Shift


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Interview with SHIFT Director Kelly Anderson

In your biographical material you indicate that the subject of "work" has always held special interest for you, as is evident in some of your previous films. Why did you decide to address prison work at this juncture and why did you choose the narrative format to do so?

KELLY ANDERSON: The idea for SHIFT developed out of an article I saw in the Village Voice about prison labor. I was shocked that inmates were booking TWA reservations and packing Victoria's Secret underwear and Microsoft computer boards at sub-minimum wage levels, and I couldn't get it out of my head. Writer Tal McThenia contributed a lot of the plot and story, including much of the backstory around the "Slam Dunk" prison labor referendum, all based on real events in the U.S. The principal locations—the prison where Louis lives and the airport where Melanie works—allowed the film to make statements about the corporatization of many aspects of contemporary American life. At some level, all of the characters are in some form of prison, whether physical, economic or of their own psychological making.

Prior to making SHIFT, your films have all been documentaries. How was directing a narrative film similar to directing a documentary, and what aspects were completely new?

KA: Directing and editing documentaries has forced me to understand dramatic structure and story in ways that also apply to the narrative format. With documentaries, there’s the luxury of thinking about how a story is playing out—as it is shot over a period of months or years—whereas with SHIFT, I had to solve these kinds of questions before production began. I enjoyed working with writer Tal McThenia to create strong structure at the script level. I learned so much by being able to see what worked and what needed to be adjusted in editing. From documentary, I have learned to look for little elements of human behavior that tell so much about character, and to understand how the real dramas of human life are sometimes very small but significant at the same time.

How did you prepare yourself to work with actors and a script?

KA: These were the aspects of the film I worked hardest on and am the most proud of. For about a year before shooting SHIFT, I worked in an intensive actor-director workshop at HB Studios in New York. Although the focus was on theatrical training for the stage, it helped me understand the actors' language and how to direct them, and enabled me to understand scene structure more scientifically. I was fortunate in that all three of the leads—Alethea Allen, Chris Meloni and Eric Thal—were extremely skilled and really gave it their all despite the modest budget and sometimes difficult locations. Working with the actors taught me a lot.

The look of SHIFT is particularly distinctive. Tell us how you approached the visuals of the film and why you chose this approach.

KA: I wanted the film to look real, stark and spare. One of the points of the film is that within this commercialized, bankrupt, impersonal world, the characters are still able to connect and generate a small amount of warmth through their humor and humanity. I owe Director of Photography Keith Smith and Production Designer John Paino most of the credit for creating the look of the film. The first thing John Paino said after reading the script, was that it reminded him of a Raymond Carver story where the world is very flat and cold and the characters have personal objects, or talismans, that they hold onto and find meaning in. I think that kind of perception allowed John to create a world rich with meaning at the same time as it is cold. I chose Keith to shoot the film because I felt he has a strong eye for graphic composition. We spoke a lot about geography of the spaces and ways of shooting the airport and the prison, using their architectural properties to draw comparisons between them and make statements about the alienating nature of the world the characters inhabit. We all understood that the visual elements were primarily a means of supporting the story, intended to allow the actors' performances to come through as strongly as possible.

What would you like viewers to take away with them after seeing SHIFT?

KA: I would like people to feel something about the dehumanizing impact of the increasing corporatization of life in the United States, and the undeniable resilience of the human spirit struggling to survive in the midst of this adversity.

What’s next for you as a director?

KA: I'm working on several documentaries with Tami Gold, my partner in AndersonGold Films. One of them, EVERY MOTHER'S SON, is about the emerging movement of mothers in New York City whose children have been killed by the NYPD and who question official accounts of what happened. Tal McThenia and I are working on a new narrative project together about Rodd Keith, a guru in the world of "song-poems," a scam perpetrated by a shady L.A.-based recording industry in the late 1960s that promised (but never delivered) hits for aspiring songwriters across the country.