An Industry Case Study
Narrative | Dramatic Features
Film Name: People People
Genre: Drama
Director: Lizzie Logan
Producer: Liz Watson, Victoria Podesta
Production Company: name
Budget: 25k
Financing: self-financed
Shooting Format: Digital
Screening Format: DCP
World Premiere: Ashland Independent Film Festival
Awards: Best narrative feature at deadCenter
Website: heykatpeople.tumblr.com
The Official Trailer for People People
Watch The Trailer for People People directed by Lizzie Logan
A Short Biography of Lizzie Logan
Lizzie was recently an assistant at Netflix’s The Break With Michelle Wolf. Her comedy writing has been published on Reductress, The Onion, McSweeney’s, The New Yorker and The Huffington Post. She was previously a pop culture writer for Glamour magazine. Her reporting has appeared on Indiewire, Splitsider, Vulture and W. She writes a monthly movie column for Flood and was featured in the HBO documentary What Happened, Brittany Murphy?
She wrote and directed a romantic comedy feature film called People People. The film premiered at the Ashland Independent Film Festival and went on to screen around the country, even winning Best Narrative Feature at the deadCenter Film Festival. Read an interview about her experience making the movie HERE.
Originally from San Francisco, Lizzie graduated with a BFA in writing for television from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she won the department award for undergraduate half-hour television writing and delivered the student speech at the Tisch Salute.
The Lizzie Logan Interview
indieactivity: What is your film about?
Lizzie Logan (LL): People People was written and directed by comedy writer Lizzie Logan. Underemployed and tired of waiting for a producer, a fellowship or a company to give her permission to make stuff, Lizzie took a script she’d been working on and showed it to her friend Joshua Ruffner, an enormously savvy DP with his own crew and equipment. Watch the full movie on Vimeo
The cast came together through friends and connections in the NYC acting scene. Natalie Walker, an actress, comedian and Internet star in her own right was perfect for the lead role, and she and Rosenberg decamped with the crew to Lizzie’s mother’s apartment in Chicago for two weeks in the summer of 2016 for principal photography. They slept, ate and shot on set, and somehow didn’t kill each other, which in itself is a small miracle.
Tell us about the festival run, marketing and sales?
Lizzie Logan (LL): On a next-to-nothing budget, with a highly talented group of up-and-coming young artists, many of them recent graduates, People People came together in time to submit to festivals for 2018.
It premiered in April at the Ashland Independent Film Festival and went on to screen at the Citizen Jane Film Festival, the Lift-Off NYC Film Festival and the deadCenter Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Narrative Feature. It’s now available online through Vimeo On Demand.
Give the full Official Synopsis for your film?
Lizzie Logan (LL): People People is the story of Kat (Natalie Walker), an Internet-obsessed 25-year-old living alone in her (mother’s) penthouse apartment in Chicago. A self-diagnosed agoraphobe, Kat never goes outside, and the only non-family-member she interacts with is her delivery guy, Colin (David Rosenberg). When Kat and Colin start to fall for each other, Kat is forced to step outside her comfort zone. Literally.
Development & Financing?
Lizzie Logan (LL): I wrote the screenplay in bits and pieces over the course of 2015 and into 2016. That Spring, DP Josh Ruffner and I made a rough schedule and outline to see if making it would be possible, and we started casting and planning in May.
Production?
Lizzie Logan (LL):
– Summer 2016: Principal photography in Chicago and NYC
– Fall-Winter 2016: Rough cut assembled.
– 2017: More editing, colorization, sound mixing, graphics.
– 2018: Festival run! We didn’t do any ADR because we didn’t have the budget for it.
Festival Preparation & Strategy?
Lizzie Logan (LL): We researched festivals that were friendly to low-budget productions without big names attached and then applied to fifty or so. Our strategy was to cast a wide net!
The Release?
LL: I uploaded it to Vimeo 🙂
Advice from the Filmmaker?
LL: Work with people you like spending time around!
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