First-Time Feature Director Aloura Charles Successfully Wrangles Ensemble in Award-Winning Film
by Mary Ann Skweres
Reservations, the award-winning feature from writer-director Aloura Charles, made the festival rounds, opened the Reel Women International Film Festival in Beverly Hills, California and closed the Women’s Film Festival of Vancouver.
The script started as three shorts that possessed a common theme. When grouped together, and with the addition of a fourth story, they evolved into a larger narrative feature. Set in a New York hotel, the story unfolds over the course of one day as the lives of strangers become inextricably connected. Charles elaborates, “The interwoven relationships examine the condition of loneliness and our human need to connect. The non-linear structure is designed to give the audience a sense of drifting through these stories in the same way that our lead, Hellen (Kerry Armstrong), feels she’s living her life out of order.”
The delicate mix of drama and comedy is achieved not only through Charles’ assured directing, but also by the strong performances of an internationally recognized ensemble cast including Armstrong (Australia), Loren Dean (USA), Ulrich Thomsen (Denmark), Ray Wise (USA), Pasha Lychnikoff (Russia), Alejandro Chaban (Venezuela), Jordi Caballero (Spain) and Vanessa Johansson (USA).
Casting is one of the most important considerations for any independent filmmaker, affecting not only the quality of the film performances but also whether or not a film will receive commercial distribution. Hellen was the only the character for which Charles had any preconceived casting idea. “That part was actually written with Kerry in mind,” she explains. “For the other parts, it was pretty much casting genius. John Jackson, and casting associate, Taylor Loeb, who suggested names to me that I never would have thought of. The role of the businessman who hires a teen call girl was not conceived as international, but the fact that Ulrich was Danish contributed a whole other element to it, another layer of people arriving in New York from different walks of life, cultures and nationalities.” The award-winning Thomsen is well known in Europe and played opposite Connie Nielsen in Susanne Bier’s critically acclaimed drama Brothers.
There was a good period of creative rewriting prior to casting, and later in the editing, but, because of the good response by the actors who came in for meetings, there were not a lot of changes to the script once the actors signed on. One exception was that the Russian businessman was originally written as a Czech. When the opportunity arose to work with Pasha,” says Charles, “We started looking for a Russian woman, because he didn’t speak Czech. We were lucky enough to find Winter [Ave Zoli] who was able to do Czech and Russian for us. She’s Czech and American.” Lychnikoff has appeared regularly on television series including Deadwood and films such as Charlie Wilson’s War and the new Indiana Jones film.
Since the film is an ensemble piece, and many of the actors usually played leads, one major concern needed to be addressed. “They all wanted to know how their character was an integral part of the film as a whole. We had conversations on how their character fit into the puzzle and why it was important,” shares Charles. “That helped them with their performance.”
The casting process consisted of a series of auditions. After Jackson did preliminary screenings, Charles auditioned everybody with him. Once the field of choices was narrowed down, there was one set of callbacks. The character of Hallie, the teen call girl, was the most difficult to cast. “There were two or three really strong options towards the end. Both of the producers felt strongly about Saige [Thompson] and encouraged me to go in that direction. I thank them because she gave a beautiful performance.”
As a first time feature director, Charles had to build a sense of thrust with actors of considerable experience. Being a writer-director gave her a good start because many actors put writers-directors in a category of their own. “They understand from the get-go that you’re going to be more passionate about the material and more connected to it then a director who has just come on attached to a script. They recognize that you know these characters really well,” says Charles. “I generally have a clear idea of what I want. That’s very helpful for actors. They can trust that.”
A principal photography schedule of only 14 days framed the need to be ultra-prepared. Charles rehearsed the cast in advance of the shoot, but scheduling was a challenge, especially for the cast members such as Armstrong and Thomsen who lived abroad. “We were lucky enough to get Kerry to come over for six days. We had one or two days of rehearsal with her then shot her out and she left to go back to Australia. Ulrich came towards the middle to end of the movie. We had one day of rehearsal. When I say ‘a day’ I’m using the term loosely. We had about three days of rehearsals, period. We had to pencil everybody in for a few hours here and a couple hours there. I met with Ulrich on one of our days off for a couple of hours of rehearsal.”
