Playing With Opposites: Lanre Olabishi On His Short Film "A Storybook Ending"
Writer/director Lanre Olabisi (August the First, Somewhere in the Middle) has screened his films at over 75 film festivals including SXSW and Karlovy Vary. His work has won top prizes in ten international film festivals and has also been nominated for an IFP Gotham Award as well as a Black Reel Award. Olabisi’s latest short film, A Storybook Ending, is a neo-noir, dark comedy about a black man who accidentally kills a white cop in self-defense. The short is based on Lanre's feature film of the same name which is currently in development.
When a black man accidentally kills a white cop in self-defense, the cover-up sets off a chain reaction of deceit, blackmail, and murder.
This topical short has already screened at the San Francisco Black Film Festival, the San Antonio Film Festival, and the Woods Hole Film Festival will be screening at the Oscar-qualifying BronzeLens Film Festival and the American Black Film Festival (ABFF) in August. We had the great pleasure of chatting with filmmaker Lanre about the film, its origins, the importance of music, working with actors, and much much more!
How did you come up with the concept for A Storybook Ending?
The idea was born out of an incident that happened to James Blake, a retired Black tennis star, in 2015. He was standing in front of the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City waiting for a car to take him to the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament. All of a sudden, and for no apparent reason, a plainclothes police officer tackled Mr. Blake to the ground without ever announcing himself. The officer later claimed that he “fit the description.”
I’m 6’2, 240lbs. I wrestled at the University of Michigan. I’m a purple belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I know how to defend myself. This incident actually scared me because I have always been acutely aware that at some point in my life I might just “fit the description.” This encounter led me to ask a cascade of questions that all started with: what if?
What if that happened to me? What if I fought back? What if I hurt the officer? What if I ran away in a panic? Fortunately, I never had to make this choice, but the main character in this film, Wale, does.
There is an aspect of the story that feels timely for many people, but if you think about it, you could really tell this same exact story for the past 100 years and it would still feel relevant.
Carmen Suite No. 1 is featured pretty heavily in the film, and it lends an operatic quality to the dark comedy of the piece. How did you find the music that features in the film? What qualities were you looking for in the backing tracks?
I licensed the two Carmen tracks from StockMusicSite that had a number of different orchestrations and I bought the two rockabilly songs from Musicbed (which I absolutely love).
I knew that I wanted the music to set the tone for the film very early. It puts the audience in a position where they know that the filmmakers are not taking things too seriously, so they don’t have to either. This helps because when the moments of levity do come, they feel free to laugh as opposed to being confused by a tonal shift in the film.
When it came to choosing the music, I always knew that I was going to play with opposites. I love the musical choices Kubrick made with A Clockwork Orange and what Danny Boyle did with Trainspotting. Both films are very dark at times and the music often plays contrary to what we see onscreen. My thought was: what’s the least likely thing someone would expect to hear at this moment that could actually work for this scene? With that as the starting point, finding the right song became infinitely easier.
I like using comedy to highlight dark themes because it throws the audience off-balance. People open up when they laugh and once you do that, you can sock them with something really hard and extremely dark. If it’s dark all the way through then a wall forms between the audience and the film and there is the risk that they will not be able to fully engage with the film. Ultimately, I felt that it was important to lighten things up so that the audience could swallow what at the end of the day is a particularly dark story and the music helped tremendously in creating that balancing act.
The cinematography from Piero Basso is so lush and neon drenched; it’s truly stunning! How did the two of your get connected, and how did you arrive on the film’s final look?
I have known Piero for about 11 years now. We both teach at the New York Film Academy. I teach Screenwriting and Directing and Piero is the Chair of the Cinematography Department. We have always got along very well personally, professionally and artistically. Piero shot my second feature film Somewhere in the Middle and with A Storybook Ending we agreed quite early on to use the stylized visual touches of neo-noir cinema while avoiding the stylized acting that often accompanies such films. We thought it would be effective to have naturalistic, honest performances with a heavy stylized look thereby continuing with our overall themes of contrast.
How did you find the film’s terrific cast?
Carra Patterson and I met a while back when she was teaching at the New York Film Academy with me. She was in the Acting Department, but I had never seen her act before. When she was in Jitney on Broadway, I made a point to go see it and Carra was outstanding. I knew I wanted to work with her at some point, so when the opportunity arose with A Storybook Ending, it was really a no brainer to give her a call. Luckily, she accepted.
Carra is actually the one who introduced me to Rotim [Paul]i. He and I had actually trained at the same acting studio (Esper Studios) and we hit it off right away. I knew immediately that he would be able to nail it.
I found Toni [Ann De Noble] and Sawandi [Wilson] through the casting process. I had a wonderful Casting Director by the name of Lois Drabkin who brought in some really fantastic actors, but these two really stood out for me and it was such an amazing experience to work with all of them. It was probably one of the most enjoyable experiences that I ever had on set. Everyone was so warm, kind, open, and willing to go to whatever lengths to make the project really pop.
Each actor gives such a commanding and captivating performance. What’s your process to working with actors?
I like to set up an environment in which actors feel free to explore. I never try to guide them towards a specific result because at the end of the day all I am looking for is a truthful performance. With that as a baseline, I find that together we almost always find our way there.
What drew you to the visual arts? How did you get into directing?
I took a screenwriting class in undergrad and I was hooked.
What films or filmmakers inspired this film or your overall approach to storytelling?
There are really too many to name but to name a few: Jordan Peele, The Dardenne Brothers, Stanley Kubick, Wong Kar-Wai, Barry Jenkins, Spike Lee, Kathryn Bigelow, Alfonso Cuarón, Danny Boyle.
What do you hope audiences take away from the film?
First and foremost, I want people to leave thinking “wow, that was riveting,” and after that I would want them to reflect on the underlying messages of race, class, privilege, colorism, and violence.
Word on the street is that you’re developing a feature length film based off the short. What are you most excited about expanding?
The short is actually based on a feature film screenplay. I was looking to raise the profile for the feature film script. I saw what Damien Chazelle did with the short film for Whiplash which ultimately led to an amazing feature so I was hoping to follow in his footsteps and I cut the feature script down to a tight, compelling short.
I am excited about actually making the feature. This screenplay is the most personal story I have written to date (which may seem odd, given that my first feature, August the First, is highly autobiographical as well). However, everyone in A Storybook Ending is based on real people that I knew while I was bartending in NYC many years ago.
Aside from the feature version of the short, do you have any other projects in the works that you can share with us?
Yeah, I actually have a few:My White Friend is a half-hour dramedy about a young Black couple living in Brooklyn struggling with infertility and willing to do anything for a baby, but when My White Friend shows up, they get the child that they wanted but never expected.
Ṣàngó Negro - The Nubian Prince. That is a one hour TV drama about a virus-desecrated dystopia where people of color no longer exist and the seemingly only black man left alive discovers that he is a central figure in a far greater conspiracy than meets the eye.
Highway to Nowhere is a narrative feature that takes place on the border between Mexico and the United States. It tells three intersecting stories: one about a young teen trying to cross it in search of his father; another about a young man trying to impress his father by controlling both sides of it; and the last about a US border patrol officer who is assigned to protect the very same border he himself crossed as a child.
What do you think? We want to know. Share your thoughts and feelings in the comments section below, and as always, remember to viddy well!