An Interview with Kathi Lehmer of Trinka Five Films
Trinka Five Films is an independent film company based in Wilmington, Delaware with one foot in New York City.
President, Kathi Lehmer’s goal is to give low-budget filmmaking a better reputation because lack of money is not a deterrent to creativity: the heart of creativity is overcoming obstacles and making your art no matter what… and having a damned good time making it.
Her most recent film is Mama and Damian and she’s kindly agreed to talk to Dale Pierce about the company, its films and the future.
Dale: Where did you come up with the name of Trinka Five Films, as it sounds odd?
Kathi: It’s an ancient Romanian money spell. You say Trinka Five three times and drop three coins in a cup as you’re saying it. The spell is supposed to bring you money. I figured if I named my company Trinka Five eventually I would say it enough that money would come.
Dale: You are located in Delaware, but aren’t you from New York?
Kathi: I lived in New York for years. I consider it my true hometown. I still go as much as I can. I lived down in the Lower East Side across from this infamous gallery, ABC No Rio. They showed a lot of underground films there. It was exiting.
I have found that Delaware is a great place to make films. You’re under the radar here. You don’t need permits and it’s a small enough place that making contacts is easy.
Dale: What brought you into film to begin with?
Kathi: I have always loved movies. When I was a kid I was always acting out scenes. When I was about twelve years old I dug out my dad’s old 8mm camera and took movies of my family and friends doing weird stuff.
As soon as video cameras came out, I got one, after that I always had a camera. I lived in Philadelphia for a while. My ex and I always had movie nights with our friends where we would come up with a theme and a loose script and improvise these little films. I really didn’t start writing anything resembling a real script until about ten years ago.
Dale: You have, dare I say, some odd tastes, if your films are an example of the way you think?
Kathi: Some would say odd. It’s just the way I see things. I have always had a taste for the vaguely macabre and the strangely romantic. I’m attracted to things and people that scare me a bit.
The ordinary just bores me. I look for the complex, the twisted, the damaged. In my work this all comes out. I actually have visions when I start writing. I get flooded with imagery. Sometimes the words come first, then the visions, other times it all hits simultaneously. In other words, I think in film.
Dale: You recently released Mama and Damian. So tell people about the plot for people not familiar with the same?
Kathi: Oh, it’s a coming-of-age story. The plot centres around Damian, who is a half human, half bear boy around twelve or thirteen years old. He’s kind of a human teddy bear. He lives with his family in a distinctive colourful house in an unnamed city. Mama is his mother, a dominatrix/human behaviour researcher. Gunter is Mama’s boyfriend, a gentleman drunk. Wolfgang is Gunter’s nephew, a sort of lovable pansexual freak who throws one of the many curveballs into the plot.
Opa is Damian’s grandfather, a Nazi who is chained up in the basement.
Damian is a good boy, but he gets into a lot of trouble especially when he is hanging around his friend, Preston, a redneck kid from the neighbourhood. All hell breaks loose at one point and Damian finds himself away from home for the first time.
Turns out the kid is pretty resourceful.
Dale: Where did you find the actors for this?
Kathi: When I started writing Mama and Damian, I worked at a Borders book store. I had worked there for several years. Many of the actors were co-workers. A book store attracts a broad spectrum of creative people. I have found that if you are creative in general, acting sort of comes naturally. Some of them had never acted before in anything. The other actors, besides the book store contingent were performers who I either met through past projects or other filmmaker friends.
I think the only really seasoned actors were David Robinson, who plays Opa, the Nazi in the basement, Andre Watson, who plays one of the furries, and the Reverend Thomas Brown who plays, Boss, the owner of Knockers Gentleman’s Club. The Tink, who plays Pappy, the redneck grandfather, is a local celebrity who has his own heavy metal TV show. I had forty-six actors in the film.
Dale: You engaged in multiple functions during the making of this film. How difficult was this?
Kathi: It was challenging. I pretty much saw each function as a stage and each one had its own set of problems. Writing may have been the easiest, looking back. Directing all these smart talented people was a cinch. They worked hard. I rarely even fed anyone! We took each scene and filmed until we got it just right. I am a bit relentless as a director. The hardest part of directing was acting at the same time.
My character is pretty prevalent, so I had to be Mama one second and The Director the next. Watching the footage when I first started editing was hilarious. I literally would switch from my character to my director mode in a second. I looked pretty cracked.
I was lucky to have lots of people around who were watching out for things, especially my D.P. Jessica J Johnston. My assistant, Helen Rei was also instrumental. I had other filmmakers acting as well, so they always had helpful suggestions.
Sometimes I told them to shut up and let me direct, but it all worked out. It took a year to film the project. We had some setbacks. W.G. was hit by a car and had a concussion. I was rear-ended by a tractor trailer then I had a concussion. These accidents were a couple of months apart. I hated scheduling. I was having a nervous breakdown weekly. I was sure people weren’t going to show up or locations were going to fall through. Surprisingly not much of that happened.
