Interview with Marina Stabile, Freelance Producer
I sat down with freelance producer Marina Stabile last week to talk about organizing chaos, learning to handle the stress of production, and the joy of telling stories for a living.
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Hana: Okay so we like to start out with something fun. What is your preferred caffeine source? Very critical…
Marina: Very essential to any sort of work in the film industry. Tea. Earl Gray, milk, sugar. Always.
H: Oh I love it.
M: Lots and lots of tea in my life.
H: I love earl gray. So… you ‘re a freelance producer. What’s a typical day at work? Obviously, that is the like that most ridiculous question in the world, but you can give us some variety.
M: No it’s not ridiculous. There are so many different typical days of work. When I’m in between projects, usually, my typical day of work is, get up go to the gym come home and sit at my dining room table and chip away at my own projects, read scripts and start looking for the next thing. A typical day in prep for a commercial or film can be anywhere from 12-18 hour days, lots of meetings, lots of calling vendors, calling crew. A lot, a lot of meetings, but they’re the most important thing you can do in prep, because if everyone’s not on the same page you don’t want to be there when you get to set. On set, it usually depends on the project. If it’s a narrative and it’s a feature and I’ve been able to do all the prep that I’ve wanted well, then it’s much calmer, you’re just at the monitor with the director, you know, managing any sort of last minute fires that you need to put out, but you get to be there and enjoy everything that you’ve done in prep. If it’s a low budget commercial, I don’t think I ever sit down. Then it’s a bunch of days running around for 14 hours, just making sure that everything is happening when it’s supposed to be happening and putting out a whole lot of fires because usually you don’t have a lot of prep time, so you’re still doing it as you’re shooting.
H: I feel like there’s this—you really want to feel like you have control over every little element before you get there, and then you when you get there sometimes it’s good and everything’s clicking and sometimes, there’s all these little pieces that you weren’t able to wrangle—can you talk about that desire for control versus reality?
M: Oh god yeah. The desire for control is constant. I mean, I think if you go into producing or if you go into any form of physical production, you tend to be the kind of person that likes to organize chaos. Organizing the chaos being the operative word here. I’ve had so many situations where you think everything is perfect and then you find out, that you know, of course next to the place where you’re shooting all of a sudden there’s a concert that’s gonna happen, like two minutes ago. Or there’s a protest. No matter how much you organize, there’s always going to be an unexpected event, and part of producing is knowing how hard you want to make sure things are running smoothly, but also when everything goes wrong, being able to just let go and say, okay, so that happened, what are we going to do now? How do we fix it now? One of my favorite things to say is “there are no time machines.” If something went wrong, I don’t necessarily need somebody to sit there and explain to me for an hour why everything went wrong, it’s like okay, it happened, we have x number of hours to finish our day and get everything in the can, so let’s do it. Let’s figure out where we go now. I think there’s a balance there. There’s a balance in wanting to make sure that you can control everything, but knowing how to just throw out the plan when life happens, and life happens all the time. Know how to be flexible and how to really make the most of it. In film we talk a lot about happy accidents and sometimes those are the moments when something really magical happens on screen because there’s unexpected chaos and something you never thought of doing ends up being the best solution.
H: I feel like when I first started out, I would just be in panic mode, like all the time. And now I’m starting to get to a place now having had a little bit more experience, where I’m like okay, you know sh*t’s going to go wrong, just chill out… Like how long did it take you to get that point where you’re like, oh yeah, we’ve done this, I know the day will actually end, it will end. We’ll all be alive and it might not be great, but was there any like moment or any shoot where everything was just terrible and you finally realized like, you know what, it’s going to be okay.
M: The sun will still rise. Umm, it’s funny, I don’t know that… This isn’t bad news I promise, but I don’t think you ever completely get over the stress of it. I’m an insomniac and it flares up a lot around the most stressful times. I remember when I was doing my thesis film in grad school, at some point I could only manage about an hour and a half of sleep. And then you get to set and you’re like, okay, you know what, I’ve done everything I can for the next six days and it’s gonna be what it’s gonna be. But you still work through it. I think when you get to the point where you’re like “okay I’ve got this", is anytime you’re doing something you’ve already done before and this sounds boring but it’s not, it’s actually good for you to have a little bit of stress about doing something new and a new challenge and a little bit of apprehension that’s fine too, but I think you need a little bit of that stress to drive you to do it well. And then the next time, when you do something similar, then you don’t have to worry about it. You know, the stress never goes away, but at the same time, it’s not something that’s constantly there.
