NewEnglandFilm.com

The history of Ted Cormey’s debut feature, "What I Did When I Was Away," can be traced back to the fall of 1994, and an application to MTV’s "Real World" London series. "I did a submission, and I said if I was accepted as a cast member, I would have to shoot a film in London using the club scene there," he says. Concerned that MTV might call him on this, Ted immediately went to work on a script. "I never heard a word back [from MTV], but from that point on, by the end of ’94, specifically November of ’94, I remember writing a contract up saying that I will give myself five years to shoot this."

The result is a black-and-white, 16mm feature which maps the downward spiral of a character who moves to the Boston area from the Midwest to be closer to a woman with whom he had a romance the previous summer. He soon discovers that she is involved with another man. This crux serves as the center of the film, as the main character attempts to cope with the situation while achieving some degree of closure in his relationship.

The film was almost completely self-financed by Cormey, who worked multiple jobs and devoted full paychecks to the project. "I live very meagerly," he says. "I haven’t bought clothes for a while." He held one fund-raiser in July 1997, and is planning another for May, which he hopes will provide finishing funds for an answer print and a permanent sound mix.

Cormey had previously worked with half his cast and crew at either his alma mater, Ithaca College (he graduated in 1993), or local cable. Remaining cast and crew were discovered with help from the Massachusetts Film Office Hotline, Central Booking, and various other casting services.

Preproduction was extremely important to control the cost of the film. Cormey took full advantage of this time by providing his actors more than ample rehearsal time beforehand. Shooting was actually delayed several months, which yielded even more rehearsal time than originally expected. In addition, the film was almost completely storyboarded. Once on set, however, sticking to blocking cues and storyboards became increasingly difficult. "When you’re in a small DJ booth, and half that DJ booth is being taken up by lighting equipment, you start to improvise very quickly," Cormey says. "Once you’re actually on location with equipment and limited time and actors, you have to let them go with it."

"What I Did When I Was Away" cleverly employs a wide variety of local resources to mask its cost and deny traditional low-budget conventions. "Everything was pretty much localized. It was…shot in Boston, Jamaica Plain, Cambridge, and the South Shore." Principal shooting took place over 18 days in July 1996 at local clubs, churches, businesses, and other public areas. This gives the film a much larger scope than features with similar budgets, which stick to the traditional one-set, few-actors "rules" of low-budget filmmaking. "Environment was very important for the film. You have a character that’s in a distant land, and I wanted that, over the course of the film, to be an identity for him."

Although the film is semi-autobiographical ("The first third of the film is pretty dead-on." The second half? "I guess that’s more wishful thinking," he says, laughing), Cormey was also influenced by James Bridges’ "Bright Lights, Big City." Like that film, "What I Did When I Was Away" features a confused protagonist searching for answers to a failed relationship in all the wrong places. "You have a character that’s in another environment, and sort of goes crazy there. There’s obviously a reason for that, something he’s not facing."

Cormey’s interest in understanding human nature is best encapsulated in Scary Lady, an eccentric, amiable character who sometimes communicates via hand puppets and piques the interest of the main character. A flashback sequence which occurs at halfway through the film attributes Scary Lady’s nature to a traumatic event which changed her forever. In this character, Cormey is successful in his attempt to "go beyond the traditional hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold cliche" and show that "weird is weird for a reason."

Cormey also fights convention with his soundtrack, which features a plethora of local Gothic-Industrial bands, rather than a traditional score. "Gothic-Industrial was more a music I’ve always seen mostly used in horror films that I thought could be applied to straight-ahead drama."

The ultimate goal for "What I Did When I Was Away" is to get distribution. It was already shown as a work in progress at the Independent Feature Film Market, and Cormey plans to submit the film to the Chicago Underground Film Festival, as well as an overseas festival. Meanwhile, he’s already planning his sophomore effort. "Next summer I will be shooting my next film. I have the script all set, come hell or high water."