Director's Statement


I set Easy Listening in 1967, a time before I was born and in which I imagine a sense of excitement and change not yet embittered by the self-awareness of hippies and war. Into this pre-pubescent moment I put Burt, a miserable middle-aged adolescent, who becomes a hero when he gives up being cool for being happy. He matures when he sheds his bitterness, rather than when he’s taking it up. And so, this became an innocent movie about cynicism and a cynical look at innocence, a fixation that comes, I suppose, from becoming a grown-up myself.

There is a feeling of overt sincerity that my generation recoils from, but I secretly crave to submit to. Innocent pleasure and pure sweetness seem to cause writhing discomfort and a strong urge to mock. It reminds me of children, once huge Mister Rogers fans at age four, proudly denouncing him at age 5. On a generational scale, life itself becomes corny. I wanted to make a story that allowed people feel the way they did when they were little, listening to their favorite record.

Synopsis

". . .this delightfully skewed romantic comedy is set in the days of yore-1967, to be exact-deep in the heyday of lounge maestros Ray Conniff, Martin Denny and Les Baxter. Burt is a middle-aged, droopy, turtlenecked, soul-patched trumpet player for an easy listening orchestra. Surrounded by octogenarians, any one of whom may keel over dead during a recording session, Burt is mortified to be slumming this way. It pays the bills, but he has higher aspirations-namely, to play the hot downtown hipster jazz he adores so much. Unfortunately, Burt simply cannot bop, soul-patch notwithstanding. Then along comes Linda, the new flautist in the orchestra. She's young and perky and, to top it off, she not only adores easy listening music (she calls it "orchestral pop"), she thinks Burt is a great orchestral pop musician. She sweet-talks him into helping her with some music lessons, so she'll be ready when the 101 Strings scout comes to one of their sessions. They get to know each other, but can't quite figure each other out-Burt is on the bitter side, while Linda is all sunshine and flowers. But Linda eventually teaches Burt a lesson that perhaps we all could heed: It's OK to be uncool. Writer/director Pamela Corkey gets everything just right: the great cast (David Ian as Burt seems to be channeling Walter Matthau, and Traci Crouch's Linda is springtime personified) and, especially, the fabulous 101 Strings score."

-Tod Booth, San Francisco Independent Film Festival

Production Notes

Easy Listening, Pamela Corkey's feature film debut, was filmed on location in Boston and Brookline, Massachusetts and Providence, Rhode Island, over the span of 24 days in the Summer of 2000.

We began pre-production, more specifically location scouting, several months in advance in order to find the perfect locations for the 1967 period. The process was tedious because even the slightest imperfect street sign or overly modern door buzzer system would rule a location out. While we did find several locations in Boston, it became clear that we would need to widen our search. The Providence film commission and its director, Eric Olin, proved to be just the boost we needed. Within days we had all of our locations secured, and at very budget friendly rates.

Casting was an equally difficult task but it should be noted that sometimes a gut reaction should be trusted. We had decided to use all local talent with the exception of a very brief casting session in New York. The first actor to audition was Mary Frank Swaim for the role of Helen, Burt's evil ex-wife, we gave her the part on the spot. She was the only person who read for it. Even more amazing was the day when, while looking through hundreds of headshots Pamela came across one and said, "That's Burt!". Though we read other actors for the role, it was clear that David Ian was the only choice. And when Traci Crouch came in to read with him, we had both leads. The final main character to be cast was Perry, the orchestra director. Our choice was made simple by watching Tim Crowe in his role as Mr. Funderberk in "Outside Providence."

About a week before production it seemed that the only option on our limited budget was to shoot the film on 16mm despite having planned for 35mm up to that point. After quite a long "discussion" we decided that the story and our dedication to giving the film the look and feel of a film of the period rather than just about the period meant that we would have to sacrifice elsewhere and find more money, or not make the film at all. We were able to do some quick fundraising but even with the added money, we knew that this decision was going to make everything tight but it was right, and we went ahead.

Production, and this is not news, was a blur. What started as a nice, neat schedule, alternating interiors and exteriors to give everyone time to prepare, quickly fell victim to the whims of Mother Nature. When it became clear that the rain wasn't going to stay away for us to shoot outside for the last part of week 1, we decided to switch to some interiors, but when the location for Burt's apartment wasn't available we had to find a new location in under six hours and . . . break the news to the art department. As it turned out, we did nearly all of our interiors in that first week and nobody in the art department slept very much at all. By the way, it ended up raining for about two hours despite the direst predictions.

Week 2 in Providence was by far the easiest on the schedule. The weather was beautiful, and the locations were made readily available thanks to our friends at the Film Commission. It was a slightly different situation for the lighting and grip departments. Our main Providence location, the courtyard, was extraordinarily difficult to light. Our crew had to climb three flights of stairs, drag equipment up a 15-foot ladder and then take it all through several tiny crawlspaces in order to put lights on the roof. Then they had to take it all down each night. It was grueling work, but it certainly paid off by producing some of the most beautiful photography in the film.

Week 3 began with perhaps the most exciting location of the film, the orchestra hall. We had 40 very low paid and somewhat underfed 50+ male extras to deal with and very few of them had ever even picked up the instruments that they were expected to play. The first violinist from the Boston Ballet Orchestra gave all of the extras a crash course in how to hold their instruments and within two hours of call time we were up and running. It looked like things were going to work out just fine, and they did for the first two days. On the third day, it was very hot, but we started smoothly and were well ahead of schedule when a local construction crew hit a power line and blacked out the building. A producer was stuck in the elevator and the crew feverishly worked to tie into the generator as the room got hotter and hotter. When we finally were up and running again we were still ahead of schedule when David (Burt) fell over in the dressing room suffering from severe heat stroke. He was rushed to the hospital. We couldn't get the location for another day and we had all those extras. We decided to take the 2nd A.D. and dress him up as Burt. We slapped a skin colored powder puff on his head to mimic a bald spot and shot the rest of the scenes in wide. Couldn't tell, huh?

After two forced vacation days things didn't look good, but we were able to trim the script and dodge raindrops in the park for just long enough to get it all in the can before the money ran out.

It didn't seem like the forces of nature were in our favor, but with the dedication of our crew and the committed vision of the director, Easy Listening became a reality.