By Stacee Sledge
Six months after writing her first script, admitting it into the Jameson First Shot contest, and winning one of just three spots to direct said script with bona fide international movie star Uma Thurman, Bellingham resident Jessica Valentine found herself in a Los Angeles hotel room, waiting to begin pre-production on “Jump!”
“I was more excited than nervous,” she admits, “but I didn’t have an understanding of what the vibe would be. What was I supposed to do? What would they expect of me?”
(Read WhatcomTalk’s earlier interview with Valentine to learn how she came to enter and win the Jameson First Shot contest.)
In charge of the production was Trigger Street Productions, the entertainment production company formed by actor Kevin Spacey and producing partner Dana Brunetti.
Once pre-production started, Valentine’s life became a blur of scouting locations, meeting her cast, wardrobe fittings and on and on. “I just hit the ground running,” she says.
The strangest moment of the project came a week-and-a-half into her L.A. stay, when Valentine met Uma Thurman.
“We’d spoken on the phone so it wasn’t like meeting her for the very first time, but you don’t know what to expect,” Valentine says. “It was kind of startling. I’d been around A-list actors before, but never as a director.”
Valentine walked into Thurman’s suite and first met the group of people that work with and move around with the actress. She was then directed to the patio, where Thurman waited for her.
“She was just like, ‘Hi, Jessica!’ It was surreal,” Valentine says with a laugh.
Thurman played a huge part in the contest’s script-selection process and was much of the reason Valentine was there. The moment was not lost on the new director.
“It was a big deal,” she says. “It’s Uma Thurman.”
The actress had many questions about the character she was to play in Valentine’s short film.
“I tried to write this super-challenging, meaty role for her based on real mental illnesses and suddenly I was like, what if I’m not enough and can’t get her through this? I realized I was going to have to work harder than I had anticipated.”
Valentine surprised the rest of her cast members at their wardrobe fittings. After meeting and talking with Anthony Ray Parker, who plays Larry the orderly, Valentine realized he didn’t know who she was; Parker had assumed Valentine was one of the wardrobe fitters. “He was so embarrassed. I told him it was fine – I do look like a little kid, after all.”
Barak Hardley, who plays Jack, a lead character, nearly turned down the part, as he was busy preparing for an audition for Saturday Night Live and had to fly out the night the shoot wrapped.
“As with most actors going out on so many auditions so frequently, he didn’t entirely know what he was auditioning for,” says Valentine. “When I met him for the first time, I realized he didn’t even know that his character was a lead.”
She asked if he’d seen the full script yet and when he said no, she gave it to him right then and there. They were both very glad he had decided to take the job.
Valentine quickly felt the support of her cast and crew – whom she dubbed her “crewtopia.” “Everyone gave me full trust and really respected that I was there to do the job.”
A calm came over Valentine right before filming began. “I had so little energy at that point – I was never sleeping because I was either stressing or working – so I told myself I can waste energy on being nervous or I can just see that this is happening and put my energy towards making sure that I do all the things I promised myself I would do.”
Valentine wanted to absorb every moment as fully as possibly, since she was never going to get this first directing experience again.
“We pulled up at our location by Dodgers Stadium and I saw the trucks and everyone unloading,” Valentine remembers. “And everyone was there for me. It was such a profound, overwhelming moment.”
From that point on, everything was a blur of non-stop work.
They only had two days to shoot the short film. “It wasn’t enough,” Valentine laughs. “It’s never enough time to film, but this was like really not enough time.”
They shot all the exteriors on the first day – technical scenes with Uma on the roof and the entire opening and closing scenes of the film. All interior shots were captured on day two.
“It was a lot of work and I felt like I was woke up at the end of the day and was like, what happened?” says Valentine. “Did I get it all? Was it okay?”
Despite an extremely tight schedule and a few lost shots, the biggest challenge was the heat.
“I was just dripping with sweat the entire time. Anthony had to get patted down between takes with paper towels because it was so hot,” says Valentine. “But nobody complained.”
Valentine’s favorite moment on set was seeing Uma three stories up on a scissor lift, tethered but with no railing to grab onto.
“Oh my god, what if I kill Uma Thurman?” Valentine remembers thinking. “She was so gung-ho, but I had no idea she was going to do that. I didn’t go up there because I’m afraid of heights.”
Post-production for the film took place over the course of a week, with each of the three Jameson First Shot winners sharing one editor. Valentine came home before every detail was in place, and then returned from the film’s premiere in late July. She didn’t see the finished film until the press screening the night before the premiere.
“So that was nerve-wracking,” she says. “But then I was able to really enjoy the premiere and walk in feeling confident.”
Valentine likened the premiere to “a wedding on crack – you talk to everybody but you talk to nobody and you have no idea what really happened,” she says, laughing.
“We got in at 9:30 p.m. on Thursday night and went straight to a function,” she recalls. “From that point forward, I didn’t sleep for three or four days.”
One day included six hours of press interview with all three Jameson First Shot winners, plus Kevin Spacey and Thurman.
Meeting Spacey was another big moment in the midst of a slew of big moments.
“He’s a big personality,” Valentine says. “He was very supportive and very down-to-earth.”
Throughout this process, Valentine grew close to her Jameson First Shot co-winners, Ivan and Henco, from Russia and South America, respectively.
“We talked about how your finished film can never be 100 percent your vision,” she says. “There’s always a certain percentage that gets lost.”
A director works with a team and strives to get final product of the film as close to his or her original vision as possible.
“You hope you lose no more than 20 percent, and I decided that if I got 60 percent, I’d be really happy,” she says.
In the end? “I probably got 90 percent of what I was actually wanting – and the only thing that would have changed that was more time and money.”
Valentine has returned to Bellingham and is hard at work developing a television series project with her husband, filmmaker Richard Valentine.
Still, with the Jameson First Shot experience under her belt, it’s not difficult to imagine she might soon be splitting time between movie sets and the City of Subdued Excitement.
“I want to work with every actor I love now,” she says, laughing. “And I still haven’t lost the acting bug; I really do miss it. If I could eventually have a career that involves writing, directing, and acting, I will be totally satisfied.”
“It’s just the beginning,” she says. “I have a lot of work ahead of me.”
Valentine’s finished film, as well as the other two winners’ films and behind-the-scenes footage, can be viewed at www.jamesonfirstshot.com.
