Where God Left His Shoes: Production Notes

PRODUCTIONS NOTES

Where God Left His Shoes was shot entirely in New York City— more than fifty locations in 25 days. With a small but full crew, shooting with an Arri-SR Super 16mm camera on Vision 2 Kodak stock, the production moved through some of the city’s busiest and most visible sites: Times Square, Herald Square, two days inside the subway including control of a train, the streets of Little Italy, Washington Square Park, the South Street Seaport, one of the city’s largest housing projects, a Wall Street newsstand, a chase outside Grand Central station at lunch hour, and even Rockefeller Center with the Christmas Tree as background. All of these locations were captured during the Christmas season’s peak shopping days.

A Vulcan Production, Where God Left His Shoes is the second feature film written and directed by Salvatore Stabile. (Stabile’s first film, Gravesend was released in 1999 by Chris Blackwell’s Palm Pictures). The production qualified for the NY City and State tax incentive program – a 15% rebate for being "Made in New York." It was the first film to qualify for a new training program financed by the NY State Department of Labor and administered by the Independent Feature Project,/NY—paying partial salaries of crew members in a job they’ve never done before. With a majority of the cast either Latino or African-American the Screen Actor’s Guild raised the budget cut-off that qualifies a production for lower-budget agreements. Many other New York City organizations contributed and supported the film because of the importance of its subject—a homeless family—and their enthusiasm for the project. Trinity Church provided free use of a full-floor office space in lower Manhattan, Toys ‘R Us opened their doors early (after Thanksgiving!) to film at their Times Square flagship store. More than a dozen churches housed the cast and crew for meals, wardrobe and just to stay warm. And more than a few of NY’s most filmed locations, who usually make a profit from film and television productions, extended their resources and support on terms appropriate to the budget.

With most of the story taking place throughout one day and featuring two minors, one of whom appears on every page of the script, passing time, fading daylight and worsening weather were all key elements not only of the story but also the production. Most of the snow was real, and most of the rain was created and many of the most important dramatic moments were shot in the fast-fading twilight of November and December’s ever colder and ever shorter production days.

Only two of the "locations" in the movie were built—the homeless shelter and a half-day shoot on a soundstage in Queens that helped the film quality for the "Made in NY" program. The homeless shelter was a challenge – operating shelters are rarely empty and they don’t want to ask residents to appear as extras out of concern for their privacy. So the production did what many temporary and not-so-temporary shelters do—took over a church basement, brought in cots and blankets, shopping carts of donated clothing and personal effects, and created its own make-shift home for the Diaz Family and a dozen SAG extras.

The home that the Diaz family seeks in the story was more authentic in the extreme— almost too much for those apart of the production. The subsidized housing project in the Bronx that allowed the production to shoot in their management office also offered access to one of their apartments, although they wouldn’t know which one until the day of the shoot. That morning, pre-dawn with a crew scaled down from the usual 25 to fewer than a dozen, equipment was loaded onto two carts, each one barely fitting in the elevators that stopped on every one of the fifteen floors on the way up to an apartment that had a fresh eviction notice on the door. Non-payment of $245 a month in rent and the family had left so fast that rotting food was in the refrigerator and the 5-year old daughter’s drawings "to Mom" still decorated the first bedroom, which became the holding area for anyone not on camera. Right out of the pages of the script, a family had been ripped from their home and were now lost—in a shelter or on the streets—one could only guess. It was the quietest film set in this crew’s experience.

The shoot was finished on schedule and without tapping the budget’s contingency— a rare luxury at this budget level that allowed the producers to enhance the film’s finish—full purchase of music rights, a 2k Digital Intermediate post, and even an additional day each of color correction and sound mix after the first round of in-theatre screenings of the final cut.

A certain amount of luck always plays a role, as when good weather and bad seemed to come exactly on the hours and days when they were needed. But something else happens as the cast and crew of a film starts to become a family and realizes that the producers, writer, director and lead actors have all sacrificed their usual pay, and witnesses them handing over their personal credit cards to cover an overage on a meal or an unexpected rental. Even those at the bottom of the production ladder, who are closest to getting paid their ordinary rates, find themselves invested in something that is more than just a job.

Witness the production assistant, controlling pedestrian traffic across the center of Times Square as dusk settles and the fast fading light means that there may only be time for one last take of a critical scene in the movie – the father and son turn to begging. He notices that, in the rush to get the day’s last shot, no one has re-set the coffee cup prop in the trash can that the son will "find." With the camera already rolling and minutes into the take, he grabs a cup from another member of crew, dumps its contents, pulls up the hood on his jacket and enters the scene as a background extra, casually dropping the cup into the trash can where, a moment later, the 9-year old actor playing the son reaches in, finds it and finishes the scene. That’s an independent film.