David Bly’s Sweet Parents follows the pursuit of success, and subsequent struggle, in the New York culinary and art worlds. Gabby, a sculptor, and Will, a chef, start side relationships with a successful older man and woman, or “Sweet Parents”, in a last ditch hope of supporting their careers, ultimately pitting true love against ambition, demanding the sacrifice of the one you love for what you love.
Congratulations on directing your first movie, sir!
Thank you! How kind to start off that way. I love your site. The concept is such a fun way to engage with a film you may have not seen or to re-engage with old faves. Just read and loved the White Men Can’t Jump article.
Had you always wanted to direct?
I always knew I wanted to be an actor, but it was only once I moved to New York and began expanding my knowledge of film did I ever contemplate directing. I think growing up during the 80’s & 90’s, a lot of the main examples for ‘actor who also directs’ or vice versa were most notably the big epics, like Braveheart, Unforgiven, Dances With Wolves, etc. where an already mega-famous actor “took the helm” all grand-like, like a rock star doing a solo album or something. And I watched a lot of Chaplin as well growing up, but I just put that in an entire other universe, because that’s just brilliance beyond comprehension. I don’t think I had enough exposure to the history of film to truly appreciate that an unknown actor could also act & direct. As I watched more and more films, especially of the more independent fare, I started seeing the overlap much more often, and it became normalized in my mind. And then the first time I saw a Cassavetes film (Faces), I just wanted to make my own painting to live in the world.
Having spent so much time on the sets of other people’s films I imagine you picked up a lot about directing along the way, too?
I think the biggest thing I picked up on was the way to treat people. To welcome and appreciate everyone’s time. Sure everyone’s (hopefully) getting paid, but when their time and input is valued, it becomes more than a paycheck. On the technical end, I learned to always hire people smarter than you who also have good personalities that enjoy talking about the craft. I learned so much from our D.P. Lara Aqel and her team throughout production.
How different was it shooting Sweet Parents to the short you did though?
The main difference was the sheer amount of locations we had on Sweet Parents as compared to the short, Electric Company. We shot the entire short in 1 day in our apartment in Brooklyn with a crew of about 6 or 7. But I feel that there were more similarities than differences in that I was again serving in multiple roles. That film was my unofficial test run at directing and working with a crew, and again, our D.P. Chananun Chotrungroj was so insightful. But knowing that I’d be getting sleep at the end of the day of the short shoot was something I knew I’d never get on Sweet Parents.
Was it a relatively inexpensive shoot?
The script was written to be as inexpensive as possible. Leah and I try to write efficiently, sort of like a “prepare for the worst, expect the best” mentality. If we end up getting more money, then we can always expand, but it’s harder to scale down when you become attached to certain grandiose ideas. We have at times gotten the note that we “write indie” with a cute smiley face attached at the end, implying we focus more on dialogue and relationships than setting. As if we don’t know how to write an action line that includes “Maxine drives the stolen green fire truck through a crowd of 100’s of identical twins”!
Did the budget dictate not only the story you told here but how grandiose it would be?
With respect to this story, we wanted it to feel like an authentic experience for the average New Yorker. Tight quarters, crowded trains, some repeated use of wardrobe. We tried to incorporate locations we knew we had access to into the script, write with actor friends in mind who we hoped would be available for the shoot dates, so in that sense, we were able to dictate how the world would look. And we got lucky at keeping our costs down thanks to many in-kind line items, and our producers were masterful at keeping the schedule moving, being added sets of eyes on the monitor to confirm we had quality takes.
Any compromises have to be made?
I would have liked to incorporate a bit more food photography in the film, more cooking shots. We actually had a great cooking sequence that we ended up having to cut for time, so as an avid cook myself who adores cooking scenes in movies, I’ll always deem that a compromise. But beyond that, we adored our cast and crew, they enhanced scenes in ways we had only hoped possible. We were truly grateful for the restaurants that worked with us to create the settings, given that we wrote each restaurant scene with that specific space in mind. The art we got for the gallery scenes was exactly what we’d been looking for. We didn’t anticipate having access to all these resources, but once we finally confirmed our shoot dates, so many friends came out of the woodwork to offer their assistance.
