Taylor Toole's Film Will Appear in Boston Festival, Island
Theatres

By MANDY LOCKE

Fourteen months ago, when he was begging and borrowing his way
through 12 grueling days of directing his first film on Martha's
Vineyard, Taylor Toole had doubts about finishing the project.

Let alone making it onto a selective list of short features
premiering at the Boston Film Festival this weekend.

"When we set out to do this, I was told that for a company
that had no money, in which no one was getting paid, allow a year of
production for every 10 minutes of film," 24-year-old Taylor said
by phone from Los Angeles on Friday, just coming off a late night on-set
at HBO as the runner's assistant to a yet-to-air show called
Deadwood. "I expected to be working [on production] for at least
two years."

Less than six weeks after wrapping up editing on his 18-minute film,
Standing Up, this Island native is elated.

"I was really surprised to have gotten into the Boston Film
Festival," said Taylor, who graduated from Emerson College in
Boston in 2001. "For me, it's the hometown festival."

The Island bonus is special viewings of the film next week at the
Capawock, the Island and the Strand Theaters - likely to run as a
trailer to some feature films running in these theaters.

Standing Up tracks two lovestruck teens through an emotionally
volatile three days. He's from the wrong side of the tracks. She
lives in an Island trophy home. His father beats his mother. She's
starved for attention from her high-powered, often absent mother. All of
their loneliness, rage and confusion comes crashing, quite literally,
into a first kiss - moments after a climactic bike wreck.

Skimpy on conversation, driven by a half-dozen gripping
confrontations, Standing Up draws on a cast of homegrown talent. Jesse
Sylvia, a senior at Martha's Vineyard Regional High School,
captures all of the self-consciousness of a teenage boy enamored of a
pretty girl hopelessly out of his league. Jaclyn Lyons, a seasonal
resident of the Vineyard, plays the familiar teenager who painfully
primps for a party in anticipation of her first kiss.

"The actors really surprised me," said Taylor, who
developed the script from two characters in a full-length feature he
wrote some time ago. "All of a sudden, we were getting it the way
I'd pictured it in my head. We were able to get moments that were
really genuine."

Standing Up's cinematography moves it ahead of the pack of
amateur short films. The first product of Ocean Park Pictures, a film
company launched by Taylor and college friends Edward Bedrosian and Mia
Leist, the film's colors, angles and pace push the story along
even more than the dialogue. The young company spared no expense on
equipment. Admitted "film geeks," the crew from Ocean Park
Pictures last summer imported enough equipment for the shoot to fill a
five-ton grip truck.

For those who love Island impressions, Standing Up provides a feast
of recognizable spots and characters - from the deck of the
Seafood Shanty to the jetty at Eastville Beach. But, Taylor admits,
those who know every nook and cranny of Martha's Vineyard will
sense a little improvisation.

"It will be a little bit like Islanders watching the movie
Jaws. Everything's in a different place. The punch at the high
school is in the Oak Bluffs school, and Jesse races away from the high
school on a road in West Tisbury," Taylor said with a laugh.

But the filmmaker is relieved that the final product escaped with
only a few signs of the logistical obstacle course Ocean Park Pictures
faced. The 12-day shoot, he said, bordered on a comedy of errors rather
than the seamless operation the young professionals envisioned.

"Next time around, I'd definitely try and focus more on
logistics. When stuff pops up when you're shooting, it takes away
from your creative energy. Nine months later in the production room, you
don't remember the logistics, you just wonder why you didn't
get it quite right," he said.

The crew was kicked out of the high school - five years after
Taylor graduated - because a few classrooms were left in disarray
after one day of filming. "Someone at the school gave us
permission to film in the school, and though we tried to express the
size of our crew, I think they thought we'd be two kids with a
video camera," he said.

All told, Standing Up cost $32,000 to make, which is significantly
less than it could have been without donations from Island friends and
businesses. The company secured $6,000 in donations, another $14,000 in
no-interest loans from friends and family, and Taylor fronted the rest.

"The last $3,500 credit card bill came this week, and I
actually have the money to pay for it," Taylor said. He'll
now begin repaying the pile of loans and start collecting capital for a
full-length feature he hopes to begin next year.

"For the first time out, there's a lot to be proud of.
But it's the beginning. In this field, you either direct or you
don't direct. If I want to make movies, I've just got to
direct, and keep directing."

An Island entourage is expected to travel to Boston this weekend for
one of the five showings of Standing Up. While a tape of the short film
has circulated around Taylor's circle in Los Angeles, none of the
actors, crew or Island friends and family on the East coast have yet to
see the film.

In the meantime, Taylor's paying his dues in Hollywood -
getting as much access as possible on the sets of programs like Project
Greenlight and Deadwood, a new Western drama. "It's really
great," he said. "Everyday I go to work with cowboys and
whores."