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Your new movie The
Jazz Club - in a few words, what's it about?
The Jazz Club is a 92 minute music and dialogue driven romantic drama
that tells the story of Jimmy, a jazz club owner, and Sarah, an
advertising executive, who meet on the eve of their one year anniversary
with opposite intentions.
Why a jazz club, what does jazz music mean to you personally, and
how is that reflected in your movie's eclectic score?
I think for me my love for jazz started when I first watched La La Land.
Jazz is incorporated a lot in the soundtrack and in the themes of the film
itself.I
thought a jazz club would be a good setting for the film because it feels
like a nostalgic and magical place, which are adjectives I would use to
describe movies.
In terms of what jazz means to me personally, jazz is a real and organic
genre of music. I also enjoy listening to jazz artists like Art Blakey and
Louis Armstrong. For the soundtrack of
The Jazz Club, I
would say 80% of it is jazz. I worked a lot with sound designer Steve
Campagna (Star Wars:
The Rise of Skywalker) on the music volume levels to really play music as
loud as we could without overpowering the dialogue. Steve and I have done
four projects together and he and I enjoy working together.
(Other) sources of inspiration when writing
The Jazz Club, and
is any of it based on personal experiences?
There were several sources of inspiration when writing
The Jazz Club and
even with coming up with the idea in the first place. I’m a big fan of
90s movies like Heat and Goodfellas and Robert De
Niro’s performances in those films somewhat inspired the character of
Jimmy. The famous restaurant scene between Pacino and De Niro in Heat was an inspiration
as well because it’s a back and forth dialogue scene that's so layered,
which is what I tried to emulate in
The Jazz Club.
I’m also a big fan of classic Hollywood films like
Casablanca which
was also an inspiration. Other inspirations include romance films like
Titanic, Notting Hill and Love Actually. I don’t think it was based
on personal experiences at all to be honest!
Do talk about The
Jazz Club's co-writers (and stars) Cayman Cardiff and Marie
Elizabeth DeWitt, and what was the writing process like? And since we're
talking about them, what made them perfect for their roles, and what was
your on-set collaboration like?
Cayman Cardiff and Marie Elizabeth DeWitt are both big vertical drama
stars (shows that people watch on their phone) and I was familiar with
their work as I’ve worked with a few vertical stars on previous projects
which you’ve watched (Felix Merback in my psychological thriller TV series
The Twisted Doll as well as Sydney Culbertson
and Mark Pontarelli in my horror fantasy film The Demoness) so I was familiar with Cayman and
Marie's work.
The writing process was really smooth and they incorporated a lot of great
ideas from the perspectives of their characters. In terms of why they were
perfect for their roles, Cayman reminded me of early Hollywood stars like
Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart as he can display an old-fashioned quality
and a very natural style of acting. Marie is incredibly talented and has
so much range and depth as an actress. Her and Cayman have both starred
opposite each other before and they had great chemistry coming into the
filming of
The Jazz Club. Our on-set collaboration was great. They are
such talented actors and consummate professionals.
A few words about your directorial approach to your story at hand,
and given you only had one location and two actors at hand, what were your
techniques to keep things visually interesting throughout?
Because I had directed the sci-fi romance feature The Bestowal back in
2019 which was similar in that it was a 90 minute dialogue driven film
starring two actors, I knew a dialogue driven film like this could be done
so that helped. My directorial approach when working with our two leads
was really trying to show multiple layers of their characters and what
they’ve gone through before this night.
In terms of what I did to make things visually interesting and to add
variety, I added inserts of the jazz band, the bar, the drinks menu,
people drinking at the bar, drinks and what Jimmy and Sarah's hands are
doing at different stages of the film. I also worked on the color grade by
trying to emulate the look of 90s movies like Heat and
Goodfellas. I rewatched the 2022 film The Batman and tried to emulate the brightness
levels as I love the look of it. We shot digitally but I added film grain
to further add to the old-fashioned style.
So what can you tell us about your location, and what was it like
filming there?
We filmed at a sound stage in LA that I had filmed at a few
times previously. It was great filming there as I’ve worked with the owner
before. In fact, it was a newly remodeled set of the jazz club seen in
episode one of my TV series The Twisted Doll.
Do talk about the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere!
The shoot went really well. Everyone on the production was well prepared
and professional. The on-set atmosphere was similar to previous projects
of mine where there was essentially a group of driven professionals
working to make the best film possible. As an independent filmmaker where
it’s challenging to get projects off the ground, when I do get a chance to
make a project I really give it my all so my sets are quite rigorous. One
thing I’ve seen in my career as a filmmaker that actors, crew etc. really
respond to my passion for a project.
The $64-question of course, where can
The Jazz Club be
seen? We are doing a one-off advance screening next month at the
Frida Cinema, a
historic theater near Los Angeles. Beyond that, it depends when and how we
release the film which depends on how the American Film Market (later this
year) goes. My dream is to find a way to release in theaters. To answer
your question, it can’t be seen anywhere yet but if people follow us on
Instagram - @thejazzclubmovie - they can stay updated with the release.
Anything you can tell us about audience and critical reception of
The Jazz Club yet?
Your review was the first and since we just finished post-production a
couple of weeks ago, we hardly have any audience or critical reception
yet. We’ve had a couple of friends and industry people watch the film and
they’ve been really complimentary which hopefully bodes well.
Any future projects you'd like to share?
I’m trying to get my horror thriller project The Tormentor off the
ground so fingers crossed I’m able to do that!
Your/your movie's website, social media, whatever else?
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We have yet to launch our official website but you can follow the film,
myself, Cayman and Marie on Instagram:
@thejazzclubmovie
@andrewdeburghdirector
@caymancardiff
@mariedewitt
Anything else you're dying to mention and I have merely forgotten
to ask? Thank you for reviewing the film and for your interview questions, really
appreciate it!
Thanks for the interview! Thank you so much as well!
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