Did you always intend on playing the lead role?
I did. I began writing the script when I first moved to New York as a way to provide myself with meaty work in the event that the good work didn’t come my way otherwise. And the more I worked on the script over the years, the more it evolved as Leah and I matured and became wiser about our own life experiences and our own relationship to each other, the less I felt that anyone else could do it justice the way I played it over in my mind every hour of every day.
Is part of the reason you’re now directing and producing your own projects so you can see shape starring vehicles for yourself?
Part of the reason, yes. For some of the projects I’m working on, there are parts written in for me, or someone like me. But at the same time, I’m also very eager to write for more friends of ours that I adore and worship their talents. I also just love having the ability to influence a piece of art in so many different ways beyond just on-camera. For example, my mother is a sculptor and I’ve always been so proud of her work. Gabby’s craft in the film as a sculptor is based on my mother’s work, and being able to showcase some of her older pieces as well as the pieces she made specifically for the film was such a thrill. Another example was working on the soundtrack for the film and getting to reach out to so many artists that I love. Jason Anderson and I had discussed incorporating his music into the film about 5 years before we ever shot a single scene. And calling him up once we were in production to finally make our collaboration official, not just pipe dreams chats, like, “one day when I make this movie…”, is a lasting memory of the whole experience of making Sweet Parents that I’ll always remember and one I wouldn’t be able to have if I was just involved in one role of the production.
Was it a local shoot?
We shot almost entirely in New York, in and around neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Manhattan that had special meaning to us.
Some of those locations were amazing. Can you speak about the scout for them?
I presume Guylaine’s apartment is the one that might be at the front of your mind. That place is incredible. It actually belonged to friends of ours, one of which was one of the wardrobe stylists on the film. They were insanely gracious to let us work within their home. Their kitchen was so incredible as well, so it was perfect for my character to walk into that place, with all the stakes of the evening of cooking for this “other woman”, and finding a majestic loft with a chef’s kitchen that she confesses she never uses. It’s like, man, if you screw this up with this kitchen at your disposal, you deserve whatever befalls you, buddy.
Beyond that, the restaurants were all cold call reach outs to places that we wrote the script with in mind. Mayahuel, for example, was one of my favorite bars in the east village, and for years dreamed of filming something there. The slugline for the scene with Pierce has it set at that restaurant, because we were trying to manifest it! And the GM Justin was the nicest guy. We had reached out 2 years before when we thought we were going to be filming then, and he was so gracious. Two years later, when we had confirmed our shoot, it’s like no time had passed and he repeated what he stated the first time we’d spoken: “I just want to help good people make good things. That’s what New York is all about.” It was so simple, but I’d never heard a stranger articulate it so sincerely.
Was it an emotionally-demanding shoot? Did you find it hard to ‘come down’ at the end of it all?
Years later, my sleep cycles are still shot! Yes, it was definitely emotionally demanding. I barely slept throughout the shoot, as a director staying up late to go over the next day’s shot list, as a writer to trim the coming scenes based on schedule, as an actor to work on lines, and as a producer to make sure that the director, writer and actor all got some rest, if possible. But the feeling I had on the first morning at 5am before we got into our location, all of us waiting like school children to get inside, and the feeling I felt looking in Leah’s eyes after the final shot, which was of me eating french fries on a Skype call, when we knew we had just wrapped our film, are truly incomparable to anything I’d ever felt before. Epic peaks.
Now that you’ve had a taste for directing, will we see more behind-the-camera efforts from David Bly in the near future?
That’s the plan. I’d love to be able to direct my next film that I’ve been working on, a suspense thriller about a green card immigration officer in the vein of Cape Fear.