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JASON STREFF, FREDERICK, OCTOBER 2005  Jason Streff, Director After recently obtaining an undergrad degree in May of 2005, I moved to Frederick, MD in August to start my illustrious career as a software engineer at Sycamore.US. When I first arrived in Frederick I did some investigating on their independent film scene. I happened to stumble across the Frederick Festival of Film website. While it was already too late to submit one of my already made films, their 72-Hour Film category was still open. The Lartigue Mechanic was the joint effort of several very talented and creative individuals. I enlisted some of my friends (whom happened to also be co-workers of mine) to join my team and help me make a film within the 72-hour time frame for the competition. The first night of the competition we were planning on going a completely different route as far as style and storyline. However, on the next day, after having visited the Delaplaine Visual Arts Center, the location we were told had to be included in at least one frame of our film, I totally fell in love with the place. Everything was so unique from the art galleries, to the photography darkroom and painting studio. Even their boiler room, located deep in the bowls of the art center, was fascinating to me. It was not until Mike Hoolehan, who played the part of Louis, and I were talking things over in the living room of his house after we had just gotten back from visiting the art center that an idea for a plot started to form. Thinking back to a desk located in the boiler room that was a workstation for some maintenance man, we wondered who this guy was and what his life was like. Within minutes of throwing ideas out back-and-forth to each other, Mike and I pretty much scripted the entire plot for The Lartigue Mechanic. We still had a long road to hoe ahead of us though. Nearly 24-hours had gone by and all we had was a plot. That night every member of the crew (Mike, Lonny Gomes, Tim DeFoggi, James Stephenson, and myself) sat down together and scripted everything out. Later Tim, Brandon Murrell, and Mike got together our props and devised a strategy for our single, and not so minor, special effect. While they did that, and for a long time afterwards, I drew out all the storyboards for every single shot. Stylistically, The Lartigue Mechanic is probably influenced by many older foreign films (ala Fellini and Truffaut). After storyboarding, Lonny and I then matched them up to the shooting script well into the late hours of the morning. After getting about an hour of sleep we started shooting as early as possible the next day. Everything went well, and we were able to shoot more than half the film. I edited all the days footage that night in order to be ready for the next day. So, onto the next day, our final day, we shot the rest of the scenes, did the voice-over narration with Ave Kikas, and James Stephenson Composed/Recorded the musical score. We had about an hour left to go and about 5 more hours of work a head of us, but by God's grace we somehow finished and had it submitted on time with 3 minutes remaining until deadline. It was a time to celebrate, but our celebrations with The Lartigue Mechanic would not end there. A week later at the 2005 Frederick Festival of Film, The Lartigue Mechanic was awarded Grand Prize in the 72-Hour Filmmaker event. It was a wonderful time, and everyone involved worked very hard to see this little film come to life. I feel blessed for the opportunity to have been able to make The Lartigue Mechanic and for being able to work with the people I made it with. |
 
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