5 Questions with Matt Kazman, Ryan Nethery & Matt Porter

Matt Kazman (left), Matt Porter (center), Ryan Nethery (right)

1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking?

Matt Kazman: I know that Porter and I have already answered this question for the site, so I figured I’d say how we all became friends and started working together. We all went to the same film school, though I didn’t become friends with either of them until after we graduated. I was always a fan of Matt’s work, and a few years out of school, I asked him to act in something, which is like asking someone to hang out in a really intense way for a few days, and thankfully we became friends from there. Ryan was shooting B-Cam on that thing, weirdly enough. And once I started hanging out with Ryan, we quickly realized that we shared a similar taste, and he’s shot most of my stuff ever since. I’ll let them debunk any and all of this, though.

Matt Porter: All accurate! I’ll just add that Ryan and I have also worked together on various projects through the years, particularly on my sketch comedy web series “Good Cop Great Cop.” I think that experience also prepared us well for shooting this, as those shoots would often be very bare bones, little or no crew.  

Ryan Nethery: I grew up making ‘Jackass’ knock-off videos with my best friends in middle school, I hosted “screenings” at sleepovers, plugging in the Hi-8 camcorder to the TV and laughing our asses off at the sophomoric jokes and slapstick humor of our scrappily made “shoot for the edit” movies. From that point on, I was sold on filmmaking. I could have a career in this? Sign me up. Storytelling has the power to captivate and spark joy, even if it’s just 11 year olds ramping BMX bikes into bushes and pulling pranks on defenseless sleeping friends. I’ve since “graduated” to other types of filmmaking, but I haven’t lost that joy that comes from sharing what you’ve made with friends and others. For the past few years, I’ve been interested more in directing and this was a great opportunity to work with friends in a supportive and trusting environment.

2) What’s the backstory here - what was the initial idea and how did it evolve from there?

MK: Well, this thing came about because Ryan, who had just moved to LA, was anxious to make something more personal (as we all are). We knew that we were going to Palm Springs with Porter for the ShortFest, so we thought it could be fun to make something simple together in the desert, with just the three of us. I threw out the idea of a guy coming to the West Coast to spread his dad’s ashes in the desert, and having an old friend who lives in LA pick him up and take him out there. We talked about the difficulties of long-distance relationships (not just romantic ones), especially now when it’s so easy to stay within your own bubble, and it felt like an interesting setup to explore a couple of characters who are forced to confront that now-distant relationship in person. When we started talking about it, Porter suggested that we make them brothers, which felt like it was covering the same feelings while being easier to establish quickly in a short. And from there, we just talked about what these guys could be like and how it could play out, keeping in mind that we would only have a day to shoot it.

MP: It wasn’t until the night before we planned to shoot that we finally cracked the structure, and we threw together an outline in our hotel room before getting up early and driving out to the desert. We knew it would continue to change and evolve as we improvised, but by that point, we had a sense of the arc and what we needed from each scene.

RN: When brainstorming possible locations, I remembered that I hiked through this stretch of desert on my thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail in 2018. I thought that this landscape would lend itself well to the story we were telling, so I pitched the guys on it. Although it was a bit of a drive outside of Palm Springs, it was worth it to have the stunning Mount San Jacinto and Fuller Ridge as our backdrop, and it felt great to be back on the trail that changed my life.

3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And generally what part of the creative process do you enjoy the most, and the least?

MP: The biggest and most obvious challenge was filming with a three person crew in which two of the three are acting, and only one person has to focus on everything else. Luckily we’ve all worked with each other enough that we quickly got into a rhythm in terms of communication. Not to mention Ryan is a true rock star, so he was able to make the film look great while also keeping an ear on the sound coming from our lav mics. We were also lucky that it wasn’t absurdly hot in the desert that day, otherwise we probably would have given up a few hours in. In addition to the small crew and the location, I also was on crutches for real while we shot, having rolled my ankle really badly the day before. So, that was tough. Oh, and I also had to get back to LA that evening and make a plane back to New York. All in all, a pretty challenging shoot! But even with all of this against us, not only did we accomplish what we set out to do, we also had enough time to stop at In N’ Out and grab burgers on the way to the airport. Personally, my favorite parts were the moments during the shoot where things were really gelling and we were evolving the story and the character dynamic naturally via improv and quick discussions among the three of us between takes. The worst part was probably hopping around on those crutches for hours.

MK: As someone who had no injuries, the biggest challenge for me was simply acting, seeing as how I don’t do that. I was very nervous about it, but thankfully, Porter and Ryan threw a lot of positivity my way while we were filming, and since we didn’t write any dialogue, I didn’t have to remember any specific lines, which I actually think made things easier. I was also playing a dick, which was very fun to do. Like Porter said, we got into a good rhythm while we were filming and before each take, we’d go over what emotional beats we were trying to hit and then we’d try and hit them, and going through that process with two friends in the middle of nowhere with no one else watching was a very fun and satisfying experience. Even though this shoot had a lot of stressful factors (including almost getting caught in a nearby wildfire, which Ryan called the Fire Department about and probably saved a neighborhood from burning down), it was probably the most fun I’ve had shooting something in a while. It was a total 180 from my last short in terms of production, and I kind of felt like a kid again, just making stuff with my friends. The post process was also less painful than usual because our friend Jacob Halpren took on the task of editing it, and having that distance, especially in those first cuts, was immensely helpful.

RN: The most satisfying part of making this film for me was the camaraderie that accompanies this kind of creative collaboration. I have to applaud our ability to make tough creative choices and sometimes concessions, democratically and on the fly. If a producer asked me to direct a film with 2 other directors I would probably tell them that they are insane and that the production would go horrible with too many cooks in the kitchen. Luckily for us, our respect for one another’s creative sensibilities and ideas fostered an environment where we could be free to express ourselves without judgement.

4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?

MP: This is a weird one but I just watched British actor Andrew Scott’s “Hamlet,” a filmed stage production from a year or two ago. I’ve never been a huge Shakespeare person but I like Andrew Scott a lot and I won’t lie, it’s pretty excellent! Let me be the first to say that “Hamlet” Is a pretty damn good play.

RN: I was fortunate to see some excellent films at Sundance this year and my favorite of the festival by far was ‘The Killing of Two Lovers’ from director Robert Machoian. This film really stuck with me after the festival. It’s an intimate portrait of a young husband navigating a trial separation from his wife and family in rural Utah, while going to any length to hold his family together. The incredible performances and evocative cinematography from Oscar Ignacio Jiménez gripped me from start to finish. Can’t wait to see some of Machoian’s other films.

MK: I saw Kelly Reichardt’s “First Cow” right before all the theaters closed down, which I really enjoyed. I wish I had seen it at a Nitehawk or Alamo Drafthouse-type theater though, because I would have paid anything to eat some oily cakes while watching it.

5) What’s next for you?

MP: Self-isolating!

MK: Same! Also, wrapping my mind around the current state of things.

RN: I’m currently hunkered down in my house feeling extremely fortunate that my girlfriend Alexis is a super talented chef. We decided to make some cooking videos this month that feature recipes that are easily made with pantry staples that most folks in isolation will likely have on hand; flour, sugar, eggs, rice, beans, etc. It’s fun because I’ve never shot anything like this before, but we’re making the best of it. Trying to stay creative!

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Instagram:

Matt Kazman -- @kattmazman
Ryan Nethery -- @ryan.nethery
Matt Porter -- @mrmattporter