Watch FULL MOVIE (Director’s Cut, ©2024), here:
Some of the Cast & crew for NO TEARS FOR BANKERS. Back row: Brittany Hannah, Ron McLellen (cinematographer), Rick Schmidt. Middle: Paige Parnell, Haley Parnell, Greg Parnell. Front: Barry Norman, Kevin L. Powers (sound recordist), Allen Bell.
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Writer/Director Rick’s Schmidt’s DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
NO TEARS FOR BANKERS is not only my 25th feature, but it’s the 25th time I’ve written/directed (shot, edited and produced) a fully-improv feature-length movie. When you discuss the concept of having ‘improvisational scenes’ in a feature you’re usually met with doubts as to whether such loose moviemaking can be effective. And that’s for just a scene or two. From my earliest efforts in feature filmmaking, including A MAN, A WOMAN, AND A KILLER (co-directed with my then-roommate Wayne Wang, ©1975), the movies I’ve been involved with as an artist-filmmaker have been fueled by the improv process coupled with performances by non-actors. And ‘real-life stories’ have also been included in the mix from the very beginning. ‘A MAN… needed a narration to pull the footage together, so I brought the three lead actors into a recording studio and asked them personal questions about their youth, how they were raised, what they thought of their fellow actors, etc. What was most fascinating to me was combining real life with the fictional structure in storytelling. Jumping back and forth added a new dimension to the material. NO TEARS FOR BANKERS also benefited from such interesting juxtapositions.
Before arriving in Rome, Georgia, to join my co-producer and lead actor Barry Norman, little was settled in the story except for the facts that (1) Barry would be owner of a Victorian B&B headed for foreclosure, (2) that we’d located someone to play his movie wife, and (3) that it would be shot at the Claremont House B&B where I’d been housed one year that I’d screened a feature and received a (unknowingly to me) lifetime achievement award, presented via DVD by Kevin Smith. My book, Feature Filmmaking at Used-Car Prices (Penguin Books) had helped him make his first feature CLERKS, and he returned the favor for this honor of mine. At any rate, it was time to produce another movie on the fly, with basically no script, no actors (well…one non-actor), and barely a location.
Once assigned my room at the Claremont House (the same gorgeous, pink-walled victorian bedroom with adjoining bathroom I’d stayed in before) ideas stared flooding in. This room, would of course, be the master bedroom for Barry and his wife. I told Barry – and he told our future production manager/supporting actor Allen Bell – that we needed (1) some bankers for scenes, and (2) a woman to play Barry’s wife. Barry had already set up two rather grand situations. One was set for the following Tuesday (I arrived on Sunday…) at the local Victorian Tea Room, where we’d be joined by the entire Rome chapter of Red Hat Ladies (45 elderly women who enjoy being dressed up in red-plumed hats and scarfs). And secondly, for the upcoming Friday night (the last night of our shoot), famed indie songwriter/guitarist and singer Roger Miller, a founder of Mission of Burma, would perform at a local deli. OK. Something was ‘solid’ even though I wondered how these seemingly unrelated events would fit into the story. Oh well. It would all have to become clear (or not…), at some point before I hopped a plane back to Oakland!
Having conducting my Feature Workshops at an seemingly-impossible pace, resulting in 17 finished festival-ready works in so many years – participants and myself collaborate to create a feature in just ten days, shooting five, editing another five to get a finished cut – I tried to remind myself that good movies can come out of such chaos.
Me and cinematographer Ron McLellen set up a shot,
In fact, Barry Norman had participated in the first Feature Workshops in 1995, where we co-created BLUES FOR THE AVATAR with four others. And that movie had played Slamdance Film Festival (one of only 17 features selected out of 800 submitted). had won a Silver Award at Houston International and premiered in Europe at the Figueira da Foz International Film Festival. Barry and I were hoping we could succeed again. After all, we had gone through this kind of thing before, with less!
When the actual owners of the Claremont House, Holly and Chris McHagge, agreed to play the ‘help,’ things looked more promising (I had rented the entire B&B for a week). And when Barry’s old friend Gregg Parnell showed up with his teenage daughters, along with world famous wrestler Sid Eudy (AKA Sid Vicious), we suddenly had a couple wild cards! Also, when a B&B guest the McHagge’s had fitted into an unused room (to save me some rental fees), famed southern attorney Stan Jackson, agreed to do a real-life story for the camera, there was another piece of the puzzle. Most importantly, when Allen Bell’s brother Derek, brought a woman friend, Brittany Hannah, to the set – someone he thought could play ‘the wife’ character – we suddenly got our production miracle! And Derek performed a crucial the role of ‘landscaper’ (another story piece!) and did a real-life story (as our stills photographer he didn’t expect to be an actor too!). At any rate, it was exciting to add his character to the mix, someone who’s expensive work on the B&B’s front yard, contracted by Brittany, would be in direct conflict with owner Barry financial woes. By this point in our five-day shoot, we’d already filmed Barry and his banker (played by E. Wright Ledbetter), where Barry is informed that foreclosure is virtually inevitable.
Brittany Hannah, lead actress.
Since one thing leads to another in the improv process, I automatically envisioned new scenes. Barry argument on the bed with Britt, angry that she had a secret stash of her own money to hire the landscaper, allowed for a great exchange between the two actors. And later, during editing, I had an opportunity to juxtapose a real-life stories by Barry, recounting his disasterous first marriage, losing his house, money, everything through divorce. So scenes I knew nothing about, with actors I hadn’t yet seen or chosen, and stories from Barry I hadn’t heard before, all lined up to make great sequences come to life a year later in the editing room!
And how did the Red Hat Ladies get included? They became a backdrop for the last meal of the unhappy couple before the foreclosure deadline. And Roger Miller’s song, “This Is Not A Photograph,” and guitar concert? His powerful soundtrack handed me the energy for an exciting ending and credits sequence. If you’re wondering how it all came together please watch for NO TEARS FOR BANKERS, playing soon on your hometown computer screen.
Setting up the final climactic ‘mortgage meltdown’ scene with lead actors (Victorian Rose Tea Room, Rome, GA).
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