‘Lady Day’ Director Stephen Stahl applied principles of theater to his film ‘Consequences.’
By: Anthony Stoeckert
Stephen Stahl says that when he started filming his first feature, Consequences, he didn’t know the difference between a close-up and a wide shot. But that lack of movie know-how didn’t stop him, or the movie, from winning awards at film festivals on both coasts of the United States.
In June, the New Hope, Pa., resident was named Best Director at the New York International Film and Video Festival, for which 2,700 films were submitted and 500 were chosen for screenings. The movie had previously won Best Thriller honors at the Los Angeles version of the festival.
Mr. Stahl, 57, credits the film’s success to its crew. "I feel really honored that this film has taken as many awards as it has, as well as the distribution it’s receiving because it’s my first film," he says. "I didn’t know anything about making a movie. If it wasn’t for the crew and (producer) Tim McMurty, I would have never been able to get this movie made."
Eschewing the auteur theory, Mr. Stahl continues, "It could not have been done without Tim, our director of photography (Tom Agnello) and our entire crew. It was a total collaboration, so whatever (acclaim)the film is receiving, it does not belong to me, it belongs to the crew, who all worked very, very hard on this."
Consequences was filmed in Philadelphia on a $2 million budget. It’s described as the story of five lifelong friends who become separated during a guys’ weekend out. Their lives at risk, the limits of their relationships become tested.
Mr. Stahl is new to filmmaking, but he’s been writing and directing in theater for more than 30 years. His work includes Lady Day, a play about Billie Holiday that opened at Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theatre in 1985, then played in London and Paris.
He says he brought his own perspective to the filmmaking process in Consequences.
"I feel that what I brought to it was a more intimate look than you normally would get in characterizations within film," he says. "I broke down the characters very strongly with my actors to try to make the characters as clearly on the screen as I could."
And while the movie was made with some standard conventions, such as storyboards, Mr. Stahl says he brought a different approach as well, one influenced by his work in theater.
"Before it was storyboarded I looked at it from another point of view, from the theatrical point of view," he says. "I guess the approach was just different, and it was exciting to a lot of people who don’t come from a theater approach."
Mr. Stahl says the nature of theater obviously results in a character’s full body being on stage. However, part of a director’s work is to get the audience to focus on what’s important. While filming Consequences, Mr. Stahl’s awareness of the differences between stage and film gave him insight as to where to focus the camera.
"I was able to get a lot more character read out of it by getting a camera to go exactly where I needed it to," he says.
Mr. Stahl became involved with Consequences after he met its writer, Anthony C. Hipple, in a Starbucks in New Hope. The two knew of each other, but not well. In fact, Mr. Stahl didn’t know Mr. Hipple was a writer, although the writer knew of Mr. Stahl’s work in theater.
Winning the award in Los Angeles was a surprise to Mr. Stahl. "It’s a good movie, but I really didn’t think it was going to walk away with awards, I truly did not," he says. Winning best director in New York was an even bigger surprise.
The best thing about the recognition is that it generated publicity and distribution for the movie. Consequences has been sold for distribution in England, France, Germany and Turkey. Mr. Stahl says the producers are also working on a deal for the Independent Film Channel to buy it.
For Mr. Stahl, negotiating distribution for the movie has been a lot more difficult than getting a play produced, something he says is relatively easy. The good films he saw at the festivals that haven’t gotten deals is another reminder of how difficult the process is. "There was a ton of stuff in (competition) that I haven’t heard anything about that I thought was pretty damn good myself," he says. "And unfortunately… I guess it’s just a roll of the dice, you either get distributed or you don’t."
Mr. Stahl is returning to theater with a play called Ghost of a Chance, which he says will run off-Broadway in October. Another film could be in his future since quite a few scripts are being sent his way. When asked if the amount of scripts he gets has increased since Consequences was shown at the festivals, Mr. Stahl says absolutely, for a pretty simple reason.
"I had never got a film script before in my life."
Consequences was produced by YNOT Productions in association with Fin Productions.
For more information, and to see a trailer for the film, go to www.finpictures.com