Touching on the struggles of prescription drug addiction, Casey Stein and director of photography Nathan Podshadley set out to create their new interactive film Holy Night. As the film follows the story of three different people (a preacher, a grandmother, and a teenager), viewers are able to toggle between the stories, exploring the communities and storylines that surround each of the subjects.
Recently, Adorama caught up with Stein and Podshadley to get the details on the production of their new project, the equipment they used to complete it, and the advice they have to up-and-coming directors and DPs.
Adorama: Can you both tell us about your respective career paths. Was there one “big break”, or was it more gradual?
Casey Stein: I’m not sure if I ever had a “big break,” I think everything has been pushing in a direction for a couple years now, baby steps here and baby steps there. I started out as a DP and slowly transitioned to directing. In that vein, my first real gig as a director was for Def Jam Records. They asked me to document Alessia Cara’s very first concert in June of 2015. Instead of paying myself, I took my entire rate and hired a producer and rented a RED because I knew that when I saw a finished piece, I wanted to be able to say I gave it my all. I saw her two years later at an event, she ran over to me, gave me a huge hug and said its still her favorite video.
Nathan Podshadley: I think we are all constantly looking for bigger and bigger “breaks.” I studied advertising and fine art photography in college and supplemented my growing love of film with working on music videos, short films, and commercials whenever I wasn’t in class. I learned early on that, in the creative world, your success is entirely linked to who you surround yourself with. With an ever-growing string of connections, I was able to get a job working full time for portrait photographer/director Mark Seliger upon graduation. Mark was a constant source of inspiration and knowledge in the years that I worked with him and led me to many of my current collaborators.
Adorama: Tell us about the latest project, “Holy Night,” and how the concept came about.
Stein: Holy Night tells the story of how a preacher, a grandmother, and a teenager all struggle to stay connected to their community during Christmas despite their destructive relationship to prescription drugs. Our technology allows viewers to switch between characters storylines at any point in real time by swiping on their phones or pressing A, S, or D on their keyboards. The writer, Ben Zeiger, and I have been developing a larger series told in this format for five years now and as a part of that development process, he did a month long research trip in Welch, West Virginia to better understand life in the Rust Belt. When we got back from that, we had a friend, Chris Janney, the EP, who wanted to make a short and we pitched him on making it interactive based off of experiences and conversations Ben had in West Virginia. And thus, Holy Night was born…
Adorama: Holy Night was not your first film to tell a story in this interactive way with parallel story threads/perspectives. How would you say your process and style has changed with Holy Night after your previous interactive short? Has your implementation of the interactive technology changed at all with this new film?
Stein: It’s actually our second interactive film! Ben, myself, and our friend, Sanjay Singh, developed the technology over the past five years, with Ben and I mainly focusing on the creative storytelling side of it. Our first film, OTIS, is about a babysitter who robs a house with her boyfriend. It differs from Holy Night in that the three main characters start on separate journeys but ultimately converge in one final place.
Holy Night is unique in that it’s about three characters who never insect with each other, but they’re united by the town they live and their relationship with the town pharmacist. Making an interactive film totally unique; there’s no rulebook to follow. We borrow the look, feel and sound of film but use game logic to help propel our story.
Our film is unique though because there is no way to “win” the game, no way to change the story and no correct way to watch it. The interactivity in Holy Night (as well as OTIS and Backwater, our series) provides the audience with the agency to continuously make choices that reveal different key pieces of information exclusive to individual perspectives, and elevate the drama of the supporting characters as they close in on the missing murderer, which will eventually cause the audience to feel powerless to stop the tragedy of this community.
Ben has a background as a writer for video games and I have a background as a director in narrative filmmaking, we end up having to knock our two worlds together quite often to get the best result. As for what’s changed from OTIS to Holy Night, we just tried our best to make each perspective feel unique from each other. The film hinges on having each story look, sound, and feel different, primarily because our characters are going through different challenges in their lives. That’s really where Nathan’s brilliance came in — he made each story look totally different; different lighting, composition, etc.
“Nathan and I are lucky to work with people we love everyday; seeing them smile and perform their best is what keeps me going. The best part is that I get to call all of them my friends.”
Adorama: Did you run into any unexpected challenges on-set that you had to overcome?
Stein: Only a couple! We shot in the greater Syracuse area as well the Tug Hill Plateau in New York State. It snowed everyday and never got above 20 degrees. Our generator was stolen, the lock on the equipment truck froze, a passerby crashed their car outside of our set (no one was hurt, thank goodness) and I got frostbite on day four. That said, it was arguably one of the most successful and fun shoots I’ve ever been a part of. Nathan and I are lucky to work with people we love everyday; seeing them smile and perform their best is what keeps me going. The best part is that I get to call all of them my friends.
Podshadley: Casey mentioned a few of the things that happened while we were shooting and they definitely could have thrown us off. Luckily, we had an amazing producer in Chris Janney as well as First AD Dayna Schutz. They were able to bear the brunt of these unexpected challenges and for that we are all really thankful. Chris’s ability to figure it out under pressure kept the production running (relatively) on time.
Adorama: One of the most common questions we get from our readers is: What gear do you use? Did your locations or the style of this film dictate any specialty equipment?
Podshadley: This project, to some degree, was three separate short films. From the beginning, Casey and I discussed making each narrative feel slightly different. With that in mind, we needed to find a package that we could tweak in certain ways to fit each separate style. Luckily the people at Adorama were really helpful in working with us to find the right camera/lens/support combos to fit the ideas that we had cooked up.
We ended up shooting the project on an Arri Amira with a set of Leica Summicron- Cs (including the 18mm, 25mm, 35mm, 50mm, 75mm, and 100mm). We also storyboarded a few shots that involved a Steadicam/gimbal kind of move. For these shots we used Arri’s new Maxima gimbal. I was really surprised by how easy it was to dial it in. We were working with a small crew on this project with one camera body so it was a big advantage to only have to balance the gimbal fore and aft. With the support of an Easyrig, we were able to get some really interesting long takes.
“My dad has always told me to invest in people rather than projects and I think that is so important in creative industries.”
Adorama: What advice do you have for aspiring directors and DPs looking to get their big break? What do you wish you would have known before you started on your journey?
Stein: Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be afraid to make things because they cost money, there are amazing films out there that cost $0.00 to make. Read as many books with great stories as you can. Watch classic movies and television shows, not just what’s on right now (and there’s plenty of amazing stuff being made at the moment). Above all, don’t be a jerk. Filmmaking is a team sport and the best thing you can do is surround yourself with people you love and care about.
Podshadley: My dad has always told me to invest in people rather than projects and I think that is so important in creative industries. As a DP, you are one of the most integral pieces of the production helping the director realize his/her vision. That vision is pushed and pulled a number of different ways and I think the DP has an obligation both to assure and inspire both the director and the crew. I feel extremely lucky to work with people like Casey and think it’s really important to remind yourself how great your creative relationships are.
I’d also say that it’s OK to take breaks and explore different creative outlets and hobbies. Casey and I became friends and collaborators because we both share a love of riding mountain bikes. As NYC residents, it takes a while to get to the mountains so our drives are usually a roving conversation of interests and most of them don’t have anything to do with film. I guess that gets back to investing in people and I’d much rather work with someone with a range of interests than that guy at an industry event that only wants to talk gear and movies.
