A Case Study
Narrative | Dramatic Features
Film Name: Romantic Chorus
Genre: Animated-Documentary
Date: The film is projected for completion by January 2021
Director: Jeff M. Giordano
Producer: Jeff M. Giordano & Aaron Gwynn
Animators: Christopher Singleton, Stefanie Ziermann, Chhaya Naran, Gigi Hart, Laurent Mathieu, Angaelica LaPasta, Rebecca Luo, Peter Feng, Keira Quinn, Annie Murray, Claudia Ortega Arus, Eli Copperman, Joseph Crockett, Cloud 1984, Silvia de Tommaso, Emma Jordan, Linc Glasby.
Cinematographer: The film is 100% animation
Production Company: JMG Motion Pictures
Budget: $7,000.00; (Private)
Financing: The producers
Shooting Format: N/A, animated
Screening Format: 1920 x 1080 (HD)
World Premiere: January 29th, 2021
Awards: Not yet, as the film hasn’t been completed
Website
indieactivity: Tell us about “who you are”?
Jeff Giordano (JG): We are independent filmmakers who have been collaborating on documentaries since 2016. Prior to Romantic Chorus, our main focus was on artists struggling to survive in an increasingly expensive and corporatized world.
Introduce your film?
Jeff Giordano (JG): Romantic Chorus is a full-length animated documentary exploring four themes: Fear, Monogamy, Sex, and Technology from in-depth interviews with a diverse range of 21 anonymous people (as it pertains to gender, cultural background, sexuality, and relationship styles). The film is animated by 17 different artists, who created art for specific sections they chose throughout the film. The audio interviews were conducted between July and November 2019. The film is currently in production and will be released in January 2021. The tone of Romantic Chorus is based upon inclusivity and giving each of the interviewees and animators the freedom to be creative and honest. Stylistically, the animation is a wide breadth of artistic techniques (including 2D-animation, motion design, rotoscoping, stop-motion) that complements the audio.
Tell us why you chose to write, produce, direct, shoot, cut/edit the movie? Was it financial, chance, or no-budget reason?
Jeff Giordano (JG): We chose to make Romantic Chorus because of our deep interest in making documentaries and experimenting with cinema. This project allows us to explore and preserve a wide range of perspectives on romantic connections in the modern world, through the context of four themes: Monogamy, Sex, Fear, and Technology. Our own experiences and challenges with dating and romantic relationships have fueled our curiosity to better understand other people’s navigation and interpretation of intimate connections. We felt that making a film that the public can experience and learn from, would help them with their future partners and connections. Our goals for the reach of the film goes beyond traditional screenings. The educational piece is really important, and we plan to show the film widely in psychology and human sexuality college classrooms, alongside theater and online events.
The official trailer for the Animated-Documentary “Romantic Chorus” by Jeff M. Giordano, Aaron Gwynn, and 17 animators featuring 21 interviews with music by Laurent Mathieu
Introduce your crew?
Jeff Giordano (JG): The co-producers are Jeff M. Giordano and Aaron Gwynn. They have been collaborating on documentaries since 2016. In addition, Giordano conducts the interviews and directs the film. Gwynn also edits the films. Jeff usually comes up with the concept for the documentary, and Aaron helps to flesh out the ideas leading to the start of production. We cherish our team because each other’s skills complement one another. Our collaboration truly is a labor of love and includes daily emails, as well as regular video chats. Once we brought the animators on board, this collaboration expanded even more widely to forming friendships, between people from around the world working towards one goal.
What also made the project unique in that we already had the interviews completed before the animators signed on, which meant that they got to listen to the finished audio we selected and then choose the scenes that they most connected to–whether it was a voice or a theme. The anonymity of the interviews added to the creativity of the project since the artists had the freedom to create what they wanted. To enhance this namelessness, we also told them to shy away from figurative work that wouldn’t impede on the audience’s ability to experience the film as a ‘chorus,’ instead of a series of disconnected interviews.
