Filmmaker Andrew Semans prefers to take his time, watching a cinematic moment unfold with an eye of infinite patience. His steady gaze focuses the world of two discontent teenagers both yearning for excitement through means of ineffectual rebellion as graceful yet bittersweet, reflective although not indulgent and realist while avoiding the judgmental. While superficially mudane, the quiet moments of acceptance through his third short film All Day Long are heartbreaking and unassuming reminders that overt struggle is not the only indication of sadness. Through his lens, unexplored conflict dwells continually beneath the surface of interactions and rarely visits in a tangible form of expression.

These ideas somewhat contrast to Semans' chipper disposition as he approaches Chelsea's La Taza de Oro. Stopped for a minute by an effusive stranger Dan, a painter with rough hands and a kind smile, Semans gets the heads up that the small restaurant serves the best coffee in town.

He knows, he says. He comes here pretty often. He's kind about it. He listens as Dan talks about his newspaperman father and his knowledge about local documentary filmmakers. Semans is not listening in the manner of a person trying to leave. Rather, he's listening as if this conversation will matter later. Good-byes are exchanged. Dan the painter walks back to work, his mutt Charlie trailing by his side on a leash.

An unlikely facade, Semans appears candidly interested here, and fittingly, he tranfers this same fixed attention to speaking fluently the language of his artistic intentions. Over lunch, he offers ideas about his most recent short and speaks about the reconciliation between grandiose expectations and settled realities.

SM: In All Day Long, there’s an incredibly beautiful atmospheric quality—which is mentioned in the film's synopsis but is also clearly evident when (a viewer watches) the film.

AS (laughing): The director declares it has a beautiful, atmospheric quality.

SM: But, really it’s a spot-on description. I was hoping that you could talk about the use of atmosphere and spaces in the short.

AS: Atmosphere is a slippery word; it’s something I use in the back of the synopsis “atmospheric,” but I think oftentimes it’s used as a kind euphemism for “not much happens.” When I describe this movie as atmospheric, or when other people describe it as atmospheric, what I hope they’re eluding to is that (the film) creates a certain emotional tone, but it’s not explicit about it. It does it in a subtle or oblique way. What we were trying to do with the movie is create a certain kind of feeling, a certain kind of emotion with very circuitous or backdoor methods. On the surface very little is going on, but hopefully there’s some sort of underlying psychological rumble that influences what’s happening. That’s something that I’m very attracted to…What’s going on literally may not be that dynamic, exciting or dramatic, but below the surface what’s happening—the interior world of the characters—is dynamic or has some sort of meaning or volatility.

As for—you used two words atmosphere and—what was the other one? Space…We tried to set the whole movie in liminal spaces, in-between spaces; spaces that are in urban areas, familiar spaces but that are on the outskirts, that are not places where people really go necessarily and are abandoned usually; the kind of places that when I used to cut school as a teenager I used to go to because there’s solitude and freedom in the sense that you’re not going to get caught. Hopefully there’s some relationship between these spaces as being in-between spaces—in between urban and rural…--and the emotional feel of the film which is in-between, of the undecided, on the side of ambivalence: of not knowing how to make things work, of not knowing where you’re going, how to make a situation happen like you expect. Hopefully the geography of the movie relates to the psychological space.

SM: Yeah, some artists will just use landscape as landscape, and other artists will use it as internal dialogue. It seemed that in All Day Long (landscape) was a description of the latter. It was almost as if I could look at a landscape in the film, and it would tell a story about the childhoods of these two main characters. I wouldn’t necessarily know what that story was, but I would know the mood of that story.

AS: That’s exactly what I was hoping for, but I didn’t think of it— I try not to intellectualize these things while I’m doing (the film.) While (Drew DeNicola and I) were putting the story together, I was trying to think of experiences I had that were similar. It’s not really autobiographical, but there are autographical elements, or I definitely had experiences like this. You try to think of what is happening in the story, where it would happen and what would make the most sense. Going into it I don’t think we talked about, “Okay, we want to find some sort of environment that’s an emotional correlative with what’s going on psychologically with the characters.” We just said, “Where would these characters be? They’d be on the train tracks, or they’d be in the woods right outside of their New Jersey community.” But, as it went along, we were like, “Okay, this seems to match up in terms of tone and feeling.” If you’re thinking things through and know your material, when you’re working intuitively, these things will just happen.   

SM: You co-wrote with Drew DeNicola, and I was hoping you could tell me how the scripting process and collaboration went.

AS: The scripting process was very traditional…It’s a very lean script; there’s not a lot of dialogue. We would sit down and talk. I would write a scene, or he would write a scene. We would decide what we liked, what should be disguarded and what should be included. If something needed to be fixed, maybe Drew would fix something I wrote, or I would fix something he wrote. Of course, it changed a lot when we got into rehearsal. Drew was right there with me throughout rehearsal, and we could see what was working and what wasn’t working.

