LOS ANGELES — Right out of the gate, first time writer/director Adam Léon, 31, is commanding Hollywood’s attention with his indie film “Gimme the Loot” — a story about two New York teenage graffiti artists.
Malcolm (Ty Hickson) and Sofia (Tashiana Washington) are on a mission to get $500 in two days so they can gain access to Citi Field to pull off the ultimate gig: bomb the New York Mets’ home run apple.
The flick was shot in just 21 days in 70 different locations in the Bronx and Manhattan, brilliantly showing a gritty and edgy side of the city we rarely see in films these days.
“Gimme the Loot” cost less than $170,000 to make and Léon demonstrates with his powerful storytelling and vivid characters that you don’t always need money to make a good film — you just need great writing and directing, and a clear, imaginative vision.
The movie, which opens in theaters on March 29, has already received high accolades on the film festival circuit, earning the Grand Jury Award at SXSW last year. Léon also took home the 2012 Spirit Award for Best Director to Watch.
Léon spoke with BLOUIN ARTINFO about the journey of making his directorial debut.
You wrote a great story about urban teens and their life in New York City that depicted authentic dialogue and situations. But as a young attractive white guy, did you think people wouldn’t initially take the screenplay seriously because you wrote it?
For me it’s about writing characters that feel authentic and that have integrity and doing right by those characters, whether it’s the two African American leads or whether it’s the Caucasian wealthy private school girl that’s sort of the third biggest part in the movie. I think that growing up in New York and going to public school and working with kids like that on a short film [“Killer”] that I did a couple of years ago, there’s a certain element of the language and there’s a certain element of all different kinds of culture that you pick up. Really, it’s not enough so you have to do your work. You have to do your research and you have to work with the actors. You have to work with a team of people that know this and make sure you’re passing the smell test and not just in terms of the dialogue, but in terms of the graffiti, in terms of the location, in terms of the clothes, and that’s a process. So I didn’t go into writing a script thinking I knew all of that. If you’re making a period film you don’t go into knowing every single thing about the silverware they used or every single cadence that was used. You bring in experts that know that stuff. So it’s a long development process. I think it’s important to know what you do know and what you don’t. Ultimately it comes down to who are the characters as human beings, and I think I can relate to all the characters in this movie as people and that’s where it started. Getting the language right is really essential, but it’s something you know you can get if you’re honest with yourself.
Do you think in addition to teenagers screwing around and having a good time, that this is part of their survival as well? We don’t see their family life and we don’t know where they’ve come from. We have a good idea, but we haven’t seen it so I felt like in a way they had to engage in petty crime and sell pot as a way to survive.
There are these universal themes of the relationship between Malcolm and Sofia, but there are also those summers that you kind of let loose. I do think that yes, especially in this graffiti culture there is a bit of its own currency, whether it’s black market spray cans or the skateboarder culture that we’re trying to tap into a little bit. Definitely survival is harder, but with Malcolm he is getting calls from his mother all the time so there is a family backbone there. When you do sort of finally see where he lives, he lives in a very middle class home. It’s not “Precious.” It’s not “Kids.” It’s a different kind of story, but a story that very much exists. But yes, I absolutely agree survival is harder if you’re poorer. These kids know who they are. It’s not really a journey about self-discovery. It’s an adventure that they go on over the course over a couple of days in the summer. They don’t have to go to school so they can try to write graffiti on the Mets’ home run apple. They’re on break. It’s not that different from any sort of teenage quest movie. I think that we did something that was hopefully a little bit more authentic and set in a world that you normally don’t see. It’s not really that different than, “We’re going to lose our virginity tonight!’” It’s a similar structure.
What I also loved about the film is that a lot of movies that are shot in New York City show what people’s idea of New York is. So they shoot the Empire State Building, or Saks Fifth Avenue and Times Square. You seemed to intentionally stay away from those trademark places and you showed a gritty side of the city that isn’t seen often.
There are so many different vibrant neighborhoods. There is so much of New York that I think is still so electric and alive and gritty that you haven’t seen in TV and movies recently. There are people who visit New York and they tell me that it’s turned into a mall and I’m like, “Yeah, the parts that are a mall.” It’s not all like that. I think we really saw this as an opportunity actually to show a New York that is really exciting and really different. I think people are tired of seeing that same New York in movies.
Can you talk about the relationship between Malcolm and Sofia? I know the movie isn’t a love story, but it was interesting to see where their relationship was going to go, but not in the sense like I wanted to see them hook up. It was more about just enjoying watching their interactions and strong bond.
Right. Thank you! I really wanted to explore this relationship between a teenage boy and a teenage girl where it’s a partnership. They really are each other’s safety nets in both the very liberal sense where they have each other’s backs, but also the emotional sense. That kind of relationship has a lot of depth and I think it’s something a lot of people can identify with. When you’re dating someone and it’s just purely sexual at that age, you’re usually not dating them in a month, but this is something that’s a little bit more than that.
Do you think if you had a bigger budget for this movie that it would have taken away from what you have now with this film?
Yeah, and I think that’s a very important point. I’ve seen people try to make a $5 million movie for $100,000 and it doesn’t work, but the other way doesn’t work, too. If this movie is successful, I think part of the charm is that it’s a group of first-timers that really had a story to tell and really had these characters that they believe in. We went out there into the streets without professional actors and we did it. We shot with real people, which is very in tune with what the story is. The story lends itself to this kind of filmmaking. The story lends itself to a first time movie. That’s what was so exciting about the script — this feels like this should be my first movie. This feels like I should just go out and get the people that I know — characters from around the place I live in and go out into the streets and enter this thing gorilla style. That’s the way this story should be told. It would be worse if we had more money. That’s not always the case, but it was right for this particular story.
How did you choose the music for the film? It was the perfect selection of songs.
Thank you very much. I feel a lot of pride in that. I had a huge playlist of songs before I began writing, which for me is setting the tone. I think if you first hear about what this movie is you’re going to think tonally it’s something that it’s not. We wanted to take the audience on a ride for 80 minutes and have a big night out at the movie theater. There’s a wide range of music, but there’s a lot of old ’60s rock and gospel stuff. There’s old R&B in it, there’s hip-hop, and there’s even disco tracks with funky jazz stuff in it. I think that all helps with the tone. We had this phenomenal composer, Nicholas Britell, and he did a lot of the songs. A lot of the songs that people think are older, he actually did himself.
Can you give me the titles of a couple of songs that are in the film or that you were influenced by?
Yeah there are three songs in particular that are really special to me. One is the first song in the movie and it’s by King Coleman and it’s called “Let’s Shimmy.” I really wanted to start the movie with that song because that’s what he’s saying. He’s like, ‘Let’s go on an adventure guys.’ There’s also a song that’s played during the water tower scene and it’s a gospel version of “The Lord is my Shepard” and it’s by a band called Mosby Family Singers. I think it’s one of the greatest rock and roll songs ever made. I wouldn’t play it for people because I knew I wanted to put it in the movie and I didn’t want anyone to steal it. And the third song is by Marion Williams, “I Shall Be Released.” It’s a very beautiful song.