The Bedstand

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The great Jack Lemmon once said, "It's hard enough to write a good drama, it's much harder to write a good comedy, and it's hardest of all to write a drama with comedy. Which is what life is."

To paraphrase Mr. Lemmon, comedies are really eclectic recollections of life´s funnier moments. To generate laughs, some are taken to extreme physical exaggeration while others prefer to rely on more subtle humor or even dark ironies. Then there are the comedies that use benign and simple everyday issues that, through some unfortunate circumstances and misunderstanding, get blown out of proportion, resulting in hilarious and often embarrassing mix-ups. This particular formula works best when seemingly disparate elements and characters are able to come together seamlessly without creating plot holes that might make the story seem too far-fetched. Remember, this is about how ridiculously funny real life can be--given the right circumstances.

Which brings us to a new comedy, "The Bedstand", an independent film created by the talented duo of Robert Christophe and Kim Waldauer. After teaming up on various stage productions and short films over the last decade, the screenplay for "The Bedstand", which actually started out as a play, became a recent focus for this husband and wife team. Sensing that they could have a potentially good comedy on their hands and wanting to see their vision become a reality, the plucky filmmakers decided to strike out on their own. Of course, producing a feature-length film does not come cheap. The first obstacle that hits every new filmmaker is: How do I finance my dream? Like most amateur filmmakers these days, going digital is truly the only cost-saving way to get one´s work on tape and into a film editing station quickly. Assembling the cast from their own inner circle and through craigslist.com (really, what can´t the internet do?), Christophe and Waldauer shot "The Bedstand" in a whirlwind timeframe--12 days to be exact. From there, it took almost another eighteen months of post-production work to finally finish what has become a true labor of love.

According to Ms. Waldauer, "The Bedstand" is actually based on a real life incident and it goes something like this:

Newly engaged couple, Nick (Dennis Apergis) and Jenna (Kim Waldauer) is asked by Jenna´s parents to housesit while they are away for the weekend. Sounds like a simple request, right? All they are asked to do is just to feed and walk the family dog, make sure nothing goes wrong around the house and they´ll be home free in 48 hours. Of course, like life, nothing really goes as planned. A night of passion for our couple turns into a nightmare scenario when Nick accidentally leaves his used condom on an antique bedstand next to Jenna´s parent´s bed. Overnight, a reaction between the rubber and the chemicals from the condom results in a large penis-shaped stain on the bedstand! At the same time, a pair of small-time burglars, Russ and Gus, is staking out the house and is looking to steal anything that is not nailed down. Needless to say, from thereon, a small "furniture emergency" snowballs into a series of weird and embarrassing events that would involve, over the course of the next two days, two bumbling thieves, a self-medicating therapist and her non-medicating bi-polar patient, a highly paranoid reforming ex-con and an uncle who goes in and out of his comatose-like state at conveniently the worse moments.

The premise for "The Bedstand" is, for the most part, pretty well thought out. Starting from an embarrassing sex-related incident, the defiled bedstand provides a solid base for which our flustered couple tries to find imaginative solutions to their unique problem but instead, find themselves caught up in ever-zanier situations with even wackier characters. Good comedy often stems from great timing and in the case of this film, there are admittedly some potentially really funny moments that hit the timing just right. However, there are also scenes that do not work that well as they either drag on for far too long (the scene where the burglars are stuck inside a treehouse), sometimes losing track of the story´s main focus or are hampered by less-than-acceptable acting from some in the supporting cast (acting standouts include Waldauer, Apergis and Dennis Delsing, who plays Jenna´s father). The first two complaints can be solved by tightening up the film´s edits while the last one is more or less an unavoidable consequence of working with amateur actors and filming within a really tight budget.

Helmed by two really likeable leads--Apegis and Waldauer--"The Bedstand" has the potential to go very far. The basis of the story is very appealing and would definitely attract some strong attention as Christophe and Waldauer hunt for distribution. Nowadays, anyone with an idea, a digital camcorder and cheap editing software could conjure up a film for very little money. The quality of the final product is what sets the talented ones apart from the wannabes. Both Christophe and Waldauer definitely belong to the first category and are just a couple of really talented artists seeking their first big break. With "The Bedstand", hopefully, that big break would be forthcoming.

I had the opportunity to pose some questions to Kim Waldauer through e-mail and the following are her responses:

HT (Hock Teh): Is this your first stab at filmmaking?
KW (Kim Waldauer): "The Bedstand" is the first feature length movie we´ve made. Over the past four years Robert Christophe and I (my creative partner and husband) made a number of short films leading up to this.

HT: How was the idea for "The Bedstand" conceived? Maybe you could tell us more about your fellow collaborators?
KW: The story of the movie was inspired by a real life event when my future-husband and I had a horrid weekend house sitting for my parents. Suffice it to say there was a bedstand and a condom involved and a lot of hysteria. This happened almost 8 years ago, back when we lived in Philadelphia and were making our livings as stage actors and writers. At the time we were both Artists-In-Residence at The Brick Playhouse--a small theatre where we developed and performed original works for the stage. Robert and I had just started working together as creative collaborators and having some success at it. The script for "The Bedstand" was originally going to be a one-act play for the stage. The whole project was put on the back burner due to paid opportunities. Fast forward to 2001: we move to LA and make a little money on some spec scripts. A deal for a script for Hillary Duff and Queen Latifah takes us on the Hollywood roller coaster ride but it eventually fell through. So we thought, what the hell--let´s do something for ourselves. We picked "The Bedstand" idea up again and began to develop it as a screenplay.