We tried not to think of very much in the script as fixed. It’s tricky because I have very specific ideas about what I want.  I’m a bit of a control freak. At the same time I’m aware of what’s going in front of me. I want to be alive to that. If something's not working, I want to fix it. I don’t just want to beat it into submission and make it exactly how I want. A good director will know when something’s working or when something’s not working.

SM: Now, you’ve said that the dialogue was rather minimalist, but the one line—and this is mentioned in the BadLit review—is the “I love you,” line. Every time it’s said it has a different connotation. At first it is a connective line, and progressively it’s a shield, a defensive mechanism.

AS: I just love the way it was utilized in different ways: as a way to fish for affirmation from someone else, as a band-aid, as a way of saying, “Everything’s okay.” I watch the movie—and it’s up to the viewer—but it’s hard to think of the experience of these two teens as love. Definitely there’s interest, attraction, infatuation or a desire to be in love, but I get the sense that the kids in the movie, they’ve hit upon this idea of love. It’s become a word they use a lot, and they are just riding with it. Anytime that there’s a problem, they’ll say, “I love you.” They’ll plug the hole with “I love you.”

“Love” is a very abused word, something that’s meaning is so broad and so vague that it can be used in so many different ways. I like the idea of “I love you” as being used sincerely sometimes and tactically other times.

SM: How did you go about casting Eilis Cahill and Henry Glovinsky?

AS: Drew and I decided to cast it ourselves through Backstage and ads in college newspapers. We tried to get through to high schools, but that’s very tough. We had a few casting sessions where we saw not very many kids, maybe 30 kids. Eilis came in and Henry came in. They were really the only people we liked from those casting sessions. We liked them a lot, but we thought, “We haven’t seen enough people we like. We don’t want to go ahead with these two people until we see more people to get a better sense of what’s out there.” So, we arranged with a casting director who I’d met at a festival to help us out with these much more elaborate casting sessions. We saw another 80 to 100 kids; we saw a lot of people. It went on for quite a while. We had call backs, and finally when all was said and done, we went with the people we’d seen in the first two casting sessions.

SM: What about the two of them drew you to them?

AS: Immediately, (Drew and I) could tell that Henry just has chops. He’s been working for a long time and done TV, movies and commercials. He’s just a pro and just such a pleasure to work with…Initially, we thought of (his character) as much more conspicuously angry and tortured, and Henry is not that way. He’s a really sweet, laid back guy. When he was reading, he brought a lot of his vulnerability and sweetness to it. We thought that was good; it tempered some of the harsher ideas we had about that character.

With Eilis, not only does she look perfect—I love the way she looks. She has this sort of Sissy Spacek look going. She’s beautiful but not in a traditional way—but she really vacillates between this sweet innocence and this real toughness. I really like that. When you know her personally, she’s a tough girl. There’s no bullshit from Eilis, and we liked that about her too.  A lot of the girls we saw were playing (the character) in a really naïve and vulnerable way. (Eilis) had that, but she also had this toughness and sophistication.

SM: Now, with the Leo and the (Capricorn) monologue, the train track monologue… it is actually being told about another couple, but did you also intend it to apply to these two characters?

AS: I loved the idea of (Eilis’ character) speaking authoritatively about another couple in another situation. We’re in a movie where (the couple is) trying to make the relationship work, but they are too inexperienced or too naïve, and they can’t make it work. Although it’s not really coming together in her situation, I like that she’ll speak almost arrogantly about another couple and how their relationship isn’t working. I didn’t see it as an oblique commentary on their own situation, like you should take what she says literally about them. I just like that she would take refuge in a false confidence about someone else’s experience.

SM: Another note out of the BadLit review said that unlike so many films where an older filmmaker is touching on the subject of teenage years, there’s absolutely a sense of respect that you treat these characters with which is not granted often. There’s a tendency to look back at youth and laugh at ourselves because we were so ridiculous.

AS: We didn’t want to condescend to (the characters.) Although the film is about teenagers--and yes, they are immature, and yes, they can’t make it work, and yes, when they are communicating, they are inarticulate—the experience that is portrayed in the movie is an experience that I’ve had many times and continue to have as an adult. I’m really in no position to be judgmental. The fact that we set it in late adolescence is for me this feeling of having grandiose fantasies about what should be happening and the gap between the grandiose fantasies about what should be happening and what I can actually make happen. It’s this yawning gulf. It’s come a little closer, but I still have the same feelings and experiences: I’ve high expectations, or I want something to happen, and I’m unable to make it happen, or it doesn’t happen, and it’s a brute reality and truth. It’s frustrating and disappointing. It continues apace for me so again we’re in no condition to be critical.

SM: How do you begin to learn either personally or professionally to bridge that gulf? Are there steps you can take, or is it just about circumstances and fate? Can you exert your freewill to make things better, to make your reality coincide with your fantasies?

