Directing a Movie Through Text?
By: Indie Film Club
Tags: Art, Indie Movie Costs, Screenwriting, Film, Movies

T o finish off our first week at the Indie Film Club, we will look at some of the behind the scenes of this week’s movie Good Time.

Before we start, make sure to read our previous blog posts where we analyse and interpret the movie’s plot and characters.

The Story behind the Story

How Good Time Came To Be

It all started when Robert Pattinson browsed around on IndieWire, where he saw a still from the Safdie Brother’s previous movie Heaven Knows What. He liked the image so much, that he decided to send the brothers an email, telling them that it somehow felt right, that it was meant to be, and that he wanted to make a movie with them. Funnily enough, the brothers didn’t want to reply ar first, as they did not have any future projects planned, and were still busy making their previous movie.

However, they did eventually decide to answer and after meeting for the first time, Robert had committed to making a movie…it is to note that there still was no idea.

Regardless, Robert promised he would do whatever they wanted him to do. They took him by his word and, 6 months later, sent him a first draft of Good Time, written by Josh Safdie and Ronald Bronstein. At this point in time, Good Time wasn’t the movie we know and love. The script was focused on Connie still being in prison, showing and telling his story there. After a while, they realised that it simply wasn’t working and started to develop the script which turned out to be the final one.

The Title

Even though the name is a bit questionable, the directors assured that they were not trying to be ironic. The title Good Time was given to the project right at the beginning when, as just mentioned, the script looked completely different. The term Good Time actually refers to a term used in the law department. When an inmate is released, he is being released on his good time, and, as the story initially was about Connie being in prison and then being released, the title fit very well. However, they later on simply couldn’t find a title which was more suitable and therefore decided to stick with Good Time.

Costs and Shoot

The movie had a budget of $2 million and achieved a total box office revenue of $4.1 million. While the character and film preparation lasted several months, the actual movie was shot in 37 days, including 5 additional days for needed reshoots.

Directors

Josh and Benny Safdie have been making movies for over a decade now, however, they do label this film as their first movie movie. Until now, they have stubbornly refused to engage with the larger movie industry, as they first wanted to have their language down.

When creating Good Time, they wanted to create a piece of pulp, a piece of entertainment. They wanted to show the audience what money can’t buy, making the movie as realistic as possible. The thrill of the movie being the anticipation, whether or not Connie would get arrested or be able to walk free together with Nick.

Josh mentioned in an interview, that we as a society have always sensationalised crime in movie; think Bonnie and Clyde, two highly beloved characters. However, their portrayal often makes the audience forget that those are in fact criminals who have done horrible and despicable things.

So in contrary, Good Time shows a criminal who isn’t outsmarting everyone, who doesn’t have these amazingly thought through plans, but is a sort of rough diamond who makes mistakes along the way.

And, even though this is a pulp type thriller, the brothers went to great lengths to avoid the use of guns.

Creating the Characters’ Backgrounds

One of the things I love most about this movie is how much preparation went into the script and the characters. Each character had a fully thought-out backstory, even if the character had very little screen time.

Even though the movie gives barely any insight into the characters’ backstories, each character did have a detailed biography.

Connie Nikas

For Connie, they had written down his entire life, from the second he was born until the minute the movie starts. As said before, none of this story is mentioned to the audience, however, it helped the actor, Robert Pattinson, better understand Connie and for him to justify why and how Connie would react in certain situation. Moreover, as the character and the actor are so different, it was important for Robert to really understand Connie and his motivations. Having such a detailed backstory also helps identify patterns, which in return clarifies some of Connie’s actions.

Corey Ellman

Even though Corey only appears for a small duration of the movie, she too had an elaborate biography. Jennifer Jason Leigh, the actress who portrayed Corey, mentioned it to be quite rare to get such an elaborate backstory, especially for a side character.

Nick Nikas

When it comes to Nick, his character had actually been created back in 2010, for a project which ended up falling through. When creating this project, Benny Safdie was actually the one playing him, which is why he also ended up playing him in Good Time. He said that, even though they were auditioning different actors for the role, they always knew that Benny could do it. Benny also said that it was kind of weird knowing that he has this very specific character in his back pocket which he can just bring out at any given time.

Character Preparation

In order to fully develop the characters, both directors and actors did a lot of different things.

The Clothing

Firstly, the physical appearance and clothing. In order to imagine what Connie would look like, the actors and directors actually looked at different mugshots to see who Connie could resemble. Clothing wise, they would walk around the streets of New York to find what type of clothing is worn most commonly, observing what could make Connie blend in the best.

Interestingly, the outfit with the baggy red jacket was completely bought off of someone from the street. Josh Safdie was walking around the streets, when he saw a man wearing this baggy red jacket, feeling like this could suit Connie. After sneakily taking a picture of the man, he sent it to the costume department, who then told him to bring that man in. They ended up buying this man’s jacket and have Connie wear it the movie.

