Recently I had the chance to speak with Director Jesse Burks regarding his phenomenal short One Please. Having grown up on Creepshow and Tales from the Crypt One Please felt right at home, it is definitely right in my wheel house, both familiar yet different at the same time. The sparse dialogue is highlighted by strong visuals and great sound. In 6 minutes you get a typical suburban family with a couple of cute daughters. It just happens that this family goes above and beyond simply getting some change from a pocket book for creamcicle enjoyment. There is a creepiness that is very unsettling, the moms calm demeanor, the daughters haunting gaze and of course the Iconic Michael Berryman as the Ice Cream man. Overall Director Jesse Burks has delivered a delicious 6 minute slice of macabre Americana, Stellar work!
CH: I was looking up your background and you’re an orthopedic surgeon?
JB: I am actually in an orthopedic group, I am technically a podiatrist I just do foot and ankle surgery. That’s my Day job.
CH: I saw that this is your third short, they have all been horror films, how did you go from doing surgery during the day to filming horror shorts in your spare time.
JB: It’s a funny story, our oldest son who lives out in LA he is 19, about 4 years ago he came to us and said “hey dad, I think I want to try some acting” so we got him enrolled in some classes here in Little Rock, and of course at that time he is 15 and just to have something in common with him, we thought let’s get a camera. So I didn’t know anything about cameras so I bought something off Amazon and honestly it is not even really a fancy camera it’s just a big camera. I thought let’s just get a big camera and put it in his face all the time and see what we could come up with. Just as kind of a family we just started goofing around. It was kind of funny after we started doing that with him, it was 2011 we just kind of entered on a whim the 48 hour film festival that was being held in Little Rock. We made a little short film with all of us. While doing this I found out I had a love for it and we started doing bigger and bigger things. I love horror movies, I like slasher movies too but I really love creepy movies, and we love comedies and laughing all the time. But there is just something I realized and that’s that you can really toy with people’s emotions when it comes to horror movies. So for some reason I was really kind of drawn to that. That you could take the audience through it, a big range of emotions with a horror type story.
CH: So what was giant camera that you purchased off of Amazon?
JB: We call it the the 6 pound Panasonic
CH: hahahaa
JB: There are no lenses or anything it’s basically a Panasonic and it came with these attachments that are worthless, now that I know a little about cameras. We still have it, I still set it up. We just filmed a math project with my littlest who is 11. I look at One Please and the huge camera they brought in for that and the lenses its funny to look back even though I am still learning to look back at what I didn’t know.
CH: The look of One Please is phenomenal, what was the budget on this?
JB: The budget was a lot more than I thought it was going to be. This is really the first thing I did, where I actually had a crew. Everything I did before were little things, they were just me and a camera. You know I got an Apple computer a couple of years ago, I got Final Cut Pro and learned everything on my own. This was really the first crew type project I ever had. I really have to give props to Josh and Miles Miller, they were two of my producers. Josh and Miles have done a whole lot more than I have. They have a great movie about two years ago called Pillow. It won a lot of awards, actually when I wrote the script for One Please that was the first thing I had actually done on Final Draft. I had just given it to Josh and asked him to read this and see if I did it in the right format. He read it and he called me. He said ” Yeah, not only is it in the right format but it’s actually really good.” “Would you consider us helping you produce it?” I was like great! It started getting the ball rolling. In the end if you want a hard fast number, probably about 18 grand. Honestly the biggest chunk was for Michael Berryman
CH: I was going to say how did that come about? He is so iconic
I am sitting up one Saturday night watching TV with my wife. Relaxing and I am about two whiskeys in and I am flipping through stuff on my phone. I showed my wife Michael’s picture and said what if we could get Michael Berryman for this and she was like yeah. You could always try and I was like I guess I could try. So I keep and IMDB pro account for my son, I looked up his agent and sent him an email. It was very honest and asked if he would consider looking at the script and passing it onto Michael. I never thought I would ever hear from the guy and about two days later he emailed me back.
