American Cinematographer
Dog Days in the East Village
By Eric Rudolph
A gang of impoverished twentysomething women in New York’s East Village stumble into a life of crime in writer/director/actor Eve Annenberg’s independent first feature Dogs: The Rise and Fall of an All-Girl Bookie Joint This witty and moving film follows the fate of Leila Wascowicz (Pam Columbus), a young woman suffering from such an extreme case of low self-esteem that she dons $450 designer eyewear while existing on egg rolls for months at time. A financial crisis arises, however, when her mother dies and Leila has to pay for the funeral.
A white knight of sorts appears in the form of Sammie (Toby Huss), who is referred to as “a nice Jewish criminal.” Leila is initially drawn to Sammie romantically even though, or perhaps because, he has no interest in her. But he does need people to run an illegal sports betting operation, and Leila and her three underemployed roommates seem to fit the bill. Soon, cash money is pouring in, but the girls tire of working long hours in their ramshackle tenement kitchen, and grow concerned about the morality of their profession. Eventually they get arrested, and just before being released on bail the four roomies realize that their bookie skills could be best applied to the straight job market. (The wispy-voiced hyphenate Annenberg makes a charming appearance as Gypsy, the newest roommate, who is on a first-name basis with the jailers after previous incarcerations.)
The 32-year-old director, who earned an acting degree from Juilliard and filmmaking credentials from Columbia University, originally set out to make a serious family drama for her directorial debut. When that film fell apart after production had already begun, she dealt with her devastation through laughter. “At that point, my mind snapped,” she says. “All I could think about was wacky comedy.” Writing Dogs proved therapeutic, but Annenberg soon found her production budget estimate of $50,000 – financed by student loans and limited partnerships – to be too low by half.
Dogs survived thanks to crucial financial boosts from several individuals who saw short pieces of the film, including Marcia Kirkley, former director of acquisitions for October Films, who anted up some $34,000 in completion funds from her credit cards and became the film’s executive producer. “I was fortunate that Marcia came in, or I would have had to gogo dance my way from rough cut to answer print,” quips Annenberg. More angels appeared in the form of Carol Dean of New York’s Studio Film & Tape, who contributed $1,000 of fresh Fuji stock after seeing some of the film, and Danielle Germano of the Hit Factory recording studio, who offered the use of music scoring facilities. After 17 months of on-again-off-again shooting, Dogs wrapped principal photography with an ultimate cost somewhere between $80,000 and $100,000. Annenberg gives a great deal of credit to her producer, Heather D’Adamo, then a 24-year-old Columbia University film student, for the films successful completion.
Annenberg says that her strict conservatory training at Juilliard helped her to maintain cohesion during a rather erratic shoot. “Because we filmed off and on over 17 months, we couldn’t concern ourselves with continuity,” she explains. “I couldn’t tell people not to change their hair over that period of time. When those problems cropped up, we resorted to wigs. More serious situations arose during the protracted filming period. “Melody Beal’s mother died during one of our longer continuous periods of filming. I could not shoot around her; I had to shut down for a week and I lost $5,000. After a week, Melody was back, sitting in a jail cell that smelled of urine, playing lines about her fictional mother.”
Dogs was photographed by both Joe Foley and Wolfgang Held. Foley, 30, who shot a bit more of the film than Held, explains that the l6mm production was shot with whatever camera gear the filmmakers could beg and borrow. “We used an Eclair NPR, an Aaton XLR, an Arriflex SR and BL and whatever lenses came along with the cameras. It’s not the best way to do things, but it is a way to get a feature shot for no money”. Fresh Kodak stock was used to film most of Dogs; short ends were used only sparingly. Lighting gear and soundstage space were borrowed from Columbia University and elsewhere. “The lights we used most often were three 2Ks borrowed from Columbia, where I had worked. Occasionally we would get a 5K and some Tweenies and Inkies. One day after a long Dogs shoot, I ran into an acquaintance on the subway and he said “’I’m working at a lighting house; call me if you need to borrow anything.’ We did.”
Since no one was getting paid, Foley’s camera team changed frequently, sometimes daily. “Whatever friends of mine or Eve’s who could come and work a day or two, that was my team,” he explains. “In 10 days I might have had 10 different gaffers and four different ACs.”
The perils of independent production did provide occasional serendipities, however. A New York bar was secured for a scene in which the girls console a distraught Gypsy. “After we’d shot one of our scheduled two days there, the owner, who had to stay with us in the bar until 2 am decided we shouldn’t come back.” Foley recalls. “Fortunately we had gotten to the point in the scene where the girls’ mothers magically appear. We shot the rest [of this sequence] at the Columbia University soundstage, with a limbo background, which helped distinguish the fantasy section from the reality parts of the bar scene.”
Though Dogs has had several American theatrical runs, the film has enjoyed most of its theatrical success overseas. “It was accepted at the 1996 Rotterdam Film Festival,” says Annenberg with pride. “Our little 16mm print represented the only American feature in competition there. From Rotterdam, it was sold in Germany, France and England; ARD in Germany sold Dogs in Italy, Australia, Japan and Taiwan. At one point it was playing in three theaters at once in Paris.”
Since then, Annenberg has seen a couple of development deals come and go. She’s currently trying to decide whether she should seek a studio deal for her second feature, “The Last Shift” (written with Stephanie Sharpe), which her agent describes as “Mystic Pizza” in Times Square, but with more sex and drugs. Meanwhile, the diminutive Annenberg is managing two downtown restaurants. At presstime, however, Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein was set to screen the sole 35mm print of Dogs, which can also be seen on The Sundance Channel in the upcoming weeks.
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