5 Questions with Sarah Ballard
1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking?
I gravitated towards the arts from a young age, but it wasn’t until high school that I really got into filmmaking. I accidentally signed up for a class called Acting for The Camera where I got my hands on a MiniDV camcorder and some editing software.
2) What was the initial idea for this project and how did it evolve from there?
It began as a poem about a girl waiting at the bakery for her estranged father on Christmas Eve. This was then adapted into a shootable script for my undergrad thesis—although the film I graduated with is very different from the final product you can see today. It went through several drafts in the edit and in the end, it became something closer to the original poem.
3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And the easiest part?!
The biggest challenge was absolutely post-production. What a rollercoaster. It took over 2 years to edit this thing! We shot the film in 2017-2018 with the intent to leave room to play around in the edit; using multi-camera setups and constant rolling (gotta love digital). This process worked for me on previous films but it became clear that this time it hadn’t. When it came time to edit, I was paralyzed by the amount of footage we had. I spent a lot of time trying to make it something that it never was: a straightforward narrative. I even passed it around to a few different editors and still it wasn’t working. I started to come to terms with the idea that it would never be finished, which resulted in lots and lots of guilt. And even then, I was having a hard time moving on to the next thing.
It wasn’t until quarantine that I decided to scrap the entire project file and start from scratch—and within a few weeks I had a brand new film in front of me.
As far as the easiest part, I really lucked out with my actors. I had the pleasure of collaborating with Rachel and Arielle who are both extremely talented and way out of my league. Their chemistry was effortless the moment they were put in a room together and that made my job so much easier. I really asked a lot from them on set and I’m forever grateful for their selfless work.
4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?
Kelly Reichardt is one of my biggest influences and I don’t go a single day without thinking about Wendy and Lucy. Reichardt effortlessly captures emergency while simultaneously making you sit with the mundane. This film asks the viewer to be patient and I find that so important—patience.
5) What’s next for you?
I’ve been doing some writing for future projects and I’m in the early early stages of applying to grad school. Things are uncertain at the moment, so we’ll see.
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https://www.sarahballard.design/
IG: @sara_hballard