LINKS Click below for more info on Freudian Eyebrow |
PUBLICITY Freudian Eyebrow |
Director Statement "Freudian Eyebrow as a milestone SPIFF production was the most extreme example of how to minimize impact on the environment by minimizing production time and maximizing investor return by improving efficiencies of every minute and every dollar spent. As the Director and Producer, I felt more like "General Patton" except I was in a Battle with time. With such a limited time constraint I knew everyone needed a leader that would not settle for "No", "Its impossible", or "we need more time." This experience was about re-envisioning the art of filmmaking with passion and optimism. I was open to all creative input from cast and crew alike. This project was a team effort. The actors were encouraged to reach inside themselves to determine direction and orientation and justify their decisions from their personal experience. When the crew had questions, I encouraged them to share their ideas and expertise. Director and Psychologist do not always make the best fit, but with the help of a great crew and great talent we made the mark that is the 80 minute, feature film Freudian Eyebrow." |
WINNER Experimental Award Accolade Film Awards 2010 |
Distributed by: Victory Multimedia 460 Hindry Ave., Inglewood, CA 90301 Tel: 310.590.1388 Fax: 310.590.1394 |
If you’re looking for a unique experience from start to finish, you should check out Dr. Stephen Mouton’s milestone film, Freudian Eyebrow. Through Mouton Productions LTD., the film set a milestone as a SPIFF production, which he explains as the “most extreme example of how to minimize impact on the environment by minimizing production time and maximizing investor return by improving efficiencies of every minute and every dollar spent.” “As the director and producer, I felt more like General Patton, except I was in a battle with time. With such a limited time constraint, I knew everyone needed a leader that would not settle for ‘no,’ ‘it’s impossible,’ or ‘we need more time.’ This experience was about re-envisioning the art of filmmaking with passion and optimism. Read on to learn more about SPIFF (Speed Process for Improving Feature Films), and the film. Q: Why the name? A: The name of the film is a professional colloquialism that refers to something symbolic of classical Freudian analysis process; the fetish and the true driver of the movie. Q: Why did you decide to write this particular script? A: The script I was originally working on when I attended the Hollywood Film School was the Fat City, New Orleans, a script that is starting principal photography soon. Since I had an MBA, my marketing angle and my long-term plan with Freudian Eyebrow was to develop a more streamlined method of shooting movies and turn the method into a business and intellectual property arrangement with hedge-fund managers. Q: What do you mean? A: There is so much waste in time, labor and resources in most films, which is fine if you are the one receiving the paycheck, but if you are financing the film, and many big films are part of a multi-film package with risk spread across different films in a hedge-fund, than as an investor you would want to know that the ROI (Return On Investment) is going to be a pretty good number. That led me to the realization that there is no standardized tool applied to films in hedge-funds, other than banking on a star or distributor or pre-sold rights. So, I developed the SPIFF process, which can strip the fat off a production, to the bone if necessary. There are different levels to SPIFF and my ‘spiffed’ film was a ‘SPIFFi’ for independent feature films. Studio and big budget films would have a different SPIFF parameter. To show the most extreme version of a SPIFF film, I wrote a script with the objective of shooting it in the most extreme manner possible. Q: How long did it take you to shoot? A: One of the keys to a SPIFFi ‘extreme’ film is to limit the number of locations so Freudian Eyebrow was all shot at various areas at a single location, so no big company moves, saving time with set-up and break down of equipment and support crew. The film was shot in four days; the pre-production planning was six months. The post-production to finish on 35mm film was five months. Post was a nightmare because of the mixed media. Q: Do you have a distributor for the film? A: Victory Distributors picked it up about four months ago and it has a sell date for September 7 for wholesale buyers and a street date in October for retail buyers. It’s currently on Netflix and can be saved in your queue, but it won't be available until October. It’s on Amazon. com as a rental and can be bought on Amazon and eBay. It was accepted and will be on iTunes in October for iPhones, iPads, Apple TV and iTouches. Q: What was the chemistry between you and the cast? A: I had a good relationship with the cast; they were all young, unknowns, with lots of theater or small parts in films. Shooting the movie was like a big party. I've got video of cast members singing together during breaks, riding around in a wagon down the hallways and doing lots of crazy stuff. Q: Did you have any unusual difficulties during filming? A: Because it was shot in four days, I lived in difficulty, i.e., pushing a crew that were used to working on ‘union’ time to get a move on was a pain. I felt like the sergeant walking around asking, ‘Why are we are not shooting?’ and hearing, ‘Well we are waiting for sound,’ and the sound crew saying, ‘We're ready, we're waiting for-make up or we're waiting for lighting’. It was a constant push to keep people working all the time. There were also some personality conflicts with a couple of crew members that stopped production a few times. I actually had mini- 20 minute ‘therapy sessions’ with a couple people to get them to contain their own ‘stuff’ and to be professional. Q: What lessons did you learn as a filmmaker, and what advice do you have for other first-time filmmakers? A: Plan out every scene, walk through the locations with the key crew and eliminate obstacles. Be flexible and ready to compromise. Q: What was the cost of the film? A: The final budget was a tad over $150,000. Had I shot it using just HD cameras, I could have done the whole thing easily for under $50,000. The Fuji film stock was $9,000 by itself without even having rented the cameras, equipment, and crew or paying for developing and editing services. Film is just way too expensive. There was $30,000 spent just in developing costs, transferring HD to film and than matching it up, color correcting and cutting it at Fotokem. What a waste of money, but I learned a lot from the process. Q: What was the best part of making Freudian Eyebrow? A: The secrets, the secret symbology, the secret experiment on the actors, the secret hypnotic suggestions with the audience. I knew as I made it that it would be a five to ten year plan to get the intelligentsia to understand and appreciate it. I'm proud of the five film awards even though I believe there is much more that hasn't been discovered about the movie and its hidden meanings. Q: Is there a main message or a lesson to be learned from this film that watchers should take with them? A: Yes, trust your instincts. Don't completely trust authorities. If something doesn't smell right, it’s probably a rat. Q: Will winning an award from the Indie Fest help your career and help promote your film? A: Freudian Eyebrow won five awards at four film festivals. The laurel wreaths on the sell sheet, on the website and the pictures of me with the great big golden trophies in my office and on the website and IMDB went a long way toward giving the film some credibility and obtaining a distributor. Q: How did you get started in the business? A: I attended the Hollywood Film School about seven years after producing a bi-weekly exercise and health series with college students (Trojancise) in the George Lucas building for the University of Southern California's Trojanvision. I had always wanted to be a cinematographer since high school. As a freshman at LSU in Baton Rouge; I traveled to Los Angeles as a contracted photographer shooting high school graduations in 1980. I met with the Deans of USC and UCLA and they advised me to get a degree in psychology or philosophy so that my films would have deeper meaning. They said the craft of making a film was easy to learn, however, making an interesting film was much harder. I changed my major to psychology, studied the human condition successfully and became a clinical psychologist. Ten years after my doctorate degree, I went back to school and earned an MBA Degree at the Marshall Business School at USC, developed several mental health incomes as a result of my understanding of business models and pursued my interest in cinematography with some of my disposable income. Q: Do you have a full time job? A: I am a clinical psychologist specializing in testing for accommodations on the LSAT, MCAT, GMAT, GRE, Bar and Medical Exams. I also represent the regional center for developmental disabilities as a policy liaison to Department of Mental Health, Department of Children's Services, Department of Probation, Sheriff and Jail and Court policies. I have an MHSA grant to train county psychiatrists on how to diagnose and treat people with a dual diagnosis. I developed a specialized psychiatric hospital wing: An 18- bed adult wing and a 12-bed adolescent wing that is the only one of its kind in California with people flying in from all over the state to receive treatment. Q: What's your next project? A: I'm in preproduction now with Fat City, New Orleans, my original pet project that I think is going to be extremely controversial and get a lot of publicity from arguing about whether 18, 19 and 20 year olds should have their rights to buy and drink alcohol. The movie is about teenagers (15, 16 and 17 years old) going to bars in the 1979 area of New Orleans called Fat City, which was a ‘suburban Bourbon Street’ during the disco era. The film is based on my ‘real life’ experiences growing up in New Orleans and hanging out with my high school pals in Fat City, Uptown and in bars on Bourbon Street. |
Freudian Eyebrow: A Different Kind of Film California Psychologist sets a milestone while producing By Debbie L. Sklar |