5 Questions with Josh Brainin & Ernest Kabashi
Ernest Kabashi (left), Josh Brainin (right)
1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking?
We originally came together and created a fashion company called “Terra Metaphysics.” The release of our clothes was always accompanied by curated magazines and videos. We started to realize that our true passion lay in philosophy, art direction, and sound design; This crystalized into our love for filmmaking. Since our childhoods we have been using films as a way to heal and understand the world. Now we want to do the same and use our films as a tool to teach and heal others.
2) What was the initial idea for this project and how did it evolve from there?
One day we were talking about life because we were at a turning point, deciding what to do with our futures; Whether to continue on our path of independent artistry, or move on to a professional corporate career. We decided to face our fears and pursue our dream of making dope, impactful films. The purpose of our film was to crystalize our youth Chicago experience. Our film explores romance, sexuality, drug use, alienation, mental health, and the struggle to find purpose. These are things that we went through, and we wanted to show other people that they are not alone.
3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And the easiest part?!
The biggest challenge in making Astray was shooting analog film on a low budget. Similar to films that we look up to, Astray almost was not able to be finished due to technical issues. After finishing the final shoot and receiving the footage back two weeks later, we realized that 40% of our footage was compromised, and out of focus due to a faulty 10mm wide angle lens. Shooting on film is extremely expensive and getting this footage back already tapped all of our financial resources so there was no way to reshoot. We nearly decided to embrace it, and rotoscope animate the blurry footage, but through a treacherous process, we raised enough money to reshoot. The reshoots were a whole other beast of their own - we had to deal with actors having already changed their hair color, crew members no longer being in town, people having scheduling conflicts, reshooting illegal car mount shots, and weather continuity issues. We spent all our money, pulled all the strings we could, and barely slept or ate for the whole shoot.
The easiest part of making Astray was the various different support we received from people around us. First our Executive Producer, Clement Productions, helped fund the development cost and festival submissions. This made our process way smoother, since without the help, we would've had to wait a few months until we saved up enough money to fully pay for development. If that had happened, we wouldn't have known our footage was compromised till it was too late to reshoot. Next is our Sound Designer, Sung-Woo Baek, who helped us elevate our films potential with a score that matches the tier of our visual aesthetic. Lastly is one of our Producers, Barel Dove, who helped us with festival submissions, transportation, random expenses, and crucial errands. The most beautiful part of filmmaking is the unity of the people and talent it brings together and this is what we are grateful for.
4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?
It is really hard for us to isolate one movie so we are going to outline three films that have inspired us lately, and why. The first film is Ichi the Killer; the use of fashion, make up, production design, gore, editing techniques, score, and 16mm film, made us realize the importance of art direction and aesthetic, as a powerful tool for storytelling. The second film is Stalker; the density of time, minimal score, color grading, texture, and intentional lack of information as a tool to build tension helped inspire us to create our next film. The third is Run Lola Run; the costume design, tone, and abstract use of different mediums in a high budget production, reaffirmed to us that we should not create, or follow traditional story structures. Lastly our short film inspiration is Meshes of the Afternoon by Maya Deren.
5) What’s next for you?
We are in the process of writing our first feature length film which we are planning to shoot June 1st, 2021. A rough draft for the name is "Light Will Heal Us.'' The film follows a cult of kids living in a surreal post apocalyptic world of ecological collapse. The cult is a model of a future for humanity, through unity and sacrifice. It will be shot on 16mm film in the backcountry of rural Michigan. Similar to Astray, fashion, character design, and music, will take center stage as our primary methods of world building.
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IG: @joshbrainin
@ernestkabashi