AS: Having realistic fantasies is important, or not taking refuge in ridiculously overwrought, grandiose fantasies that will set you up for a fall at any time. Also, being able to, instead of constantly comparing your actual experience with some ideal or dream experience, be in real life and realize that even if an experience isn’t what you hoped it might be or expected it might be, it is still very valuable. Also, it’s knowing yourself well enough and the people around you well enough to be able to create something. This is something I’ve been wrestling with for many, many years--being a real daydreamer and trying to find practical ways not to be constantly disappointed in my own life.

SM: There’s a line that Henry’s character says, “Let’s just go. Let’s go to the city. Let’s get on a bus, and we’ll just keep going.” And, (Eilis’ character’s) reply is, “Well, I have to get home, or my mother will know that I’ve skipped school.” Have you ever done that? Have you ever just gotten on a bus and just gone somewhere?

AS: No! No.

SM: Why haven’t you done that?

AS: I don’t know why I haven’t done it, but I feel even in the context of the movie his character wouldn’t do it. Maybe he would. Maybe if she’d said, “Yeah,” he would, but at that point in the movie, the day is dead. He’s losing her. He’s just fumbling to get any renewed sense of excitement, but it’s far too long. He’s just flogging a dead horse, and maybe if earlier on in the day he’d proposed the idea—when they still had some high expectations or some giddiness—they would actually do it. At this point it’s just some sad eleventh hour effort to reinstate some excitement.

It’s a movie ostensibly about rule breaking. (The characters) leave school; they make-out; they’re where they shouldn’t be; they’re drinking; they’re smoking; they’re lighting off fireworks; there’s a little vandalism--all these petty acts of teenage rebellion. But, they don’t work, they’re not exciting, there’s not any sense of real danger or romance, they’re benign. (The characters) go through the motions of rebellion but none of the thrill of rebellion. It’s a very self-conscious gesture. They’re doing it to try to rebel.  They’re not rebels. They’re not at-risk kids. They’re middle class, Jersey kids. They’re good kids for the most part, and they’re not going to do anything dangerous. They’re not going to do anything that’s going to jeopardize their well being. So, they’re going through the motions, but it’s not really there.

That’s how I felt when I was in high school. I drank a lot, and I cut school. But, there was never a sense of danger, a sense that my life was spinning out of control or that I was a delinquint kid despite the fact that if I told you what I did you might think, “Oh, he was breaking rules.” It really wasn’t, and I didn’t feel like I was. I never got in trouble, and there were never any problems. I feel like that’s what’s going on in the movie. When you ask, “Would I have gotten on the bus?”, “No,” because I wasn’t really that spontaneous. Everything was too self-conscious. That would be a real risk, just going. That would be beyond (the characters’) recklessness and courage, and it was beyond my recklessness and courage at that time.

SM: Do you see any common narrative themes building through your three shorts?

AS: The movies I’ve made so far have been rather deliberately-based or lyrically-based which are two of my favorite euphemisms for “on the slow side.” But, I’m really attracted to narrative dynamics where there are periods of inaction, or periods of very little action, and occasional spikes of action. I like that contrast…these slower passages and then these bursts of energy. I don’t like to rush things, and I think that’s mainly because I really like the idea of dramatic, psychological or thematic content working in indirect ways, finding its way from a situation that doesn’t rely on explicit conflict. For some reason, I’m always more excited about the idea of making films without conflict or where conflict is not conspicuous or not communicated through histrionics…

That’s hard to do because you run the risk of making movies where it seems like nothing is happening. That’s a line you have to walk. If you want to make a movie where people don’t express problems, or conflict isn’t expressed directly, you have to be able to create an environment where seemingly nothing is going on but charge it in such a way so it feels like it has some narrative or psychological relevance.

SM: (In All Day Long) you get the bottle-breaking scene—

AS: You’re right. That was our big concession.

SM: Had it been handled differently, I think a lot of people would have said, “Oh, that’s the cliché thing for the filmmaker to do with this film where nothing is happening. Something has to happen.” But, that moment is incredibly moving and effective.

AS: (Drew & I) would argue over that. We wrote that in the script where we would finally have some sort of external release of whatever the frustration, sadness or anger that was going on in him. (The characters) do have a bit of an argument—

SM: We get the firecracker scene.

AS: But, it’s not about what’s going on (with them.) They’re bickering, and it doesn’t seem serious. Then they get in a little argument in the diner--which is an externalization of their disappointment, but they don’t address it specifically. The rule was, “(The characters) will never say this isn’t working. They will never say, ‘I want to get out of here because I’m bored.’ They will never even say, ‘I’m bored.’” They are clinging to a fantasy about what's supposed to be happening.

Then we decided to do this bottle breaking which is clearly an act of frustration. It’s funny because Drew was saying, “We’ve got to cut it out. We got to cut it out. It’s too much. It’s too on the nose. We’ve spent this whole movie not stating things explicitly, and then we do it.” I thought, “No, it’s okay to have a little thing in there; it’s okay to have a little moment of violence. It’s earned.”

The whole movie you’re flirting with drama without actually getting to it. It’s a fine line. We always try to stay on the right side of depicting boredom and frustration without creating boredom and frustration in the audience.

For more information about the film, visit www.andrewsemans.com.

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