Spirits 2010 | "New Year"'s Tom Quinn: "This incredible honor is exhilarating and a total thrill."

A scene from Tom Quinn's "The New Year Parade." Image courtesy of the film's official website.

Nominated for a John Cassavetes Award at this year's Independent Spirit Awards, Tom Quinn's "The New Year Parade" examines the effects of divorce on one family's teenage children. Quinn discusses how the project, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Slamdance Festival, evolved over the course of four years, thanks largely to the volunteer work of friends and the unlikely collaboration of The South Philadelphia String Band.

Tom Quinn on his background and the evolution of his Spirit-nominated project, "The New Year Parade"...

I grew up in Bucks County, PA, forty minutes outside of Philadelphia. I saw "Star Wars" in second grade and, more importantly, a “making of” on TV. I would set up scenes with action figures and my dad would film them. Throughout elementary and high school my friends and I would plan features that never materialized. I went to La Salle University and majored in Creative Writing and Communications, while taking production courses at a community college to gain access to their 16mm gear. After college I shot a feature that took 7 years, turned out iffy, and never saw the light of day. I did some work as a camera assistant for area filmmakers Eugene Martin ("Edge City," "Diary of a City Priest") and Lance Weiler ("The Last Broadcast," "Head Trauma") and channeled what I learned into "The New Year Parade."

As we were going through our 20s, and relationships became more serious, many of my friends found themselves dealing with issues from their parents’ divorces they thought long buried. I realized I knew very little about even my closest friends’ situations and started videotaping interviews. I found many of them telling the same stories, almost word for word, and yet they had never talked to each other about them before. Many of them felt that, while divorce is considered and openly discussed issue, there was little focus on long term effects and these quiet little moments children of divorce go through, regardless of age. I started to fictionalize these into story ideas, but was having a hard time with the structure because I wanted to avoid the cliché story elements and focus on these quiet moments. A friend from college, Frank Voight, asked me to film a buddy’s wedding and they were both in a Mummer String Band. The Mummers are a 200-year old tradition in Philadelphia, where largely working-class clubs put on a parade New Year’s Day. At the wedding, the string band showed up and the whole place got up and was dancing and knew all the same folks songs and were having a blast. I realized there was a whole world of families behind the parade and thought it’d be interesting to mix this rich tradition with a family breakdown, while structuring these quiet moments around the parade preparations.

Quinn on making his idea a reality...

I was doing tech support at a high school while writing the script and my friend Steve Beal was a biology teacher there. Although he had never worked on a film, he liked the story and wanted to see it made so we began brainstorming on ways to get the film made for very little money. Frank suggested that we reach out to his club, The South Philadelphia String Band. We proposed that we use their club for 2 weeks and in return, would record some music and footage for them. Instead, the band welcomed us in for 3 years. They gave us a key to their club house, bags of old costumes, acted in scenes, let our actors sit in on practices and help build props, wore wireless mics at rehearsals, and got us 5 press passes to shoot the 2005 parade. We shot 80 hours of documentary footage with the band, which allowed the film to take on a much larger scope that its $7,000 shooting budget would have allowed otherwise.

Most of our family actors had never acted before, but supporting members Tobias Segal and Irene Longshore are professionals. We rehearsed for several months to build everyone’s confidence and then worked to create a relaxed and intimate atmosphere on set. Most days it was myself and good friend Mark Doyle who did lighting, sound, B camera, dressed the set, and was an extra in several scenes (sometimes while booming at the same time). Everyone kept their day jobs and some of the cast and crew were in school so we shot nights and weekends for three years to complete the film (with the bulk done in the summer of ’05). The actors were encouraged to improv and bring their own life experiences to the table, which led us to have 80 hours of narrative footage in addition to the doc material.

Fortunately, we were accepted into the IFP Narrative Rough Cut Lab in 2007, which helped me get my head around all of that material and encouraged me to remember what we set out to create: a series of quiet moments that a lot of families and children go through.

The biggest challenge was maintaining interest and stamina over the three year shoot. During production, Steve had two kids and was buying a house so I took on most of the producing duties on top of shooting and directing. I had left the high school and went into the MFA program at Temple University so it was difficult to find focus at times. The cast all had full-time jobs and some had full-time school on top of it, so scheduling was tough for all of us. It’s a huge testament to them that they all not only stayed involved, but brought 100 percent to each scene and made time wherever they could to keep the project moving. While it may not seem like an ideal situation, the long schedule was actually great for the film: it allowed us to edit and reshape the story based on its strengths and the cast became more confident as time went on. Since everyone could keep their jobs it allowed us all to work for free and kept the shooting budget quite low, which was a huge plus as Steve and I planned our distribution.

On what it means to be honored at the Spirit Awards...

I remember when we first cast Jennifer Welsh as the daughter and she asked if this would play at film festivals. I told her it probably wouldn’t because festivals are hard to get into. So, to have had a very nice run and now this incredible honor is exhilarating and a total thrill for myself, the cast, and crew. They all worked so hard, without any expectations, and now a while new audience is discovering their hard work because of the Spirit Award nomination. It’s also exciting because, here we are in Bucks County, outside of New York or LA, on a very tiny budget and yet FIND and IFP and the community are all still welcoming us in and celebrating the film. That’s a tremendous feeling and I’m very thankful for it.

Also, Steve worked for months to secure a theatrical run in Philadelphia because we wanted to have a home town theatrical release before Carnivalesque released the DVD last November. We also knew we’d always kick ourselves and wonder “what if” had we put the project to rest without at least qualifying to submit for the Spirit Awards (Steve secured the theater 2 days before the submission deadline). So, it’s thanks to him and Landmark Theaters that we even had the opportunity to put the film out there for consideration. I feel pretty lucky to work with such a supportive group.

Quinn on some of his recent favorite independent films...

I missed so many films this year, but loved "Medicine for Melancholy," "Humpday," "Moon," and "A Serious Man."

...and what he's got in the works...

I’m working on a script about a Catholic priest who gets assigned to the parish where he grew up. He returns to find the community is not as he remembers, and the school lacks involvement. Unfortunately, he’s rather socially awkward, so despite his kindest attempts to reach out, folks just aren’t interested. He gets in an accident on Christmas Day and while in the hospital, word gets around that he had a near death experience. By the time he returns, people are coming to church and school events to hear him speak. Although the rumors are untrue, he allows them because he sees an opportunity to build the community he hoped for and gets trapped in a white lie that spirals.

This is part of a series of profiles and interviews that indieWIRE will be publishing in the days leading up to the 2010 Film Independent Spirit Awards that profiles nominees in the Best First Feature and John Cassavetes Award categories. Previous editions include:

Spirits 2010 | "Crazy Heart" Director Scott Cooper: “Truly independent in spirit.”
Spirits 2010 | Tom Ford: "I have always been obsessed by film."
Spirits 2010 |"Zero Bridge"'s Tariq Tapa: "We were starting from ground zero every day"
Spirits 2010 | "Paranormal"'s Peli: "The film had to have the look and feel of authentic home video"