Ricky News: The Big Bad Swim (7/30/05)

[♥~Mel Diffy~♥]

Movie Accomplished: Filmmakers hope for acceptance to Sundance
By David Brensilver
Published on 7/29/2005

Credit - www.shorepublishing.com/archive/re.aspx?re=0c35d890-939c-4f91-b0a2-c2737b761f01

Dan Schechter and Ishai Setton have accomplished what they set out to when they arrived in Old Lyme two years ago. They made a film, though it wasn't the film they began working on originally.

Filming on "The Big Bad Swim" has wrapped, and the project is in post-production. From beginning to end, the project took some eight months, though the movie was originally conceived three years ago.

Over about 20 days this past winter, while Setton was doing research and networking at the Sundance Film Festival, Schechter wrote the first draft of "The Big Bad Swim."

"There really hasn't ever been a movie about swimming before," said Setton, the director of the film.

"The Big Bad Swim" is about a group of adults who take swimming lessons for the first time. The film focuses on three from an extensive cast: Noah Owens, played by Jeff Branson, is a swim instructor who's decided this would be his last six-week class -- a depressing prospect; Amy Pierson, played by Padget Brewster, is going through a divorce; and Jordan Gallagher, played by Jess Weixler, is an exotic dancer and a dealer at the Mohegan Sun.

Ricky Ullman, star of the Disney Channel's "Phil of the Future" series, has also been cast in the film.

Kelli Lerner, of Kelli Lerner Casting in New York, is the film's casting director. She began working with Schechter and Setton when they were working on a murder mystery set along Connecticut's southeastern shoreline called "Connecticut."

That film was shelved in favor of the new project back in December, when it became too large a project. Schechter and Setton chose not to compromise the work, feeling they couldn't do the film justice on the budget they were on.

Thus was born "The Big Bad Swim."

"The point of us moving here (from New York City) was to make a movie," Schechter said. "And that was the film that we ended up making."

"The Big Bad Swim," Schechter said, is "definitely more in the area of a feel-good comedy," as compared with the darker "Connecticut" script.

After auditioning "aggressively" to put together a sizeable ensemble cast, production on "The Big Bad Swim" took just under three weeks. One-third of the nearly three-week shoot was spent at the pool at Connecticut College, between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. Other locations included the Mohegan Sun, Lyme-Old Lyme High School and Schechter's parents' Old Lyme home.

The filmmaking duo has hired New York film editor Ian Wile, and Setton is talking with a New York songwriter, Julian Velard, about the film's soundtrack.

The goal at this point, for Schechter and Setton, is to have "The Big Bad Swim" accepted into the Sundance Film Festival, which would obviously generate buzz for the film. Schechter said he and Setton, who collectively work as Four Act Films, have friendly relationships with publishers at magazines such as Hollywood Life, Premiere and Entertainment Weekly.

Of "The Big Bad Swim," Lerner said, "We are fortunate to have an incredibly talented cast. ... It was really challenging to cast, because it was so large."

"That is what our film, I think, really displays, is a really great ensemble cast," Schechter agreed.

The story, Lerner suggested, is universal.

"The idea of people facing a huge fear like swimming, people can relate to that, people can identify with that," she said, adding, "I could identify with it."

While Schechter said, "I'm very eager now to do something completely different and completely new" in terms of writing, he did say both his and Setton's careers depend on making money with "The Big Bad Swim."

"We can't turn our attention from it," Setton said. "It's the only place I can have my head right now."