Brothers from the Suburbs
Making the Web Series AKA What Have You Been Working On?
Today I met a colleague in a parking lot and handed him a hard drive. Okay, I lied, he actually came to my office.
That hard drive contained the raw sound and video for a web series that recently wrapped production. That series is called Brothers from the Suburbs. The series, which I wrote and have now directed, marks the first time I have put the actual director’s hat on in over a decade.
BFTS is a comedic, short form series centered around the exploits of three black teens growing up in a predominantly white private school environment. It is based on my own real life experiences and those of my high school friends. BFTS is built around the comic awkwardness of adolescence, exacerbated by standing out from your environment. More plainly, how is being a teenager even MORE awkward when you look different from the world around you?
WRITING
I tried to chronicle the writing process in a few Medium posts that I’ve now since deleted. I could have kept them up but I found them vague and uninspired. Apologies to any who sought answers there and came up lacking.
I think one of the reasons I had trouble divulging information about the writing process initially is because this project is easily the most personal thing I’ve written to date. While the characters are far removed from their real life inspirations — there is no “Patrick” in the show — large chunks of the plot are very real. The series is (somewhat obviously) a very specific exploration of my experiences as a black/bi-racial man in adolescence and beyond. I’m so brainwashed not to talk about those topics — whether that is culturally or educationally or whatever — that even writing about writing about it is difficult. The little voices in my head are telling me not to share that information. Brothers is extremely light hearted and ultimately about having fun, but it definitely exposes my inner thoughts in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable…which probably means its decent.
As a result, my biggest challenge in the writing process was objectivity. I felt extremely vain writing my life’s stories into works of fiction. I felt like my opinions weren’t of value. I had to work very hard to remove myself from the source material and make sure that the characters on screen were complex, flawed individuals.
Brain Trust
I needed backup. I called in the A-Team. Friends and creators from multiple professional and ethnic backgrounds who sat with me for an entire day and workshopped the scripts. Activities ranged from cutting out or re-working entire episodes to re-writing little bits of dialogue. On one rare occasion we landed on “this one’s perfect, don’t do anything.” The day proved pivotal in getting the scripts to a place that was entertaining and honest. It brought the objectivity I needed. I am a firm believer in Brain Trusts — surrounding yourself with people who are experts, supportive, and willing to tell you when you don’t have your best stuff.
Ultimately, we turned five scripts into three very unique episodes that we pushed forward into production — roughly 40 pages of material. Other than some initial development of the overall concept, the entire writing process happened in about 8–10 weeks.
DIRECTING
Over the last ten years, I have had the opportunity to collaborate with a number of talented directors while working as a Producer and Cinematographer. What that experience has shown me is that great directing isn’t just about talent — that’s kind of the given — it’s about hard work and competent decision making.
The best directors do their homework and they know what they want.
What’s great about these two things is that they are completely within your control. You can do prep work, and you can make decisions (even if they turn out to be bad ones) about how the thing should look. Ultimately isn’t that what most art is about — making choices and having control over the process?
I took the “Brain Trust” mentality into the production as well. The BFTS cinematographer, Ross Heran, is a long time friend and colleague, a brilliant DP, and one of those people who is insanely well read and knows about everything. I trust his taste and bringing him in while I was still in the writing process helped visualize the show in a unique way from the very beginning. It also allowed me to be more focused on performance and storytelling because I knew the photography of the project was going to be exceptional.
We also convinced another good friend/collaborator, John Psathas, to take on the roll of Assistant Director. While John isn’t traditionally an AD — he and I co-wrote the feature comedy Bernadette together, I shot and John directed — I knew I needed him on set. John sees story very vividly and he can cut through to the core of characters’ emotions and a scene’s function in the larger narrative. I trust his taste and he understands what I am trying to do in terms of story. Most importantly, I had a person I could turn to and ask “does this work” without feeling judged or inadequate. Apply these same platitudes to Angie Gaffney who stepped in as AD when John couldn’t be on set.
ACTORS!!!
The most active responsibility as a director is working with the actors to deliver a compelling on screen performance. I love actors because they make everything better. At least the good ones do, and I was surrounded by fantastic actors on Brothers from the Suburbs. Actors breathe life into the characters and dialogue and make them real. This is one of my favorite parts of moviemaking whether I am directing or not.
Despite having written the script, I am not overly pedantic when it comes to production. I believe in collaboration, adlib, and finding the best version of the scene. On these scripts there were lines I’d written that I came to set hating, hoping my actors could help me refine them when we got into character. They did so in spades.
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR
Outside of writing, I’ve spent the last decade plus primarily in one of two film jobs: Producer, charged with overseeing projects and keeping them on schedule and budget. And Cinematographer, responsible for camera, lighting, and generally the main enemy of staying on schedule, just kidding. Kind of. On BFTS I still maintained in the Producer role in addition to those directorial responsibilities.
The experience in those other disciplines was helpful on this show because it gave me awareness of what was going on in all facets of production. My work as a DP helped me understand not just the amount of time required for a particular shot, but why that shot will be worth the wait. To direct the show, I actually had to fight off my producer’s mind to make sure I wasn’t too quick to cut shots or make compromises for the sake of time/money. That said, I still was keenly aware of the importance of time, avoiding overtime, and figuring out what was essential in terms of crafting each episode.
For example, on our first episode there is a pretty specific ending shot of the main characters walking down the street, but on the production day grabbing this shot would have taken so long that I would have had to cut a key dialogue scene from the middle of the episode. Having spent time wearing all those hats, I knew that I could manufacture something for the final shot, but the story would be incomplete without the dialogue, which would ultimately result in either a reshoot or failure. Had I directed this show a few years back, I don’t know if I would have been able to weigh that decision as quickly.
This was a muscle I would have to flex in less drastic circumstances quite frequently to keep up with the ridiculous page count we were shooting each day. Most Hollywood productions shoot somewhere between 2–3 pages of script per day. On indie films, we commonly you’re talking probably 4–6 pages per day to accommodate for limited budgets and shorter schedules. On BFTS we shot somewhere between 8 and 11 script pages on every day except one.
CONCLUSION
I am excited and honored to bring this project to life. I am humbled that CMA Digital Studios saw it as a story worth telling. And I am incredibly thankful for the cast and crew who brought their tremendous talents into its creation, creating the opportunity to share some of my experiences, and hopefully a few laughs, with the world.
You can follow BFTS on Facebook and Instagram
Brothers from the Suburbs was produced as a part of the CMA Digital Studios short form digital slate, promoting Chicago stories from Chicago filmmakers.