In addition, due to the remote nature of collaborating with so many people who we first met at the start of the project, one of the biggest challenges has been how to get the best out of each other’s skills, whilst navigating different personalities and communication styles. For us, it was all about carefully balancing how to encourage the team and figure out each artist’s personality without being too demanding, or treating anyone disrespectfully. We strove both to create connections, and also to have the project stay on schedule for our release. We also should add that the people we worked with are all amazing and I think this project will be the basis for both future projects and friendships.
What are your personal experiences putting on all these hats/responsibilities (simultaneously)? Tell us about the story, writing, and production?
Jeff Giordano (JG): Due to our limited budget, we have had to wear many hats, socks, gloves, and work many hours every day on the film. This has been one of the biggest challenges with Romantic Chorus. Unfortunately, we were rejected for multiple grants and nonetheless moved forward with making what we believe to be our best documentary yet. The reality is that making films is what keeps our faith in humanity alive, and being able to dig into all the nitty-gritty of production and collaborating with so many people has been amazing.
The film’s editor/co-producer is a novelist and his work is so solitary and insular, that it’s wonderful for him to have so many other people pushing together to collectively create something multifaceted on a larger scale. He is also a semi-professional baseball player in México. During the pandemic, I desperately miss my teammates and the camaraderie that comes with being part of a team with one unified goal. To work with this squad of 17 animators during the pandemic has been a source of positive energy and encouragement, especially at a time when so many other social interactions are limited.
The film’s director/co-producer has a deep background in psychology and a desire to help people, by educating young people in special education and also assisting with managing their social-emotional health.
What is the source of the idea? How did the story develop from the idea? And how did the story evolve into a screenplay? Why do this story? Do you have a writing process?
Jeff Giordano (JG): The idea comes from our compulsion to make documentaries that say something new about our collective human experience. The documentary developed from an urgent need to better understand the confusing nature of romantic connections, especially as we all must learn how to confront these issues surrounding intimacy when they are compounded with sex, identity, and technology. Most of the story arc in Romantic Chorus resulted from the 21 interviews conducted, which ranged from 1 – 2 hours. This is the first time we structured a documentary upon anonymous voices about such sensitive topics.
Let’s talk pre-production: take us through a timeline of how you started and ended it?
Jeff Giordano (JG): The idea for Romantic Chorus arrived on Monday, May 13, 2019, at 11:50 am while Jeff was in a computer science class at work. The 21 interviews were conducted from July 2019 to November 2019. An 80-minute Assembly Cut was completed in February 2020. Animation began in July 2020 and ended on November 8th, 2020 at 11:56 pm.
Did the tight shooting schedule make it harder or easier?
Jeff Giordano (JG): While we didn’t have a “shoot” in the traditional sense, we did assemble our animator team on July 1st and had a deadline for final animation on November 1st for the release in January 2021. That’s pretty tight, especially for animation which is unbelievably time-intensive and many of our animators are students and/or have other jobs, so it truly was a passion project for everyone involved. I think having this schedule did alter the ways in which the animators worked, but also led to creative solutions and new skills.
During the film production, what scene (that made the cut) was the hardest to animate? And why?
Jeff Giordano (JG): When I first heard Jade’s interview, I was struck by the interviewee’s charisma and humor, and her words really stuck with me. The filmmakers had given us animators free rein to choose any style and look for our segments, and here that freedom presented a unique challenge. Although most of the interviewees had elected to remain anonymous, I felt that Jade’s singular perspective on navigating love and relationships while living with a disability required that she appear as herself on screen, creating a scene closer to a traditional documentary than most of the segments. Fortunately, Jade’s interview had been captured on video, and with her permission, I set to work rotoscoping images on top of the existing footage.
