Tree Fellas

I was able to do some guerilla filmmaking last week, with Frank Wurzinger and Joey Holden, and it was terrific working out of the house again after being indoors editing videos for the past few months. I am grateful for those editing gigs, and I’ve been able to facilitate an intergenerational project with People United, too (more on that in another post) but this was the first time actually out in the world again creating with other human beings since being locked down end of March

We of course kept social distance wherever we went - not always easy with perpetually-in-the-moment performers like Frank and Joey… Frank came up with the concept, applied for the funding and ordered the costumes. Joey came on board as the second tree, and they asked me to make the film. We had a budget for one day of shooting and a day and a half editing so we had to make everything count.

We knew we wanted to open in Alexandra Palace Forest and have the climax on Archway Bridge, but the rest were just random locations around Frank’s home in Muswell Hill - walking around and seeing if we could create a stir. I came up with the idea of a garden centre where they would find Sap (the puppet baby sapling - designed along with the costumes by Nick Ash). We used Frank’s back yard and roped his partner Clair and their baby Lotte to make the story work.

The music was from my library of tunes/ideas - I try to keep it topped up with noodles and recordings for projects just like this. The opening piece and the one for the speeded up frantic scenes were written and recorded for previous Frank shows, although only the first one was ever used. The last piece I’d actually never placed in anything before - part of a longer improvisational work that had a lot of rough ideas in it, but with some clever editing the piece came together nicely.

It was all made so quickly, and there are definitely a few scenes I would’ve loved to reshoot (the ones in the back yard) but overall I’m really happy with the result. It certainly helps that Frank & Joey are two of the funniest people you could ever meet…