The past year has sent many industries into a spiral, and the film industry is no different. Attempting to get a job in the industry is more stressful than ever, and as a soon-to-be college graduate I know this stress firsthand. In a time of so much dread and uncertainty, Bill Badi and Carter Adkins’ debut feature Jenna Bums the Loveseat is the relatable, hopeful experience that seems to be so few and far between these days.
Recently featured at the Red Dirt International Film Festival and South Georgia Film Festival, Jenna Bums the Loveseat demonstrates the power of independent film. After their most recent festival, I spoke with the directing pair over Zoom about their writing process, the intricacies of making a micro-budget feature film, and film school.
Film Cred: I really loved the brother/sister relationship in the film, because that’s kind of like how me and my brother are! So I just wanted to know where did the idea for the story start?
Carter Adkins: The idea for the story starts largely with — there’s like a nugget of I have two brothers, and I really love them a lot but you know it’s like any relationship. There are ups and downs to it and all that shit, but it’s not really an “autobiography autobiography.” We wanted to take two people who were pretty distant and bring them close together. So we tried to make a pretty Nashville story with some characters that we thought that we knew; with a pretty gung-ho liberal yuppie young lady, and more or less a Nashville hipster. I tried to have those two people who may or may not be on the same side, have a lot of their own thoughts and ideas and have them come together. Because that’s what families are. Even if you’re not on the same page about everything you still stick together.
FC: That reminds me, I was talking to Bill about how the Nashville-ness was one of my favorite things about the film — it was so Nashville! What was the process of making this like a small budget indie movie in Nashville as a postgrad?
Bill Badi: We didn’t set out to make a Nashville movie. We actually had a lot of back and forth in the beginning as to whether we were going to film where Carter was at the time, with his family in Atlanta, or if we were going to film in Nashville, and things kind of like organically ended up moving towards Nashville, given that we knew more acting studios there. We had friends who have gear that we’d be able to use and friends who have houses and that type of thing. A lot of our locations just came from friends of ours that were like: “Okay, yeah, you can use our place.” Then from there, we wanted to make it feel more like an authentic Nashville film, simply because that happened to be where we were filming.
CA: I think something important to note is that Bill is very well connected everywhere. But since he’d lived in Nashville, he had a ton of people that he would reach out to and they would help him like find locations or get equipment that wouldn’t necessarily be readily available if we shot somewhere else. So he would put things in the South African Facebook group in Nashville and get a bunch of responses — I think he ran some sort of metric or something at some point and was like: “We actually qualify as a South African co-production based on a couple of these film festivals requirements,” which is pretty funny. To have a movie that was shot, I don’t know, over 5000 miles away from South Africa.
BB: -Without any real budget.
FC: You definitely couldn’t tell that you had a low budget, that’s what I was thinking the whole time. Another thing I wanted to ask about is how you went about casting the film? Whoever played Jenna, she really reminded me of Aubrey Plaza, and overall the actors were just very memorable.
CA: I think that we were smart in casting and knowing the kind of movie that we wanted to make. And knowing that we were trying to look for people who would help inform characters and build them out from what was on the page. Versus being married to like an idea that’s in your head and trying to execute that all the way through. So James Rosser, the guy who plays Ryan, had actually acted in my senior thesis a few years before when I was in band, when I was a student. And, Bill helped work on that. So we knew him and we kind of knew that he was pretty capable and pretty agreeable and down for anything. And I mean, I really think, I truly believe that he’s just a very good actor.
FC: He was really funny.
CA: Yeah, he is, he’s great. So we were smart and looking for people like that. And like Ashley, who would help build out even in moments where things may have not been as three-dimensional as they could be. They would help inform and give some weight to those things. But we saw a lot of people.
BB: Yeah, we saw a lot of people. So that was the only thing that we really spent any form of money on aside from food, like locations, equipment, etc., most things were kindly borrowed by other people. So because of that, we ended up seeing just like way more people coming into audition than, like any form of audition process I had done before. And we were kind of spoiled for choice. There were a few other good actors. But one thing just to add on to what Carter said, that was great about being able to work with James, Ashley, and Amanda, especially as our like, main actors. As Carter mentioned, they could fill in where we might have either hit a wall or something by ourselves. So with that, there’s actually a lot of improvisation. And in the film, they kind of like, went with what felt natural. And if we needed them to switch courses, they’re good actors. So they can do what we need them to. But beyond that, they were also really adding on and sometimes, like, getting ideas that we hadn’t thought of that were really helpful in the end.
