Interview with Steve Hutton (writer/producer)

When did you get the idea of making a movie?

I saw a lot of independent movies made for very little money, and every time I thought "My friends and I should do that." Then Blair Witch came out and I started seeing these articles about how anyone can make a movie.

Can anyone make a movie?

If you have some sort of reasonable story concept, you can take a digital video camera and some friends and make a movie. If you need a lot of actors, you should first become president of a Little Theatre, which really just means going to the annual general meeting. You'll be elected to the board of directors, guaranteed, and before long you'll be president.

Where did the story come from?

For years, I had a vague idea of writing a movie about a bunch of people who try to make amateur porn. I had a scene with a husband, a wife, and another man's semen and I knew an actress who'd look great with sperm on her face.

How did you start this project?

I put the idea to my friends Julie Liz Taylor and Jonathan C. Dietrich and my nephew Gregory Duke. I figured, "If I can't sell these people, it's beyond hope." They all said Yes, so we started recruiting other people and I started writing the script.

How did the story develop?

I knew we'd get mostly theatre actors, so I decided to make it a story about a bunch of theatre people who want to make a porn film. That way, I could put in a bunch of theatre jokes, and I was pretty sure the theatre actors would be able to play theatre actors. I wrote the first draft over a couple of months and showed it to the editor. He asked for a subplot, so I added feminists, mimes, and a polka band.

What role did the feminism consultants play?

I was worried we might get negative reactions to the feminist opera stuff, so I signed up two women as feminism consultants. They actually gave me some of the dialog like "Check in, my cat died." I've never been to a meeting where anybody said "check in" or "my cat died"!

Why so many characters?

When I was at university, I worked on a variety show where we had a rule: everyone who auditions gets a part, which I think is an excellent rule. Beacuse of this rule, we had to write about 100 parts. I think I showed great restraint in writing a script with only 53 characters!

Some people would say 53 characters is too many.

I've read a bunch of articles about low-budget film scripts. Most of the rules I obeyed, like no car chases. The closest we came to a car chase is one car slowly pulling in to a driveway. But the rule about not having too many characters I just ignored. I wanted the sort of film where you have missionaries, mimes, a polka band, actors, feminists, and Mom & Dad. You can't make that kind of movie with 5 characters.

How did auditions go?

Greg and I expected a lot more people. I mean, we were giving them the chance to be in a movie! In the end, we only had as many people as roles, which wasn't a problem because good actors auditioned, but then we started losing them...

Why did so many actors drop out?

We lost a lot of them because the film had too much gay sex. We said the story was "very sexual, very gay" but I think a lot of them interpreted that as some sort of Hollywood gay movie with a bunch of clean-cut guys in cardigans who hug a lot.

Any other reasons?

We lost a lot of university students who couldn't get the weekends off from their summer jobs. Some people had small roles and decided an actor of their immense talent deserved something bigger. Some just didn't show up.

What did you do about the disappearing actors?

We were constantly looking for replacements. One character we had to cast four times. We cast a couple of major characters just two weeks before we started shooting.

How were the rehearsals?

Because we kept losing actors, Greg didn't get to do as much as he wanted. He never had the same cast for two consecutive rehearsals.

How did you get your locations?

I wrote the script so that most of the locations would be people's homes - because they would be easy to get, and indoor locations don't depend on the weather. We had only 9 shooting days, so we couldn't afford to lose a day because of rain.

What was the shoot like?

For a producer, the shoot isn't so stressful. Some people come to you for decisions, but you get to sit down a lot more than the director. For me, the most stressful part was the two weeks before the shoot when I wondered if we'd lose any more actors.

What did you think when you finished the shoot?

I was so happy that we actually pulled this off. And I thought we'd done a pretty good job.

Why did the editing take so long?

We weren't able to pay the editor, so he could only work on it in his spare time. Next time, I'd definitely like to pay the editor.

Was it worth the wait?

We had a really good editor who was able to take a pretty mixed bag of footage and turn it into something that looks like we all knew what we were doing and had enough time to do it. Some parts of the film may look like dodgy editing, but that's actually good editing covering up for dodgy footage.

Who do you expect will go see Fluff?

I think it will have a lot of appeal for a gay audience, and some cross-over appeal for straight people. Half of the cast was straight, and they liked the script enough that they wanted to be in it.

Will you bring your mom to see Fluff?

Her son wrote it and her grandson directed it. There's no chance she won't see it. I haven't decided if I want her to see it at the same time as other people, though.

What's next?

I can't wait for Fluff to get out there and people to see it. If it makes even a little bit of money, then I'll have enough to do another movie.