Writer & Director Thomas Baldinger on making Who’s …Jenna?

We caught up with Thomas Baldinger, who was at the time working on his romantic comedy, “Who’s …Jenna?”And he took us through his process of making his movie. He

indieactivity: When and how did you cut your teeth as a filmmaker?
Thomas: My first short film “Two Sides of Love”. It won best home grown short at the Garden State Film Festival in 2014. It’s now on Amazon Prime.

indieactivity: When writing your own films, do you start writing with a cast in mind?
Thomas: No. I never did that before. I think if you do that then you kind of lose that sense of creativity. I can say that I have penned a draft of the sequel to this film and with this cast in mind. Actually it made the writing much easier. So how about that for contradicting myself, ha!

indieactivity: How long did it take to complete this latest script? Do you have a writing process?
Thomas: I wrote the first draft of “Who’s Jenna…?” as a short film in 6 months. Then after a private reading I wrote the feature 3 months after that. I actually write the ending first and then work my towards that ending. I like to see how many twists and turns I can add to get to that ending.

indieactivity: When did you form your production company – and what was the original motivation for its formation?
Thomas: 624 Productions LLC started as a NPO. I did that when my first major play “Two Sides of Love” did a “mini-tour” in Somerset County at a number of different community theatres. I needed to the form the NPO to get the community theatre benefits. From there, we decided to make that play into a short film, hence I switch to an LLC. From there it has grown and I hope it will continue to grow.

Tracey Birdsall, Bill Sorvino in Who’s Jenna. (2018)

indieactivity: What was the first project out of the gate?
Thomas: Two Sides of Love – Short Film under the LLC umbrella.

indieactivity: During production, what scene (that made the cut) was the hardest to shoot?
Thomas: Hmm….the most involved scene with lots of extras was the Toronto Club scene. And the bar scene in Jersey City was tough too with all of the extras. Thanks to my crew lead by Jeff Sesselberg (DP) and Brian Millard (1st AD) made my life easier for sure. Also CJ Cullen (2nd AD) was great organizing the extras for those scenes.

indieactivity: What works better in this latest production that mightn’t have worked so well in the last one you did?
Thomas: Organization and professionalism. We wanted to be sure that we ran a very organized and professional ship each and every day on set. The crew did this time and time again. In fact, one of my leads said after we wrapped on a shoot to the whole crew, “One of the most professional crew I’ve worked with. Great job!” That meant the world to me to hear. Plus having a full professional cast at my fingertips really made life so much easier.

indieactivity: You produced and directed the film, what measure of input did it take to don these hats?
Thomas: The producer hat I was able to take off whenever we shot and during post production in the editing process. My 1st AD, Brian Millard, was instrumental in stepping as a co-producer to make sure things ran properly while I wore my directors hat on set. Once the post-production was done I was able to put my producer’s hat back on and get things moving with distribution and such.

Tracey Birdsall and Bill Sorvino in Who’s Jenna (2018)

indieactivity: Is there anything about the independent filmmaking business you still struggle with?
Thomas: I think that most independent filmmakers like myself will have the same answer I’m about to have…”Financing”. Each filmmaker believes they have a great idea. And fortunately for me I have a great support in crew and actors that I can lean on to make a good film. But it’s organizing all of that into an accurate and compelling story to have an investor say, “Yes, I’ll give you money for that project.”.

It’s can be the biggest gamble of your life…you just have to be sure your holding the right cards. Lenny Venito and I became good friends shooting “Jenna” and we wrote a feature film together that we will begin shooting later this spring. We are currently right now having that discussion…FINANCING. How do we make something that people will want to see and invest in? I think we got it but let’s see how folks feel about “Who’s Jenna…?” first…Ha!

indieactivity: Where do you think your strengths line as a filmmaker?
Thomas: I like to think of myself as an actors-director. I studied acting for a long before I decided I wanted to be on the other end and I feel like I can talk to actors. I want to give them the freedom to be creative and ad-lib as long as it’s within the parameters. I also like to think I am a realist. I know what I can do well and what I can’t. And I was always willing to hear my cast or crews input on set. I love collaboration.

indieactivity: Let’s talk finance, How did you finance the film?
Thomas: Private Investors. I wrote an executive summary highlighting my cast and crews resumes and presented a short clip of the film that I paid for myself to showcase what we had.

Tracey Birdsall and Bill Sorvino in Who’s Jenna (2018)

indieactivity: How much did you go over budget? How did you manage it?
Thomas: We did not. We were very careful on how money was spent and my 1st AD Brian was with me every step of the way making sure we didn’t get out of hand.

indieactivity: How important is marketing? Do you think a project can make any dent without it these days?
Thomas: It’s incredibly important. If you don’t get the word out on your project, then all who’s going to see it is your family and friends. You need a strong marketing firm to get behind your work. If you don’t then you are making a huge mistake. Social media is great, but it takes a dedicated resource and someone who knows the market to get your stuff out there. Collaboration. You need to sometimes give up the reins let someone else help and do the work for you!

indieactivity: Can you tell us about your marketing activities on the project – and how it’s gone for you?
Thomas: We hired October Coast and Lady in Red to do our marketing. They are both doing an excellent job so far! I am excited for the release date of April 24 and how the world gets to see our film.

indieactivity: What do you hope audiences get from your film?
Thomas: When writing and directing this movie I knew I was dealing with very sensitive subjects. It was important to me to make sure I delivered this type of content in a tasteful manner. I feel that we were successful in doing so and I hope audiences feel the same way.

indieactivity: What else have you got in the works?
Thomas: As I mentioned earlier, Lenny Venito and I wrote a feature film called “Hook’D”. It’s a dark comedy…that’s all I’ll say for now. We are going to direct it together as well. We start shooting in the late spring of this year. We are very excited about it!

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