An Industry Case Study
Narrative | Dramatic Features
Film Name: Pieces
Genre: Drama
Date: 2/24/20
Director: Dylan Boom
Producer: Samantha Curley, Chelsea Halligan, Andrew Carlberg, Junior Renaud, Dylan Boom. Steve Clerge
Writer: Dylan Boom
Cinematographer: Adam Leene
Production Company: NA
Budget: $7,000
Financing: NA
Shooting Format: NA
Screening Format: 2.35
World Premiere: NA
Awards: Best storytelling at South Dakota Film Festival
A Short Biography of Dylan Boom
Dylan Boom is known for Pieces (2020), Elevate (2022) and The Lonely Clown (2015).
The Dylan Boom Interview
indieactivity: What is Pieces about?
Dylan Boom (DB): ‘Pieces’ without giving anything too much away…is the story of four couples that we follow that are going through an argument at different stages of their relationships. The film focuses on the character dynamics of each couple, and just how tough it is to fully see eye to eye with your significant other. ‘Pieces’ begs the audience to ask the question, “Is it worth it” as the characters do the exact same thing while we fluidly follow them on this journey.
Tell us about the festival run, marketing and sales?
Dylan Boom (DB): The film started off with its festival run this Summer of 2020, playing at festivals like Woods Hole Film Festival and South Dakota Film Festival where we won an award for, “Best Storytelling”. Since then we have played more festivals. Most noticeably the HollyShorts Film Festival, San Jose, and the St. Louis Film Fest. We look forward to continuing our festival run into the early months of next year! Stay tuned for the digital release thereafter.
Give the full Official Synopsis for your film?
Dylan Boom (DB): Four couples, of different age groups and backgrounds, face a similarly tenuous moment in their relationship.
Development & Financing?
Dylan Boom (DB): Well, I did write the screenplay fairly quickly actually. The idea came to me from an interaction I had with a woman I was dating at the time over the phone, I had the inner dialogue of thinking “this might make an interesting short”. From that point on it was a lot of rewrites and trying to get the best version of the script possible. And in all honesty, just trying to figure out exactly what story I wanted to tell and how to convey that in the best way with a short film format.
Shortly after, I brought the project to Sam and Chelsea. I asked them if they wanted to come on as the ‘hands-on’ producers for the project, and luckily they said yes. Fortunately, on the financing side, I have had a trusted financier who gave us the financing for my last short. So I brought this project to him and told him that we could do it really cheap and he was in.
Now, I just want to say that it took quite a while to find someone to fully fund my projects. I’m so lucky to have someone like him. But at the same time, I made two short films before that all on my own and it was very difficult to find ANY money as it is for most people. So moral of the story, you have to prove to people that you are worth investing in with your previous work.
Production?
Dylan Boom (DB): First of all, I just want to say that I think during these crucial stages of the filmmaking process, having great producers are essential to getting any of these tasks done when it comes to pre-pro, SAG, scheduling, location scouting all of these things should really not be done alone.
But I’ll just say that the toughest challenge I think we had to face with this project was how to accomplish shooting the entire film in one single take. Which you may not notice upon first viewing, but the entire film is in fact just one take.
This was so challenging on multiple levels, but I give the most kudos to my DP Adam Leene and our steadicam OP, Sam Law. These two made the vision work, and after a ton of discussions and rehearsals we pulled it off. But it was a learning challenge for me being the first time I did any long work in a film. The actors said it felt like theatre so I just hope it was at least a little fun for them as well.
Festival Preparation & Strategy?
DB: The film festival strategy is very difficult to plan because it’s so up in the air with every festival, and especially this year with us dealing with the online formats due to COVID-19. But overall, we aimed to hit the biggest ones we could and any festival that we had played at previously. Luckily our producers and director have had experience playing at other festivals so we are somewhat familiar, but every project truly has it own festival path. We just tried to submit as many as possible to the ones that we respected and would love to play at.
The Release?
DB: We have not released the film yet, we are still on the tail end of our festival run.
Advice from the Filmmaker?
DB: Well even though I totally don’t feel like I’m in a place yet to give a ton of advice….I would just say two major things that I wish someone told me early on,
Never stop being a student of cinema- I think that in all the great filmmakers I’ve studied, they all have this same child-like quality to them that they never want to stop learning the craft. Because at the end of the day, you can never know enough about the film. So you might as well just devour as much cinema as you possibly can and let your tastes come from that. There is no limit!
Keep going – I don’t even think that I need to explain this, instead, I’ll just share a story from where I got it from. One time I went to a screening and Q&A with the acclaimed filmmaker, Darren Aronofsky. During the Q&A I proceeded to ask him a question in front of the rest of the audience…which I never had done before. Then when the Q&A was over and everyone was leaving the theater I walked up to him, shook his hand, and said, “I’m a filmmaker man, thanks for answering that question.” He then goes, “Yeah I could tell, keep going.” To this day it’s something I tell myself
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