I think if you go into producing or if you go into any form of physical production, you tend to be the kind of person that likes to organize chaos. Organizing the chaos being the operative word here.
H: Okay, I’m going to rewind a little bit. We’re going to go back to growing up. Where did you grow up? You have an interesting background; give us a little bit of your background.
M: I have a totally strange background. I’m originally from Brazil. I was born there and when I was 10 years old, my dad’s job transferred him to Switzerland. So, we went to live in Geneva, which is a super international town. I ended up going to an international school, where there were people from a 118 different nationalities. I think they spoke something like 98 different languages, which was amazing. But I figured out really early on that I wanted to work in film; I was in love with it. I think, I definitely credit TV and films with like the fat that I can speak English without an accent.
H: Yeah, your English is… I would never have thought that you weren’t born here.
M: Thank you, I watched a lot of TV as a kid. [laughs]
H: Did you learn English before you went to the international school, or once you got there?
M: I took one hour of English classes once a week when I was a little kid and literally the only two sentences I knew how to say properly before I moved were, “May I have a glass of water please?” and “May I please go to the bathroom?”
H: Very important when you’re 10.
M: Very important. So important. But I’ve just been in love with film for so long and I think I was 16 when I realized it was something you could actually do for a living. I came out here to L.A. and did my undergrad at USC and actually went back to Switzerland when I finished. I ended up majoring in film and international relations and I went to work for one of the branches of the UN, the International Labor Organization, where we made documentaries about their projects around the world. Which was great, but ultimately, I came back because I really want to work in fiction and this was the right place to be. So I came back and did my masters here at AFI.
H: I was an IR major.
M: I love it.
H: You can do whatever you want with your liberal arts degree.
M: Everyone was like international relations and film?? And I did literally the only job you can do that uses both degrees.
H: Yeah, you did.
M: Haven’t found another one since.
H: Yeah I haven’t really used much of my IR degree. But that’s okay. When you got back to LA, you went to grad school. Did you have other jobs, like random LA jobs to help you get through?
M: So I’ve never had random LA jobs, because I can’t. As an international student, you can only work in the field that you’re studying. But I did have one, when I decided that I wanted to come back and to go to grad school and study film again, I quit my job at the UN, because, as much as I loved it, it was not the most lucrative business. So, I actually ended doing something that’s completely different but funny enough has the same skill sets as you need for producing. I went into executive relocation. Basically, these big multinationals would move their headquarters to Geneva and they would hire the company that I was working for to handle all of their executives’ personal move, which includes finding a house, a school for their kids, helping them buy a car, get phone, internet, cell phone set up, a bank account.
H: That must be big business in Switzerland.
M: It was big business. And it was kind of amazing because you’re learning logistics and then you’re learning something else that you really need as a producer which is every client was different, every person came with a different set of expectations, their background was different and so you’re just learning how to deal with different people. And, how to please them and at the same time how to break the news to them that, welcome to Switzerland, things are way more expensive here. Your house is going to be smaller. So I did that for almost two years to save up money to come to grad school.
H: That’s a cool job. So then once you graduated, obviously staying here and all that, that’s another piece of the puzzle that’s slightly more complicated in your case. How’d you do that, what was your first job, what were all hoops you had to jump through?
M: My very first job out of grad school was coordinating a commercial. A web commercial and its funny how that happened, a good friend of mine had been interning for this production company and they did one spot for this client and the client really liked it and wanted to go again. In the meantime my friend had decided to move to New York. The company called her and said hey can you recommend somebody to do your job? She’s like absolutely. And what was funny is that for me, it was a complete change because everything I had done here in the U.S. until then was for school and you don’t pay anyone in school. And I had never had a job in the U.S. so all of a sudden I’m not only doing the negotiating with vendors, which is fine, but I’m having to do payroll, which is something I had never encountered before. And thank god, I did, because right after that, that same company the two principals of the company had a friend who was looking for a line producer for an ultra-low budget feature. They asked them, “hey do you know somebody who’s good and cheap?” and they’re like, “yes. Here is this one. We used her for a commercial; we think she can handle it.” And thank god, because without that commercial, I don’t think I would have known how to even pay anyone on this feature. So one thing leads to another, but yeah. I haven’t looked back since. So do it, replace your friend on the job that she can’t take. Always do it.
