Jane Austen's Period Drama

Directed by: Julia Aks, Steve Pinder

Principal Cast: Julia Aks, Lachlan Ta'imua Hannemann, Samantha Smart, Nicole Alyse Nelson, Hugo Armstrong

Country: USA

Time: 13:00

Synopsis: England, 1813. In the middle of a long-awaited marriage proposal, Miss Estrogenia Talbot gets her period. Her suitor, Mr. Dickley, mistakes the blood for an injury, and it soon becomes clear that his expensive education has missed a spot.

You both met in 2016 when Steve was a student at USC casting a parody on The Sound of Music. Julia waltzes in and blows him away with her Julie Andrews impersonation. Here we are 8 years on, and Jane Austen's Period Drama written and directed by you both, is currently one of the most successful shorts on the film festival circuit. Did either of you envision this happening eight years on?

JULIA: You always hope something like this will happen. When you're an actor auditioning for student films, the dream is that you'll find filmmakers you can grow with. Most of the time, it doesn't happen. But this was one of those kismet things where our sensibilities lined up, our styles and rhythms just fit, and luckily we found each other. I will say, I never expected to end up co-directing with Steve. But I'm also pleasantly not surprised.

STEVE: I fully expected to work with Julia for years and years and years. As an actor, she's a dream to work with. She brings so much to the table-talent, charm, comic timing, the works. But what she has brought as a creator has been above and beyond what I ever expected. I fully credit her creativity, determination, and grit as the reasons for this short's success.

What films did you reference while preparing to shoot this film?

JULIA: Mostly, we referenced Joe Wright's Pride & Prejudice, Ang Lee's Sense & Sensibility, and Douglas McGrath's Emma. We wanted to harken back to the classic, lush, film look of the 90's and early 00's. We thought that committing to the dreamy, romantic visuals would help make the comedy sparkle.

STEVE: We looked to a few other costume dramas as well, like Dangerous Liaisons and Barry Lindon, for a sense of framing and camera movement. We really wanted the movie to feel 'filmic' rather than digital.

Short films are made on favors. However, you've both managed to assembled an amazing cast and crew to get involved with this project. How did you do this?

JULIA: Almost everyone we sent the script to really responded to it, which was lucky. And then we just had to convince them that we were competent: that we were organized, that they would be respected and taken care of, that we had a specific vision for the film, that this wasn't going to be a thrown-together project that would never see the light of day, etc. etc.

STEVE: Our producer Elli was very helpful with that. She believed in the project from very early on and vouched whole-heartedly for me and Julia. Quite a few department heads came on board because they knew and liked Elli.

JULIA: One of my favorites, though, was convincing my college costume professor Paula Higgins to come out of retirement and join the design team. She had costumed me professionally in many operas and plays, and we were pals. I think her knowledge of historical costumes and ability to “pull things out of her ass” (her words, not mine) is unmatched. Casting-wise, we drew mostly from my community of actors that I've met over the years. Otherwise, everyone was a recommendation, or a rec of a rec. Marilyn Brett (who plays Mrs. Bitts) was the only totally cold cast.

Julia how much of Julie Andrews is in Miss Estrogenia Talbot? Where you ever tempted to break into song?

JULIA: Ha! I really tried not to fall into Julie Andrews while doing this role, but I think my natural voice doing an RP English dialect will always kind of sound like her. You tell me. I was way too stressed to break into song.

Steve the settings are spectacular, the long shots are a cinematographers dream. Where was the film shot? How did you come across the locations?

STEVE: Locations and production design matter deeply for period pieces. They establish setting and tone in an instant. We spent a lot of time going back and forth on whether or not we could even shoot this short in Los Angeles because we worried we wouldn't be able to carry people into the world effectively. But we eventually found a house in La Cañada that was sort of nouveau-Tudor in style, and it came with a number of other perks that made shooting there too convenient to pass up. It wasn't perfect for a piece that's meant to be in the Regency Era, but we figured, since Tudor is earlier, we could justify it by imagining the family had inherited this house over generations. That said, there were also elements of the house that felt a little more 'Spanish Hacienda'... So we did a good amount of strategic shooting to avoid the more anachronistic elements of the house. For the exterior location, which opens the film, again we went back and forth on how and where to do it. In August, when we were scheduled to shoot, Los Angeles was hilly, but very, very brown. Not remotely 'English Countryside' vibes. We considered many solutions. Green screen. Color correction. We even considered stealing shots in a cemetery, but our consciences (and producer Elli) got the better of us. Thankfully, Luca Del Puppo, our cinematographer, lives in rural Connecticut and convinced us to fly a very small team to his side of the country, where there are actual rolling green hills. And what a game changer that was.

I read that you are turning Jane Austen's Period Drama into a feature film. How is that coming along? and how can people get in touch with you, follow you, who may want to get involved in the making and producing of the Feature Film version?

JULIA: It's coming along great! The feature doesn't tie up nearly as nicely as the short, which is great. There's way more drama, more jokes, more characters (more character names), more romance, more heart, more periods, more more more.

People can follow and contact me through Instagram @jaksicle or through my website JuliaAks.com.

STEVE: If people want to follow the success of the short film, they can follow @JaneAustensPeriodDrama and JaneAustensPeriodDrama.com.

Personally, I'm @stevecpinder and stevepinder.com