Quirky, colorful, dark and lower
budget films like “Party Monster” and “Boogie Nights” are not the ideal movies
that inspire a filmmaker, but for Tory Bykowski-Newton, film student at DePaul
University, underground films are an inspiration. Her creative visions are full
of intensity and imagery; even her personal style is raw and artsy. She walks
in with a purple scarf, chunky earrings and legwarmer-socks over her skinny
jeans with beaten up low-top converse, she giggles as a warning she is ready to
talk.
A glimpse of a Led Zeppelin wrist
tattoo shows as she grabs for her coffee. As a security blanket to the
conversation she takes a quick sip before talking. Timidly she explains her
dream of becoming an independent film cinematographer, Newton says, “I want to
work on Indie films outside of Hollywood, basically…anywhere but Hollywood
because if I do end up in L.A. I would like to be outside the machine.” She
ends her rant by saying, “I rather make something with meaning than something
entertaining or thrilling.”
Over the summer, she studied in Rome,
Italy and produced a film on beauty and adventure. This put her in a unique
situation, rather than extending graduating for more experience, she is graduating
early with gained experience. As she is half way through fall quarter, she is
working on what is potentially her last film through DePaul. This is her time
to create cinematography in turbo mode.
“Since it…it is my final film I want
to utilize everything that is offered here…we don’t have to worry about getting
a two-shot and work on dialogue which is boring,” says Newton.
The film she is working on is called “Joke’s
On You.” The stressful series of events begins by having troubles casting actors
because everyone they have seen is good, but not good enough. Her film colleague, Joe Goudreault explains,
“Finding an actor to play the clown is based more on how the person looks and
their natural expressions since this is a part without dialogue.”
Joe Goudreault has a similar artistic
fashion-sense as Newton with over-sized glasses, thrift-shop sweater and Herschel
knapsack. They met two years ago and finished four films together. “Our biggest
achievement was “Crosswinds,” which was created as an homage to Terrance Malick
and went on to screen at the CineYouth Festival, put on by the Chicago
International Film Festival,” said Goudreault. Terrence Malick is an American
film director and writer, whose last film is “The Tree of Life” featuring Brad
Pitt which was nominated for three Academy Awards in 2012.
“We took a class on him (Malick) and
made a movie using his techniques,” Newton explained.
In this film is Jessie Buckley,
Newton’s childhood friend. Buckley helped inspire Newton into doing films. She
knew Newton had an eye for film ever since they would create silly home videos.
“Man…sometimes I wanted to get it done
and she’d say, ‘No-no-no, no-no...you gotta cut it with the music,” Buckley
reenacted with a smirk.
As an actor, Buckley was impressed
with how she got to view Newton’s growth from amateur videos to
professionalism by saying, “Those two kick major ass!” Buckley continued, “She’s
great at making people feel comfortable, if it’s stressful for them they made
sure it wasn’t stressful for us.”
They set high standards for their
upcoming film because they believe their talent can open more doors. The main
goal is to be entered in another film festival. “’Joke’s On You’ is really
important to me…she (Newton) is talented at lighting and will get to show that
off in the interior scenes…” states Goudreault. Staying positive Newton and
Goudreault, hope this weekend at auditions, they find the actors they’ve been
imagining and start filming.
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