With eight years between his two narrative feature films, director Scott Coffey has seen both debut at choice stops on the festival circuit–the first, Ellie Parker, which starred Naomi Watts in the title role, wound up being nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2005; and now set to make its world premiere at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival (April 17-28) is Adult World, starring Emma Roberts and John Cusack.
Ellie Parker and Adult World have a common link across two festivals. Geoffrey Gilmore was head programmer and director of the Sundance Film Festival when Ellie Parker debuted there. Today, Gilmore is chief creative officer for Tribeca Enterprises. “Geoff championed Ellie Parker at Sundance and now he’s at Tribeca which selected Adult World. He’s been a great supporter of my work,” affirmed Coffey who said he was aiming for Tribeca all along to be the launchpad for Adult World. “It’s a festival I greatly admire because it has a lot of integrity and is so diverse. The focus isn’t just on independent American movies. There are a lot of international films, with variation in the size and kind of films showcased. They draw from the indie community and some bigger budget pictures. Plus, to get into Tribeca means that much more to me because I live in New York City and have many of my friends and colleagues here.”
In Adult World, Roberts plays Amy, a naive, awkward college grad anxious to get her poetry career off the ground. She begrudgingly accepts a job at the local sex shop, Adult World, while pursuing a surefire kick-start for her success: a mentorship with reclusive writer Rat Billings, portrayed by Cusack. As Amy’s world melds with that of Adult World, she slowly learns that inspiration can be found in the most improbable places.
Coffey rewrote a script penned by Andy Cochran. The director was drawn to Amy’s character. He described her as “a girl with a liberal arts education who has been over-praised and over-validated by her parents and teachers. She decides to be a famous poet without necessarily having the talent or the life experience to pull that off. She felt she was entitled to be anything she could be. In ways, it’s like profiling a generation of young people told the same thing about the American dream. But that dream isn’t as true as it used to be–maybe it never was true but it’s more tarnished now than ever before. I saw this as an opportunity to make a satiric coming-of-age comedy. I rewrote the mentor character to be much younger than he was originally written, thinking of John Cusack the whole time. Thankfully, I approached him and he liked the script.”
Spots, videos As for what he’s been doing during the interim between his two features, Coffey has been writing scripts, developing properties and keeping active as a director of commercials, branded content and music videos via Food Chain Films in Portland, Ore. His spot credits span such clients as the Oregon Lottery, Regence Blue Cross/Blue Shield and Keen Footwear. He’s also directed a branded short for Deschutes Brewery.
Coffey finds the ad assignments a fresh creative departure from his feature fare. “I’ve sort of settled into real people, documentary-style spots which is stuff I normally don’t do in long-form. Doing this short-form work is fun and promotes a different way of thinking. I’ve sharpened my chops in working with people who might not be professional actors, all with a shorter time to get the desired performances. It’s been a great discipline that’s enabled me to stretch myself creatively as a filmmaker.”
Most recently, Coffey directed four :30s for Goodwill, culled from longer web versions. “They’re portraits of people and it’s work I enjoyed directing.” He tabbed James Laxton, his DP on Adult World, to shoot the Goodwill package.
There’s also been some cross-pollination between his music video and feature undertakings as Coffey became a close collaborator of Dan Boeckner, who was lead singer of Handsome Furs and The Wolf Parade. Coffey has helmed a pair of Handsome Fur videos and one Wolf Parade clip. Boeckner is currently involved in the act Divine Fits, teaming with Spoon frontman Britt Daniel. For Adult World, Coffey tabbed Boeckner to do the musical score.
Coffey, whose music video credits also include The Head & The Heart’s “Down in the Valley,” loves directing clips. “It allows me to work in different genres like horror movies and sci-fi–quite different from my feature filmmaking which is bent more towards comedic, character-driven storytelling.”
Lineup Among the other films slated for the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival from directors with commercialmaking affiliations are:
• Almost Christmas, directed by Phil Morrison, written by Melissa James Gibson. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. Two French Canadian ne’er-do-wells travel to New York City with a scheme to a get rich quick selling Christmas trees. Easygoing charmer Rene (Paul Rudd) clashes with misanthropic ex-con Dennis (Paul Giamatti), whose wife Rene just stole. Still, this odd couple must make an honest go of it in this fresh buddy comedy co-starring Sally Hawkins, by the director of the indie breakout hit Junebug. (Morrison directs spots and branded content via Epoch Films.)