CA: Yeah, we shot entire scenes that weren’t scripted every now.
BB: Like the taco scene.
CA: The whole taco scene, which a lot of people are like, it’s my favorite part of the movie. And we’re like, it’s a meme.
FC: Going along with the borrowing of equipment and other community support in Nashville, how would you say that your time at Vanderbilt or just in school in general influenced the making of the film?
BB: One thing I really appreciate about Vanderbilt’s approach to filmmaking is that they don’t emphasize the technical parts of it. I guess there’s good and bad to this, but I mostly appreciate it. They don’t necessarily focus just on making you a trained technician of a filmmaker. You’re learning a lot more about different forms and modes and styles of filmmaking. And really, just like, what is the final product communicating? How is it reaching the audience and that type of thing? So I’d say it would have been much harder to wrap our heads around a lot of the ways we almost phoned it in at moments if we had gone to a more classical film school where, you know, people are working as SAG professionals. We just didn’t use lights. I think like maybe one scene outdoors, we have a little panel light. A lot of what we did was very running-gun, spur of the moment, in some ways, although a lot of other things were very well planned. I like the way Vanderbilt’s film program just leaves you room to explore and try different things and make mistakes. And I think we use that in the way that we made this film too.
CA: Yeah, I pretty similarly appreciate that — at least now, I may not have in the moment. The Vanderbilt film program is not very dogmatic in terms of, you know, I think that they are now teaching an editing class because it’s one of the things that they can teach online and they couldn’t before. They had to fill some classes. But I mean, they, I remember freshman year, they’re just like “This is Adobe Premiere.” All right, I guess we’ll try and figure out how to make anything that makes any sense with this editing software. I mean, stuff like that is, you know, it might be frustrating in the moment, but it also teaches you like, there’s an obstacle and a problem, and it’s not the end of the world, we can try and figure it out on our own. And I think that that’s a good mentality that carries over pretty well towards independent film.
BB: And just to tie things up on that, I think the reason why I like that approach is, I’ve been to a few small fests, I’ve seen a lot of student films, and oftentimes stuff looks and feels more polished than what we even achieved on our post-student-film feature-length film. But when it comes to the stuff that really connects with an audience, it might not necessarily be there. So I’m glad that we didn’t get too caught up in the technicalities of filmmaking, and we’re just really trying to connect with an audience.
FC: That comes through! The film felt very character driven, I found myself so interested in the minds of Jenna and her brother. Speaking of the personality of the characters, I love the scene where they’re throwing paint at each other. It’s so pretty! The grading in the film is so bright, and hopeful. In saying that, what was like the best part of filming? I don’t know if it was that scene in particular, but that was pretty memorable for me.
CA: That was our toughest day in general of filming. We started really early. It was outside the city by about an hour. So it was a bit of a trek, we had like two different location moves. And I think it was about 12 to 13 straight hours of working, so it was a lot of work.We definitely did a good job starting with the paint stuff, because that was fun. But it was also just a stressful, daunting task. I think everyone has a ruined pair of shoes because of that. That day was a lot of fun.
BB: I mean, like the thing was that day, and this isn’t your question, but the thing about that day is we had to film the scene where they were covered in paint later on, and we found Amanda on the same day, so there was no way we were working around painting their clothes again. So we just had a lot to do. It’s funny if I think of filming individual scenes, I struggle to think of one that stood out as a fun one. To see the film was fun, but a lot of the standout ones are honestly like the hardest scenes to film. But I think my most favorite part of this entire experience was the in-between moments. I’m actually friends with James and Amanda, so now we’ll message each other. All of them except for James were strangers to me beforehand. I met Amanda and Ashley for the first time when they came to the audition. So I think my favorite part about the filmmaking process with him was just how collaborative it was and like really a friendship-building thing. And I think that was important. Especially since it’s a film that’s about relationships, I don’t think that it would have felt as authentic if we all didn’t develop within our friendships the way that our characters do.
