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Young Newtown Movie Makers Debut First Film Project At Cannes

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Young Newtown

Movie Makers

Debut First Film Project At Cannes

By John Voket

When you think great partnerships in contemporary film, a pair of Newtown High School graduates appear to be following in the footsteps of Damon and Affleck, Spielberg and Lucas, or Joel and Ethan Coen. After their first short film collaboration, De-Ploy, Dylan DeSimone and David Haladjian have already accomplished what many Hollywood veteran film makers long for: a premier at Festival de Cannes, otherwise known as the Cannes International Film Festival.

“Going to Cannes is like a big film family reunion,” DeSimone said following the duo’s recent return from the south of France. “Complete spectacle.”

“It was like a miracle for us,” Haladjian added. “You have this badge, and everyone takes you seriously. And it’s colossal – the second biggest media event in the world after the Olympics.”

But just a few weeks after their return, the two longtime friends have planted their feet firmly back on earth, and are planning their next moves individually while looking down the road at their next possible project.

Haladjian is already working in New York City as a freelance camera operator, having graduated from the University of Vermont with a degree in Political Science. And DeSimone looks like he’s heading to San Francisco to work in the media office for the NFL’s 49ers and has designs on completing his Master’s Degree in Journalism through the University of Southern California.

“But I want to work with Dave again,” DeSimone said. “I have this idea for a feature length script, a suspense thriller.”

“And I have a concept for a music video,” Haladjian said. “It’s completely my idea — I would direct and Dylan would be the producer. I think he’s really got a talent for creating something people will want to see on screen.”

“I just want to write a good everlasting story,” DeSimone said.

If it sounds like these two friends are already polished, media-savvy Hollywood types, it’s probably because like so may of the great screen creative teams, they compliment each other in both word and deed. When working on De-Ploy, Haladjian handled most of the technical work shooting and editing, although he is seen briefly in one of the opening scenes of the 15-minute short.

DeSimone did much of the rest of the production work like casting and scouting locations which included several residences in Newtown, a few scenes shot at Fairfield Hills, and also at the River Glen facility in Southbury. And he came up with the story that became their short film.

The project is shot with professional and amateur actors and a skeleton crew in a documentary style, as it follows a young Army soldier who is home on a brief visit, but is leaving the next day to re-up for deployment to Afghanistan.

“When we thought it over, we weren’t sure how we could tell the story within our budget, which was basically nothing,” Haladjian said. “So we came up with the idea to shoot it as a documentary in concept and structure.”

Story Was A Snap

Once the young film makers were set on how the finished project would look to the viewer, coming up with the story arc was a snap.

“The story came quickly — it came together in a matter of hours,” Haladjian recalled.

“I had this scene by scene concept in my head,” DeSimone said. “And the final cut looks very believable. It morphed into the structure of a documentary very easy from the original concept, which was always intended to be a short film.”

During the creative process, the pair watched many interviews of contemporary soldiers so they could craft the dialogue and attitude to be ultimately believable. DeSimone also drew from his own experience with a high school pal who enlisted.

“Most people in the military are regarded as just numbers, but if you know them, you know they are individuals with individual perspectives,” DeSimone said. “When my friend enlisted and came back from basic training I realized he wasn’t just Scotty anymore, he was a soldier. But these are people who are trained to follow orders while they still think for themselves.

“I wanted people to see this film and realize that when soldiers come home, they still think about things they experienced over there ... they heave deep thoughts about things.”

The central character in De-Ploy first enlisted in the days following the 9/11 attacks, Haladjian explained. But he is returning for another tour of duty because his ideals and motivations have changed.

“Now he’s motivated by his obligation to the Afghan people, and the efforts of his fellow soldiers to finish the job that was started over there,” Haladjian said.

The pair agree that if possible, they would continue to develop projects that can be completed with a small crew. Working on De-Ploy with just three other crew members and a less than a half-dozen actors helped everyone involved build a powerful trust for each other, which helped contribute to the very natural feel of the finished product.

“We had a five person crew, and we had no incentive because we weren’t being paid,” DeSimone said. “We were just trying to create something great, building something we believed in together.”

Re-Shoot Was The Charm

The project was not without its issues, but in the end, both filmmakers believe that it was a forced re-shooting of some of the script that yielded the final and ultimately far better product.

“Once we shot the whole first interview we realized we had sound problems and we had to shoot it again,” DeSimone said. “But we decided that if we were going to do it again, we were going to improve on it. The script was the same, but we tweaked the delivery and it made all the difference.”

Haladjian said the mixture of a couple of seasoned stage actors as their leads, along with Dylan’s sister playing the girlfriend, and a patient at River Glen playing the grandmother, was a perfect formula.

“We actually had to scrap the entire idea about how we were going to shoot the grandmother scene,” DeSimone recalled of a visit between the departing soldier and his grandmother. “We scrapped all the planned dialogue and decided to just shoot them playing checkers.”

“It turned out to be one of the best scenes in the film,” Haladjian said. “People were coming up to us at Cannes complimenting how real the grandmother was — and she was just a patient we picked for the scene from River Glen.”

Once the film was completed, its first premiere was at a UConn student film competition this past spring, where it came in first among nine projects. So the pair decided to use the prize money to enter De-Ploy into the Student Academy Awards and the Cannes Short Film Corner.

“Then we got an email saying the film was accepted, ‘See you in Cannes,’” Haladjian said.

“It was incredible news, but I had so much going on,” DeSimone said. “And I had two weeks to get a passport, and to raise enough money so we both could go.”

“We did a lot of local fundraising, including a substantial donation from the Newtown Rotary,” Haladjian continued. “But it all came down to this one guy who heard about us and read our letter in The Bee. He had affiliations with UConn, where Dylan was going, and the University of Vermont, where I went.”

“He basically wrote us a check that funded half the trip, so in reality it was because of this guy that I got to go,” DeSimone said. “When I think about it, I’m still kind of like, Wow.”

If anyone who would like to support the filmmakers, who are still paying off costs related to the Cannes trip, donations are tax-deductible. Just email quietlycrowded@gmail.com or call David Haladjian at 203-313-0199 or Dylan DeSimone at 203-942-1262.

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