Guided by the documentary’s overall themes of diversity through a chorus of experiences, I experimented with different techniques but found the footage became more engaging the more I let Jade’s personality take center stage. Over 8,000 frames of rotoscope animation later, I had completed my best attempt to bring a poignant interview to life. Hundreds of viewings on, I’m still struck by her dynamic and thoughtful perspective, and am grateful to have been given the opportunity to bring her viewpoint to the screen. Romantic Chorus showcases many affecting and surprising moments, but Jade’s interview is a powerhouse and is not to be missed.
What were the advantages and disadvantages of the way you worked?
Jeff Giordano (JG): The advantage of collaborating with 17 artists around the world was that it made for dynamic and diverse animation styles. The main disadvantages would be learning how to navigate the animation team’s personalities and communication styles, to best support production deadlines. We held group video chats every three weeks, to check in with the animators and view their progress. In addition, we had two Saturday Group Calls that were more casual in structure and allowed for more socializing.
When did you form your production company – and what was the original motivation for its formation?
JG: Technically we formed the production company before making our film Passion is the Money, which came out in 2018 and started production three years prior. We formed it to better organize our team and get more professional people on board as we grew with each project.
What about independent filmmaking and the business do you still struggle with?
JG: Our struggles have to do with making a feature-length documentary without grants and any outside funding, especially if the project has no one famous attached. Nonetheless, we strive for a fair business model with Romantic Chorus where everyone on the team receives a fair share of the profits.
Let’s talk about finance, How did you finance the film?
JG: We financed Romantic Chorus out of our own pockets and decided to share the profits, as a method to compensate everyone on the team for their hard work. For example, the animators will receive over 50% of the revenue from any profits gained.
How much did you go over budget? How did you manage it?
JG: Since we had almost no budget, we didn’t go over!
How important is marketing? Talk about the festival tour? Do you think a project can make a dent without it nowadays?
JG: We found with our previous films that the festival circuit helped us get exposure for our films, but beyond that, we are unsure if the process is actually good for independent filmmakers such as ourselves. Most festivals of any significant size require submission fees, and those really add up! In addition, most small festivals have no awards for selections and usually do not cover flights nor room/board for filmmakers. Much of the purpose of these fests would theoretically be to meet those that would wish to help distribute the film, or to produce future projects. However, if you cannot afford to go to the festivals, you become locked out
Again, we’ve had lots of great experiences and met some awesome people at the festivals we did manage to get to, but in terms of making any money to sustain our lives as artists, they don’t actually help so much.
Instead, since this year began with many of the festivals we were already accepted into going online, we realized that charting a truly independent path actually helps us survive easier. By reaching out to individual partners for our films, we’ve been able to get honorariums and also get donations directly to our Paypal account. Most festivals actually have no direct way for a filmmaker to get paid, even if someone loved the film, and certainly, zero % of the ticket sales actually go to the artists. We hope that festivals in the coming years consider more ways to share their wealth
Tell us about marketing activities or efforts on this project – and how it worked or didn’t work?
JG: Social media for Romantic Chorus has incrementally worked for us. The challenge is to gain followers en masse. We can engage our followers with exciting content and get a few new followers with each post, but how do we reach a wide audience without a large advertising budget?
Our main focus for promotion right now is to try to reach out to podcasts and blogs to try to get ourselves, the animators, and interviewees to have a space to talk about their experiences of making the film. This has been successful so far, but we’re not sure how it will translate to followers and/or people that actually rent/purchase the film in January 2021.
What do you hope audiences will get from the presentation of your film?
JG: We hope that all the brave humans who experience Romantic Chorus will gain a new understanding of romantic connections, as they personally relate to the themes in the film and what it means to be intimately involved with another human being today. Furthermore, everyone who witnesses our film will allow themselves to confront fresh questions surrounding sex, fear, monogamy, technology, ability, and identity. We also do hope that it fosters a discussion around these issues, and we will be creating fun material about the film for those educational screenings.
What else have you got in the works?
JG: Our next project is an animated narrative feature based on a screenplay by Aaron Gwynn about the final years of Albert Pinkham Ryder, the reclusive American modernist painter, and the events surrounding the infamous Armory Show in New York City (1913).
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