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Breaking Up (2007)
Production Notes
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The idea for Breaking Up came about from a meeting of Independent Artists Collaborative (a group of actors and filmmakers in upstate New York). The group discussed creating several shorts films around a common theme, which could then be tied together into a feature-length film. Cell phones became the common theme. Inspired by these discussions, writer/director Jeff Burns went home and wrote the script for Breaking Up. He cast two actors from the group, Christina Vinsick and Evan Leone.
Over the next month and a half, Burns and fellow producer Jim D’Ippolito assembled a crew of 16 people, almost all of whom came from IAC and another film group called Upstate Independents, based in Albany, NY. All the cast and crew worked for free.
The film was shot in Kingston, NY along the Hudson River. It took eight and a half hours to complete the shoot.
An unseasonably warm December day led to several audio problems, including dogs running onto the set and several loud barges traveling down the river. The crew’s favorite audio problem was when someone in the distance started playing the bagpipes.
Director Jeff Burns decided to shoot almost the entire film in two very long shots. Because of this, any audio problem during the shot meant the take was unusable. This led to many takes – 20 for the first shot and 15 for the second. Vinsick and Leone never complained throughout all these takes and delivered great performances every time.
Actors Christina Vinsick and Evan Leone were actually on the phone with each other during filming. Burns wanted to create a natural-sounding conversation between the two. Leone, who never appears on screen, was placed inside a car a few hundred feet from Vinsick. A separate mic was hooked up inside the car to record Leone’s dialogue. All dialogue was recorded on location. No ADR (Additional Dialogue Replacement) was done, even though it was a very windy day.
The cast and crew completed the last shot just as the sun started to set, and they all enjoyed a delicious meal at a local pizza shop afterwards.
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