Luke Haskard is not a fan of The Bachelor, even if the notorious ABC reality hit is the subject of his short film Kendall Got a Rose. Instead, he wanted to show how two disconnected people can form a connection, even if it’s over a silly TV show.
Learn more about Haskard’s experience shooting the film, and watch it below!
Why make a film about The Bachelor?
It’s not so much about The Bachelor, as it is about the role The Bachelor plays in this couple’s relationship, and how the alternate universe of reality TV has infiltrated their lives to the point where they are feeding off of it in various ways.
My wife and I are fascinated by the way they talk on The Bachelor — certain words and phrases that have a weird aura around them through repetition. I thought it would be funny to transfer these concerns onto an entirely different space, where those words become echoes of their former meaning, and someone who was not familiar with the show would be trying to decipher what the logic of these utterances would be.
Why did you decide to shoot Kendall Got a Rose in one shot?
I love the fly-on-the-wall style of Platform by Jia Zhangke. There is a feeling of clarity and heightened realism you get from this extreme and I wanted to try this out for myself.
In Kendall, I wanted the audience to sense the discontinuity between the everyday world of this couple’s life and the fantasy world of “reality” TV, so the static, unbroken shot mixed with small eruptions of sound from the laptop seemed like the perfect way to encapsulate this irony.
How logistically complicated was the shoot?
The only unusual thing we did was to place the camera outside the house looking in through an open window. With a longer lens, you get a more distant feeling. Otherwise it was very simple. The whole thing took only half a day with minimal crew, so there was a relaxed atmosphere, which helped the actors.
How did you help prepare them for the long take?
I wanted the feeling of watching this couple at a completely random moment in their lives that they would never expect anyone else to see. Besides communicating this, I think it was just a case of repetition and trying not to interrupt the flow, so everyone can get used to the feeling of the whole scene.
Any advice you would give to other filmmakers attempting a similar shot?
If you set yourself the challenge of not moving the camera or editing, then the other variables become more important. More emphasis is placed on staging, for instance. But the advantage of this approach is that it forces the viewer to be more aware of the world offscreen, which awakens the imagination. So my advice would be to invest in everything you don’t see.