There were a few times when actors had to bow out for various reasons. I always rewrote, took them out of the scene or replaced them entirely. It seemed that the rule was that if something didn’t work out, the alternative always ended up better.
Editing was yet another challenge because I had to learn Final Cut Pro. I had never used it. Once I got it down, editing was really fun. It was also a needed rest from the mega-energy I was putting out to get a weekly shoot arranged and executed. So I sat in a basement studio in the ghetto for five months and edited.
Dale: Was the end result what you hoped for?
Kathi: Yes. Almost exactly the film I had seen in my head when I wrote the script. My measure of a good film is when a separate reality is created and the viewer gets drawn in and stays there for the length of the film. I think I accomplished this.
Dale: This is a film I think people will watch and love or hate, but not be indifferent toward?
Kathi: Well, I guess what happened at the premiere and at the screening the following week tells the tale. I had tons of people come up to me and tell me how much they loved it. Some seemed downright overwhelmed. However, at both showings a couple of people walked out in a huff.
I suppose if you don’t know what the underlying sentiment is, some things could
be deemed offensive, or maybe the huffers just thought it was too weird.
Dale: It reminds me of something John Waters would have cranked out. Do you agree?
Kathi: I really never thought that, though I am a fan. I think he has a unique delivery that can’t be imitated easily, but I don’t mind the comparison.
The other director people mention is David Lynch. I just gotta say, my life has been a David Lynch film.
Waters, Lynch; good company.
Dale: For people who just don’t get it, what would you say the message of the film is, to them?
Kathi: The message is in the tagline, “Being a freak is not curse, it’s a gift.”
I have lived many places and been exposed to a lot of different kinds of people. People fear things that are unfamiliar. In the film everyone seems to view everyone else as some kind of freak, when the truth is they are all freaks.
All the characters are exaggerated archetypes. I wanted to put all these villains and heroes in one big pot and see how they interacted. When it comes down to it, not to get too lofty, but it is a picture of the United States.
Intolerance and tolerance ride side by side. People are still free to judge and free to change their minds. There’s more to it, but I’ll save that for another time.
All in all it’s a funny story.
Dale: Have you thought of a sequel?
Kathi: Yes, the problem would be getting some of the actors back. Chuck Fusca, who plays Preston, moved to Florida before we were done with this one. Some others just might not be available. I would have to create some new characters.
W.G. and I are on board, oh, and Ashley Cleaver (the scene-stealer) who plays Wolfgang. We have all talked about a sequel.
I think you could drop the core characters into any situation and it would work.
Dale: Where did you come up with the bear-boy idea anyway?
Kathi: When W.G. and I worked at the book store we retrieved a bear-baby doll from the lost-and found. We pranked each other with it for months. Eventually (after W.G. had left the head of the doll on my desk) he and I started making up stories about the bear boy and his family and friends during our lunch breaks. I wrote down these ideas on scraps of paper and threw them in a bag when I got home.
After a while there were so many scraps I decided to write a script based on these ideas. W.G. became the bear boy in my eyes pretty quickly. People have said they can’t imagine anyone else in the role. That’s literally true where I’m concerned.
Dale: And that suit. Jesus, that suit! Where did you have that made?
Kathi: I bought the fabric and the pattern on a trip with a friend to the mountains of Elmira, New York. The fur looked exactly like the original bear-baby doll.
Actually in the film, W.G. looks precisely like a human-sized version of the doll. In Elmira I also found the coonskin cap that Preston wears. That trip was a great inspiration for the family of rednecks.
Oh yeah, somebody at the book store eventually volunteered to stitch the bear suit together. I was so sick of making costumes at that point. It was a life saver.
Dale: How did your star feel about playing a bear boy?
Kathi: He had no choice. As far as I was concerned he was the bear boy and there was no turning back.
I told him at one point that I was going to light him on fire in one scene. He shrugged and said, “Okay.”
Dale: Any other projects in the planning stage?
Kathi: Yes, my next project is a vampire saga. A bit of an about-face. This one will be more serious. Its theme is betrayal.
I’m scouting for distinctive-looking actors. Anyone interested can contact me at kathi@trinkafivefilms.com
Dale: Anything else you would like to touch on that we may have missed surrounding this film?
Kathi: Mama and Damian was produced on a micro-budget with all volunteer help. Locations, equipment, and big props like cars were borrowed. I am grateful to all those people who helped the film get made. It took three years to complete it. I love making films and I loved every minute of making this one. We all had a wonderful time. I hope many people will see it and love it or hate it. As long as they aren’t indifferent, I’m happy.
Dale: Anything else you would like to bring up in general?
Kathi: Filmmaking comprises all of the arts, but it is the one that is so much like life itself. That’s why we’re a world of film junkies. Keep ‘em coming.
0 comments Sunday 21 Oct 2007 10:44 pm | Dale Pierce | Interviews, New and Upcoming Films
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