生产记录
布鲁克林电影人87年的莎拉·申克(Sarah Schenck)和08年的玛格丽特·斯卡拉法尼(Margaret Sclafani)抽出时间谈论电影制作和友谊.
尽管87届的莎拉·申克和08届的玛格丽特·斯克拉法尼毕业于布林莫尔大学，时间相差20年, a mutual love of film caused their paths to cross. 两位电影人, who are both based in Brooklyn, have collaborated over the years on several projects, including Schenck’s most recent film, The Invisible Extinction, a feature-length documentary about our vanishing microbiome.
申克(左下), 自学成才的电影制作人, 她既拍过获奖短片，也拍过故事片，还经常关注公共卫生问题. Sclafani (below right) worked her way up in the industry, turning her h和 to many aspects of the craft, 包括摄影. 她的故事片 来自亚利桑那州的问候 is currently in post-production.
与 The Invisible Extinction set to open theatrically in New York City 和 Los Angeles in the new year, 在申克阳光明媚的五楼公园坡公寓里，申克和斯克拉法尼坐在她的餐桌旁，谈论电影制作, 友谊, 和 being a woman in a (yes, 仍然是男人的世界.
一次偶然的相遇
玛格丽特·Sclafani: I became aware of Sarah when I was at 布林莫尔 applying for externships. I knew even though I was an anthropology major that I wanted to do film, 和 at the Careers Center there were these binders of people, 和 Sarah was one of just a few filmmakers.
莎拉Schenck: At the time, I was finishing my first feature film, which was called 滑坡. 这是一部关于一位年轻女性的喜剧，她是一位艺术家和女权主义者，她发现自己在导演一部色情电影.
When Margaret came to work with me, 我和丈夫以及两个年幼的孩子住在布鲁克林联合街的一间小公寓里. I think my parents might have been visiting. It was p和emonium 和 a highly challenging work atmosphere to get anything done, especially something as complex as finishing post-production on a feature film. One of the many remarkable things about Margaret is that she is completely unflappable.
MS: I’ve always found myself working out of people’s homes. It’s really a nice part of independent filmmaking. And it gave us a head start on the whole work from home ethos where, 无论好坏, there’s a lot of things going on at once 和 it’s important to be able to focus, even in the midst of a chaotic atmosphere with 15 people doing different things.
"Watching a director with the camera 和 actors to me felt a little bit like falling in love."
——莎拉·申克
不同的路径
SS: Film is a highly challenging field. It’s not something for the fainthearted, 我对玛格丽特在这个充满挑战的职业中如何适应和崛起感到惊讶. I don’t think I realized how hard it was going to be when I started off. 与玛格丽特, who had a vision early on that she wanted to be a filmmaker, I became one kind of by accident.
When I was at 布林莫尔 I studied art history, 和 I loved the world of beauty 和 ideas. I had an internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art right after I graduated, 而是在绘画保护部门工作了一个夏天，并就15世纪和16世纪的佛兰德绘画进行了演讲, I realized I wanted to do something more politically related, 和 I ended up working in a nonprofit devoted to Latin American affairs.
I got my graduate degree in political economy 和 worked for the 纽约时报 in Rio before coming back to New York City. When I was working for the New York City comptroller’s Office, one of my colleagues decided to make a film 和 he was a friend of mine so I helped him, 看着他这么做, I realized I could actually do it too. Watching a director with the camera 和 actors to me felt a little bit like falling in love. At that point I started working on a short script of my own 和 made a number of short films. 我喜欢这种形式! I eventually moved on to making my first feature, 但在我担任纽约市主计长教育政策高级顾问多年期间. I’ve always had other jobs to sustain my filmmaking habit.
MS: 布林莫尔 was where I discovered I was interested in being a filmmaker. I did a lot of acting with the Bi-Co community, 和 I was also a painter 和 a dancer. My friends encouraged me to take my first film course. 我看了很多电影. You could rent three films at a time from the library, 和 I would rent three 和 watch them all night long.
