A Hurricane derails the milk truck: A look at the production of Milk Money
Imagine being a full-time student working on a feature film. You would likely think that it seems very stressful. Now imagine working on a film for years on end, only to have your entire schedule derailed by a hurricane. That is what happened to the filmmakers behind the upcoming independent film Milk Money.
One of those filmmakers, in particular, is Dani Rabinowitz. A filmmaker originally from Charlotte, Dani has spent the last 2 years working on Milk Money, and he is not going to let a hurricane get in his way of finishing his passion project.
Dani has been a filmmaker since he was in high school in Charlotte. He was led to this career choice after taking a speech and debate class in high school that also educated him about how to choose a career.
Rabinowitz says that he was also inspired by his grandfather, who was a playwright. “I went from the playwright aspect thinking screenwriting would be a little bit more secure” explained Rabinowitz.
Once he pinned down his career choice, Dani continued working toward his career goal throughout high school and into college. Dani is a student at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington where he majors in Film Studies.
Dani and his co-screenwriter Felix Carlson began working on Milk Money in the summer of 2016 when they started to come up with ideas of a film project and what they wanted to do with it.
Initially, they had two separate ideas for two short films. One centered on a modern milkman in the 21st Century, and another focusing on a marijuana salesman who sells marijuana door-to-door. Eventually, after talking it through, the pair of writers decided to combine the ideas and turn the final concept into a feature film.
Dani and Felix pitched their idea to various people but no avail. With the writers down and out, they decided to launch an IndieGoGo campaign, along with Johnathan Carlson, to raise funds for the film’s production budget.
The campaign was not very successful. Overall, the production raised $3,685 out of an overall flexible goal of $22,000. “There was a learning process in it,” remarked Rabinowitz when talking about the campaign. “$3,200 of it was raised in the first week. The rest of it was just trickled in, and it was really like pulling teeth to get the rest of it out.”
The filmmakers ultimately met Harry Hudson, the man who would become a producer on the film as well as contribute financially. The majority of the production budget went towards the payment of the actors.
Although the team behind Milk Money did not have the money that they would have liked to have for the production, they were able to use their imagination as well as their connections to pull things off.
For instance, Dani and Harry worked for a production company in Wilmington called CIA Media Team. They used their connections within the company to obtain camera gear and production equipment that was used during the production of Milk Money.
Being a filmmaker is one thing but being a student filmmaker is more difficult to balance.
“The biggest thing is the schedule of course because all of us on the team are working 30 hours a week and we have school, full-time, and we are developing this film,” says Rabinowitz.
One big challenge for the crew was the balance between school, work, and the film. Being that the majority of the production consisted of undergraduate students, a lot of meticulous scheduling had to be done to get everyone that was needed on set at a convenient time for all.
Principal photography for the film was done in multiple blocks, one fourteen-day block and a few three to four-day blocks. Being that Milk Money was an independent production, there was not a point person to schedule the cast and crew.
“We technically did have a producer and an assistant director and everything but again, it’s all of our first time. Those titles are literally just arbitrary, they literally are just to divide labor, and aren’t based on experience. If it were, I wouldn’t be directing.”
Dani’s girlfriend, Savannah Crespo, served as the costume designer on the film as well as a production assistant. She touched on how much work Dani did for this movie on a broader scope. “I hope that people could see and recognize how much work he has actually been putting into this, compared to the other people who worked on it. I feel like people actually don’t know the extent of what jobs he’s actually done that he’s not getting credit for.”
The role of the “point person” fell to Dani. On top of being the film’s director and co-screenwriter, he would also run the day-to-day operations including scheduling of the cast and crew.
One major decision made by Dani towards the beginning of the production was to film the movie in Wilmington. This decision was made due to many factors. “Half of our professional cast was Charlotte or Greensboro located. It would have been probably just as easy, or maybe even a little bit easier, to film in Charlotte than in Wilmington” said Rabinowitz.
The primary reason that Milk Money was filmed in Wilmington was due to the production’s desire to make it into one of Wilmington’s biggest film festivals, Cucalorous.
One of the factors that the film festival takes into account when selecting films is the relevance of the film’s topic. “At the time the most logical thing was to tailor our film for Cucalorus and to make it a local film that takes on local issues and we figured that it would be a shoo-in for Cucalorus.”
