Rated , a recent American short film that premiered online this month on Vimeo, pivots on a rather unusual idea — what if humans had to rate each other and wear the aggregate of those star ratings as a crown on their heads? Was it a filmmaker’s reaction to how their works are rated by critics? I ask actor-writer-filmmaker John Fortson. “Not quite”, he writes back in amusement. “I’m always writing from my personal life,” he tells The Hindu in an email interview. And Rated came to him while discussing ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft with his friends and how they allow both the rider as well as the driver to rate each other. Fortson wondered what if a couple woke up one morning with stars floating above their head for all to see. “And boom, these scenes started flying into my head,” he says.
The idea was born in December 2014. His actor wife Christie Lynn Smith helped in co-writing and the entire Fortson family of four got to act in the main parts in the film, including their little son Joshua and young star daughter, Abby Ryder Fortson, who we saw in Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp and recently as the lead in the first episode of the Amazon Prime web series, Tales from the Loop . The real family stepping in as reel and making it truly a family film.
It took Fortson four months to write the script, going through drafts, improvising scenes and moments. “I wanted the film to feel lived in, like you’re really living with these characters,” he says. Fortsons themselves live in Los Angeles and shot it there, in their house, neighbourhood, at Abby’s school and at a local cafe. Everything to make it easy and also save money. “The good thing about your home, is that it’s full of your life, it’s full of personal props, so you bring a level of comfortableness to the film immediately,” says Fortson.
The power of obsession
The focus of the film is the woman, Maggie, played by Christie. It was Christie’s idea to have Maggie bear the burden and consequences of getting low ratings. ‘A man, he would just feel like it was no big deal. He would joke about it. But a woman, mid-life, having a couple of kids, always short on time, would be overwhelmed, not feeling like she’s enough, and then the star rating would be like a nightmare in her life, telling everyone she’s not enough’, she told him. He agreed instantly: “We don’t often get to see the true picture of a woman in this part of her life.”
John Fortson and his family
The film is funny yet also offers a commentary on several issues — prejudices, discrimination, being judgemental and also about finding the courage to own up to your behaviour and make a choice to be better. “Life is like this to me. It’s funny and light and heavy and sad rolled into everyday… When we are sad, someone usually tries to make us laugh or we reach inside for positive feelings, sayings, or something funny to break our sad, upset mood. No one wants to live in upset forever… It’s important to reflect life in this way,” he says.
The tone starts from comic to move to dramatic to serious and eventually there is the positive, feel-good element to leave the film with. “I think audiences are drawn in more by the lightness of a story, and then more impacted when the seriousness comes through the lightness,” he says.
‘When your work is life’
An interesting bit about the film is its Indian connect. One of the important characters is that of a cafe owner played by Deepti Gupta, a Los Angeles-based actor who also stars in Netflix’s The Politician and Disney+ High School Musical: The Musical . It is she who gives Maggie a chance at redemption. “She is the perfect antagonist, delicately walking the line of what’s right for her character and what’s right for all,” says Fortson.
The VFX in the film was done out of Chennai by Thilak Vasu and his team at Cinibees Studios. It was done in two months, but they had to work on the film right through the heavy rains and major floods in Chennai. “There was no power and we had to take the CPU to Pondicherry to upload the film from there,” remembers Thilak. “We went through the film frame by frame to make sure the look of the stars, the colour, how they moved with each character was uniform and perfect. They did a great job. And we were done right in time to premiere at our first festival in April 2016,” says Fortson. The film has since travelled to more than 60 international film festivals.
Just as with this one film, the personal and professional keeps getting intermingled for the Fortson family. “When your work is your life and it’s fun to you and you make it fun with the people you love around you, then it’s never work, but just an extension of you, of your family,” says Fortson.
So the couple has finished writing the feature version of Rated in between working with the children and their online schooling in the lockdown period. In fact, Fortson feels that the Rated online premiere has come at a right juncture as it strikes a chord when the whole world is in the throes of COVID-19: “We all need each other, to be understanding and patient with each other now more than ever.” Rated , he feels, is all about that.