• At Any Price, directed by Ramin Bahrani, written by Hallie Elizabeth Newton and Bahrani. (USA) – New York Premiere, Narrative. The robust farming industry of Iowa is the backdrop for this father-and-son story. Dean Wipple (Zac Efron) longs to be a professional racecar driver. His father Henry (Dennis Quaid) plans to make him the heir to their family farming empire. When Henry’s ethics and expansion practices come under fire, the family must unify or risk losing everything. Temptation, ambition and competition are the driving forces behind this modern-day drama co-starring Heather Graham and Clancy Brown. A Sony Pictures Classics release. (Bahrani is repped for spots and branded content by Moxie Pictures.)
• Oxyana, directed by Sean Dunne. (USA) – World Premiere. Oceana, West Virginia–known as “Oxyana” after its residents’ epidemic abuse of OxyContin–is a tragically real example of the insidious spread of drug dependency throughout the country. Set against an abandoned coal mining landscape to the melodies of Deer Tick’s haunting score, this unflinchingly intimate documentary probes the lives of Oceana’s afflicted and exposes the day-to-day experience of a town living in the harsh grip of addiction. (Dunne directs commercials and branded content at Nonfiction Unlimited; see story on him and Oxyana at SHOOTonline, 3/8.)
• Prince Avalanche, directed and written by David Gordon Green. (USA) – New York Premiere, Narrative. Alvin (Paul Rudd) and Lance (Emile Hirsch) spend the summer of 1988 repainting a highway in a fire-damaged forest. The isolation quickly wears thin on Lance, yet an unlikely friendship emerges within their cutting jibes and forced reconciliations to meet the long road that lies ahead. David Gordon Green returns to the lyrical tenor of his earliest films in this potent blend of comedy and road-movie stoicism, based on the 2011 Icelandic film Either Way. A Magnolia Pictures release. (Green’s spotmaking roost is Chelsea Pictures.)
• Running From Crazy, directed by Barbara Kopple. (USA) – New York Premiere, Documentary. Join actress Mariel Hemingway, granddaughter of legendary author Ernest Hemingway, as she examines the mental illness and suicide that colors her family’s history and tries to avert that fate for herself and her daughters. By mixing in remarkable archival footage of the three Hemingway sisters, two-time Academy Award�-winner Barbara Kopple expands one famous family’s deeply embedded truths into a broad picture of the courage it takes to face the past and change your future. (Kopple directs commercials and branded content via Nonfiction Unlimited.)
• In the Storyscapes transmedia section of Tribeca, there’s:
This Exquisite Forest, Project Creators: Aaron Koblin and Chris Milk (USA). Conceived by Chris Milk and Aaron Koblin and produced by Google and Tate Modern, This Exquisite Forest was inspired by the surrealist game “exquisite corpse” and its idea of collaborative creation. The project, hosted at exquisiteforest.com, allows visitors to create short animations right in their web browser. Other users may build on the animation at any point, creating a collection of navigable, branching narratives resembling trees that grow bigger as more artists contribute. (Milk directs commercials and branded content at @radical.media.)
Shorts The shorts in the 2013 Tribeca lineup involving directors with spotmaking ties include:
• Likeness, directed and written by Rodrigo Prieto (USA) – World Premiere. A young girl battles with body image and enters the world of eating disorders where worth rises as weight falls. This marks the directorial debut short film of noted cinematographer Prieto (Argo, the recently wrapped The Wolf of Wall Street directed by Martin Scorsese). Little Minx and Idealogue, two companies that previously produced the web series Little Minx Exquisite Corpse, reunited on this project, partnering with Candescent Films. (Prieto is on the Little Minx roster.)
• Playdate, directed by David Shane (USA) – World Premiere. Paul and Kate excitedly arrive for dinner at the home of a cool couple from their kids’ school, only to discover an interloping third couple already in attendance as playground politics boil over. (Shane directs via O Positive Films.)
• Space Cadet, directed by Paul Riccio (USA) – World Premiere. Paul, a distracted 15 year old is asked to help prepare dinner but nearly blows up the place instead. When his hippie parents tell him to see a shrink, Paul’s self-esteem plummets but he pulls out of the funk thanks to a burglar, a monster pot plant and his quick thinking. (Riccio is a commercial director represented by Sandwick Media.)