HT: What aspects of classic comedy were you trying to capture with this film?
KW: I think they key premise to any good comedy is placing characters in a situation where they struggle to maintain their dignity in the face of insurmountable odds. In the case of Nick and Jenna, the more they try to hide their secret (that they´ve defiled their parent´s bedstand in a freak sex accident), the more chaos and mayhem they create in their lives. We are inspired by storytellers like Woody Allen and Neil Simon, whose stories have a kind of "fly-on-the-wall" sensibility, as well as the bold fun that an Adam Sandler or Ben Stiller movie has.


HT: Have you always harbored ambitions to get into the film industry via acting/writing? What kind of background do you have in this area?
KW: I went to The University of The Arts for acting, graduated with a BFA, and spent the first five years post-college building a career as a stage actor. I was working fairly steadily mostly ingenue roles where I got to wear the pretty dress and not say a lot. Somewhere in those years I started to write and perform my own work, which to my surprise and happiness was received favorably by audiences and critics. It was almost all comedy: physical comedy, stand up comedy and bawdy comedy. So I followed the applause--I kept creating my own work, and started collaborating with Robert more and more until we formed our own company. I still worked as an actor for hire and the roles I got were geared more to my capabilities as an actor, which I credit the self-created projects for. Eventually, I was directing Robert in a solo show Off-Broadway. We had worked our asses off for months developing the project, and even though it had some success, when we closed we faced the familiar depression about live theatre: when the show closes, you tear it down and all that´s left is what you remember of it. We both wanted something that could have a longer shelf life, so hence our move to LA and our journey into film. As soon as I came to LA I did all the pre-requisite actor things: new headshots, agent, classes, free theatre shows and student films. Actor for hire, writer for hire. I had some small successes, but still had to hold onto my day job to pay bills. People bitch and moan about LA, but one thing for sure about this place, you can "create yourself" here. So that´s what "The Bedstand" really is for me and for Robert--a chance to put things in motion for ourselves.

HT: What are the activities that went on in the pre-production stage? How did you gather the actors, props, locations, script etc?
KW: Pre-production followed the standard professional protocols. But the people we hired didn´t come to us through fancy Hollywood studio connections--it was through Craig´s List! Between that, resources like IFP, people we already knew (about half of the cast were actors we had worked with already) and auditions, we managed to staff up pretty quickly. And once you get a group of eager artists together the momentum takes over: the Production Manager (PM) who knows a Caterer who works with a Props Manager. Case in point: our PM, Marianne Parker, had a boyfriend who was a location scout for HBO and through him we were able to secure the house we used in the movie for a fraction of its usual cost.

HT: How long did it take to complete this project? On what kind of budget? Was it self-financed?
KW: It´s been a start and stop kind of project. We worked on the script on and off for years, though in reality the time dedicated to it was probably more like 6 months. We realized that we would have a very small window of opportunity in September of 2003: Robert would have a lull in his freelance work (as an arts-in-education teacher), and I would be able to pull vacation days together from my day job (as a Marketing Assistant). When we initially broke the script down, we consulted with a producer through IFP who thought we may be able to eke it out for $1 million. That was a short-lived fantasy, cause we couldn´t raise that money. So then we thought about a $250,000 budget and then $75,000 and by the time we self financed through family and friends, we were working on the "Clerks" and Robert Rodriguez mentality: guerilla independent shoe string movie making--in our case, for a $19,000 shooting budget. We started pre-production in June of 2003, shot our 90 page script in 12 days during September of 2003 and then edited on nights and weekends by ourselves over the next year and a half. We finished our rough cut edits in January 2005; that´s when we also met a couple of musicians, Paul Newman (not that one!) and Rich Alick of Helios Jive, who scored the movie. I also met Mike Ferdie, a sound supervisor who handled all of the post-production sound. The final master came home with us in September 2005. I wanted to send out birth announcements!

HT: Editing is a very important aspect of filmmaking. How did you go about editing this film and what kinds of equipment (cameras, editing software, etc) did you use?
KW: We own a Canon XL1 camera, which we´d used for short movies, so we knew we´d use that camera for "The Bedstand". We also knew we´d be editing it ourselves on Final Cut Pro (FCP). We worked off of our Mac G4 dual processor and about 4 external hard drives. Robert spent a lot of time talking to post houses about the best way to shoot--ie. filters, lenses, lighting etc.--before we went into production. The advice he got really came together once we started working in FCP. Our editing process was fairly structured: we sorted, logged and captured the raw material (which we shot way too much of! The blessing and curse of digital!). Then we laid out an assembly version, following the script exactly. From there we started working on several rough cuts. It´s really true that filmmaking is an editor´s medium. One of the ways that FCP is so great is that it´s all non-destructive editing. There were scenes we´d chop up and edit sometimes onto four different sequences until we found what was working best for us. It was amazing to watch it come together, completely fall apart, and come together. Once we put sound effects and music down, it took a whole new step as well. Scenes that weren´t working suddenly became a high point in the movie.


HT: What are your future plans for "The Bedstand"? Do you plan to market it further?
KW: Right now we´re working to get the word out about "The Bedstand" through online presence and film festivals. Ultimately we want to sell this to a distributor. We´re entertaining all distribution possibilities, especially newer mediums, like online distribution. We have a few distribution companies that are expressing interest in the project right now. We´d really like to pay our investors back and all the people who worked for free, and hopefully have enough success with this one that it lets us get to making the next one. "The Brass Ring" would be a small development deal where we could create more projects with larger resources.

HT: Are there any plans for a new project?
KW: Yes! We´ve got a bunch of ideas in different early stages of development. There are some comedy pieces (one about they everyday-isms of corporate life, one about the perils of a knitting championship) as well as a drama and a horror picture, and even a serial sketch comedy that we´d like to stream as a web TV show.

For more information about this project, please visit The Bedstand .

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