CH: That’s so cool
He basically said are you going to pay him anything? I said yeah I am not an expert on this, I don’t know the going rate, but absolutely and he said please send the script and honestly I had never talked to his agent on the phone he was always such a good email person, we emailed back and forth two or three times and what was nice was even the amount we gave Michael was not extravagant at all and they were so nice, because everything was costing more they allowed us to pay some here and some there and then make the SAG contribution. I really wanted it to be a quality film, I wanted it to have a nice look and a good feel. To do that we needed a good camera a great crew and Michael and his agent were so accommodating. They were super Awesome.
CH: Since there was not a lot of dialog, how long was the original script.
JB: The original script was nine pages, it was longer than it had to be. With me being new to this I knew that when I wrote it that it was very wordy. I wanted people to be able to see what I saw. So there was a lot of stuff I put in that an expert would have thought that it wouldn’t have needed to be in there. But our Cinematographer David when I met with him, I didn’t know the language of cinematography but I wanted to give him an Idea of what I wanted it to look like. It was written wordy, so it says things like the camera pulls back and this is what you see. A lot was describing the looks of how I thought the mom looked and the little girl follows and all of that was written in a descriptive way that was just me being a novice wanting to explain what was in my head.
CH: It’s always better to overstate your vision than have all this money invested and it doesn’t turn out anything close to what you were hoping for.
JB: Exactly, when I met with Gabe I had known him a little bit. I was nervous about talking to him, I storyboarded everything out not so much because I am some expert story boarder. I drew it out since I didn’t know the language Gabe knew. So at least I could show him a picture to give him an Idea of what I am seeing in my head. Two minutes after we met, I showed him my story board and he said absolutely we are on the same page. That gave me the confidence that we could make something that I envisioned.
CH: the look of it is outstanding, I see a lot of shorts and cover a lot of film festivals regardless if they are feature or shorts there is usually a general look to a more polished film, there are others where you can tell someone is trying to get something going on a low budget. The look on this would give me no idea that essentially this is your first time really directing something compared to your shorts where you did everything yourself.
JB: With Gabe and those guys, all of those guys they are so talented. Josh and Miles, the Sound guy, the Editors. The big thing is they made the movie possible because they donated their time. Everyone came together if we need this camera and these lessons and we can get Michael Berryman.. I can never thank those guys enough. They made it all possible.
CH: How much of the whole thing was a learning experience for you? You mentioned they are using industry shorthand and you are not familiar with it.
JB: It was such a crash course in learning, I know this is completely different than a feature. It was one thing to know Michael is coming, everyone has read the script, Gabe and I have gone through and storyboarded. Everything was scheduled it was all a learning experience. Especially seeing Gabe go through the scheduling process and plan out all the shots. It didn’t hit me how big it would be until the semi pulled up with all the production equipment. The guy was like “hey can we park in your driveway“ and then it hit me and got me nervous. I called Josh I have never really directed anything, he said look you’re going to be fine, you wrote the script, you know what you want to do. Everyone is flexible, were going to help you do it and its going to be fine. To be honest, I am not sure if you knew this or not but pretty much everyone was a relative of mine.
CH: No I had no idea. The only thing I noticed was that looking on the credits I saw a few of the same names that were in Fowl and The Donor.
JB: It’s funny, it’s not like I wrote that script for my wife to be in it. Or I wrote that script for the two little girls who are my nieces. The whole thing was when I had the script in mind for the story. I felt that me being a new director and screenwriter I didn’t think it was fair for me to get these actors, then I am going to direct them. So when I wrote the script I pictured those three particular people. Not Michael but Michael didn’t really get any direction from me, he knew exactly what he needed to do. For every shot there were five or six versions we could use. When I talked to my wife and my nieces I knew exactly what they looked like, I knew that I had a relationship with them and that we could communicate well and I knew that it wasn’t going to be somebody with tons of experience and talking beneath them, and not know the jargon of actors. I knew that I could explain what I wanted to do and what I could get. Hindsight being 20/20 it worked out well, what if they couldn’t do it. What if my nieces were awful? It worked out how I wanted it to. We filmed for 31 hours over a weekend and they exceeded my expectations more than I could have hoped for.