FC: That’s so sweet. So since wrapping it up and sending the film out what has been that submitting it to different festivals and having people watch it for the first time. You know, having your first feature film out!
CA: The festival game is strange because we’re definitely living through a weird year. Just because some of them were getting canceled at the beginning of our submission process. Almost all of them have been exclusively virtual, whether we’ve gotten selected at them or not. We had our premiere in South Africa, it seemed like a really great festival and a really big deal. And it was awesome. But I was away from being able to go and see anything. So Bill would know more about it than I do.
BB: I think the premiere specifically was worse for me than for you. Because I was like, oh, I’m in South Africa, but it’s virtual. That’s the thing that is frustrating about a virtual experience. You’re like, “Oh, my movie is supposedly having its world premiere right now.” The festival we were at was competing against movies that I own on DVD, like one movie we competed against was the South African selection last year for the Academy Award. So it was a big festival. But I’m just like, you know, I’m not there. I’m in my room on Facebook, wondering if anybody is watching it or not. There’s no way to really know that. So in ways the virtual festival experience is kind of odd and isolating but in other ways it’s been cool in the sense that way more of our friends have been able to watch our content. I’m able to name at least a dozen folks who would have had no chance of watching the film if we were only doing live festivals. So I think that’s really cool. And the virtual component does add a strong layer of accessibility. There are platforms like Letterboxd that people can log the movie on and leave a comment and that type of thing. And I’m like, that’s tight. It’s been a mixed bag. I think it’s just been a process of trying to understand it as different from a regular release period.
CA: We did play last weekend at an outdoor live screening at the South Georgia Film Festival, so that was neat. I got to attend that and see what an audience actually was like watching our movie, an audience of strangers for the most part. I mean, people have been coming up with creative ways to try and make things feel as normal as possible, even though you know, the world blew up.
BB: One thing I’ll add that I think is interesting is I’ve had a few short films get into festivals, but with a feature getting to a festival a unique contrast is that, like, the more fests we get in, we’ve actually been getting emails from distributors, and representatives, and so on. It’s been interesting having that type of feedback and interest, mainly saying that just in case anybody who reads this article later, and is like a distributor, it’s like, “oh, they’ve been getting interest.”
FC: So with this current chaotic climate, what are the next steps with Jenna Bums the Loveseat and then after that? Are there future projects?
CA: I mean, so what’s next after Jenna Bums the Loveseat, we’ve got a few more festivals that we’re waiting to see if we get in and play at, and things like that. We’re still riding the festival train a little longer and trying to see how many different places we can play at and try and build an expanding audience as much as we can before we’ve applied to everything that we do. Yeah, we’re interested in whatever distribution and representation and sales offers anyone can send to us at Jenna Bums the Loveseat’s Instagram.
BB: So there was a like three-month period where South Africa had a very stable COVID situation and I shot a couple short films with small groups in either masks or outdoors anyway. So one of those is playing at Filmpalooza this month because it won the Johannesburg 48 Hour Film Project. So that’s really cool. Then like a selection, I think probably a handful of the ad films playing at a former Palooza are also going to end up playing at Cannes. So yeah, cold phones for me for that, because that would be very cool. And yeah, kind of like after working on a couple shorts. I’m like, really eager to jump back in the ring and shoot a feature. Again, I think both Carter and I have been like, pretty eager for that. It’s just kind of a weird period.
FC: For sure!
BB: I’ve got like, a dozen different concepts. I’ve got in my back pocket. And two of them, I’m planning on starting, like actually writing in the next month or so.
FC: Speaking of writing new projects, how do you get the motivation to do it? What is your process like for making a film? For me, when I’m actually sitting down to write, I really have to force myself to just sit there and think about it.
