“new york movie

Adam Kelleher is an Irish writer-director with the recent release ‘NEW YORK MOVIE’, it follows a photographer spiralling out after failing to please two strangers with a single picture. Nine minutes, shot on 16mm and Super8, already sold-out rooms in five cities on word of mouth alone. We spoke to him to talk about casting a stand-up instead of an actor, his decisions, and what it actually takes to make something like this.

1. The whole film hinges on this photo-taking encounter going horribly wrong. Without getting into how, what was it about that tiny interaction that made you think, "There's a whole film in this"?

I feel like if I thought too granularly about that before going into it I would've found an excuse not to do it. I couldn’t really didn't deep that question too much. 

Ultimately, I thought it was a funny premise and that's the only thing that mattered to me going into this film. I wanted to make something funny and entertaining.

I was making a lot of really moody and drab work before this and I was starting to feel like I was ignoring the other side of myself that's a silly dumbass. The encounter felt like the perfect way to get into that side of myself. It's also an interaction that's happened to me multiple times so I knew it was at least coming from real experience; no matter how exaggerated I went from there I knew it was coming from a grounded place. 

2. New York is obviously more than just a backdrop here. By the end of the film, what do you think it says about what it actually means to be a New Yorker?

I'm not sure if I necessarily have the authority to speak on what it truly means to be a New Yorker, but rather my perceived idea of one… It's funny, in my experience from being in the city a bunch and having friends out there, I’ve come to the realisation that New Yorkers are like war veterans. And understandably so, the city can be a lot. But they build up crazy ass stories from their time in the city and the people they encounter. It's like a badge you have to earn. In order to earn that badge, you have to learn to stick up for yourself, to be your own person who can handle any confrontational situation. 

Being Irish, I think I've been raised in stark difference to that. The Irish mentality that you're a small fish with a (potentially unhealthy) dose of self-deprecation. But in New York, every person seems to be the main character of their story. That's ultimately where our character of Willy ends up... he realises he's his own person, who can stick up for himself. Either that or the city has truly broken him. But it's nice to know for once in his goddamn life he stuck up for himself.

3. Will Duncan is fantastic as the lead. What did you need from him that you weren't sure you'd get, especially coming from alt-comedy and stand-up rather than a traditional acting background?

Will Duncan is a genius, he's going to be huge. Mark my words, he's going to be bigger than The Rock.

I may be calling myself out here but I really didn't have to do much when it came to Will, when you have someone as talented as that on your side you let him do his thing. 

I first saw him in Michael Rees' short 'Normal Guys' and I was instantly drawn to him. He made me laugh every time I saw him so it just made sense to write this role for him. If he said no I don't know who I would've asked to play the part…

Funnily enough,I originally saw the character as a middle-America kind of guy but it was Will’s suggestion to make him British (or whatever accent he ended up with). Going through the script with him ahead of the shoot and building the character was one of my favourite moments of the whole process of making the film and I had no reservations past that point; he understood the tone completely.

4. You're moving between 16mm, 8mm and hand-drawn animation. What made you want to break out of the live-action world and let animation into the film?

Why not? It just felt right. I was watching a lot of Ralph Bakshi's work while writing the film and I just loved the way he depicted the city. I wanted the film to feel like a live action cartoon, so it felt like a natural step to bring it there. 

I studied animation in college and I think it's such a beautiful medium when done right. 

I'm glad I included this sequence because it seems to be the thing that sticks out most to people when they watch the film.

I heard Sean Price Williams speak recently about his film The Sweet East (which was also a massive point of reference for New York Movie) and he spoke on the fact that he treated making that film as if it were the only film he was ever going to make, so he might as well throw everything into it. This is something I was also mindful of while making this film, you might as well throw as much as possible into it because there’s no point holding back once you’ve started. I think a lot more shorts would be a lot more watchable if people took on this way of thinking.

5. There's the Moog score, the slightly loose pacing, all these 70s indie references - how much of the film's aesthetic came out of having to work with a certain budget, and how much of it was the look you wanted from the very beginning?

I think if anything we made the budget work towards the aesthetic in a lot of ways. Especially when it came to shooting on film, which after a while became a non-negotiable in my mind. I was going for broke and I wanted it to look how I wanted it to look.

