If it’s for the sake of art, surely there are lines that can be crossed? In Meta Take One, co-directors John Dierre and Ryan Dutter push one filmmaker way past that line, turning a scrappy overnight shoot into a crime story where the camera never stops rolling and cinematic glory is just around the corner.
Night falls on Atlanta, and John Cuffee (EJ Ezeruo) has one goal: finish his short film before sunrise. A true indie filmmaker with no money and no permits, filming in the family liquor store. Damon (Ernest Emmanuel Peeples) is his lead actor and is having trouble getting that perfect take of a thief robbing the store. It’s only one line, so it has to be perfect. Helping out is his friend Tess (Aminah Williams) as the cinematographer or DP (she hasn’t figured that out yet). The shoot is pure indie chaos with blown takes and boom mics in the shot, but John keeps pushing.
Shooting an indie film is all about adaptation and problem-solving, but here things get hairy when it becomes a real shooting: Damon, using what was supposed to be an empty gun, accidentally kills the security guard checking in on the “robbery.” With a criminal record tied to him, Damon freaks out because he’ll go to jail for the rest of his life. As consolation, John continues filming to get Damon’s authentic reaction.
Despite running behind on a festival submission deadline (and under pressure from his “investors”), John presses forward and will deal with the whole murder thing later. The next step is to convince the panicking Damon to keep acting.
“…Damon, using what was supposed to be an empty gun, accidentally kills the security guard checking in on the ‘robbery.'”
According to directors John Dierre and Ryan Dutter, John is a heightened version of their younger selves. He’s the artist so locked into his vision that he’ll risk everything, including the well-being of the people helping him get there. This indie film about making an indie film is true guerrilla filmmaking. By their own account, it was self-funded, shot over two years in Atlanta on 16mm film, and what happened behind the camera is not that far from what happened in front… sans the manslaughter.
Meta Take One is about as meta as a film can get. I truly admire the dual storylines playing out. The first is the sheer determination of lead John Cuffee to finish his film at all costs and to treat the death as any other obstacle to overcome. The second is the reality of the security guard’s death. Dierre and Dutter take no shortcuts and leave no stone unturned in the investigation that follows. How are John and Damon going to get away with this? It’s all explored in the film’s second and third acts. The tone is gritty and real as the two paths twist around each other to the end.
Shooting on film was the best choice the filmmakers could have made. Capturing all this digitally would have doomed everything from the start. You don’t want crisp and clean. It’s all about getting the shot under every harsh condition, from night to sunrise.
With Meta Take One, John Dierre and Ryan Dutter turn their own guerrilla-filmmaking battle scars into a gritty thriller in which the dual storylines intertwine beautifully right up to the end. It’s why indie film will always be better than mainstream.
For screening information, visit the Meta Take One official website.
"…As consolation, John continues filming to get Damon's authentic reaction."