CH: When I saw it I had no Idea they were not pros. What you have been able to accomplish over a weekend with family and a crew is pretty impressive.
JB: Thanks, I appreciate that, they did so well. My wife is fiercely independent we have been married for almost 24 years now. She refused to look at the script, I was like Cath don’t you think should read it and she was like “Jesse, its 6 minutes. I know what you are doing, we will be fine” I was like “all right” she never read it till that morning that she was filming. Of course she had done other things with the family or the 48 hour project but she did so well. She blew me away after two or three takes she had exactly what I wanted. Sailor the little blonde headed girl, I will not admit to how many child labor laws I violated. Her mom is one of my sisters and Sailor was there the whole time and she never and this is not an exaggeration, not one time did she ever complain. She never said “I am tired, I want to go”. I pictured Sailor when I wrote the script, she is a beautiful little girl but when she stares ahead like that, it’s almost like she doesn’t have a soul, it can be a very eerie look and she is the sweetest girl in the world.
CH: When she had blood on her face staring straight ahead with those big eyes.
JB: In that particular shot, that huge camera on a dolly was 18 inches from her face. I said when you come out the door don’t look like there is a camera just look straight through it and she just nailed it. She didn’t even for a second have an eye shut off. I cannot give them thanks enough.
CH: Once you made it did you submit to a lot of film festivals? What were your thoughts when you found out you got accepted to slam dance.
JB: When Slamdance called me I was just thrilled, with this being my first real endeavor it had turned out so well, that I thought maybe it will get in more than our local festival and when Slamdance called and I knew they were a big deal, I was shocked I know how many films they get. After it got into Slamdance I started applying to a few other festivals. I have gotten a couple more acceptance emails and there are actually about two or three that are coming up. The next two to three weeks that no pun intended keeping our fingers crossed.
After Slamdance I thought man this might be bigger than I thought. I had tucked it away for a while, this is all stuff I am learning Josh and them said you need to have this professionally colored. I was like they don’t do coloring for cheap. I did send it to the coloring house and brought it back out after it was colored and it was nice to not look at it for a while. I was like wow this is a really good short film. I think that the next film we are waiting on is SXSW we are also waiting for Hong Kong International Film festival. I did not know that there is a common Asian term for cutting your pinky off (Yubitsume) I remember a movie called Black Rain with Michael Douglas years ago, it’s a very old tradition the Yakuza and before that the Shogun warriors would cut their pinky off as a sign of loyalty or a sign of repayment. I was looking something up and it has its own term. In shogun culture when you cut your pinky off you can’t grip your sword as well so that means your dependant on the people around you more. It’s a great sign of loyalty and a sign to pay a debt. I am really curious to know how my film is going to be received sending it over to The Hong Kong international film festival, they may go oh that’s a really cute thing or they might think it’s outlandish and shocking. So I am curious to see how it’s received.
CH: What else do you have in the works or are you just riding this wave.
JB: When I picked Michael up at the airport, I figured I would have to send a limo for him and he said “no just come pick me up that’s fine”. So I showed up at the Little Rock airport to pick him up he said “I just really liked the script it’s different and creepy”. I said “It’s funny you said that, I picture it being a series where you are a provider of something different and something odd or twisted happens in each episode”. He said “I think that would be wonderful”, so I wrote scripts or episodes two and three whatever you want to call them. Where he is not an ice-cream man but he is something different and I sent him the second one. I thought maybe I just had magic with the first one. I said no problem if you take a pass this is the second one. He emailed me back and said “Jesse I actually like this one better than the first one”. He said “it’s very creepy”, so he gave me thumbs up to at least number two. So I am going to try to do it maybe later spring or summer if we could. And of course I think everyone gravitates towards feature length so I have that on the computer so I will see where that goes.
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