CHILD CARE (short film)
logline: a retiree named Frank agrees to watch 3 kids while their parents attend nightly recovery meetings in outer SE Portland. Based on the story by Margaret Malone
genre: drama
status: early pre-production, seeking financing. request the screenplay and budget here
run time: 15 min
questions? contact me: here
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
The moment I finished Margaret Malone’s short story Child Care, I knew I had to adapt it into a film. Uniquely embodying Portland and the Pacific NW, the story has profound cinematic potential and stays with the reader, resonating days, weeks later. The story has us identify initially with Frank, to feel pity for him even, until a moment about halfway through where he brings 2 cans of beer to the playground to share with the kids. Though his intentions are innocent (albeit severely misguided) it’s at this moment we shift from tracking Frank into growing sharp concern for the safety of the 3 kids. This dynamic was unexpected and very powerful to read on the page. I reached out to Ms. Malone and she granted approval to make a short film.
All my projects to date feature characters who wrestle with the gray margins between the verifiable and the subjective. Child Care shows how Frank has to navigate between his nostalgic memories and hard reality, and how he strives to reach the children through storytelling but in a graceless manner, to put it mildly. Frank is a rich character and part of the challenge in putting this film together will be finding the right actor to embody him. Casting the 3 children will also be of paramount consideration, particularly Amanda (8) who is the sole female voice in the cast. Cast and crew will be all Portland-based where possible.
VISUAL TOUCHSTONES
The film’s aesthetic will closely resemble a 70’s era studio drama, with a muted color palette and some grain, especially in the storytelling part, where the characters all share stories in the playground tunnel - but the camera will float and film will be marked as much by tone and atmosphere as dialogue. Malone’s short story contains no modern signifiers, like cell phones or computers, and could really occur in any of the last several decades. I will find a way to maintain this open quality in the film’s design, with an eye on signage, props, and costumes. The final moments of the film find the kids and Frank in his truck, on the freeway, trees whizzing past. Frank falls into a sort of reverie here, envisioning all the places they’ll go together, all the fun they’ll have. I will shoot this part of the film with rear-projection, Super 8 or Super 16 images of beaches, forests, campfires visible through the windows of the truck, while Frank rhapsodizes, the kids frozen next to him. I used this technique to good effect previously in my short film noir The Big Black Dark.