Normally, during the costume fitting, actors tend to choose something which feels right, however, Robert decided to take a different approach and to actually wear what felt most uncomfortable and to then learn how to move in it.

Lastly, in order to see what costumes worked best, Robert would actually go to prison and talk with some of the inmates to get their opinion and to see what worked best.

The Letters

Another interesting thing they did to develop the characters, in particular the relationship between Connie and Nick, was to have Robert and Benny send each other emails (letters) in characters. These emails, which they sent over a time span of 2 months, showed the conversation between the brothers while Connie was still in prison. In these letters, Connie tries to manipulate Nick into leaving his grandmother, as well figure out Nick’s buttons and triggers. Even though these letters were not used for the movie, the actors used them as base for their interactions and decisions.

Connie and Nick Go to Work

Moreover, Robert and Benny would, in character, work in different places such as a car wash and a Dunkin’ Donuts. Acting in character, Benny even ripped off some windscreen wipers, to the shock of the poor people at the car wash who had no idea. Connie on the other hand would mainly order Nick around, as the character generally does.

While at Dunkin’ Donuts, Connie and Nick caused a huge commotion, however, due to their characters’ realness and ability to blend in, no one at the shop even cared about their argument and just kind of minded their own business.

Being Hidden in Plain Sight

This was one of the main aspects the directors and actors wanted to achieve — being hidden in plain sight. They wanted to create characters which could be a real person walking down the street, someone who simply blends into the crowd. Therefore, both actors changed a lot physically, to ensure that no one recognised them and to keep the illusion alive.

Luckily for them, they succeeded!

To everyone’s amazement, they were able to shoot the entire movie on the street of New York, and not one cellphone picture was taken. And do I remind you, to this day, Robert Pattinson is one of the world’s most recognised people.

The Accent

The movie takes place in New York and, while Josh and Benny are from there, Robert is from London, England. However, you would never guess so, as his accent is so on point. Robert has always had an affinity for accents, having done many different accents over the year. Robert said in an interview that looking at the accent helps you to somewhat reverse engineer the character. He says that accents don’t just represent a place, but that it can actually tell you a lot about a person. There is a reason why someone speaks like that, and that you can almost tell what the area is like and how the person grew up, based on their accent. Therefore, making sure that he got he accent right was a big part of his character preparation.

When it comes to Nick, Benny had worked and talked with a lot of people with a speech impediment, helping him understand and develop the kind of impediment Nick would have. He was working on the character ever since its first creation in 2010, leading Benny to clearly understand Nicks way of perceiving emotions, as well as way of interacting with others. He knew that, whenever someone would say something to Nick, it would have this delay in his brain before he could understand the words and answer.

Shooting the Movie

Subway Scene

The crew and Robert were on the subway during rush hours, wanting to film this scene. While people did see the camera, Josh did not want people to know who they were actually filming. Additionally, since Connie was created to blend in, people also had no suspicion as to who was being filmed. In order to keep this unknown aspect alive, Josh would actually direct Robert via text. That way they could avoid drawing attention to Connie/Robert, as people would otherwise start staring at him, ruining the illusion.

Improvisation

What I thought to be very interesting, was the fact that many of the scenes were somewhat improvised. While there was a script with given lines, the Safdie brothers would often only instruct one of the actors, leaving the others to react and improvise.

For example, during the confrontational scene between Connie and Ray, Robert was the only one who, a few minutes prior to the shoot, was given the scene’s structure. He would then try to steer Buddy into the needed way, while he would react freely and improvise Ray’s reactions. While this approach definitely makes the scenes more realistic, it did also mean that some scenes had to be shot over and over again, until the scene would go into the intended and needed direction.

Real Life

In order to make the movie and the scenes look as realistic as possible, none of the filmed areas were closed off. Not even the shopping mall was closed for Connie and Nick to run through. They did so to keep the illusion alive and to capture the people’s real expressions and reactions to what was happening. They mentioned that, doing the scenes with a bunch of extras would not have been the same, moreover, it wasn’t possible budget wise. The only extra they had was the woman Nick runs into, she was in fact an actors and therefore did not hurt herself when falling to the ground.

This also helped the actors be in the moment, without having to force any sort of acting. They only had one instruction, given by the malls security guard — don’t hurt anyone.

Robert even said that he likes this approach the most; acting without actually acting. In this case they really were just two men running through a mall, genuinely trying not to hit an innocent bystander…the scene really couldn’t get any more real.

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This concludes our very first movie discussion, here at the Indie Film Club!

I hope you all enjoyed reading these posts, as well as hopefully learnt something new.

Don’t forget to check out our Instagram page (@indie.film.club), to see which movie we will be discussing next week.