Shooting Day For “Fall To Rise”

Very proud of my friend Jayce Bartok tonight after spending a day helping out on the set of his film “Fall To Rise.” The story is about a dancer who has left dancing to have a child, and the struggles she faces when she returns. It’s about dance, and yet about something more universal: integrating or at least resolving parenthood with one’s creative vocation.

Jayce Bartok on set, revising the afternoon’s shot list.

Jayce and his wife Tiffany, who is producing, are two of the kindest people I’ve ever met in the movie business. They are walking, talking examples of  the principle that lots of working actors and crew members leverage to succeed: They are easy to work with, and easy to be with. When they speak, they mean what they say. They are also generous with favors for their friends.

It didn’t surprise me in the least that someone at the Baryshnikov Art Center on 37th Street hooked them up with dance studio space to shoot in. I mean that in the vaguest sense. For all I know they paid market rate. When you show up on an independent film shoot, you don’t say “How did you afford this place?” You just do what you do at any shoot: Make yourself useful and keep your hands off the Snickers as long as you can.

This is the second time in a month I’ve been inspired watching directors at work. One thing they have in common: They’re both actors by trade. To the lay person, screenwriting to directing may seem like a natural progression. The problem is, writing requires lots of time in one’s office. Acting means being on the set, and time on the set, seeing the creative solutions to practical problems unfold, or not, time after time, is irreplaceable.