“Truth hurts” tersely describes director Joe Otting’s new 8-minute short, “The Talk,” a life-changing conversation between a father and his 10-year old daughter that’s racked up 190,000 web views over the past three weeks.
The 8-minute film stars local actor John Hoogenakker (“The Girlfriend Experience,” “Empire”) and LA-based Isabella Crovetti-Cramp, who co-stars in “The Colony” hit TV series.
“The Talk” was developed in the spring of 2015, and produced under Otting’s Ogo Films banner.
“I’d been directing back-to-back commercials and wanted to do something that was truly mine. In talking to my friend, West Coast writer David I. Jenkins, I said, ‘let’s write ten short ideas and I’ll pick the one to shoot,” he says.
In less than a week, Otting had six scripts in hand. As the father of a 10-year old daughter, Otting says he immediately connected to “The Talk,” in which dad reveals to his little girl there is no Santa Claus, or Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, either, for that matter, and their talk rolls downhill from there.
After some minor script revisions, Otting and Jenkins teamed with casting director Mickey Paskal to fill the two roles. Signing Hoogenakker was a quick turnaround but it took four months to find the right child actor.
Another challenge was locating an old school kind of diner in which the father-daughter talk would evolve. Otting scoured the city until one day he was driving through downtown Barrington and came across the historic Canteen Restaurant, in business since 1945.
“The bones were perfect, with the counter and stools; it could work” he recalls. “I transformed it into a more vintage look by bringing in booths and a juke box, hanging lights and wall menus.”
The shoot took place during a 10-hour day on the Canteen’s day off. DP was Minnesota-based DP Jeff Stonehouse; LA-based Aaron Cooley co-produced; Otting edited and Nathan Furst, also of LA, who works with Otting on his entertainment projects and commercials, provided the score.
Beyond its impressive web reception, “The Talk” will begin its festival run with a world premiere at Cinequest, March 1-13 in Silicon Valley. A distribution deal also is underway for Japan and screenings are being set in Germany and Spain.
With two successful features on his resume, Otting is moving into a third, “The Guns of Ridgewood,” that he describes as an action/thriller about gun control written by Cooley, a producer with Joel Schumacher Productions.
On the commercial side, the director just came off a shoot for Doubletree for Hilton spots in Orlando and recently wrapped campaigns for Bayer’s agri division and Craftsman tools.
See “The Talk” here.