H: What is your best story from that ultra low- budget film? Like crazy, ridiculous, or really amazing whatever? Favorite story.
M: How much can I say that isn’t censored? I had such a tough... Like the---
H: Where was it? Was it L.A.?
M: No it was in San Diego. Oh, so this was, this should never have been an ultra low-budget film, but it was 2009, the economy had cratered, and everybody was working for no money and you had to find a way to make things happen. And if what you had was an ultra low amount of money, you were just going to do it. So this was a teen tennis movie. It was a romantic comedy about a teen tennis prodigy, who gets injured — it’s called 16- Love.
H: Cute… 16-Love.
M: So she hurts herself and this young guy convinces her to start training with him while she’s healing and she needs to learn to be a kid and to fall in love with tennis again in order to succeed when she comes back. It’s cute, it’s from the writer and producer of A Cinderella Story. But all of a sudden, you’re doing this with way less money than they had for Cinderella Story. I had to fill tennis stadiums full of people, right? And with no budget for it. We had two solutions, one was I got inflatable crowds, which is a real thing, they’re like blow up dolls with clothes and hair that you can hire to fill the seats and usually put them in the higher seats so that it doesn’t look so obvious, and you have animated humans in between. But since this was in San Diego, this was out of town, people would still get excited about being in a movie, and so we ended up getting 100s of people to show up and be in these crowds. We’d feed them, we’d keep them entertained, we had one of our stars was in a Disney channel show and the other was on soap opera, on General Hospital, I think. And so they would actually come and entertain the crowds and I would raffle off an iPod mini a day, and this was how we got hundreds of extras to show up and stay for the day, but it was the only way we could do it. The only way we could do it was to start reaching out to the community and say, “hey do you want to be part of this movie? ” And the first time somebody gets on a set it’s like really fun for the first 35 minutes or 45 minutes and then not so fun for the next 12 hours. So, we just had to find ways to keep them entertained. And, you know, we’d basically, we’d raffle things off, if they showed up for four or more days, we’d turn them into featured extras… But it was the only way to do it and somehow magically, I think because it wasn’t in LA, it worked out. It was… I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that again.
H: No probably not. That’s funny. So from there, to now, what was the trajectory, just word of mouth, like different stuff? Talk me through from when you got that first gig through a friend through now.
M: So, it bounces back and forth. My first gig, as I mentioned, was as a coordinator, and then I went on to line produce something and then you go back and you coordinate. When you’re freelancing there are dry spells and there are moments when you are working a lot more and I found that the most important thing is to keep working and keep building relationships, so I did that first commercial I went on to do that film and then things slowed down again so I went back to doing commercials at that point, I was UPMing or line producing commercials and slowly started building a network, Then I produced an ultra low budget film for $40,000. You know, back to commercials, back to low budget films and eventually started doing enough work with some of these companies that I think the biggest show I’ve done to date was I UPMed a $5million film in Maryland, which was my first full union show and that’s actually where Mortal Kombat came from because when I came back somebody reached out to the line producer that I had been UPMing under, and said hey we need somebody who knows how to navigate the unions, but can do this on a budget. Basically I’ve discovered that I’m very good at doing the same thing as somebody else for less money. [laughs]
H: That’s fun.
M: Which is the most important thing. And that’s how that came about. But ultimately, most of my jobs have come from relationships, and I don’t mean you know like having family members that are well connected or anything like that. It’s just, you go do a job, you work as hard as you can and you try to get along with everyone that you’re working with and your phone will ring and you go on to the next one and the next one. Sometimes, you’re going to do it for a lot less money than you did the previous time, sometimes you’re going to do it with a lot less responsibility, but as long as you keep at it, the next thing keeps coming, as long as you keep working, it’s work begets work, so the path has always been just keep at it and try to say yes to as many projects as possible because you know something is going to come from them.
