Q&A with Mike Tringe, director of 'Shattercane,' coming to the Landlocked Film Festival

My conversation with Mike Tringe, 30, of Los Angeles, director of “Shattercane,” selected for the upcoming Landlocked Film Festival in downtown Iowa City. His 23-minute film will be shown at 7 p.m. Aug. 27 and 10:10 p.m. Aug. 29 at the Sheraton. The film was shot in Friend, Neb., southwest of Lincoln. For more information, go to www.llff.org/schedule.htm  or  www.shattercanefilm.com/ Video: watch?v=b4gY0cT3xD4

Synopsis: When Jason confesses a secret about himself to the youth minister, a secret that his family also soon discovers, his place on the family farm is placed in question. Jason must prove to both himself and his family that he still belongs, even if it means a lifetime of sacrifice.  

DIANA: Where did you grow up?

MIKE: Holdrege, Neb. (south-central)

DIANA: You studied film at the University of Southern California and got your MFA in 2008?

MIKE: I just graduated in December

DIANA: Was the film born of your own experience?

MIKE: Yes to some degree, not specifically, but it certainly has my general experience of growing up as a teenager in the Midwest.

DIANA: How did it come about?

MIKE: It's a project I had started before attending USC. Then I had the opportunity to realize it as a student, when working toward my MFA, as my final project. It's based on a screenplay I've written and hope to direct in the next year.

DIANA: How short is a “short”?

MIKE: Usually shorts are about 10 minutes long, but there's a range of 1 minute to 50 minutes. Most festivals prefer to program 10- to 12-minute movies. This happens to be 21 minutes. The short was sufficient for showing the world and the characters (in the film). It's never enough to tell a complete story in that amount of time -- even in a movie it's silly to tell a story in 90 minutes, but it's a genre. So I told a short story over the course of 24 hours.

People have said to me after seeing it, they were surprised how much they understood the character in that short amount of time, because everybody knows at the end of the movie how the character feels. And to be more specific, everyone understands how trapped of an existence he has as a closeted (homosexual) teen working on a farm. It could have turned into a cliché, but it was important to show that side of the story. It's not a cliché, but even in 2010, there's disparity between urban and rural areas in terms of understanding our lifestyle. The culture is very different.

The film doesn't make any judgment -- lot of people like that about the movie. It's not blaming anyone for one situation or another. The family farm and lifestyle in so many ways creates as much meaning for the teenager as it does take away the meaning of who he is as a person himself – certainly the way he feels, but that's only in his sexuality. Who he is as a person adds to that meaning, but they conflict, or seem to in his mind. We're entering the mind of a 17-year-old who hasn't developed a larger world view or abstract world view about the difference he, himself, could be a part of.

DIANA: How long did it take to complete?

MIKE: The real answer behind that it the on-set production took five days, but pre-production took about six to nine months. But when you're first learning something, there's quite an expanded version of a timeframe. If I were going to do it again, I'd maybe have a month of pre-production. Pre- to post-production, we probably started in January 2007, shot it in October 2007 and completed post-production in October 2008.

DIANA: How much did it cost?

MIKE: That's a touchy subject -- $35,000. I got about 10 percent from friends and family and the rest from school loans, work and savings. Prices in some ways are getting lower with digital production, but you never get rid of the cost it takes to get crew to help you. There always are certain baseline costs.

DIANA: It's been winning awards and accolades on the film festival circuit.

MIKE: I've been pretty happy with its performance. It was nominated for best actor, best direction and best writing at the Playhouse West Film Festival and was recently nominated for a prize. It's on a short list of the year's best gay and lesbian films.

More than anything, it's nice to have an audience. You work for so long to have people see something -- you hope they will see it.

DIANA: How did you hear about the Iowa City film festival?

MIKE: From withoutabox (online site for filmmakers and film festivals). They send out weekly newsletters.  

DIANA: Where was it shot?

MIKE: It was shot in the Friend, Neb., area.

DIANA: Did you grow up on a farm?

MIKE: I didn't grow up on a farm, but had farmers in my family and in my classrooms and as my friends. I remember working on a farm -- not all the time, but a certain part of my growing up experience. If you live in a community based on a farming economy, you're pretty tied-in to that world. It's not just about living and working on a farm as much as it is about living in a farming community. I do understand and appreciate that, and miss and not miss it sometimes. My family still lives in that town and I love to go back and visit them.

DIANA: Are you gay – is the film based on your experiences?

MIKE: Yes I am gay, but I certainly did not come out in high school. ... Jason is the name of the boy. Basically, it's the day that he tries to tell someone about how he's feeling. He's telling his minister, then tells his family, who makes him sweep it under the rug. It takes place during harvest, so tensions are high.

DIANA: One more question: What is shattercane?

MIKE: Shattercane is a weed. It looks a lot like corn. You can't tell the difference, so one of the things they need to do to get rid of it. But it never goes away. It's meant as a metaphor, but not to refer to gay people as “weeds.” You can feed it to cattle – it's a perfectly good crop.

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