The film was topical due to its plot points concerning the use of medical marijuana in the Wilmington area. According to a 2016 article from Star News Online, a Wilmington based publication, Wilmington ranked number one in the United States as the city with the highest rate of opioid abuse. Marijuana has been said to help in severe cases of opioid abuse as something to help stop the use of opioids.
Ultimately, the production decided to curtail their hopes of getting into the festival because it did not seem to fit their ultimate desires for the film. “That is something we learned recently is that getting into a film festival is not about how good your film is, but if it fills the slot that they need,” said Rabinowitz. As the production progressed, they concluded that they wanted to put out a great film, rather than to make the film fit some sort of specific mold.
As of now, the film is finished shooting but there is still a lot of work to be done in post-production. Originally, Dani aimed to have a rough cut of the film finished by the end of September to hold some screenings in Charlotte later that month. This goal was set back by one of the most impactful storms to hit the Carolina coast in recent history, Hurricane Florence.
“We were supposed to screen a rough cut of the film at the end of September, and to give you some perspective: we don’t have anything near a rough cut now.”
Before Hurricane Florence hit, everyone involved with the production that was located in Wilmington had to evacuate the city for their safety. According to NPR, over 1 million people were ordered to evacuate Wilmington due to Hurricane Florence.
When describing the setback, Dani explained just how badly the hurricane Impacted the production, “We were all evacuated for about a month, so we couldn’t get any editing progress done at all.”
Along with the setback on the film, responsibilities began to pile up for the post-production crew of Milk Money.
“When we got back all the workload for our classes added up, we’ve been using our time on that, so we haven’t been able to do anything,” said Dani when stressing how much the hurricane setback his school schedule.
Even with the setback, Dani and the rest of the crew plan to get things up and running as soon as possible. “All of our post-production is going to have to be done in December when we get back from school. There’s going to be a golden two weeks where we can just work day-in, day-out on post, but it’s a nightmare because of that,” said Dani.
Currently, Rabinowitz plans to have the rough cut of the film finished by the end of January. This cut is still going to be unfinished, it will not have music, nor will it have any finalized shots and effects. The cut will be primarily screened for feedback from many professionals in the film industry in Wilmington as well as Charlotte.
When describing their goal with the rough cut, Dani explained, “Once we have the rough cut that’s how we are going to know what film we are making.” Also, Dani explained other things he wishes to clear up with the results from the rough cut, “That’s how we’re going to know what soundtrack we want, that’s how we need to know if we need to give the film a more dramatic or maybe a more comedic edge.”
In the end, Rabinowitz sees the rough cut as the key to getting the final version of Milk Money finished and ready for the festival circuit. Dani explains this sentiment by saying, “It’s really at that point when the rough cut is done, that’s when we know what Milk Money is going to be.”
Now, the crew’s ultimate goal is to enter the film into some of the more notable film festivals across the United States. Dani goes on to say, “I think now the plan is to shoot for one of the big four festivals like Tribeca, South by Southwest, the LA Film Festival, and Sundance.”
As for plans for release beyond the festivals, Rabinowitz is not so sure that it would benefit this movie in particular. When asked about the release plans, in particular, Dani remarked, “I don’t really know, because I’m not really sure what release is going to be yet or what that means for us yet.” As for streaming, Dani is not a big fan of the format for one particular reason, lack of visibility. “I kind of felt at the time, and maybe a little bit now, that if everyone is going for streaming, then it is going to become a bookshelf. It’s going to sit there and not be touched and no one is going to watch it,” Dani explained.
An additional goal for the filmmakers is to make connections in the film industry through the festival. Also, if the film indeed does well in the festival circuit, Dani says that the team may lighten up towards the streaming distribution model in the end.
As for the future, Dani does have some plans beyond Milk Money. He would like to make another feature film, but this time with a much higher budget. “From what I’ve learned so far: the budget for what you get for your film and where you get that budget really changes,” Dani explained when talking about why he would take a much higher budget for his next project.
The jury is still out on how Milk Money will turn out in the end. Even with all the planning and hopes for the near future, there is still no telling how the movie will be received. Dani will take any result that is given to him regarding the reception of the movie. To him, Milk Money is just the first step in what he hopes to be a successful filmmaking journey.