H: What is your all time favorite project that you’ve worked on?
M: Oh my god, what is my all time favorite project. I… so, after doing all of these bigger projects, a really good friend of mine, who is this amazing writer came to me with a script for a short that she wanted to direct. And it was a complete no brainer. Another good friend who’s a cinematographer, who’s really been trying to push her to keep writing because she was originally a producer and she has been transitioning, was also in love with it, and so the three of us got together and we made this amazing short film for $4000. Where we did everything.
H: “Skin”? Are you talking about “Skin”?
M: Yeah.
H: That was 4 grand, holy crap.
M: That was 4 grand.
H: It looked like 20. At least.
M: It was every favor we ever could pull. It was years of building up these relationships; you know we had a friend who let us have his camera for free. We had a friend who let us have his grip and electric gear for free. I used my boyfriend’s pickup truck to cart all of our equipment around, you know we handled all of the crafty and everything we could. Everyone was a department of one. A great majority of the people working on that were women, which was really kind of awesome.
H: What about the talent?
M: Oh the talent was amazing. We had Marguerite Moreau, who, now everyone’s going to remember from Wet Hot American Summer because Netflix is going to make the TV series for it. But who I remember so well from The Mighty Ducks . And who is incredible. Marguerite came to us through Liz’s managers. Liz is the writer/director, Liz Hannah. Our friend Alejandro, who also produced the short, brought us Sean Pyfrom who was in Desperate Housewives. And everyone else on screen was a friend. Marguerite and Sean signed on because they loved the script and they were amazing, they were totally down for the “hey lets rent out two hotel rooms and we’re going to exist in this space for a day and we’re all just gonna be on top of each other but we’re going to do it.” You know, we were doing that for ourselves we were doing that because it was a story we wanted to tell and that was honestly, I think that was my favorite.
H: I feel like the feeling and the vibe with the crew is so important and you can see it on screen when its good you know. Like I feel like that must have been…
M: Yeah. No it was because it was going to be so tough. I mean we made it a point to pay everyone even if it was a pittance, but because we wanted to make sure that everyone is feeling appreciated, but we still knew that it was nothing, it was nothing compared to what they were really worth. And so we needed to have people that we felt cared about it as much as we did. And we did and we were so lucky with the people that came on board to do it. And I think when you find that, when you go, when you find your crew based on who is invested in the story, and who’s invested in the project, that just changes everything. Because its 100% a team effort, you know, you show up, and it doesn’t matter, what we were talking earlier about the surprises and curve balls, it doesn’t matter, because everyone’s just going to look at it and go okay, we’re all just going to figure this one out together, and it shows, I think it does show on the screen because you’ve seen that. We did it for nothing and we did it in two days. Or one full day and one short day. We felt like there was nothing stopping us at that point. It worked.
H: It’s gone to a festival or what’s the life been for it?
M: We’re just starting the festival circuit for it. It was the opening night film at the Vancouver Women in Film and Television Festival. It played, it was the first screening, they first played our short and then their opening night feature. It played here at the LA Women’s Film Festival and now it’s at the short film corner in Cannes, which opens in two weeks, which is amazing.
H: Congratulations. That’s awesome.
M: Thank you!
H: Do you think being a woman has influenced your career path at all and if so in what way?
M: I do think so. I can’t imagine that it wouldn’t. I think it’s influenced what projects I choose. A lot. You know, there’s more than enough out there showing women in a way that I don’t agree with so I on many occasions just simply opted out of something simply because I don’t agree with the way its portraying women and I have no problem saying that. I’m not sure if it has prevented me from getting any jobs, luckily nobody will actually tell you to your face that you’re not getting a job because you’re a woman.
H: Maybe luckily… I don’t know… Maybe it’d be better if they were honest.
