GOOD DIALOGUE

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SPOILER-FREE SYNOPSIS

People converse in a coffee shop.

DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY (SPOILERS!) by Diego Kontarovsky

Good Dialogue was the third of my four Directing I projects.  We were allowed to record dialogue for the first time, and were given a maximum running time of 4 minutes (the movie clocks in at about three and a half).  The origin of this concept is one of the most interesting things about the project itself, because the movie starts out being about one thing, and evolves into being about something else entirely.

For a while, I had no idea what to do for this project.  Then, while drinking with some fellow film school students, my friend Drew Lindo pitched this idea, which began as a sort of criticism of pretentious artists who drink coffee.  Maybe it's because we were both drunk, but I thought it sounded great.  I forced him to write it down then, while inebriated, so it wouldn't lose anything in translation.  The dialogue was pretty much all his, although I seem to distinctly recall suggesting the "faucet with teeth" line, for whatever reason.  However, there was no ending.  We needed to put something after Gareb appears at the keyboard, pondering the writer's quandary.  So at a later date, I came over to his place again and we soberly attempted to brainstorm an ending.  This proved more difficult than we'd anticipated.  Finally, I came up with the concept of Gareb erasing his own writer from existence, which of course led to a universe-nulling paradox.  Dirth Shacklesby calling Gareb an asshole was meant to represent every writer's own extreme self-doubt.  I'd say the movie works as commentary on the irony of wanting to write realistic dialogue that is also clever when most people are, realistically, anything but.

I'd also like to point out that this soundtrack came way before Garden State.

FUN FACT: The term "boom monkey" was coined for this project.  I asked my brother what title he wanted after having operated the boom mic.  Boom operator?  Sound recordist?  He said he didn't care.  I said, "So I could just call you boom monkey, and you wouldn't care?"  He said that was right, so that's the title he received.  It has nothing to do with the ethnic slur that compares whatever race to monkeys.  My brother just really loves animals; monkeys in particular.
 

GOOD DIALOGUE     2004 / Running Time: 5 minutes. Directed & Edited by     Diego Kontarovsky Written & Produced by     Drew Lindo Director of Photography     Drew Suppa Starring     Ryan Pomeranz as Darryl     Lora Helm as Denise     Drew Lindo as Gareb     Matthew Chai as Jeff     Christina Rubenstein as Meghan     Matthew London as Dirth Shacklesby

Boom Monkey     Alejandro Kontarovsky Waffle Wranglers     Justin Lader     Robert Dastoli     James Dastoli "Jesus, Etc."     Performed by Wilco "Weird Divide"     Performed by The Shins "New Slang"     Performed by The Shins Special Thanks     Common Grounds     Martha Parr     M. Francis Fuller

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