Vivian Kerr as "Beth" in SCRAP
We had the awesome opportunity to interview filmmaker Vivian Kerr on her short film, SCRAP, that will premiere at the 2019 FirstGlance Film Festival in Los Angeles on March 14-17th. The film explores the idea of middle-class homelessness and how the shame of being housing insecure impacts the relationship between two siblings.
Learn more about the film with our interview with Vivian below.
Hi, Vivian! Thank you for granting the interview. Congrats on your new film SCRAP. You’ve written and starred in the short! Tell us what inspired the award-winning script.
Thank you! I’ve lived in Los Angeles for a long time and in my neighborhood in Hollywood, I really noticed an increase in the number of people sleeping in their cars on the side streets over the years. There was an article in the LA Times last year that homelessness went up by 75% in the past six years. I’m fascinated by stories of people who are just barely making it through the day — the hidden truths of what is really going on with people, so I wrote SCRAP about a middle-class woman who loses her job and finds herself having to live in her car.
Did you have to undergo specific training for your role?
No training, thankfully! In the film my character, Beth has a really unhealthy mindset and she eats a lot of fast food, so I didn’t have to do a damn thing, which was delightful!
According to IMDb description, “After getting fired, young single-mom Beth finds herself living in her car and struggles to hide her homelessness from her estranged brother Ben.” Tell us more.
The film is at its heart a story about what we hide from the people who love us the most. So while my character Beth is sort of reaching her rock-bottom, she has this older brother that she has a complicated relationship with, brilliantly played by Anthony Rapp, and he knows something is wrong with her on a deeper level, but can’t quite figure it out.
Is it a challenge to star in a film you wrote?
I didn’t find it challenging at all once it came to the shoot, because by the time we shot it, I had lived with the story for so long, I feel like I knew Beth inside and out. But, I think it is challenging in a certain way when you’re preparing because, at some point, you have to just look at this script on your desk and “forget” that you are the person who wrote it. When you look at another writer’s words, it’s easier, for me at least, to play pretend and imagine that it’s all real. I don’t give my own words and circumstances that kind of generosity at first, because I’m still stuck in my right-brain a bit, knowing I am the one wrote it.
SCRAP has an amazing cast. Each talent is perfect for their roles.
Thank you! Yes! We got so lucky with this cast. As I mentioned, Anthony Rapp is just a tremendous, tremendous actor. So subtle. He very generously agreed to do the film and honestly, he really elevated my performance. And then I got a lot of talented actors who are my friends to come and play the smaller roles — Elizabeth Ho, Stephanie Drake, John Billingsley. I owe all of them huge favors now!
Tell us about what a typical day on the set was like.
Because the film had so many locations all over Los Angeles and there’s a lot of scenes with Beth driving, we didn’t have a “typical” day. One morning I remember we shot in an In-N-Out Burger drive-thru at 7 am, and for some reason I found it really funny. The car was mic-ed and at some point we were shooting from the exterior so it was just me, by myself in the car, driving around and around the In n’Out drive-thru. It was kind of hilarious.
What is going to surprise people about the film?
I hope people are surprised by the humor in it, even though it is about a woman who is housing insecure. I still laugh at certain moments. Beth’s situation is sad, but she’s a self-sabotager. She makes up stupid lies and is a little bit shallow. I find some of her actions funny.
Without giving anything away, what’s your favorite line of dialogue from the film and why?
My favorite line of dialogue is something that Ben says at the end of the scene. “And just for the record, Stacy thinks you’re on drugs.” It really makes me laugh the way that Anthony says it.
When looking back on the production, what resonated with you the most and why?
There was a day we did pick-up shots and we drove around Downtown Los Angeles and ended up in Skid Row. I had been down there before, but not in a long, long time and it just really hit home how little it has improved and just how problematic the situation is.
In your opinion, what scene in the film is going to blow people away and why?
The last shot of the movie is essentially a 2-minute long unbroken take with only one line of dialogue. I absolutely love that our director Leena made the choice not to cut it up. I love the patience of it, and I love that it ends the film without offering a clear explanation of what will happen to Beth next.
What did you enjoy most about your character and role?
I really like to be doing things as an actor. Meaning I feel like I am the happiest as an actor when I’m going after what the character wants in a way that is tactile or physical. Beth is constantly in motion, and I’d never done a film that was basically 20 minutes of action after action after action. It was really satisfying to always be moving like that. She’s like a fish that cannot stop swimming, so I liked the energy of that and exploring that headspace. Even when she’s on the phone, she’s scanning a room or looking at her nails. She can’t stop moving, and she’s not comfortable in her body. It was really nice to do that — it feels honest to me. We live in the age of multi-tasking and not paying attention, and I liked showing that she’s very much a product of our sometimes anxiety-inducing society.
Do you have anything else you would like to share about the film?
I have written the feature film version of SCRAP, and I hope to make it later this year! So I’m really excited about that! There’s a lot more about this story I want to explore, especially in the Beth-Ben sibling relationship.
Do you have anything else you would like to share about your career?
I had another feature film I wrote called EXCHANGE, a thriller, place as a Finalist in a contest with Screencraft, so I am hoping to make that project soon as well.
And in the meantime, SCRAP is going to premiere at the
FirstGlance Film Festival here in Los Angeles on March 14th and we will also be in the Phoenix Film Festival after April 4th.
Thank you for chatting with us about your career. I hope we can catch up in the future for another interview.
Thank you so much! You can follow SCRAP’s festival run at www.scrapthefilm.com, and @ScraptheFilm on Instagram. And I can be found on both Twitter and Instagram @VivianKerr.
Featured Image Credit: Vivian Kerr as “Beth” in SCRAP.
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