M: I don’t know, that’s true. But I’ve also had a lot more challenges because of it. And you learn how to deal with it. You just, I think you have to be very realistic about the fact that this is an industry where we’re in the minority. It’s still difficult and people are still going to have attitudes that you don’t agree with. I’ve had people be extremely condescending to me, I’ve had people go as far as undermining themselves because they didn’t want to work with a woman producer, which is amazing… But it kind of goes both ways. I’ve often paired up with male producers and I always like to view this as a collaboration, I don’t necessarily pair up with male producers consciously because they are males, but usually its whoever is the best fit, but whenever I do they’re A) men who truly respect women and B) men who are also very realistic about this, so we’re very open. I think it’s very important to say you’re going to have challenges, but you’re also going to have advantages. And so figure out what they are and work with it. I know that there are some people that I negotiate better with, that I know I’m going to get a better result because I’m this small girl who smiles, and they’re going to have a harder time saying no to me. But at the same time I know that there’s going to moments where that’s a disadvantage and I have no problems turning to my partner and saying it’s your turn to go handle this one. I’ll talk care of them, you take care of these ones. So yeah, it’s definitely affected what I choose to do and realistically it’s made my life harder sometimes, but I think the most important thing is to be realistic about it and just ay okay it’s gonna happen, how am I gonna get around this?
H: Yeah, for sure. What motivates you? What gets you to keep going? What’s pushing you?
M: It’s funny, I think to do what we do, to be in this industry, to me the best answer for what keeps you going is that I could not picture myself doing anything else. I get up in the morning and it doesn’t matter how difficult things are at the moment. I know there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing. I want to tell stories and I get to tell stories for a living. You know, it’s the best thing. You…
H: You are smiling right now.
M: I’m smiling like an idiot. [laughs]
H: No it’s amazing, it’s amazing. When it’s like you love it when you’re in some really sh*tty location it’s like really hot.
M: Or you or in the mud and it’s been raining..
H: And you’re just like smiling. Like I love this job. I’m fucking crazy! What is wrong with me?
M: Oh my god, like all of Mortal Kombat was in the rain, in the mud, it was cold, we had not nearly enough money to do what we wanted to do. I was not sleeping. And I wouldn’t trade that for anything.
H: And then you look at the monitor.
M: And then you look at the monitor. Or you just look at the chaos, you step back, you look at the set, you see everyone working and you’re like oh my god, we’re all here to tell a story. I get to tell stories for a living. It’s the best thing possible.
H: Okay, proudest career achievement to date.
M: Um, actually, my proudest career achievement came super early, hopefully I’m going to get many, many more. But I was telling you about how I barely slept when I was doing my thesis film at AFI that I produced and co-wrote with my director and another fantastic writer and it was so tough and it was so hard, we did, it was a film about two paramedics during the LA riots. And, I was in the middle of that ultra low budget film when I heard that we had won a student BAFTA award for it.
H: Wow.
M: Which is the British Academy award. And it’s just the most validating thing when you go wow, I nearly killed myself to do this and people like it. My peers and these people that I look up to, actually really recognize that this is something good. So that to me was the best.
H: That’s amazing. Okay for a couple more fun ones… ONE piece of advice for young women in the entertainment industry?
M: Help each other out. This industry is tough enough as it is. Don’t make it harder by isolating yourself or trying to do it all on your own. Filmmaking is a team effort, and the more people you have on your team, the better.
H: ONE movie everyone should watch before they die?
M: Oh wow, that’s tough. Do I have to pick just one? I can’t. Ok, I’ll pick a few: Dr. Stangelove, The Lives of Others, and The Goonies. How about that? Three completely different ones, but each brilliant in their own way.
H: ONE really good place to eat in LA?
M: Square One Dining in Hollywood. They have the most amazing French Toast in the world. Seriously. It’s incredible.
H: ONE tool of the trade you use the most?
M: More a tool than a tool of the trade: My phone. It’s my whole office in one device. I have no idea how we did this job before smart phones and didn’t go completely crazy.
H: ONE superpower you wish you had? (not necessarily for work, but for all of life)
M: Teleportation. I could get so much more done in life if I could go from one place to the other in the blink of an eye.
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TRAILERS FROM SOME OF MARINA STABILE’S WORK:
[reposted from The Trebuchet predecessor The Stairs on WordPress]
