No matter how you slice it, “Lamb,” the film for which producer Mel Eslyn recently won the Film Independent Spirit Awards’ Piaget Producers Award, is disconcerting. It keeps one in a perpetual state of imbalance, wondering what will happen next and hoping it all works out in the end.
Speaking to Eslyn about the process of getting it made feels somewhat the same—albeit less disturbing.
Starring writer-director Ross Partridge (“Baghead”) and Tony-honored Oona Laurence (“Matilda the Musical”), the drama centers on David Lamb, a middle-aged man at the end of his rope after his wife leaves him, his embittered father has died, and he’s been fired after his affair with a younger co-worker was discovered.
Smoking a cigarette in a parking lot, he’s approached by Tommie (Laurence), a rail-thin little girl in high heels who asks for a smoke. From there, they form a careful bond built on equal parts concern and curiosity that culminates in a weeklong road trip. Their relationship is confusing, sometimes uplifting, and always messy—much like the filmmaking process.
Partridge had already written the script when he sent Eslyn the book on which it’s based, written by Bonnie Nadzam. “It made me feel weird inside,” the producer admits, laughing. “I walked around for, like, three days and couldn’t get it out of my head, so finally I said, ‘That means I have to make this, ’cause I can’t stop thinking about it.’ ”
The two spent a month in Partridge’s apartment reworking the script, a contrast, she says, to the last project she worked on, “The One I Love,” where much of the dialogue was written the day of shooting. According to Eslyn, helping Partridge realize his ambition to write, star, and direct was one of her biggest incentives to sign on.
After finding Laurence with the help of casting director Allison Estrin, the big task was finding a location that did the novel justice, so they scouted in the book’s home state, Wyoming. The process consisted primarily of Eslyn “driving around in a giant pickup truck, sneaking onto ranches and getting yelled at, and cold-calling [ranch owners] who didn’t even have Internet.” But when the perfect cabin was finally found, Eslyn says she could practically hear “the angels singing, ‘This is your location.’ ”
Production was going well... until the snow on the idyllic mountaintops nearby melted and flooded their space. Then Laurence was cast as Jake Gyllenhaal’s daughter in “Southpaw,” cutting their time frame from several months to three weeks.
It’s times like these when you want a producer like Eslyn on your team. (Mark Duplass, who starred in “The One I Love,” calls her the “ace in the hole.”) She, along with Partridge, cinematographer Nathan Miller, and assistant director Drew Langer, cleaned out the debris before gutting the entire cabin and rebuilding their set in time to shoot the 96-minute film.
Because she’s willing to get her hands dirty on the creative, logistic, and literal front, Eslyn’s approach to the process makes low-budget films her specialty. (“Lamb” was made for well under half a million, according to her.) But her most useful asset, aside from her tenacity, is her gut.
“The biggest thing I learn every film is this reaffirmation of trusting your instinct, because there were so many things that we did based on instinct,” she says. “Everything from me accepting the film to casting—even getting a lot of our creative team, Ross and I kept saying, ‘This person just feels right.’ ”
Along with the award comes an open-ended $25,000 filmmaking grant, so keep an eye out for where Eslyn’s instincts will lead her next.
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