Charles worked a bit more with Armstrong and Dean on their characters. She created “character travel bags” because these characters were traveling to a hotel. The bags were symbolic of the movie, but also of their characters. “When Kerry arrived, I had a flight bag filled with all these things that her air hostess character would have had – the toiletries Hellen would have picked out, an i-pod with the music that Hellen would be listening to, the picture of her sister, all sorts of things. It helped her have a tangible connection to the character.”
Charles was introduced to Dean through producer, Ara Katz, who was friends with the actor’s manager and passed on the script that way. Dean is a veteran film and stage actor with lead roles on feature films such as Mumford and Billy Bathgate. “We are very fortunate that he had time to fit us into his schedule. He’s a busy working actor,” says Charles. “From the very beginning he had a natural, easy actor quality about him that was perfect for the character of Mark. I’m not sure if that was Loren himself, but he was able to understand the character and I think that really brought it to life.”
The character-driven, multiple storylines afforded even the actors in the supporting cast, interesting roles to play. The hotel staff members are a case in point. Caballero plays a chef whose son, played by Chaban, is a bellboy. Besides regular television series work, Caballero has choreographed and danced on shows such as Dancing with the Stars and America’s Next Top Model. Chaban is a Venezuelan television star. “They have only two scenes together as father and son,” shares Charles. “The rest is the character of Gustavo in the kitchen talking about his son. So you get a sense of the relationship before you even meet Tito on screen.”
Similarly the casting of Dee Freeman drew on her strong personality and background to bring the opinionated maid, Rose, to life. “She’s ex-military and you can totally see that in her performance,” laughs Charles. “She actually auditioned for two parts – the phone sex operator and Rose. She was fantastic in both parts. I couldn’t decide, she was so different, but at the end of the day I needed her commanding presence as the bossy Rose.”
During test screenings, several characters emerged as audience favorites. Especially popular were the phone sex operator, Monique, played by Retta and her customer, eight-year old Brenden, played by Tanner Blaze. Defying the admonition about working with children, Charles tackled directing of a child. The trick was not to over rehearse with the boy. “With kids you’ve got to be careful because when you get to the shooting day, you don’t want lines to sound memorized. You have to break them out of that pattern if it happens.” Also in writing for the part, Charles tried to keep the scenes brief. “I actually cut a big chunk of dialog – about a page – out of the scene right before shooting, because I was worried, and I also knew that we probably wouldn’t end up using it.”
As well as making the film real for the audience, costuming and a set that encapsulates the world of a film, helps the actor feel their character. “I can’t speak for the actors whether the world that was created around them made it easier to embody their characters, but I remember one time sitting behind the monitor when I looked up. Kerry was standing with her little wheeled bag, in her stewardess uniform, about to go into the hotel room…it was one of those moments when you go from the black and white description on the page to in the flesh, in the costume, in the hotel, right in front of you. It was an amazing and powerful moment, creating something on the page and then seeing it come to life,” says Charles.
During production, the film was primarily linear in its structure with a few non-linear segments. “Once in the editing room we actually wound up being more creative, mixing scenes around to create a world where we were meandering in and out of different rooms,” reveals Charles. The film became a jigsaw puzzle, revealing the characters in pieces, where little seeds were planted and then paid off later. Each character was introduced early in the film and returned to later where their story was told in major chunks. The editing was not used to improve performances but rather to strengthen the character of the film as a whole. The non-linear structure served to reinforce the themes of loneliness and disconnection, until near the end when the characters start connecting and the timeline finishes in a linear fashion.
Many of the actors saw the completed film for the first time at the Beverly Hills screening. They were all impressed and happy, and even surprised, that the film had come together so well. Charles concludes, “I was impressed with how professionally all the actors were, even in a low-budget situation. They brought to the table every amount of energy, creativity and talent that they would have on a bigger budget production. That means a lot and that is why we have such a great little film.”
Featured in StudentFilmmakers Magazine, May 2008 Edition.
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