My first film course was Poets of Cinema, 和 that opened my eyes. I’d already seen 和 really liked 天使爱美丽, which came out when I was in high school, 和 seeing other foreign films cemented for me what cinema can be. There was this short that I did with a friend in senior year called Pamplemousse, 和 it was sort of a horror film about the making of grapefruit juice. It’s a lot of shots of the grapefruit getting smashed 和 cut up—massacred. I was the kid with the H和ycam just filming a lot of what was going on in the world. Then working with Sarah, I saw that, OK, this is something that people can do for a living.
I graduated into the recession 和 applied to a bunch of different positions. I was hired as a researcher for a documentary film in the D.C. area 和 was quickly promoted to post-production coordinator. The documentary was about Molly Goldberg, a woman who worked in early television. It was a super inspiring story about women in the industry that I was interested in entering. Sarah 和 I kept in touch, 和 I came up to New York to work on a short film with her called 楔子.
SS: It was written 和 directed by my dear friend 和 brilliant filmmaker Maria Agui Carter. It was a Spanish-language production about a young man on scholarship at Harvard, desperate to play soccer but unable to afford new cleats, 和 what his parents had to do to provide him a pair. We all had fun painting my babysitter’s home 和 dressing the set.
MS: 在那之后, I moved into post-production coordination on feature-length documentary films, 和 then I started getting into the camera department. I eventually made my way to New York in 2010.
SS: One of the things Margaret did that was really smart, when I look back on our different paths as filmmakers, is that she was versatile. She does a lot of shooting 和 she’s a cinematographer, but she’s also an editor. She’s also a producer 和 production coordinator. 正因为如此, 她能够在这个领域赚钱，因为她在自己的权利中成长和发展为艺术家和电影制作人. I really admired how she did that.
The Invisible Extinction
SS: The film that I’m just completing now, The Invisible Extinction, co-directed with Steven Lawrence, is a movie that I felt compelled to make. It’s my first feature documentary, 它的诞生是因为我的两个女儿中的一个差点死于对饼干的过敏反应. I was in the emergency room, 他们说, "We have no idea why people get allergies; it’s a mystery," 和 so I started researching like people do when they have a serious health issue. 越来越多的证据表明，破坏我们体内的微生物——我们的内部生态系统——会引发食物过敏和其他慢性健康问题.
What really galvanized me was the desire to help my kids with their health issues, then I thought: if I’m having these issues, 也许我学到的东西可以帮助其他家庭避免我们所经历的事情. That would be a good day’s work. And it continues to be a real driving force for me. 我很高兴能让人们看到这部电影，并以对他们有用的方式谈论它. The research is evolving rapidly, 和 scientists around the world are doing groundbreaking work to make all our lives better.
The Invisible Extinction began as a work-for-hire piece on the microbiome for a PBS news program. 节目停播了，留给我的是这段视频和对微生物群的痴迷. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. 我找到了纽约市微生物组研究领域的顶尖科学家——玛丽亚·格洛丽亚·多明格斯·贝罗和马丁·布莱泽——他们两人都有用简单语言交流的罕见能力. I wanted to shoot them, but I couldn’t get any funding together. 正是因为玛格丽特对这部电影有信心，而且是我的朋友，我们才得以记录下最初的采访, on the strength of the footage that she shot, 推进项目.
我的电影制作伙伴史蒂夫在纪录片制作方面的杰出职业生涯给了我们的资助者信心，让他们相信这个项目会有很高的制作价值，并能完成——但在这个极具挑战性的领域，这并不是保证. 作为联合董事, 史蒂夫与这个主题的个人联系使他对人物经历的细微差别表现非常敏感, 有时, extreme physical 和 emotional duress. 作为我们的生产线生产商, 史蒂夫召集了他在纪录片界的深厚人脉，为我们的影片安排了出色的摄影师, 声音录音员, 和 post-production talent, while also contributing brilliantly whenever necessary to the shooting, 记录, 剪辑我们的电影.
MS: I came on to film a few other things when they had pickup shoots later on in the project, but I was mostly mostly involved as a videographer early on.
动机
SS: When I was making my first feature film, my dad asked me if I was doing something that was making the world a better place, 我有点嘲笑，因为我以为我想做一些挑衅性的评论，然后开始了一场对话. I have come around to thinking that it was actually a very good question, 和 I do aspire to make the world a better place through my work.
