SWEET CHILD O MINE

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SPOILER-FREE SYNOPSIS

A man buys a birthday cake.

DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY (SPOILERS!) by Diego Kontarovsky

Sweet Child O Mine was the second of my four Directing I projects.  The prompt was to make an MOS short (that means no sound) that shows a moment, and it should be no longer than 2 minutes.  I had actually conceived of the idea for this short back when I was in high school.  The whole thing came to me when I saw one of those football-shaped ice cream cakes.  I thought it would be funny if there was a movie where a guy buys it and seeks people out to tell them all about his son, who loves football.  The whole movie would have all this elaborate conversation about this kid, and when the guy gets home, it turns out he lives by himself, and he eats the cake, mechanically, deriving no joy from it.  I didn't know if it would be possible to adapt this idea into a 2-minute MOS short, but my brother insisted that it was, so I gave it a shot.

Andrew Kenneth Gay (B.A.) is once again miscredited as assistant director.  He helped in a few ways, but they can better be described as producer duties, for lack of a more specific title.  He also didn't know he would be acting in it until he showed up on set.  The fact that he was wearing an awesome shirt was a total coincidence.

It was a conscious decision to try to make most, if not all, of the man's acquaintances male (it turned out to be all).  This was so that his actions would not be misconstrued as mere flirting.  I wanted to clearly show that this man's happiness hangs on sharing personal moments with strangers, creating an ideal existence for himself through hollow conversation.  And that he leaves real moments of genuine happiness in his wake, but in his real life, remains unfulfilled.  I also seem to recall wanting the picture of the boy to be something closer to 8 (the age on the cake), but the baby was the best I could find, and it works just fine.  It is in fact a better archetype of innocence, and probably indicates that this guy has been celebrating the existence of this fake child for close to a decade.

The song was not chosen until the editing stage.  I had also never heard the song until my friend Drew Lindo played a bunch of prospective tunes from his hard drive for me to consider.  The second I heard "Where Do I Begin," I knew it was the right song.  The tone was exactly what I was looking for, the lyrics are strangely appropriate, and the visual beats couldn't synch more perfectly with the soundtrack if I tried.  It was an extremely serendipitous discovery.

AWARDS & FESTIVALS

Official Selection, Brouhaha Film & Video Showcase (2004)

 

SWEET CHILD O MINE     2004 / Running Time: 3 minutes. Written, Directed, & Edited by     Diego Kontarovsky Assistant Director     Andrew Kenneth Gay, B.A. Director of Photography     Justin Lader Starring     Carl Fieler as Man     Julien Diaz as Cashier     Andrew Kenneth Gay as Stranger     James Dastoli as Pedestrian

"Where Do I Begin"     Written by     Thomas Rowlands & Edmund Simons     Performed by     The Chemical Brothers feat. Beth Orton Special Thanks     Great American Cookie     Whole Foods Market     Darlanne Fluegel     Drew Lindo     Alejandro Kontarovsky     Robert Dastoli Absolutely No Thanks Whatsoever     Walmart     Winn Dixie

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