Although there's a lot of contemporary touch points in the film like iphones & matcha I wanted it to feel like a film that was found, and unearthed. That kind of informed the whole approach to the film. If I’m to get a little wanky about it, I wanted the film to be in conversation with the past classics and our established cinematic understanding of ‘New York City as the character’. A lot of the city's identity is firmly linked to the movies, at least in my eyes and we wanted to be in that space. I like the idea of someone coming across this film and having no idea when it really came out. To place it in a contemporary setting but make it feel timeless. 

6. It's only nine minutes, but there's a surprising amount happening in there. What was the hardest thing to cut or leave behind? 

To be honest, I didn't have that much to work with. We were shooting the whole thing on film so it was shot very economically, which had its pros and its cons, but it meant takes were limited.

The actual shoot itself was also pretty hellish. It was a blisteringly hot summer's day (literal Do The Right Thing vibes) and the camera was not happy. When we were set up for our first shot the camera couldn’t roll film due to the heat. It was torture. We had to continuously cool down the camera at any available moment and we ended up losing a lot of the first day trying to get the camera to work. Because of this we had to cut a good bit out of the shooting schedule. A lot of what was cut was Will interacting with the public and delving further into that mental spiral... but we truly ran out of time, and light... so I ended up working with whatever we got. There was very little left over in the edit.

I think it may have been for the best, I like how quick it is in the end result...

My one regret is not letting Will improvise more, but we were running a pretty tight ship.

7. You've managed to play sold-out rooms across five cities without a distributor behind the film. How much of that was a deliberate strategy to get people in seats, and how much of it surprised you once it started happening?

That was the goal with this film from the jump. I submitted the film to a bunch of festivals, and after getting rejected from each one I knew I had to take it into my own hands. 

I always wanted to have it play in rooms to actual people. I wanted to hear people's reactions & see if it really worked on a comedic level, because the audience will tell the truth.

 I think, doing the distribution and organising practically all by myself, I realised how much time and effort goes into these things. It can burn a person out really quickly.

I think what really surprised me was the response to the screenings. The demand is high! People want to get together and watch new and different things. We showed our film along with a curated selection of other shorts from filmmakers around the world and it meant a lot to me that people wanted to engage with their work too. Another thing that surprised me is that it can actually be a lucrative thing! They don't want you to know you can put out your own stuff how you want. It was quite liberating to do and I am definitely pushed on doing more of it for future projects.

8. You're Irish, you're based in London, and you've made a film that's so deeply tied to New York. Do you feel particularly settled anywhere, or does that sense of being slightly in-between places make its way into the work?

I always laugh when it's laid out like that. I seem all over the place. I’m definitely asking a lot of questions on where I belong but I try not to think too much about that kind of stuff. Naturally I think it makes its way into my work. I very much see myself as an Irish director, I never want that to go away, and I never want to abandon that but hopefully soon I can settle somewhere.

9. You've taken on the whole self-booking, self-distributing side of things yourself. Is that something you see as a stepping stone towards having a producer and a bigger machine around you, or do you like doing it this way?

I hate it. It's a pretty rotten all-encompassing experience when you do it all by yourself. I am doing it out of necessity right now and I'm definitely going to be looking to involve more people for future projects. 

It’s all a massive learning experience right now. It’s nice to have that bit of control when you’re doing it solo but my god, it would be nice to share the load a bit.

10.  What's a film you've seen recently that made you think, "Fuck, I wish l'd made that"?

I recently watched Perfumania by Charlotte Ercoli and I thought it was incredible. The way she incorporates her own personal interests and niches makes it feel so full of life and unique to her. The way she uses music and animation is so seamless in that film and works amazingly. Tim Heidecker’s central performance was also hilarious and I came out of that film really excited about the possibilities of movies. 

Either that or Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

11. So what happens now? Are you already onto another short, or are you trying to use this as the thing that gets a feature off the ground?

I have a few plates spinning at the moment that I know I shouldn't jinx -- but I'm constantly thinking about what's next. 

I'm interested in working on some more music videos while I figure that out. 

It's funny with the note on a feature, I've been obsessed recently with adapting New York Movie into a feature length project... I think it would be a lot of fun. I saw The Out-of-Towners with Jack Lemmon from 1970 recently and it got me really excited about what the possibilities of a longer runtime with Willy in the city could look like. That film is unreal too.

I have a few feature ideas that I have written that I am always pursuing... I suppose it's just a ‘right time’ thing for now.