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The Back Room
Overall Rating     Total Runtime 15:32
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Synopsis
The stranger has just one clue: the painter's name written phonetically as "Jack Car-roo-see". Is there something about that name? As the man's story unfolds and the search begins, the two strangers uncover astonishing connections to the painting and each other that neither could have predicted.
About the Filmmaker

Greg Ivan Smith

Greg Ivan Smith was born in Bangor, ME and currently resides in Sunnyside, Queens, NY. He attended MFA (Acting) from American Conservatory Theater, BFA (Video Art) from Hartford Art School. The Back Room was his first project and most recent projects are Remission (horror short, in post now), Slab (feature script)

Filmmaker Q & A
Q: What inspired you to make your film? Was there any specific reason you chose to make your film? How did you come up with the idea for your film?
Greg: I had been an art student in the 90's in Florence, Italy. I finally returned with my partner Michael in 2005. Upon arriving in Florence, I whisked Michael off to see my favorite painting in this tiny church near the Ponte Vecchio. He burst into tears in front of it, and I fell in love with him again. In writing the script, my goal was to see if I could pull off two complete strangers professing their love for each other in ten pages.

Q: What do you hope to convey through your film?
Greg: I think The Back Room is about the power of art to bring together disparate people.

Q: Who are your favorite filmmakers/what are a few of your favorite films and why?
Greg: Everything by David Cronenberg, from classics such as Videodrome to the newer stuff such as A History of Violence. I love that his films are smart and always are about larger concepts (the pervasiveness of media, for example, in Videodrome), Bernardo Bertolucci's IL Confornista is one of my favorites for its bizarre timeline and unparalleled visuals. It's gorgeous and Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm St. is my favorite film of all time. I've seen it over 350 times, and know it by heart. I love everything by Paul Thomas Anderson. No one is better at drawing out tension, and his films are always edited gorgeously.

Q: Anything else you'd like to provide on your film?
Greg: Due to my depleted budget, I was unable to hire a chorus of 'musak' singers to sing my friend Joe Dineen's first bookstore song, so he recorded me singing the five different parts - three in falsetto harmony to his playing. I believe his three year old makes a cameo on a couple measures.

The final song "Pur ti Miro" (from Monteverdi's L'incorinazione Di Poppea) was arranged and performed by dear friends Daniel Clark Smith and Michael Caldwell, who have both sung with the Metropolitan Opera Chorus, and arranged the piece. It is historically sung by a counter-tenor and a mezzo-soproano, but it had long been my fantasy to have a baritone and tenor sing under the final scene. It was the very last element added to the film, and I think it completely enhances the impact of the ending.

Directing myself as 'Errol' was an incredibly schizophrenic experience, but my amazing co-producer Dustin Schell and DP Todd Verow quickly became my second and third pair of eyes, and I trusted them completely.

We shot the back room of The Back Room in our apartment in Sunnyside, Queens (the front was done at the wonderful Westsider Book Store in Manhattan), as art-directed seamlessly by my partner Michael Fitzpatrick. Although a lovely spring day outside, the lights and completely enclosed, tiny set provided for an incredibly hot filming experience, literally. After two days of shooting the final kissing sequence from different angles, it was as if actor Dan Sturges and I were making out in a child's Easy-bake Oven! If you watch the raw footage, each time I said "cut", someone on set yells "Fans!" and on go the whirring machines. By the end of day two, we had gone through a ton of powder, but I still had a bright red face from Dan's sharp beard chafing against my face.