As we get nearer to the festival, we will be featuring the various filmmakers whose work will be screening throughout the festival.Introduce Yourself: Hart Bochner, writer and director of JUST ADD WATER.
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Several years go, I was acting in a film on location in and around Bakersfield, CA. Nearing the end of the schedule, the company packed up and headed two hours east, deep into the isolated, baked Mojave Desert to a dot on the map called Trona. It was, without question, about the strangest place I’d ever seen. I was immediately fascinated by its contrasts: a community surrounded by startling beauty, now in decay amid severe toxic waste.Trona has been a mining town for over one hundred years, and its people and landscape have paid a heavy toll. Once proud and prosperous, the place is now all but abandoned. What few residents remain are either too nostalgic to leave, prisoners of the welfare state, or, more insidiously, purveyors of Meth. Though I’ve traveled the world, I’d never seen this kind of poverty and bleakness before. And what I found most startling was that it lies less than three hours from Los Angeles.
We only shot a couple of nights in town, but it had firmly been etched into my psyche. How could a place like this exist in America? How could a town be so forgotten? And where was the Superfund Cleanup crew?
Then a few years back, on my way to Death Valley, I revisited Trona, wondering if what I remembered was more imagination than reality. But it was actually worse: more decay, more deadness, more of what I’d been so moved and disturbed by before. Coincidentally, I was at that time mulling over a script idea, something I could sink my teeth into and direct myself. Walking through the abandoned neighborhoods, I let my mind wander. And then it hit me: A love story set in hell, a hopeful-yet-off-kilter romantic comedy, in contrast to everything the eye could see. If along the way it took a look at the social and environmental issues that beset the town, so be it. For my protagonist I envisioned the average Joe, a man who set personal dreams aside to provide for his family. Through events that ultimately upend his life, he would rediscover his purpose, and begin to dream again, for himself and community.
Today’s Trona reflects nothing of its distant hey day. Neighborhood children live and play in rubble. Teen boys, with nothing to do, look for trouble. Many of the girls are pregnant. Gone is America’s first indoor mall. Ditto the Ford Dealership (‘Drive a Little/Save a Lot’), the proud community where the folks in Ridgecrest used to come to shop and dine., Today’s Trona endures fallout from the Manson Gang (who actually lived there), and domination by general anarchy. The one sign of productivity is the looming monolithic Borax plant, droning 24/7 as it spews mucky effluent everywhere, garnering Trona the distinction of having the worst air and water quality in the U.S.
And so, with these notions ruminating in my mind, I headed back to L.A. and started writing. Nine months later I had a script and a meeting with Jersey Films, Danny DeVito’s company. Danny quickly joined our enterprise, and he would become a loyal friend in a lengthy process to make this film.
With financing eventually secured, we suddenly had a scant four weeks to prepare. Since the film was ingrained in my head, I felt this truncated prep was viable. But there was a key issue. Being Canadian, I could’ve headed north of the border and saved some money. As a DGA PAC Committee member, I was hell-bent to shoot locally, supporting our unions and workers. And Trona had everything I needed. It was the only place to shoot this film. Case closed.
When we moved up to location, the residents opened their homes to us. I was careful not to look like we were taking over. One of the benefits of shooting in a near-abandoned town is that you can’t really disturb that much. Whenever possible, we hired residents for production jobs, background, etc. We housed the company twenty-two miles west, in Ridgecrest, a growing naval town (yes, there’s a naval base in the middle of the desert).
On the first day of principal, a little boy, perhaps nine years old, attached himself to the production. From that point on, he became our fourth AD, complete with walkie-talkie. Little Matthew was more than a novelty; he knew the ins and outs of the town and helped us no end. With Matthew on our team, more locals followed, and my producers Robin Bissell and Clifford Werber alerted the caterer to always have plenty of food on hand for anyone who needed a meal. It was the least we could do.
I was well aware of how personally moved I was by my own experience with Trona. What I didn’t know was how the company would react. Had I overestimated my sense of the place? But from the outset, the cast and crew felt similar awe. As time went on, neighbors and the company became one. One of the actor’s and his wife adopted a local abused child. My 1st AD regularly returns, picking up Matthew and his siblings, taking them on jaunts to Disneyland. Others return just because.
That’s the thing about Trona. While we may have made a tiny mark on the town and its people, they clearly made a bigger imprint on us. And while the experience on any given film never ensures a positive outcome, I am so proud that it enriched the lives of those I brought to it.
JUST ADD WATER, written and directed by Hart Bochner, will screen Sunday, June 8th at 5:30P at the Center for the Arts - Studio One.
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