Ross details how his 2008 film developed into a melodrama stripped of its melodramatics

Present Company began, in Frank V. Ross’ own words, as a more cynically toned project. He began writing a film based loosely on the Susan Smith child murders until he lost interest in the story. By the time he was ready to begin production on the film, it had been refined into a tightly wound domestic melodrama without the expressive highs normally associated with the genre. Present Company follows Ross and Tamara Fana as Buddy and Christy, a young, unmarried couple living together with their child, a toddler named Mikey. They reside in her parents’ basement and spend most of their time arguing and trading off their kid so they can go to work or see friends. When two potential suitors enter the picture, the state of their relationship is cast under a new light, but doing anything to change, or even address, their situation proves easier said than done.

In this video interview, Ross discusses the many developments the film went through to get to its final form. He talks about his experience shooting the film with five other camera operators, working with actors Tamara Fana, Tony Baker, and Lonnie Phillips, and how it felt when the film screened at South By Southwest in 2008.

Watch the interview here:

Read an excerpt from the interview below:

Split Tooth Media: Buddy is by far the prickliest character you play in any of your films. What’s the appeal of playing a character like Buddy?

Frank Ross: I think the appeal of anybody who’s a jerk in movies is that you don’t have to be polite. You can pretend to be this person who just says, not only what’s on their mind, but also goes out of their way to say things that are unkind. Like when Buddy throws the wrapper on the ground and Sam tells him not to litter. I would never do that. But it’s just this needling dick thing to do and I just think It’s fun to pretend to do that. 

I tell my kids — they say ‘Taylor Swift says “shit!’” — that if they want to swear, then go learn how to play a bunch of instruments, write songs, and then you can say whatever you want. If you want to be rude, write a movie where you’re rude and then go pretend to be rude. But you don’t do it in real life. And I think that’s basically the draw for me. I go out of my way to be rude in movies because it’s interesting to play, to watch people react to the rude.

Read Brett Wright’s complete series on The Films of Frank V. Ross here

You’ve mentioned that Present Company was your attempt to strip out the melodramatic stuff from what could be a very melodramatic narrative. Why’d you feel it was important to do that for this movie?

As far as the structure goes it doesn’t have blow-up moments. It doesn’t have the big fight. It doesn’t have Buddy or Christy coming home and finding the other person in just the right light with the kid sleeping on their shoulder. If you want to see those, go watch any other movie about a couple having trouble. For me it was about building to the moment when Buddy is leaving and they don’t say anything. This is something that I’m going to have to chalk up to a little bit of luck because Present Company was about trying to understand; it wasn’t about any experience that I had. So the first time you see Tammy with the kid, Buddy is ignoring her calls and they need to trade off the kid. And that being an introductory scene to it, just trading off the kid and the oranges and all that stuff, it was like, OK, that’s the tone of this movie. Just keep going back and forth and it became an ABAB structure. These people will always have to be somewhere else, they always have a different obligation. It doesn’t allow for the fight where it’s like, ‘I come home every day…!’  and ‘You need to take more responsibility for this child!’ I don’t feel those fights in me. I don’t think that they’re gonna happen, and if they do happen, they’re under your breath as you’re brushing your teeth because you gotta go.

Watch Frank V. Ross on Hohokam

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