SBIFF Hosts Annual Producers Panel

On Feb. 8, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival(SBIFF) gathered ten accomplished producers for a panel discussion of their award-winning films. The panel included: Sev Ohanian for “Sinners”, Sara Murphey for “One Battle After Another”, Marissa McMahon for “Train Dreams”, Emilie Lesclaux for “The Secret Agent”, Ed Guiney for “Bugonia”, Nicolas Gonda for “Hamnet”, Maria Ekerhovd for “Sentimental Value”, J. Miles Dale for “Frankenstein”, Jerry Bruckheimer for “F1”, and Rondald Bronstein for “Marty Supreme”.

Moderated by entertainment journalist Nicole Sperling, the panel began with broader questions posed to the group, prompting the discussion of their biggest challenges faced in the production of their films. Each producer shared their own compelling anecdote, keeping the audience engaged with humor and at times raw, human vulnerability. Ronald Bronstein voiced the challenges on set of working with a live sea lion on the set of “Marty Supreme”, and how its refusal to cooperate resulted in them having to work with only one take. Sara Murphey opened up regarding her partner in the production of “One Battle After Another”. Adam Somner, while working on the film, was tragically diagnosed with cancer, and later passed away from the disease. The producers were also questioned regarding the risks and outcomes of working with inexperienced actors. Emilie Lesclaux expressed, “I don’t like the expression non-actors, because we really feel that everyone is an actor in the film; even the people that we found that had no acting experience…They were able to give a real authenticity to these characters.”

Throughout the conference, Sperling asked the individual producers a number of personalized questions. This guided the dialogue into details regarding cinematography, casting choices, production location, and many additional topics. Producer Marissa McMahon illustrated the reasoning behind cinematographer Aldolpho Veloso’s artistic 3:2 ratio film-style choice used in “Train Dreams”, “It focuses what we want the story to be, which is that you kind of go when you get to the end of your life and you look back on it… it isn’t through these sweeping vistas, but these smaller frames, right? The frame of someone’s face that you love, and the frame of someone’s hands, you’re not imagining the massive scope of it, but just these tiny small moments.”