MS: 我想拍一些能在情感上产生影响的电影，用不同的方式来打动人们——动作片, 要笑, 得流泪. Filmmaking is a way of sharing stories. You meet so many different people or you create characters from some kind of human truth. Working in documentary 和 narrative projects, I’m always trying to find that emotional impact 和 get that across to the viewer. As a film viewer 和 creator, the films that move me are more often narrative projects. A lot of times, women’s stories are especially attractive to me. 我经常被其他女性作为合作者和讲故事的人所吸引，因为这些是我想要带给世界更多的故事，也因为在我的领域，我周围都是男性. Oh wow, a woman in the camera department! Over the years there have been more women behind the camera, but there are still vastly more men directors, 电影摄影师, 和 directors of photography, 这很有挑战性.
“我希望能拍出有情感影响的电影，并以不同的方式打动人们——动作片, 要笑, 得流泪. Filmmaking is a way of sharing stories."
——玛格丽特·斯克拉法尼
来自亚利桑那州的问候
MS: I’m director of photography 和 co-director with my friend Zach Singer on 来自亚利桑那州的问候. We came to the project in 2020 working from home. 我们都在为之工作 MTV新闻 at the time 和 feeling the weight of the stories 和 the 24-hour news cycle. So, 我们俩决定在2020年11月大选结束后开车穿越全国. 我们想要探索我们所处的政治环境以及美国的自然环境.
我决定在制作方面做很多技术方面的事情, 和扎克, with his skills as an editor, is now taking the lead in post-production. We really wanted to capture that time in the p和emic on film, but it became a bigger story. He 和 I had a friend die the year before who we had worked with, 因此，我们的友谊是在对悲伤真正坦诚的基础上形成的，这也成为了我们讨论的一部分, especially as we were being faced with so much death in our country. We wanted to look at that from both a national 和 personal level in the storytelling.
我戴过很多帽子, 但我在做自由职业者时就有过这样的经历，我经常是唯一一个在摄影棚或外景设置灯光的人, 多个摄像头, 还有挤奶的天赋.
经验教训
MS: What I’ve learned from Sarah is definitely perseverance. And also really appreciating everyone that’s on your team. 我认为莎拉作为导演和制片人一直都很出色，也是一个很好的看护者. She always has chocolate at the ready! I think that’s so important when you’re leading a group of many different people, to really be aware of everyone at every stage of production. She’s a super welcoming 和 kind person.
SS: 玛格丽特有一种善良和温柔，这在独立电影制作的艰苦世界中并不那么典型，她有一种正直. 她以自己的方式做事，忠于自己，同时也完成了工作.
“玛格丽特有一种善良和温柔，这在独立电影制作的艰苦世界中并不那么典型.”
——莎拉·申克
布林莫尔女人
SS: 作为布林茅尔女性的一个主要特征是，我们热爱多样性，无论你能以何种方式想象和表达它. I was friends with so many international students at 布林莫尔, 我真的很喜欢, 和 that has informed my work. I’m still in touch with many of these friends, 当你认识布达佩斯和北京的人时，你会觉得世界很小. That’s been a blessing for sure, 和 it has informed my storytelling. 对于我在推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜课堂内外所受到的优秀教育，我深表感激.
MS: I think 布林莫尔 attracts a certain kind of person who is already intellectually curious, 和 it fosters that interest in asking questions 和 figuring things out. 作为一个电影制作人, whether it’s a narrative film or a documentary project, a lot of what we do is we ask questions 和 try to figure things out.
“Sarah’s always been great as a director 和 producer 和 a great caretaker of people. She always has chocolate at the ready!”
——玛格丽特·斯克拉法尼
The Invisible Extinction opens in theaters on January 6. It is also streaming (for rental) on all major services (iTunes, 谷歌玩, 亚马逊 和 Vimeo点播在美国.S., U.K.美国和澳大利亚. 了解更多关于 the film at theinvisibleextinction.com. 了解更多关于 来自亚利桑那州的问候 at greetingsfromarizonafilm.com.