh. You know?
CMJ: Right. Yeah, there is the anxiety, the suspense, all of that. And, you know, the subject has been covered as tragedy and I think those movies did need to be made first, they were more important for political reasons, and just the urgency of getting those stories told. But this is, it’s not a tragedy, it’s a smaller, more intimate look at this one character’s psychology. And I think it was time to tell a story like this, that didn’t have this sort of broad sociological portrait, the way Angels In America might, or Long Term Companion, just a more intimate story.
Trailer for TEST from Serious Productions on Vimeo.
MK: Where did you find your actors?
CMJ: The dancers I interviewed and watched a lot of dancers perform in San Francisco. And then I did auditions with them in my living room, reading and taping on an iPhone, and just seeing who had because I knew they weren’t actors. And then I found Scott, who plays the lead, Scott Marlow. And he had an instant core which is just to say that he read lines naturally, and you could tell he could be coached. So then I worked with him for a good six months, just workshop and teams and teaching him a little bit how to act, because I have some background in that. And then that was the guy who had to do the heavy load of dancing. And then for the other guy I did a regular audition in New York where there’s a bigger pool of talent. And we auditioned Broadway dancers who could act, or Broadway actors who could dance. And found Matthew Rish who is a very accomplished actor, he was on Broadway then, in John Rodman Base’s Other Desert Cities. And he is really talented, really a spontaneous actor. He does something different on each take, but is very much in control of his technique, so it’s a great combination of technically proficient but very spontaneous and surprising. So putting him against Scott was a great combination. And they had a real chemistry, they have a real chemistry. So Matthew really helps Scott with the acting, I think. And, you know, they had a chemistry, because I think you know, we’ve all seen movies, both gay and straight, couples are gay, couples where there isn’t chemistry, and even though they’re going through the moods you’re just not feeling it. So that was really important to me, to find two people who clicked.
MK: And also I thought that the ‘80s references were great, but I’m glad you didn’t go overboard with the regards to the clothes, but I could tell that there were certain elements of the ‘80s that was great, like the Walkman.
CMJ: The Walkman was big.
MK: How hard was that to find?
CMJ: It wasn’t. You know, I was worried about it when I wrote it. And then I just went on eBay, and there it was, the same yellow Walkman I remember from the ‘80s, the sports one, with the click shut, you know, so I just bought it. And that was that, it was real easy. And then I had a wonderful proper and she came in with like eight more Walkman’s for the other characters.
MK:Oh, no? (Laugh)
CMJ: Yeah. I mean the period stuff that was easy was props and costumes. The hardest part was shooting and not seeing any cars.
MK: Yeah. And even in the nightclub scene, the dance scene was so ‘80s.
CMJ: Thank you. That was tough. We got the set, which was the bar in San Francisco, they gave it to us really generously, and then we just, you know, four weeks of shooting these movies on micro budgets, and you’re just day to day what fire are you putting out. So there we didn’t have extras. We just ran down to the Castro, begged people to come over, put them in clothes, turned o the music. So I’m glad it was convincing.
MK: Yeah, because I think a lot of people in the audience even recognized the dancing that they were doing was totally ‘80s style dancing. There’s totally a difference between ‘80s versus any other dance style.
CMJ: That was fun doing that.
MK: And so I noticed that you also did another movie back in 2008, which was also one of my favorites, which The New Twenty.
CMJ: Oh, you saw that?
MK:And I saw it recently in the last year or two On Logo
CMJ: Yeah. They cut out some stuff on Logo because there was some negative TV. But yes, that was my first feature. I co-wrote that and directed it. It had some roughly similar issues. It was contemporary, it wasn’t a period piece, and it was an ensemble about a group of friends that kind of around this alpha male. But there was this hero discordant couple in it, and that was another angle on some of these things. But, yeah, it’s been, you know, it’s been, it takes longer than you think to get a movie made. Because you’ll start another project. I spent two years on the screenplay for something called Skirt. It was a comedy of gay marriage. And it had a political theme, and it won some awards and it got grants. But it was in that $5 million dollar budget range, which is super hard to find out from the Indie world without big stars jumping through a lot of hoops. So I spent two years on that, both the writing and the trying to get it made. And then I decided I didn’t like the feeling. I don’t have any power. Everyone else has the power and I’m just begging. And so I’m going to write something I could make and I wrote TEST very quickly and shot it very expensively. And, you know, it’s been a great experience, which is taking back the power of filmmaking. That was one thing I wanted to do with the dancer in me was take this classic cliché even as the understudy goes on, which we’ve had from, you know, 42nd Street, all the way to Black Swan. And do something different with this. So I put it, it happens early in the movie, it’s like the midpoint, and then it’s done, and everyone’s like, that was good, moving on. That’s supposed to be the climax. And then the AIDS story and the relationship story, the second becomes the third act. So I thought that was a fun way to play with that, to have a movie cliché.
MK: So and then also I like the fact that it was not anticlimactic where, okay, you’re going to most likely, if you’re sexually active, you’re going to get it or you’re going to be positive regardless, you know. And then also I liked how that how you mixed the drugs along with that as well.
CMJ: Right. The drug use, the causal drug use from the ‘80s and how that moment where he left himself unsafe and vulnerable. The anxiety. I think that’s very real. And I wanted to show a character who it wasn’t about struggling to come out, he’s out. He may not be out to his family, but he’s not hiding amongst his peers. So it’s a coming out story, but I didn’t want him to be a goodie two shoes. So he’s into recreational drugs. And it’s not, I don’t think endorsed, or dehumanized, I think there’s a pretty real tone to it.
MK:What is next? Are you distributing?
CMJ: Yeah, I have some offers on the table. And Wolfe is releasing, distributed The New Twenty, well, I won’t talk business but I do have offers and we are just starting our festival, so we’re really in an amazing position to have offers already, you know, prior to our first screening.
MK: I think that’s based on your success with The New Twenty.
CMJ: Oh, thank you.
MK: And one of the things I liked about The New Twenty was the party scene.
CMJ: Yeah. Yeah. I mean it was Mike Nichols who said that for a hit you have to have, for a movie to work, he said I think you have to have sex, money and hiding.
MK: What’s coming up next?
CMJ: I’m working on two things; one, a project about a character who, a young gay man who makes a deal with the Gods of the Heavens, what have you, that he won’t have an intimate relationship if he can have success in his career. So that’s one. And then the other is something a little more documentary like that I’m working on with my teacher at Amherst College, teaching filmmaking and screening writing, and I want to follow some students who are looking for jobs and having trouble finding them, and these are theater students, but I’m just interested in what it’s like to be 21 and graduating into this job market. So those two very different things and we’ll see which dominates in the next year.
MK: Well, thank you very much.
CMJ: Thanks, Michael.
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