CA: I think it’s not like a great one-size-fits-all type of system. I remember hearing, I think it was Dax Shepard talking about how he writes. And he locked himself in a hotel for a week and made himself write, like eight pages a day. And he won’t let himself watch TV, so it’s difficult for everybody. Some people, you know, think about just general garbage for a year. And then they sit down and write an entire feature-length script in a week and it’s a pretty great first draft. So it’s different for everybody. I think kind of being a young filmmaker, I’m trying to figure out what works best for me too. So like, Jenna Bums the Loveseat. We were definitely trying to turn out some pages on a timeline, and get some things going and have a script ready. So now I’m trying to really plan ahead. I’ve been mulling over some ideas for a long time and I think it flows easier for me, but it’s just different for everyone. So I’m trying to figure that out in my own right. But yeah, I think that the main thing is to just always be trying to get something done, because it’s difficult. It’s really, it’s tough. And there are a lot of other things going on in the world right now that seem more pressing than, you know, churning out make-believe. But yeah, churning out make-believe is one of the one of the more fun reasons to be alive.
BB: This is kind of helping me process myself and thinking about my own system. But with Jenna, it’s interesting, because we were also adjusting certain things based on actors and locations that we got that were slightly different than what we initially planned. So we were still writing and adjusting as the film went on. We added a scene like two weeks in with my process, which actually, the process kind of works for me, although I think it’s like not typical, which is why I defer to Carter at first. But with all the shorts that I work on, I tend to know everything about my film before I start writing, like the first sentence of the script. I also kind of go as far as like producing the film and like getting actors and that type of thing when I’ve got like a page written. And then I’ll just like, by that point, I’m like, “Okay, I’m forced to actually finish writing” and then I’ll get my writing done. Like, I don’t stick to my screenplays as though they’re like law. They’re really just a guideline. And I think especially with a process like mine, where I’m not spending as much time on a screenplay as others might. I’m spending a lot of time in development, but not on the actual screenplay. I think it’s good to be able to adjust and change things.
CA: Yeah, just one last little nugget. I was listening to someone talk about like William Goldman who’s one of the gold standard screenwriters of the last 100 years he wrote Misery and Marathon Man and The Princess Bride and just a ton of great titles and and they were talking about him and the way he described screenwriting, he was like, it wasn’t ever intended to be a finished product. It’s not like an art form that requires lofty descriptions and things like that. He was like, these things were meant to be guides for people to shoot actual things, they don’t have to be overwritten and, you know, literary and prose and stuff like that. And, I mean, he wrote some of the better screenplays that have ever existed. And I think that that’s an interesting perspective, because we have a lot of pressure to try and sell things and get in development deals and stuff like that. And if you’re doing that, then there is a lot of pressure to have, you know, beautiful prose and elegant structure and things like that. It’s just it can be amazing and then result in a movie that’s not as good. So filmmaking is a weird form. They say they have to be born three times. And it’s just, it’s really only the thing that comes out of that third time that matters to a general.
BB: Yeah, Carter usually says that — I don’t know if this is an original quote or not — but filmmaking is kind of like holding your hands full of water, and just trying to see how much you would like, get to the end of wherever you’re transporting it.
FC: It was really good for me to hear because when I write, I find myself trying to strive for perfection, even though it is not going to be perfect on the first try. So I guess my final question for you then is what advice do you have for other young or new filmmakers who are trying to do their first feature film or just create something?
BB: Do it. Just make something bad. And the reason I say make something bad is if you go in not expecting to make something good, then you’re, you know, there’s less holding you back from actually making something. The more you just do it, eventually you’re going to like work that muscle and get better at it. I think it’s Stephen King, I think who also says, have a bad first draft, just like, go for it, work on it. And that’s not to say that you shouldn’t spend time in pre-production and preparation. But I think it’s just like, if you’re always waiting until you’re ready, you’re not gonna do anything.
CA: Yeah, I mean, that’s, I think that that’s all spot on. The most important thing is that you’re gonna like, you’re gonna try and do it eventually. I mean, I definitely know people who write 20 drafts of scripts and things, though. So any work that you do on the front end is going to help you later, but no one’s going to give you a green light, either. So you know, you’ve got to recognize when it’s time to, to actually, you know, yell.
BB: Yeah, I think even someone who writes 20 drafts is kind of proving that same point where it’s like, clearly you wrote something and got it out there. And then it needed 20 drafts before it got to where it was good. But you didn’t start to get to that last point from draft one.
